German. All right. Good morning. The July 9th, 2025 budget workshop will now be called to order. Thank you for all attending. We'll begin with a moment of silent reflection for all our first
responders and members of the armed forces. We'll be followed by an invocation by Commissioner Susan Adams. And I'll be proud to lead us in the pledge. Please rise. Good morning. As we begin this budget
workshop, let us take a quiet moment to reflect on the responsibility entrusted to us. May we be guided by wisdom, integrity, and fairness. May our discussions today be marked by respect, transparency, and a shared commitment to
the well-being of all residents in our county. Let us remember that every number and every decision reflects the values and priorities of the community we serve. May we work together with open minds and steady hearts, always focused on building a stronger, more equitable
future for all. In the Lord's name we pray. Amen. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in the pledge of allegiance to the greatest nation on earth, the United States of America, home of the free because of the brave.
I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you all.
In a moment, we'll begin with a general overview of our uh session by our county administrator, John Teanich. But before I begin with that, I just want to advise the public that at 1:30 uh today, we'll
have a time certain solid waste disposal district uh public hearing. And that is by ordinance at 1:30 and sometime after 2:00 uh we will have a special call meeting
in regards to the uh and this meeting will be temporarily suspended at that time. so we can ensure that we can uh have uh a special call meeting uh which will be uh initiated regarding the
special assessment uh resolution for solid waste disposal. In addition, this is well attended. Thank you all for coming and maybe more shall come and we want to give everybody a fair and equal
opportunity to be able to speak. So there will be a three minute uh aotment for anyone who wishes to speak regarding any one of the budgetary items at the end and we just ask you to stay on
course and uh be able to speak uh but we have to limit it to three minutes because we will never get through the budget session if we don't. Thank you. I turn this over to
County Administrator John Tanich. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. It's u it's an honor to be here this morning before you. Pleased to present the proposed budget for the uh fiscal year 2526.
Um you'll have my budget message and I don't really want to repeat everything in there. So, you know, we mentioned that that was an overview. we'll provide some detail but generally speaking I I will say that um this budget session's
been a little bit more um challenging as we look upon the horizon and you know we see you know whether you look at the state's economic you know forecaster you look at the uh t floor tax watch you look at uh Dr. Snith and his economic
forecast, it's certainly there is a potential for at least a cooling if not a contraction in our economy. You know that that some suggest 27 28 depending. And then there's the other issue that
that we face is we saw this year uh a number of potential reforms proposed related to how local governments will finance themselves. Uh we did see the business sales tax, use and license tax
eliminated. Uh that already has a will have an impact on our budget this upcoming year. So uh I I don't think it's not I mean I think House Speaker Perez says, you know, we don't know exactly all what's coming, but we need to be kind of be prepared. And so we
approach the process with that same mindset of being cautious and being mindful that you know we have two years potentially between now and then to uh make decisions that would set us on and keep us on a fiscally sustainable course
to ensure that we can provide essential services you know and not experience some of the issues that pretty much all governments in Florida faced you know back in you know 2007 without any warning. I I will say and I'll probably use Dr.
Snith's analogy from last year. Uh I if if the Great Recession was a category five, you know, it was could be considered a category five hurricane and then the COVID would be more like a a category two. This will be tanamount to
a you know like a tropical storm or tropical depression. But at this point in time, we don't know. There's a lot of uncertainty, you know, uh we're seeing some stabilization geopolitically, but that anything could still happen. There's no resolution on the tariffs issue that could affect our economy.
We're seeing local I mean by groups that study real estate markets across the country. Our county does face the is facing the fact that we are, you know, we have the fifth steepest decline in real estate values out of 384
metropolitan areas. Uh, and that's also evidenced by we're looking at our building permit revenues and the volume and they're down. Our bu impact fee revenues, they're down. That's based on new construction. One of the things I'm going to share with you
later, the amount of new construction for this year is down compared to the amount that was for last year. So, we are seeing those signs, you know, that that, you know, we've got something looming on the horizon. and to not be
judicious and exercise discipline to try to make sure that we can weather the storm and uh being by being fiscally conservative and making smart decisions. Something that this board I believe and previous boards has done an excellent job at doing if you look at the history.
So with that, I'll I'll get right into the budget. I want to thank you for the opportunity to be here and to present this. There we go. So the total budget, you know, that is being presented to you is 597,623,132.
That's all funds. That does represent, you know, a a incre a decrease of 10.9% or 73 million3 73.3 million. I will add that that is based on the the current year's budget as amended as of you know
March 31st which is $670.9 million. Uh so in comparison to the the budget that was started last year which was f at the was approved at the beginning of the year it was $524.7 billion and this one's 59 597.6 billion.
So overall it is a $72.9 million increase and the which is about 13.9%. So some highlights related to some of the budgetary issues the tax role the tax increase for the countywide
increased by 8.8% the unincorporated area 8.7%. Uh the sheriff's funded funding his request was $14.6 million. Uh I'll go in later about the county administrator's uh recommendation for a increase of 4.7
billion. Uh we did have a substantial increase in retirement rates uh specifically among those in special risk and other categories and that's about $4.1 million countywide. That includes all our constitutional officers. Uh we did experience an increase in our
workers compensation by just over 1 million or about $1.1 million. Again that includes our constitutional officers. Uh you will in the budget message there is a table that reflects by department not by fund but by
department the number of positions that uh the county has and and what we're recommending. Uh it does recommend reflect a net increase of 26 full-time positions which include you know 1.25 uh 1.25 FTE with the constitutional
officers for a total of 27.25 25 uh increase in full-time positions. And again, that not by fund. Uh that includes all our enterprise funds and other things as it relates to the general fund. There is there is only eight positions recommended in the
general fund. So, one of the things and I mentioned at the outset about the the whole notion of tax reform. Uh, as you know, the legislature took up several different issues. They looked at the sales tax.
You know, the possibility of lowering that by 3/4 of 1%. Uh, that did not move. It moved in the House side, but didn't it wasn't warmly received in the Senate. Ultimately, in conference, they they resolved, but one of the things
they did do is they did repeal the business rent tax of 2% and for our local option sales tax, it was 1%. So the estimated impacts and we received these mon numbers from both we consulted with fact and then also the department
of revenue and so for op for the optional sales tax we are going to lose about we're going to have less about $1.5 million a year and that'll go on and then for the general and MSTU funds it's about $384,000
combined. So to my point that we're already seeing some of the impacts of this past legislative session and that doesn't even account for the issues that they're, you know, that they're discussing related to roll backing the rates, rolling back the rates as they did back in '08. Uh adding an additional
at least, you know, maybe it's one 20 a third $25,000 exemption could be more. Um I think my if my recollection's correct, uh I think it's three. We evaluate it in today's dollars. It's it's actually $3.5 million if an
additional $25,000 homestead exemption was passed, you know, by the voters. So, uh those are real concerns when you compound that with what you have here and if they were to do a roll back. Uh one of the things we do recommend there's several items that in that I I
note in the budget message and one is that county administration OM you know while we yes we review the monthly and the quarterly budget reports uh we will be reviewing them and then meeting you know all of county administration the
executive team with OM to review and evaluate those so we can be prepared if we start seeing any significant declines to make any adjustments you you know, so we're not finding oursel at the end of the year in a negative position. So that's one of the things that we're
going to be doing for the upcoming year. So let's talk about general taxable value fund general fund taxable value. The general fund taxable value has increased from 29.2 billion to 318 billion of which new construction
accounts for $66.9 million. By way of context, last year new construction was $665 million. So that's a 9.56% decrease in one year in new
construction. Uh again, I mentioned the real estate, the softening of the market. I don't know if I touched on the start, I did touch on the start, but the other thing I'd say is if you're driving out there, we all see the houses there. You know, all the article not too long ago in TC Palm, they're lasting longer.
The values are a little bit down. you see price reduction signs and they're lasting longer on the market. Um, so I am recommending that we remain at we maintain the military at 3.5475 mills which will mark the sixth
consecutive year of no military increase. According to the Florida Department of Revenue, the current budget year this year, this this rate represents the sixth slowest general fund military of all 67 counties. From a historical standpoint, and this
would exclude, you know, general obligation debt related to the voter approved environmental lands acquisition program. The total advalorum revenue for fiscal year 2026 is $194.6 million.
And you can see that by that those bars and then the orange bar with the projection shows the population. and our population is just over 171,000. Military comparison. So just a general
fund, the current rate is 3.5475. The proposed rate is to maintain it at the same 3.5475. Our land acquisition, you know, bond that uh that's the voter approved debt. That's 0639 mills and it's proposed to
go to 0610 mills to cover our debt service. It is a reduction of about 4.5% that rate. So subtotal countywide, you know, uh the uh we're currently at 3.6114 mills and we would be going to 3.6085
mills or a tenth one a one a tenth of 1% decrease. the MSTU, the the municipal service taxing unit, which covers all of those property owners in the unincorporated areas, uh is currently at 1.1506
mills today, and we are proposing the same 1.1506 mills for next year. the emergency service district that is a countywide assessment with the exception for the town of Indian River Shores and that rate is currently 2.3531
mills and we are proposed to keep that rate at 2.3531 mills. So the aggregate milage would be 6.1198 mills now and we would be going to 6.1158 mills
recommending. So this this bar chart shows us in in relation to other municipal not municipalities but excuse me counties around the in our immediate area as well as some other comparable ones. Uh to the
left and the orange is our current 3.5475 mills. Uh Bard County is lower you know 2.9207 in their charter. they have a cap as it relates to the amount of revenue they can collect in every given year that's tied to the inflation
you know and so that has forced their rate to go down but again we represent the sixth lowest you know millillage in uh the state at 67 counties so looking at our uh our overall budget
the breakout of general fund expenses uh I think it's important to note that of The overall general fund expenses, 72.4% of our expenses are ma statemandated. So for every $100 in tax dollar revenue
that's collected and expended, $72.40 is spent outside of your control because we have to fund those services. And that's again constitutional offices. It's the state agencies such as court
administration, state attorney's office, public defender's office, uh the guardian and lightum program, the medical examiner. So those are funded. We pay a proportionate share for the services that our residents receive from those state agencies. The other expenses
comprise about 27.6%. And uh so what I would say is based on that 94 uh149,921,000 or 60% of the general fund is actually for fund our constitutional officers alone. And then if you look at the
sheriff's office alone, that accounts for 52.3% of all general fund expenses. So these are the revenues by category. Overall revenues across the budget, you know, we see we have a reli reliance,
you know, overall 39.5% on taxes. We have other sources, 17.1% charges for services, about 6% intergovernmental, and then our permitting and fees. So, this includes more than general fund. This includes our other funds in the transportation,
building, you know, sand and all those. So, one of the things I do want to get down into, and I'll get to the next slide after this, but I do want to take a moment to discuss the budget process this year. Um, I mean, we didn't make some I don't I don't think we made significant changes, but we certainly
made some changes, you know, as we continued to observe the economic indicators and forecasts and became aware of the intent of the Florida legislature. First, you may recall uh we changed the timeline for the adoption of the CIP, the capital improvements program and the capital improvements
elements to be more in line or closely in line with actually the budget development process. Uh rather than doing it but in December and then in January, we did it in March. March. Yeah, it was March. Sorry. Uh so in
early and then but then again in early March with the assistance of OM one of the things that we did this year is I distributed you know FY2 fiscal year 26 operating budget targets to each department set it at 4%. This is your target to come in at because we knew
that we had a feeling that we were going to see a reduction in the increase in value and then we knew we were facing some other issues that the legislature is dealing with. uh all departments were also informed there'd be no out ofstate travel and that travel will be closely reviewed among other expenses. We also
in mid-Marchch we a we asked all our departments to submit their staffing requests for the upcoming year and each of those were went to the the either the deputy or the assistant county administrator for their review and recommendation and then ultimately to me. Each of the departments were
notified of the positions that were or the reclassifications that were approved to be submitted as part of the budget. But that didn't mean they were automatically in. It meant that it was with the understanding that they'd face further scrutiny subject to our resources once we did the actual budget
review. It just allowed them to enter to take time and enter those information that information into the budget module and not enter all that in when the budget module opens and waste their time. So we kind of tried to shorten that process or at least make it
simpler. So nobody wasted a ton of time, you know, both on OM side and our department side in reviewing requests that generally were not going to be reviewed after we evaluated them. Uh as with last year uh we did request that
all any you know new requests of 5,000 or more they needed to demonstrate their alignment with our strategic planning goals and needs. Additionally all requests are prioritized similar to last year you know imperative must do essential should do important could do.
Uh number four priority four was desired or be nice to do. uh as noted in the bud budget message uh we do have a draft strategic plan and I said between the state of the county that's next week and the beginning of the fiscal year we will
finalize that plan and bring it before the board uh we think you know it's even more important now I mean to try to get that done so we're going to be picking up after this uh and start working on to finalize that those those final objectives in the draft plan uh and then
I think next year you will see an evaluation that migrates or drops you know drills down a little bit lower to the strategic objectives as well as in the budget message. One of the things I thought that would be helpful for us going into next year is for the board and and administration and department
heads to have a priority a budget priorities workshop. So we understand besides the strategic plan, what are your priorities? So as the as the administration and the departments are developing the budget, we understand those priorities, you articulate them
and we make sure that we're addressing those. We think that's something that will help as well. So you can I'm not going to recite these but you can see by the alignment the alignment related to the goals. One thing I would add is that there's sometimes especially with the
infrastructure projects uh obviously this is across the whole organization not just the general fund. So you got utilities you have utilities and public works which are very you infrastructure heavy uh and there's some parks in here but
they also some of those projects also have an environmental benefit. So they meet two more than one goal. We ask them to identify those goals. So one of the questions that we always get and I think you always get well well what does this mean to me? You know you said $597
million and or the general fund. So, uh, so for the general fund, uh, just just looking at this, you know, if you're a resident of Indie River Shores, we actually I should back up with the assessed values based on the average assessed value in the county as derived
from our uh the property appraisers records. And that amount is $354,567. When you less out the the $50,000 homestead exemption, as we know, some may apply qualify for more, but we're just using the general $50,000. That
brings the taxable value down to $34,567. So, when we look at the general fund, remember that's where we're 3.5475. We apply that. You know, the current, you know, uh, uh, property tax for the
general fund, a homeowner pay about,4382 cents based on a house of 34,567 for the proposed fiscal year with the with the increase of 3.51 3.1 3.51%.
That would go up to 1 $36.63 and equaling $1,80. And then we have the land acquisition, which is going to be it's currently $18.80. 80, it'll go down to $18.58. So for Indian River Shores, because they
don't pay the emergency services district because they have their own public safety department, the uh it would be for for them, they would be going from $1,62.62 to $1,99, which would be a $3641
increase, which is about 3.43%. for those that in the the unincorporated area in the north of the county that that are in the emergency services district, the amount would go to, you know, the emergency services district uh levy would be six currently it's $692.38
and would be going to $716.68 a $24.30 increase again 3.51%. So the subtotal for all the other uninccorporated is $1,755
right now and that would be going to $1,815.71% as recommended. I don't want to say it's going there because that decision rests with you. But the increase proposed to $60.71 for net the increase by percent
is 3.46%. So then we have the MSTU which is uh so that amount is related to all the other incorporated si cities that uh pay that are members of the emergency service district. So then if we go and we add
look at the unincorporated residents they pay a municipal service tax and unit for the all the uninorporated and that current rate amount is $33855 recommended to go to $35044
$1189 and at 3.51%. So for the unin total unincorporated area, their taxes would be going from $2,9355 to 2,000 recommended $2,166.15
or a $72.60 increase or 3.47. Uh please recall with the save our homes, it's you know your your homesteaded property can go up 3% or inflation whichever is less.
So just in terms of a general fund overview, uh I mentioned earlier our advorum tax ro increase for the general fund is 8.8% that amounts to about $ 8.68 million in additional revenue and that of course assumes the 95%
collection at the same mill rate. Uh history has suggested that that will hold hold up. Uh so the military as I mentioned 3.5475 is no change from last year. Our constitutional officers increase equals
four for the general fund equals 4,692,64 or 5.2%. Uh children's services funding the increase is $421,0001 $421,144 or 13.8%. I just want to take a moment
and remind the board and and then for those that are unaware that number is predicated or based on the increase in value from last year. They are a year behind. So that's why they're that 13.8. It's like why isn't 8.8? Well, that's
come going back to last year. So that sets the money. So therefore, you're never adopting something that's it's giving that lag time. uh statemandated retirement rate impact. The increase AC across the board including our constitutionals in the
general fund is 2.5 2.6 million or 17.5%. Again, that's mandated. Our workers comp rate as it relates to the general fund increasing by 27.9% or roughly $337,000. Again, including constitutionals, I
mentioned earlier there's 9.25 net additional full-time positions. The 1.25 25 related to a constitutional office and then eight full-time positions with uh the board of county commissioners uh the administration
department and that's $744,000. Sure. What's that? Okay. So the next this this pie chart illustrates our general fund revenues by category. Taxes for the general fund make up 72%.
So we are heavily from a general fund perspective, we are heavily rellyant upon our property taxes. This is this is what gives us so much cause and for concern as it relates to what the state is looking at doing. Uh 72%. Uh other
sources which would include transfers in and reserve contingency. Uh the 5% that we less out you know in terms of for the uncollected because that's required by state statute. Uh that would be the other sources. Miscellane that's 16.9%.
Miscellaneous is 4.3%. That's like reimbursements, donations, contributions, and then rents like excuse me, we still have a facility at the North County office. Five Guys is renting from there. That's one example. So um so while taxes make up 72% of the
general fund other sources 69 miscellane 43 and then in the government revenue revenue that we receive through grants or other sources within the general fund is 2.4%. Uh looking at the expenses for the general fund as noted previously our
constitutional officers comprise they make up 60% of all of our expenses within the general fund. uh the and and that includes again we fund those agencies proportional to the share of the services that are available and received
by our residents again court administration state attorney's office public defender uh medical examiner guardian lightum and I think also the new horizons gets a a portion of that as well uh the board
county commissioner and I think this is commission is is important for everybody to understand because this is the small pot of money that the county has while the general fund recommended is $156 million. Uh if you take $100 of general
fund, you know, revenue that's going to be funding our expenses, only $2260 out of every $100 is under your control that's outside of those mandates and those other things that we have to do. So you have $22.60
out of every $100 to fund the various operations and services provided to the public in general. So look, let's look at a history of our military. Um, as I mentioned before, I recommend keeping the military at 3.5475
mills. And I and again, this is this is consistent for the sixth year in a row. Uh I I think it's important to note here because just to to help everybody understand uh notably this rate is 6.69%
above the roll back rate higher than the roll back rate which is the tax rate designed to generate. So the roll back rate is the tax rate designed to generate the same property tax revenue as the prior year adjusted for property
value changes. So setting a rate above the roll back rate even though you're maintaining the mil at the same rate is legally counts as a tax increase even though you're not raising the milit rate. I want to be clear on that. You're not rate we're not recommending you raise the milit rate but technically
legally it's considered a tax increase because you're going above what the roll back rate. Now uh we did a little calculation to understand you know at the roll back rate the county and Christine can correct me if I if I misreme remember this number uh the
county would only gain new advalorum revenue from new construction. Remember that's $66.9 million. Uh so if you were to if the board was to elect to uh adopt the roll back rate, we would have to cut our revenue by about 7 million to 7.5
million. So what that means is if it was 8.68 and we had to cut by 7.5, we'd have about 1.38 million of new revenue. So if you're if somebody says you're increasing the taxes, but but you're not. You're keeping the the revenue the
the the rate the same, but you are it's considered tax increase, but you would have 7.5 million less to be able to work with. So uh before I move into general fund expenses by department, are there any questions from the board as it
relates to roll back rate and anything I presented so far? Okay. So what I'm going to do here without reviewing each department uh division and function I'm going to highlight those based on their significance of the what you know the increase or decrease. You'll see those
highlighted in orange and in parentheses those are decreases. One of the things you also will note with the exception of a few departments you will see that there is uh the amount of increases again we set targets at 4% and we understood that they were operating
targets because we understood also there was personnel expense increases. So some say well well why is one at six why is human resources at 6.1%. Why aren't they at four? Because there's other expenses in the personnel side personal expenses. So, for the board of county commission
operations, uh you're realizing a 22 uh8% reduction. And that's largely due to the fact that we the $400,000 commitment for the Humon boardwalk is now no longer in your budget. It's set aside at which time the city of Vero
Beach, you know, constructs that boardwalk and then seeks reimbursement. That money's there. It So, it it's set aside. Our county attorney's office has only gone up by 2.3%. And uh what we did was one of the things
we had a land acquisition specialist that resided in public works and they helped with rightway acquisition. And to be honest, it was uh it probably wasn't the best use. And the town the county attorney's office has a need as it
relates to with all the land and some of the other real estate stuff that we do. So what we did is we are splitting that position. and it's going to reside in the county attorney's office, but it's going to be split funded between the general fund and our secondary roads fund out of public works.
Uh let's see here again, the communication emergency services. Uh one of the things that we had to do this past year there was we had to upgrade the microwave uh to ring system. Uh that was so that's a $719,550
decrease. uh the main library uh we had a security camera project and there was also you had the centennial budget if you recall of about $160,000 in the library uh because Michelle Wagner I am going to give her a shout out because I thought she did a just a great job for
being somebody she's a genealogologist a librarian and I think overnight was required to try to become event planner extraordinaire and I think she did an extraordinary job uh they also purchased they had they had to purchase a new cargo van the Another one that sat
behind the thing was on its last legs. I used to get calls about this old dilapidated van that's sitting behind the library. Is anybody using it? So, so they had to get new vans that that that reflects the decrease there. The main library, uh, we had the u I mentioned
that one. Okay. Sorry. So, the north county library, we have again there are some security cameras. That was a decrease. That's about 2.4%. Uh, I'm going to go down to community services. That's 14.1% increase. Uh and that's largely due to an additional
salary and benefits being funded because there is a lack of available fund through SHIP which is our state housing initiative program. Here's another in instance where the legislature what they've done in the past is when they need GR you know general appropriations
money you know and they don't want to either you know they're looking for doing things they have in the past demonstrated and it's it's they can do it they establish a trust fund so everybody pays you know the documentary you know stamps or taxes on real estate
transaction those are supposed to fund the sedusky the, you know, housing fund or the trust fund, if you will, to help with lowincome and or moderate programs for, you know, the state housing initiative program. Well, they did that this year again. It's been a couple
years, but they went back and they went back to their old playbook and they have uh there's less money and also they are going from point Z.3 to in community services to 6 FTEES. So uh the next one I want to touch on is
the human human resources. Uh there is there's an increase over last year's salaries and benefits because when we hired our professional development manager came in more experienced and didn't did not start at the exact bottom range starting range. And then also we
we made sure that there is still funds there for $20,000 for professional development of an organization of 1,00 and nine as we stand today and depending on what's approved in positions that you know so I think you understand that we
think that's important to continue to reinforce our service excellence to provide our training for our supervisors our managers and directors in terms of leadership training as we work to change the culture in our organization. veteran veteran benefits or excuse me,
veteran veteran services. U there is an increase largely in part-time salary and benefit cost to a part-time uh veteran service office. We have over 19,000 veterans in our community. You know, between the services we provide, vet service council, some could argue we
should be still providing more. Uh so but we do I think our our veteran services Melissa and all the veteran service officers they do an amazing job. You know we just continue to see the increase and the efficiencies and the reduction in time of getting vets in
servicing them helping them working coordinating with veteran service county getting transportation down to uh uh to the West Palm Beach. Uh I understand that we're still on track. last I heard uh is for the the the VA clinic that's going to be opening in in our county is
supposed to be in September. I mean, we are excited about that because that's an an opportunity to continue serving those who have so admirably served our country and paid a cost for it. So uh the next I'm going to cover uh
covered that emergency management you see it's about.3% but parks so parks you know we're growing in parks you know you just stopped at a 10-year master plan but there was also some things where you know they suffered from you know there was they were one of the organizations
that were probably you know they used to say undernourished or malnourished and so there were some requests there there was and they had large much more requests than than what we could fulfill. fill. But there is two f full-time positions that are being increased as well as the uh the some
some funds related to maintenance as well and uh maintenance and structures and then $37,000 in fairground expenditures. Um flip this here. So, human services, this is a component
of our community services department and that is a 25.8% increase. Uh, that's we hired an additional case work. Oh, got to do this one. Sorry, my bad. Thank you. Uh we did hire an additional case worker to help us process these cases,
you know, in terms of the based on the traffic coming in for those that are in in need of assistance and lining them up whether whether what we provide or whether we get them in touch with the proper agencies that can assist them. You need somebody to do that and we did hire an additional case worker uh for
for uh this year. Um the a extension last year they bought a Chevy Silverado to replace an aging vehicle. So that's the reduction from there. Parks conservation land. Uh we're
acquiring as you know we're acquiring more land through by virtue of the the bond acquisition and so we've got to be able to manage those lands. uh and uh so there is two they asked for several but there's two additional positions and there's one reclassification and I want
to mention reclassification because it's not something I don't think we included in prior year's budgets but you know we looked at reclassification as an opportunity to be agile and flexible and if departments had a greater need well I need to do this I have this position but I need to be a little bit so we we
entertained reclassifications as a way of not trying to hire another person you know we offered more money, they're taking on more responsibility. In some instances, some are just straight reclasses that more that more accurately reflect their position. I mean, we had some that were actually downgraded, you
know, based on what they were doing. Uh purchasing uh we are again, as you see the volume of purchasing that we're having, you know, with because as we continue to move projects forward, you know, whether it be capital, whether it be programs, whether the case might be so there there's certainly an increased
workload there. So there's an additional p person for purchasing. I will tell you having done you know green belt studies on purchasing before I'm amazed at the amount of work that given the level of staff that we have comparative. If I was to pull up the Florida benchmark
consortium numbers, you know, where we can compare benchmark how many we have and what volume of work we do, the what they do is pretty amazing. And uh but they definitely uh are in need of additional assistance to be able to get these RFPs and other things out in in a
timely and responsive manner. Uh facilities management, um as you know, I mean the the touched on parks and conservation. Yes, facilities management. As you know, we you know, we had a capital deferred program. Uh but one of the things that we we've talked
about is maybe a deferred maintenance. You know, while we didn't lay out a specific deferred maintenance program for five years, we did work with, you know, our facilities manager and uh our our director Anthony Warren, and we evaluated facilities, you know, and what
they need to do in order to be able to maintain because obviously it's just like a vehicle. If you're changing the oil, you're rotating the tires, you're doing everything you're supposed to, it's going to last longer if you maintain the upkeep. So, there's about $110,000 increase in janitorial, $84,000
in other contractual services. Uh we have $100,000 increase in electrical. Uh there is a a $68,000 decrease for flooring. Uh there's 180 there was a a decrease in courthouse maintenance. I
think we restored some of that if I recall correctly. Uh because we need to maintain that building as well. I mean that's important, you know, it's it's important public building. There was a $318,000 increase in maintenance for AC's. And then we did see some uh some decreases
in as it relates to our um uh uh the maintenance of our cameras. So, OM as you can see that's uh going down 16%. Uh I already mentioned building facility services. I think I read the wrong one first. So, I apologize. But there are two position
additional positions. If you recall, this was a brand new depart department started. We got it going and Anthony Nancy evaluated. They presented what the needs were as it related to be able to reasonably maintain what we have. And so, there's two positions there. one
that we're currently recruiting an assistant director. If you recall, they handle building facility services, capital projects, and building and permitting with life safety and capital projects. So, there's a diversity of while interconnected and related, it's
certainly a diversity, and uh it would be require some additional uh assistance there. Uh let's see here. The next one we're going to go down to um that's a transfer for uh internet security and telecom insurance premiums. We recently
had you know we we've obviously we experienced an increase in our risk management budget by about 10%. Uh and then we also have for our uh animal control it's about 8.3% or $87,000. The percentage might seem high but it's
$87,000. And so and then the Indian River Lagoon uh you know obviously we adopted an Indian River Lagoon management plan. It's it's one of the items that is one of our priorities. It's one of our goals and this provides some funding you know
as it relates to uh making sure we can implement it. provides an additional position that will be environmental uh specialist that'll be focused on the um focused on our um the implementation of Indian River Lagoon management.
So, I mentioned animal service. I mentioned Oh, I mentioned animal control animal services. And one of the things I want to point out there because there's an NA we are it's $1.3 million. It's about a fourth line up. One, two, three. Yeah, fourth line up from the bottom
above the green bar. Uh we on November 30th, our contract with the Humane Society is set to expire. uh our animal control officers, I can tell you, you know, in speaking with uh our staff, uh they're frustrated because they get
called out to handle a feral or a wild animal and they contact the humane. There's issues related to capacity and service issues right now. We have been working and meeting with Mike Mike Zto, Dave Johnson been meeting with them and but we are left with the
we don't have an alternative you know if they don't have the capacity and then they won't accept certain animals and the notion of releasing or not taking into custody an animal that is you know terrorizing arguably a neighborhood is
just unsafe and will cost us more in the long run. So we are looking at the acquisition of a site funded through optional sales tax not general fund but the salaries and all this. So this reflects you know what we believe right now would be the expenses and then uh we
probably will work with humane society to for that transition so the overlap in timing but it's something we're not the only county that has this issue where we've taking it back we're taking it back in a couple years St. Lisi did it. Uh, Bvard County, um, the sheriff's
office does it there. Uh, I mean, their budget's 5.5 million, so I think 1.3 is kind of reasonable. I mean, I get they have 72 square miles to our, you know, uh, or 72 linear miles to our 22. So, but so yes. So, there's uh that's about
that represents about 75% of the annual anticipated expenses because we believe the first quarter is something that we're going to have to do that transition with with the uh with Humane Society and getting whatever facilities that we've identified, you know, up to,
you know, code and make the necessary improvements. Again, that would be through optional sales tax. Thank you. So in so for the total uh BCC departments uh our current budget this
year is $33.8 million. The proposal is an increase of 1.7 or to go to 35.5 million and that's 5%. That's a 5% increase looking at our constitutional officers. So, I'm just going to read these and I
do have more comments near the end as it relates our property appraiser uh you know their request uh excuse me uh let this current year they're 5.29 million. The request is for 5.63 million. It's
about $348,000 increase. We paid the bill. Someone's leaning on the light switch. Oh, yeah. Somebody might be leaning on one of the switches. Yeah. So this is largely uh the property
appraiser. Uh it it includes you know the funds for the raises and uh then we have the cir the clerk of circuit court. Uh their request is very modest 2.3% increase going from 1.526 million to
1.561 million or an increase of $34,755. And that additional funding besides the cost of living adjustment and the additional 1.25 25 uh full-time position. There's funding for criminal justice software. Uh our tax collector uh this is a staff's estimate. Their
budget, if you recall, is not due to August 1st. We did kind of estimate a 10.4% increase, which would be about a 448,000 almost $449,000 increase going from 4.29 million to 4.74 billion. our
supervisor of elections uh 6.9% increase amount of $155,736 going from 2.26 million to 2.42 42 million and that is in large measure related to uh they have are needing to
hire a GIS specialist additional GIS specialist and then there's some increased cost to gang mandates increased cost due to new legislation um the value adjustment board largely due to contractual services for outside
legal uh it's gone from 64,800 to 70,8% % increase. And then we have our sheriff's budget 789. It's currently 78,911,000 and going and the recommended for the comm on the administr administrator
recommendation is 83,646,672 which represents a $4.734 million increase or 6%. We also cover the obviously the the sheriff's electric at $780,000. So now I'm going to go take a little deeper dive into our
uh you want Oh, so if you want to take all the other constitutionals and then I'll go into Thank you for that budget here and I know that the the public uh might also want to speak uh regarding any one of these matters. So what we're going to do
is we're going to take a brief recess and then we will invite the constitutionals to Yes. And I would encourage you to do the property appraiser through supervisor of elections because there's more information to present in the sheriff's budget and I'm sure the the our members
attending want to hear that information before they comment. Thank you. We're going to take a brief recess. I have to hit the G. friend that's a little bit older. Meeting will now be called back to order.
Thank you all. County administrator has uh aff mentioned the uh request and we'll have an opportunity for the constitutional offices to uh talk a little bit about their request and I see none other than
Wesley S. Davis. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. How you doing this morning and commissioners? I uh you know after hearing what the county administrator said regarding that that $22 for every $100 um goes to what your operations uh that didn't fall on
deaf ears have having set where you are um I appreciate the predicament the situation you're in um having been a commissioner during the throws of the great recession of 2010 uh this isn't a packed house compared to then whenever you start slashing lifeguards public libraries and then asking the
constitutional officers to slash their budgets by 30% % this is a good bad problem to have. Um but in putting together this budget that uh that we have in front of you today uh please know that didn't fall on on de ears uh out of respect for the the taxpayers of Indian River County and out of the respect for the situation that that
you're in as commissioners. With that said, um it's personnel. Um it's we're we're in a situation where the the we all breathe the same air as far as the cost of living. We're all trying to retain personnel. Um I I understand that
you're the supervisor of elections trying to find a GIS person. I'm gonna go ahead and tell Leslie now, keep your hands off my GIS department. No, but um we we we've made some great hires in there and uh and looking at please note the uh the budget that's in
front of you today. Uh it's fully funded the the the positions. The positions that we have is 39. I'm proud to say 39 full-time employees is the same positions that number of positions that we've had since 2010, which came after as a commissioner, we requested the constitutional officers cut their
budgets by 30%. And u it's hard to believe that's been 15 years ago. Um but we're at that same staffing level. I'm very proud of that as an as a elected official to be able to say that to the taxpayers of Indian River County. uh we've only been able to do that by embracing technology and uh then of
course the average every year it seems like those contracts do go up uh by 5% um and and a part of doing I guess business but more importantly is we focused back on the the personnel side of it some of the things that we've done this year um we have uh I'm going to say
privatized our IT department uh I have got to be able to get the expertise and experience for a department of our size on a $5 million budget. You just it's hard to find that talent. Um and and we we were able to find a private it's a
franchise but here locally and we're very satisfied with that. So much so we actually have a staff staff member from their firm uh come to the office three days a week and they're always on call anytime we need them. So uh that's saved us a bunch of money. I still have that
position funded. And the reason why is I want to make sure before I take the leap that um that that if if it doesn't work out, I can hire somebody if if at all possible. But with that said, we plan on returning nearly $300,000
again this year out of to the county commission at whenever we do our budget at the end of the year when we return those back those funds back into you. And if you take that and look at what I'm requesting this year, that's about flat. And that's flat because if we can't hire the talent, then I'm not going to hire somebody. But at the same
time, I've got to be ready to hire in the event that the talent becomes available. And rest assured, I know that as as a constitutional officer, I can take and move money around inside of a budget if I wanted to. I can move it from personnel into operations. I'm not going to do that. I have never done that. And I will not do that without at
least coming to you and letting you know at a public meeting. And it'll be a very compelling reason to do so. I haven't seen it yet. don't anticipate, but rest assured that that these funds that if if I cannot hire the talent that I need uh and for replacement and and support inside the office, those funds will be
coming back to you. With that said, if you have any questions, I'll be more than happy to answer any. And um and again, it boils down to basically this is cola, merit, and retirement, which all goes back to personnel. Uh which is really I see after looking at the review
of your budget, that's kind of what you're faced with. And um and and again, none of this fell on deaf ears whenever it came time for me to put this budget together, not just for your um scrutiny, but for the taxpayers of any river county's scrutiny.
Wesley, I I just want to say that when you first began this pathway, when you left that seat on the dis and went across the way, you promised and committed to innovation and knew
of what the property appraiser could do. You promised change and you did so. There was a a bit of caution. Uh when when you hear that, that generally equates to dollars. I want you to know that I I think this board is grateful
that and the citizens are grateful that you did all that you committed to do in a conservative fashion and not burden the taxpayer but make the taxpayer the uh and have the understanding of what it
takes to make an efficient department. Uh I I I think you're doing an awesome job. I'm very humbled by that, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that. And uh you know, speaking of when I first went across the the the the street, um Commissioner Sari at the time, he challenged me. He said
that uh it was a good opportunity to lift up the the the hood of the property appraisers office and um and go through everything over there and and review it. And I'm I'm actually pretty proud to say that we were Doge before Doge was known of. We had we had the
You doze yourself? We did. And in fact, I see Councilman Pender Schwarz, Mr. Councilman Arwwater here, he was a member of that commit uh that committee and uh as a as a result of that we did we we restructured a lot of policy that saved a lot of money. We also canceled some contracts uh which is
um so I guess maybe Elon Musk was speaking to Commissioner Sari or something to get some ideas for this u but we did that a long time ago and now of course it seems to be invogue with the state um again and so um you know we're we're I am I'm very proud of that that that citizens audit committee that
we had uh going back six years ago um and it really got us off to a to a good start. You you've implemented some great stuff. Mr. Chairman, if I may. Wesley, I I appreciate the cooperation between county staff and your staff, especially
when it comes to like code enforcement issues we have where we need to interact with y'all and other things we have. It's uh it's just everybody's been so helpful and and everybody works so good between between our staff and your staff. It's it's really uh it's really a blessing to see that. And also
commission Mr. chairman, from the value adjustment board standpoint, we we appreciate, you know, all the stuff on that. We we're getting we have gotten much less, you know, people questioning their uh
tax bill versus that we did just since since 2020 and it's been it's been uh that shows great progress in my opinion. So, I appreciate that. Thank you, Commissioner. Let me let me compliment you also on something. You know, it's going to be tough whenever the trend notices come out because, as
you know, the uninorporated areas of the county or residential, they're going to have on their trend notice the uh solid waste, the mandatory curbside collection. Um there's about half the property appraisers, I think, in the state of Florida that do not allow any uh non-ador alarms on their trend
notices. And the reason for that is because the property appraisers catch flag for something they have no control over and didn't do other than just put put non- ads on their on their trend notices. um it's going to happen this year, but uh I want to commend you as a commission. I think it's the right thing
to do out of an abundance of transparency. I think that I you in fact as as far as I know are the only um elected board that has their non-abalorums on the trim notice. There's storm water fees in
other municipalities. There's that are not on uh the trim notice but go directly on the tax bill. Now, they meet the requirements of having the public hearings, but y'all know how public hearings are. They're not nearly as as um as well received and paid attention to as a trim notice whenever it comes into the mail.
The phones are going to light up, but I do commend you, commissioners, for for putting it on the trim notice uh and being uh in my opinion, the epitome of transparency uh in this process that we know uh we're we're fixing to go through. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Next, I see uh Ryan Butler. Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. Can you speak up just a little? We can't hear you. A little better. Yes. Thank you, sir. Good morning. Good morning, Mr. Chairman,
commissioners. As the uh county administrator said, we have a fairly modest budget proposal from the clerk's office. Much of the credit for that really goes to the collaboration between the clerk's office and the county's IT department along with budget director
Kristen Daniels. There are some software applications that we use in common with the county. And what we did for this budget year is we took a look at that and decided to allocate the cost between our agencies based on a relative use of those applications. That actually
brought our cost down. Um, additionally, there was one software application that we were using uh that we found was not particularly productive. So, we cut that contract and we cut that cost out. Now, one caveat to our budget and it's one caveat that uh we've been giving you every year for the past seven years is
related to our IT costs. As you know, many years ago, the state placed a burden of funding IT related costs at the courthouse on the counties. They of course didn't provide the counties with any money to do that. uh we have been relying on surpluses in some
statemandated IT trust funds uh for the last 20 years. Every year those surpluses are being depleted and that's due to a couple of factors. One is that it costs continue to go up and uh secondly uh we've also noticed that the
uh the state continues to place unfunded mandates on the counties with respect to courthouse operations. Now, we currently predict that by 2028, uh, we're going to reach a point where the county will need to fund some of those IT needs. The good news, though, is that this year, we've actually seen
an increase in the amount of money, uh, increase in the surpluses. So, I hope to come back next year and tell you that it's going to be further down the road. But in the issue of interest of transparency, I always want to let the board know that that's going to be on the horizon. I know you've been hearing that every year for seven years, but I
want you to be aware of that. And of course, we will let you know when that moment actually comes. I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have. Any any questions of clerk? All right. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. And next, uh we do have is our tax collector here? Now, her budget does not have to be presented, county administrator, her budget does not have to. And so,
August 1st, uh, she will be able to present hers, but if she was here, I just wanted to acknowledge. Next, we have our supervisor elections, Leslie Swan. Good morning, Chairman Flesher and commissioners. I'm Lesley Swan, the
supervisor of elections, and I want to thank you for this opportunity to let me present my proposed 2025 2026 budget. And I always want to thank you all. We have such great uh work together between um our two departments and you help us
keep the integrity, security, and accessibility of our elections here in Indian River County. You know, uh, the rapid growth of our county has necessitated the need for an additional early voting site. Since early voting
began in Indian River County in 2004, we've maintained three early voting sites. That's the past 21 years. That's a long time. And we're now at a point that we need to add an additional site. And if you look back to the 2024
presidential election, 45% of those that turned out voted at an early voting site. So our team at the elections office is really excited. Our fourth early voting site is going to be at the Intergenerational Recreation Center in the southern part of the county where we
really need one. And my sincere appreciation goes out to our county administrator John Teanage and our assistant county administrator Mike Zto because they were instrumental in helping us acquire um the IG center as another early voting site. So funds to
purchase equipment, voting equipment and supplies to run that site are included in my proposed budget. Um, our budget also includes funds to hire one additional employee, a geographic information system specialist. This
position is in direct response to Indian River County's steady population growth and our ongoing residential development. As new subdivisions are built and neighborhoods expand, the complexity of maintaining electoral maps, precinct boundaries, and voter district
assignments increases significantly. And no, Wesley, I think I have someone already in mind for the position, so I think we're good. I have uh one additional side note to my proposed budget. Now, everyone knows our budgets are due May 1st, but the
legislature hadn't wrapped up by that time, and there was a bill in the works, House Bill 1201. We weren't sure if it was going to get passed or not. It was signed into law, and this legislation focuses on tightening the rules around initiative petitions. And there's a lot
of different things that are um incorporated in this bill, but one of them is a new notice requirement. For all petitions, initiative petitions that are valid, not the invalid ones, the ones that we validate, we have to
send the voter a notification providing them the opportunity to have a checkbox to check off whether they feel like their petition was misrepresented or forged. And this is after we've already uh validated it. This notice must be
sent by forwardable mail with a postage prepaid pre-addressed response card. So to put this in context, in 2024 during that election cycle, our staff um received over 17,000 initiative petitions and over 13,000 of those we uh
validated as the signature matched what was on their voter record. So that means that we would have had to send out back then 13,000 notices to voters. And they're probably going to think, why am I getting this notice? I signed the petition and it was validated. But this is what is included in the legislation.
So with the implementation of this new law, our petition verification costs are going to substantially increase. Right now we charge 25 cents a piece. It's going up to $3.20 a piece because we have to cover the notice itself. the
additional postage going out and then if it's forwarded to the elections crime division in Tallahassee, we have to pay for that postage and there's a lot of additional staff resources, things that need to be done that are included in this house bill. So, since my budget was
due before the bill was passed, my plan, if it works with you all, is to come back at a later date to the board to request you roll back the actual fees that we collect back into our budget. We won't be asking for any more money, just the fees we collect to be rolled back
into our budget. So today, I respectfully request the commission's approval of our budget. It's $2,421,325. So I thank you again for your time and if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. Any questions of listening?
Okay, let's see. Thank you. All right. Thank you. I move on to the uh value adjustment board. Uh it is a modest budget. Uh there is a cost of doing business to make it right for the citizens. We've already heard uh uh Wesley uh talk about
the value adjustment board and uh is there anything further on the I saw Billy here who's very instrumental See no further comment. Uh county administrator,
you had additional information that uh you are able to provide that we don't have here in the backup. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. Return to the presentation.
So, uh, we've prepared some slides. You know, we've heard obviously some of the comments and some of that have come in and and I think it's important that we are able to paint for you a picture that demonstrates your commitment, you know,
short and long term, you know, in the past and and current as it relates to uh public safety. And so, uh, what we have here in this part particular slide is a overview of the sheriff's office historical budgets. In addition to the table on the right, uh, there's a graph
that illustrates the 15 years of approved budgets. Over the past four years, the board has approved $21.8 million to fund law enforcement, corrections, and court services. The sheriff's budget requests of $94.3
million, a 14.6 $6 million or $18.3% increase over the current year budget of $79.7 million is unsustainable and will strain the county's financial position. New general fund advalarm revenue is
only 8.68 million, far short of the sheriff's request of 14.6 million increase. The sheriff and I have met on several occasions concerning his budget request, the latest being yesterday for close to two hours. I have the highest respect for the sheriff and for the many
fine men and women who daily served with distinction to keep our community safe. As the sheriff and I discussed, this is not personal and I would s I would add this is certainly not a zero- sum game as nobody wins when you get to this workshop and there's not agreement on a
recommended increase and budget. Even if the county, other constitutional officers, and state agencies freeze their budgets, the county would still not be able to support the increase. Thus, I recommend a modest increase of
44,734,717, bringing the sheriff's proposed budget to or budget to $83,646,672. Raising the millage rate is not an option, especially as noted before with the state's push push to cut property
taxes. Absent additional revenue, the alternative is deep cuts and risking service reduction in many areas, and it still will not yield enough revenue to fund the sheriff's request. It is abundantly clear to me and I think many
others the governor and the state legislature seek to reform property tax to reduce the burden on homeowners. The governor has established a panel to develop recommendations and the legislature has est has stood up a select committee to do the same. The
past legislative session should serve as a warning, a shot across the bow, that we will witness or we we could witness a fundamental restructuring of local government revenues and how counties and other municipalities will fund local
government services and potentially what services. Continuing on the sheriff's trajectory in terms of the budget, the budget will likely exceed $100 million next year and could hit 120 million by 2029.
For context, the sheriff's request already consumes 52.3% uh the recommended budget for us consumes 52.3% of our proposed $156.9 million. So if you think next year it's
at $100 million and we're at 156.9 million, think of the impact there to the taxpayer and to to others. So I believe we must proceed cautiously to avoid fiscal jeopardy. Over the next few few slides I will share information and
insights related to the sheriff's budget. So you can see here this this particular one the green bar represents you know where the sheriff you know came into office. You can see the increase again. The board has, you know, funded, you
know, as high as $7.3 million in 2223, 5.7 really almost 5.8 in 23 24 and then also the same in 2425 for a total of 21.8 million over the last three four years.
So this this slide represents a portion of the millillage as it relates to the sheriff's office and their budget. Uh again the approved and the millillage right now is 3.5475 and in the current year 2425 if you look
at the far right column 52.8% of that millillage which is would equate to 1.8717 is dedicated or you know is allocated towards the sheriff's portion of the budget. Uh again the the BCC the board
and the state mandate portion is 47.2%. So if you look at the MSTU fund and again you can follow it across the board across the uh the table but if you go to the far right column our current approved millage is 1.1506
mills of which the sheriff's portion comprises 6897 mills of that and that equa equals 59.9% of the total millage thus leaving the BCC portion for it to fund operations and services in the unincorporated
credited area uh with 4609 or 40 40.1%. Personnel expenses uh this reflects the the the the growth in personnel expenses. Uh this would include wages
uh FICA taxes you know that we pay for to the state and everybody we pay they pay the employers employee uh FRS uh it would include uh the life and health and things of that nature. So the budget amount for the current for the
current fiscal year is 59.34% or 59 excuse me 59,340,581. That's an 8.3% increase over the of the 2324 year. And if you look back beginning in 2122, you had a 4.6%
increase. 22 23 you had a 6.6% increase. 23 24 7.1% increase. And for 2526 for personal expenses, the sheriff's requesting a 15.3% increase based on his 14.6 million request. Uh, as you can
see, uh, in terms of budgeted positions in 2122, there's 533, 551, and 223, 23, 24, 562, and then last year 563. And there's no request for additional positions in this year's budget. If you
compare, you know, overall in terms of the budget amount where we were, if you look at 20 21 to 22 versus the 25 to 26 for the budget, it would be a 23.7% increase. And then for the positions, I'm not sure
the second line for the positions the reduce. Okay. Oh, 2425. Sorry, I got it. I missed it. Yeah. 2425 the current year is a 23.7. If you were to fund the sheriff's full request asked, it would increase the the the rate of increase
the percentage increase from 2122 to 2526 is 42.5%. So I'd like to and and I know one of the priorities that the sheriff has expressed, you know, as we've met is the need to address salary issues. Uh we did
submit consistent with, you know, uh requests for information consistent with the chapter 30.4 40 section 30.49 of the Florida state statutes requesting for relevant pertinent information. In FY223,
the sheriff provided uh 7% increase to civilian personnel and 7% to sworn personnel. During that same year, the board provided 7.35 million budget increase for the for the sheriff's office. In FY23 24, we know
that the civilian received a 5% raise. Uh we don't know the average percent raise or the amount has been requested. We haven't received it yet, but what they did do is they implemented a step plan and in a conversation yesterday, understand it's a 4% step and there's 13
steps. They implemented pay for experience. They fixed compression issues largely for the deputies and then they increased this the starting salary for a deputy to 50,619 round it up it's 50,6188
I think and but the board also increased $5.79 million you know approved for the sheriff in each of those years uh the board questioned the sheriff and asked you know is you have enough to do what you need to do and it was a yes and the
record will reflect that from the prior years. So for this this current year uh the civilians receive civilian personnel received 5% raise and then the sheriff you know in addition to saying he was going to what he did the previous year focusing on deputies he was going to do
the same for you know and salaries was his most important issue. Uh he increased the deputy maximum pay. He increased the the sergeant starting and max pay and he increased the lieutenants starting and max pay. And then he altered the way they computed their
increases in terms to make them effective on the anniversary month instead of October 1st, the beginning of the fiscal year. And for this year, you approved a $5.7 million budget increase for the sheriff's office. I've sourced those documents, you know, below.
So, one of the things I did because I didn't have the information as it related to, you know, for sworn personnel. So one of the only thing I could do is by using their budgets that they provided us from FY 2021 for and to through FY25 actually we also had FY26
but I just want to focus on where where we what what's happened and where we are. So looking at those personnel budgets and and and just excluding taking wages only just wages not including buyouts not including FICA FRS and life and health let's just look at
wage growth. So, in FY2021, there was a 6.3 6.31% increase in the amount budgeted for or or by the sheriff's office for wages. Uh, and then in 22, there was a modest
increase and it was 31,37,542. In 2023, the sheriff budgeted 32.9 million or a 5.13% increase in wages. And then in 24 the sheriff budgeted 35.2 million or 7.03%
in wages. And then in 25 the sheriff budgeted 38.13 million or 8.26. And the reason I do emphasize that the sheriff budgeted because as as as you all know and so everybody else understands whatever amount that you approve for the
sheriff, whatever whatever amount that you ultimately approve for the sheriff, the sheriff by law gets to determine how that money is spent. They can submit a budget related to personnel expenses, operating expenses, capital, but at the
end of the day, they are not bound by that. They don't have to come back before the board and seek adjustments. They get to spend that money. The sheriff's office administration gets to spend that money as they see fit based on the priorities they have for the agency. So this and I will caveat this slide but
uh because we had had done this prior to my meeting yesterday with the sheriff but uh this slide does present the departments and units within the sheriff's office and what percent the sheriff's fiscal 24 or 2526 budget proposes for overall wages and personnel
expenses. The data source for this this slide is page 59 of the sheriff's budget submitt. I think it's important to note yesterday in our meeting, my meeting with the sheriff, uh I shared several observations and question concerning the
amounts and the calculated p percentages. I calculated the percentages. Uh I used Excel, didn't you didn't use common core or use my fingers and hands. Um so u calculated percentages presented in the budget. For
instance, one of the things we pointed out, I'm going to do two just to give you an example. uh as presented in the the FY2526 budget request for personal expenses, the uh the patrol unit or division
department comprises 13.6% of the overall budget budgeted wages. However, in that same document, it proposes to only increase it by $160,893 or 2.76.
And this has to cover 95 deputies. I don't know what the amount was, but I just if I just take basic math, divide 95 by 160, that equals $1,694 for each row deputy. Compare this to
training. That represents 5.23% of the budgeted wages, but it is proposed to increase by $770,822 or 50.66% 66% for seven deputies. I doubt that they're going to but but if I just take basic math, there's seven
deputies there. That'd be $110,117 per deputy. So, what I am told, you know, and we had conversations both the sheriff and he got his uh the CFO on the phone is that uh that the the 68,42,540
for personnel services that's listed on page four of the budget submitt is correct and the $44,665 966 which is just the wage amount that's correct for the budgeted wages. But the amounts and the percentages for the
respective departments or units are not and they will need to revise them. They acknowledged you know that there's there's some there was some some there it wasn't right but we had a slide presented and I've shared some of this information with you previously so I felt it appropriate. I shared with the
sheriff to share it with you again. So personnel expenses I think you know we went over this uh already and I I have the slide a second time only to compare to you know the 15.3% increase
and personnel expenses you know again don't have the revised numbers to to provide you any detail but 60 if it's 68,425 42 and five and $549 that's a 15.3%
increase for 563, you know, employees. When you compare that to our operating capital, uh there's 22,136, uh $171 for operating expenses.
And that represents 27.8% increase in the the operating. And then the capital, it's it's funded, you know, through uh the both the capital and the CIP at 17.98 million. That's largely a second installment, if you will, of a two-year
project to build the sheriff's uh administration, new administration, but it's an increase of 3.6%. When you review the um when you review the operating expenses from fiscal year 21, 22 rather, to fiscal year 25, it
represents a 65.2% increase. If you review the 22 fiscal year amount to the sheriff's requested amount, it would equal an 111% increase. For capital, it's it's
capital. I mean, those are large dollars. So, uh, a couple things I I I think, you know, I I did share this with the sheriff. I know I've I've talked to you all about this. In the budget cover letter, uh it notes that only 6.1%
of the increase needed is earmarked for operational expenses. In fact, the requested increase in ear in operating expenses is $4,812,441 or 32.88% of the requested 14.6
million increase. Couple items that I shared with you and I I talked to the sheriff about as well. contracted services. Uh there is currently the in requested increase for that category is 2,778,243
or 30.2% requested for a total contracted services budget of $12 million. Operating supplies, uh there's a about $1.1 million increase or 37.47% 47% requested for a total operating supplies
budget of 3.9 almost $4 million. Again, 37% increase. Operating equipment. Uh the requested increase is 363,261 or an increase of 148.47%
for a total operating budget of uh or operating equipment stand operating equipment of $67,923. So then the couple other items I pointed out to you and I mentioned and sought information as you know you got a copy
of the email that we sent to the to the uh to the CFO and the sheriff received but the travel largely limiting the travel the line item says travel/transporting prisoners but they they requested an increase of $126,393
for a total travel budget of $589,490. Uh the response that we did receive related to this is that the training and travel is always budgeted for anticipated attendance but that attendance does not always occur and year-to date or expenses to date you
know based on what was provided to me last week earlier this week no last week uh the year-to- date amount is $26,977. Uh for training, the requested increase is $141,554 or 46.75%
and this is training not in-house training but going out to u going out and or doing online training and that increased the total training budget of 44 44 to $444,314.
Again, the same the response was the travel and training. It's always budgeted to anticipate attendance, but that always doesn't occur. Uh, from a just from a perspective of understanding where they are related to the current amount and and what's being asked to be increased to year to date, they're at
$194,677. So, with that, uh, Mr. Chair, that's those are the slides that I have related to the sheriff's office, and I'll return it to you for, you know, the to for the sheriff to present as well as public comment. Thank you. Uh, County Administrator, I
appreciate that and we acknowledge that you shared all this information with the sheriff inclusive. Is there any new information that he did not receive prior to today? Uh, not not to my recollection.
Okay. because I see the the slides that we had not seen but the the information is uh very that would be the only thing I that I was working on the presentation. I mean one OM worked on it and I was working on it and I want that noted because the the
the sheriff did uh provide uh quite the the the media display of um the concerns uh of the sheriff's office. I want you to know that it was wrenching, very informative.
Um, I also want to say that uh uh while the numbers are high and again just want to back up. I've had the opportunity to wear I think I'm qualified uh to say I had the opportunity to wear a few
uniforms and the first uniform almost prevented me from wearing the second uniform. I almost cashed a big check. So, I just want to note that I'm looking at
some of my former colleagues and I believe that you can't do a salary study. You can't do a rate study for anybody who's wearing a uniform.
You have to do what you can do for them because it is it is a very difficult position to say what is your life worth? What is your position worth for the element of
safety that you provide? I understand that. But we also have to look at the greater good of all of our citizens. the 170,000 citizens
that we are accountable for to provide that element in addition to other services. And then we have to look at what we have available. And I I I believe that
the sheriff before he speaks should be given whatever we could do from our budget from what is available. But we should not exceed it. We can't exceed. We can't raise the mill
rate. We can't burden the taxpayer because they need to have other elements of survival and sustenance that we provide as well. And these are harsh economic
times. Anybody have anything to say? I see Sheriff Eric Flowers is here. Good morning, Sheriff. Good morning. Some documents for you. May I approach the bench?
Sheriff, it's your best Morning. Morning. Yes, sir. You going to give it to her? Good morning everybody. Morning again, Sheriff. Yes, sir. Um, I want to make note of the
fact that uh, Supervisor Election Leslie Swan mentioned that her budget is due May 1st and uh, my budget is also due May 1st. And I submitted this entire budget to you guys on May 1st as required by our county ordinance. So, I
started looking. I wanted to find the history of that county ordinance to find out who it was that moved that. I actually called Sheriff Wheeler, but he didn't seem to know. Maybe maybe you guys know. I don't know. But it's my belief that the reason that the sheriff's budget is due May 1st before
all the other budgets are due, before all your county budgets, before we even know how much money Wesley Davis is going to bring in, is because it should be the foundation of the entire county's budget. It should be the first building block that is laid
before you guys make any other decisions. And my belief in that is because none of the other things happen without the work of the men and women of law enforcement and other first responders. So you can take your parks and close
them down. You can take your libraries because they're going to be full of homeless people. You can take all the other projects that you're working on, roads, building department. You can close it because it'll be like Detroit and people will be moving away. If you don't have the law enforcement
that is necessary to protect a community, [Applause] we will conduct ourselves in a business-like fashion. You'll have the opportunity to speak if you wish post the sheriff, but let's hold the
applause. Thank you, Sheriff Lur. Um, agree with that, Sheriff. Excuse me. We don't we we don't need the applause. Don't applaud. Yeah. Got it. I figured they right. Sheriff Lord, you uh I was with you in your office
on several occasions where you were having um rabid conversations with Joe Bair, with Jason Brown, where you came here before this body
and you fought every year for your budget and you said this is the most important day of the year for the sheriff. reiterated that to me in our in our conversation this week. And I don't recall one time where you
came back to the office and said, "They gave us too much money." I don't recall one time where you said, "They fully funded us." I don't recall one time where you said, "Boy, I really pulled the wool over their eyes." Every time it was, "We're going to make this work.
We're going to find a way to make this work." And when your county administrator puts up the slide that shows 12 years, eight of those are yours and four are mine. And I get that. He's got 40% attributed to you and 60%
attributed to me. I get that. I'm in the COVID the postinflation era. It's a different time. He's accrediting you for 40% of that. He's accrediting me for 60% of that. Okay, I'll take it. Life has
changed. The world has changed. Everything we do has changed. These things right here have changed everything that we do. Body cameras, real-time crime centers, all the things that are necessary to police in 2025.
Completely different than they were when you left office when they were in 2006, Joe, when you stopped wearing a green uniform. It's completely different out there now. It's a totally different job. As a matter of fact, how many people are left that you actually worked with, Joe?
Not many. Not many. There's a couple, but not many. Not a dozen. It's changed. It's completely changed. So, here's what I'm telling you. I gave you a copy of a Florida statute. Pull my copy up right here. As a matter
of fact, the county administrator actually referenced it. 30.49. I want to read from paragraph 4. I have it highlighted for you. The board or commission must give written notice of its action to the sheriff and specify in
such notice the specific items amended, modified, increased, or reduced. The budget must include the salaries and expenses of the sheriff's office, cost of operation of the county jail, purchase, maintenance, and operation of equipment, including patrol
cars, radio systems, transporting prisoners, court duties, and other salaries, expenses, equipment, and investigative expenditures of the entire sheriff's office for the previous year. I'm highlighting that because I'm asking you for 14 and change this year to fund our budget.
If you choose to fund one penny less than what I'm asking for, you are required by this statute to provide me in writing exactly what it is that I'm supposed to cut from this. And this has been floating for two months. And I haven't heard one person say, "You
shouldn't be doing this. You shouldn't be doing that." Hey, the the meetings yesterday last minute bringing things to me. Hey, I you factual error. We'll correct those things. But nobody is saying stop doing it. And if you guys are making decisions that there are things in there that
we're not supposed to be doing or you don't want us doing, put it in writing because I want to make sure that all these folks in this room know exactly what you want me to stop doing. I want to make sure that the voters, that the citizens, that the taxpayers, and that our good governor, who supports law enforcement, knows exactly what it is
you want us to stop doing. The reality is the other statute that I provided you, you guys are going to put another one of these six years in a row in the newspaper. You have to say, "We increased your taxes, residents." You're going to tell them, "I increase your
taxes." But again, I've kicked the can and not funded law enforcement. As a taxpayer myself, the fact that our taxes have gone up six years running, I get you didn't change the millillage, Joe. I know you say it to me, 3.5475, whatever the number is. It's still a tax
increase. It's still a tax increase. It's still a tax increase, but you're not funding these guys. Last year when you guys took the firefighters to 60,000 starting, you made the decision that my men and women were going to go to 60,000 starting. You guys made that decision,
not me. I'm here fighting for them to get parody with our firefighters. Our firefighters deserved exactly what you did last year. You did an amazing job taking care of them. You did it for retention purposes because you were losing people to other agencies. I'm about to. If you guys don't help me
and take care of this, I will be in a bad way. The other costs that are outside of these personnel costs are the cost of doing business going up. Tires are more expensive. Healthcare in the jail is more expensive. The meals are more expensive. We should not be the
scraps at the end of the budget process. We should be the first block that is laid down before this county builds on anything else because without them nothing else happens. I have a lot of people in the audience who want to speak to you today. They have a whole lot of
things to say. I I I just can't wait for you to hear some of the things that they're going to tell you from employees applying for food stamps to our folks out there putting things together, saving tax dollars every single day.
You guys know that if there was something that I was doing underhanded, if I were doing something with the budget that was that was not right, these folks would hold me to account. They would say, "I see it. This isn't right. He's getting money and he's he's screwing around with it. He's doing
whatever." None of these folks are here because of me. They're here because they know that this money is what it takes 14 and change to fund my budget this year. I certified the budget. If you guys make a determination to follow the county administrator, so be it. Or whatever
number you come up with, but I will need in writing exactly what it is that you guys intend for me to cut. Thank you. [Applause] Can you hear him? You hear me? We're not doing that.
What we are doing is we'll we'll be happy to have comment. Sheriff, you know, you you've referred to me a couple of times and and I appreciate you referred to the the raising of taxes. Um I just want to
clarify we held the line with the mill rate. The people's the citizens property values increased and that's how the taxation increased. It was done at the same rate and no other jurisdiction has
held the line the way we have as far as your taxation. One of the I just want that noted. One of the Republican talking items out of Tallahassee is # roll back. And it's a movement to stay at the roll back rate every year. And it is my belief that all
this these terms you guys use over here from millillage to roll back to all these things that you say is to confuse the hell out of these regular citizens and taxpayers. This roll back concept most people don't even understand it but at the end of the day it's a tax increase. As a matter of
fact, Florida state statute 21200.065 subsection 2A for taxing authorities. You must post this notice of proposed tax increase. You guys have done it the last six years. It You have to put it in the newspaper. Notice of proposed tax
increase. You will do it again this year. You have raised taxes. It's semantics. It's not semantics. Sir, I I appreciate your your point. I'm going to ask the county administrator to explain roll back to you, sir.
I understand the rest of the public. So, because I I don't want any confusion at all. Please the microphone it's on. Let me get that slide. I don't want to misstate.
Says the percentages. Give me one second. Excuse me. Can I um make a statement and put my name down? Ma'am, ma'am, you you you'll have the opportunity. I need to hear from It's going to be more confusion for him
to explain that. And I think that we just need to ma'am. Ma'am, I'm I'm not going to entertain it from out in the audience. Thank you. Thank you. But how can I put my name? Thank Thank you. You You'll have the opportunity to speak. Thank you, sir. Thank you. I appreciate you.
So what I what I will say is you know when I covered the general fund millet history I specifically discussed what roll back was because I understood you know this uh so the the the concept
behind a roll back is you roll back the military to bring in the same amount of revenue that you received the prior year. I mentioned that the only new revenue you would receive would be new construction.
So in this case uh our current the recommended millillage is maintained at 3.5475 mills. The roll back rate would be 6.69% less. And then I even if you recall I gave you what the impact is of going to
the roll back which was about I think it was about $7 million 7.5 million. So you would even be in a worse condition of trying to fund even my recommended $4.7 million of the sheriff's budget let
alone I mean because you'd have about$ 1.3 I think 1.4 four. Yeah. Two million. Two. You'd have two million. So you'd be you'd have 2 million of increased revenue versus the 8.68 that you have now. So the idea is that
and back in those if you recall during those post great recession days or during the great recession years you had negative roll back where actually you had to increase the millillage to get the same amount of revenue that you had from the
prior year to fund operations. So I mean the concept for roll back is again it's just to make sure you get the same amount of money that you receive this last year or next year that you did this year and we are recommending that you stay at the same mill rate which is it
is it's 6.69% above roll back Mr. share if I can clarify clarify that John says it very well but yes basically the roll back rate is the millage rate at which you have to be to
bring in the same taxable value as the year prior. So in an economic boom that roll back rate is generally less than the prior year's millage rate and in economic downturns that millage rate is higher
than your current typically. Yeah. So the roll back rate so you know I mentioned 6.69%. It's actually the roll back rate would be 3.3250 versus the current military of 3.5475 and by not going to roll back we have additional
revenue. You get the additional revenue is $ 8.68 million to the general fund. And how much of that is going to the sheriff? Uh more. I think it's 57% of it.
What I'm saying to you is you're raising taxes. You're raising taxes. And Mr. County Minister, do you have to put in the paper? Not to argue, but you you just you you said it's a matter of semantics. It's a matter of semantics. If you look at Did your property value go up?
Yeah. Okay. So, did did and that's my fault? No. No. No. But when your property value goes up and you're doing the same rate, it's simple mathematics that correct it's going to be higher. So no raise the taxes. For the last six years, you guys have had more money.
We've kicked the can. Every year I've asked for more. Every year I've asked for more and I've said we'll scrape by just like Sheriff Lur did. You've gotten it, Sheriff. I'm We scraped by. We We got to make this happen. We're at that point. That's where I'm at. Mr. Chair, members of the board, I'm
going to quote what I stated. Setting a rate above the roll back legally counts as a tax increase even without raising the military itself. I made that very clear in the presentation. Nobody's denying it's a tax increase.
Vice Chairman Law. Thank you, Mr. Chair. If I could just ask the the sheriff a couple questions and I he's absolutely correct uh for the fellow commissioners. I can remember many afternoons I watched
u talking about this with Sheriff Flowers, the frustration, the anxiety, the buildup to today. Um the candid conversations that we had about Mr. Baird and Mr. Brown.
Candid is probably soft word. Uh but Sheriff and I, trust me, I understand where you're at today. Uh, and I think the objective is to raise the starting pay of the deputies. The primary objective of this budget, if I'm correct,
100%. My goal is number one to raise their pay to get everybody when when the the bottom number goes up, everybody's got to go up because it's not fair to those who have dedicated their time and energy to this community. We have people who can't live in this community because
they're not making enough money. We've we've gone out and spoken to this in the public. And for the three of you who have come out to see it, thank you so much for coming out to hear what we had to say. A a young deputy. I don't think he's here today, but he was a a a great bright guy from the Coast Guard. He started with us. He got a couple years
in. He's at Vero Beach High School. The school loves him. He's making $53,000 a year. He just left us to go to PSL to make $79,000 a year. If this budget increase goes through as proposed, he would have made around 72, which is much
more. Hey, I he can work some details, still live here with his family, pay his bills, but there's no way there's no way at 52,000 I'm going to keep any of these people, right? And I think that I don't think I know that you and I have chatted over
the last few weeks and uh I I think we agreed that the 14 and this is pretty basic uh that we knew that the 14 was probably unobtainable. Um so what we have is a finite amount of dollars coming in. uh we need uh
collectively to work together to figure out what it's going to take uh for the salaries alone. Work collectively on uh looking at some of the operational expenses and coming up with a number uh
that we can achieve those goals. And then again um forget about all this talk about property taxes and all of that. that's at least two cycles away. I think we all can agree on that. However, I agree with the administrator on being
somewhat aware and cognizant of that. So, we need to find uh an estimate on what it's going to cost to bring your starting salary up um as well as uh reducing some expenses that perhaps you
may be able to to uh to reduce. And I think that's that's what this boils down to. It's really, it's really not a hard task. And you and I had a great conversation the other night heading in that direction. Mr. County Administrator came to my office yesterday. We spent over two hours,
folks. We haven't had an offer that's even 50% of my ask at this point. Not even 50% of my ask. I'm asking for 14 and change. We're not even close to half. What am I supposed to tell these folks? I've TAed contracts with unions.
You want me to go to Impath so they can come do everything they're going to do today again in front of you guys because you don't give me enough money to do it. What what is the s what is the number in the salary number in raising your deputies uh to your desired amount uh
just the just that amount? What is that number? 10,698,000. It's it's not the you got the budget. Who's got my budget book? personnel 9,61,968 $9,61,968. That gives me absolutely nothing for the
jail, for medical, for cost of anything going up, for tires, for any of that. That is simply the personnel component of this $9,61,968. Are you getting any other revenue from the federal government, the state, inmate welfare, anything like that that
could offset some of those expenses? Inmate welfare goes only back into the inmates. You know how that that works over there. I can't use that for any of that. The only thing that I will get back is money from the school district, but as you know, they are in dire straits. They are shorted $2 million because of some federal things. and
we've been in conversations. I'm not sure they're going to be able to fund the 50% at this point uh of what my ask is, but I'm going to tell you right now, the kids are going to be protected. If we have to figure something out, if I have to go work a school, the kids are going to be protected. That's not going to not happen. So 9,61,968
is the answer of just personnel. That is that's not a dollar for anything else. There's not capital. There's not bulletproof vests. New no new nothing new. Well, the capital is funded obviously out of other another account optional sales tax. So, we don't have to
we don't have to mention capital. But I I believe that uh some of the expenses and I don't my job is not to get into the weeds. Uh my job is to set with these four set policy and set budget. How you spend the money as Mr. Titanic
said earlier that's your business and how you manage it that's your business. That's not our business. Uh but you're telling us that the number is nine to 9 million to bring up the starting debt. And how many do you have that are not at starting?
I don't know that off the top of my head. I can tell you that that's that's not just to bring up the starting. That's all personnel. That's my personnel expenses. That's not just for deputies. That's for me to maintain. You know, I I have civilians, like I said, that are applying for food stamps. That's for all that personnel to be
taken care of. 9,61968. That is personnel right there on the line item page four of my budget request. That's the number. Okay. Not at this time. Is sheriff
opportunity. Hi. Hi. Um, that page four number that you're quoting, is that the corrected number? Because I think you had indicated that that has to be tweaked. I think the county administrator uh misunderstood our conversation with Amy.
She's here. She went through those numbers overnight. Those are corrected numbers. Um, the way that he's looking at it, he's not comparing apples to apples, and it's a different thing. I I don't know what he does on his little spreadsheets over there, but I can tell you the numbers that we have submitted are the correct numbers. So the numbers that indicate how much
the patrol officers are receiving and the training officers, those numbers are correct. Come on. Amy's coming down to explain it to you. Good morning, chairman. Commission. I did last night. The increase is 9 million in personnel.
I do use rounded numbers. Six million of that is specifically for our pay increases, but along with increasing pay, we have to increase overtime, correct? Overtime is going to go up. We also have the sick and the buyouts. So, everything goes up by increasing our
base pay. We did a pay study uh for our civilians that increased in total 2 million as well. It's all about retention, bringing people in, making them happy while they're working. Like, we need to show the employees that they're appreciated and they're valued. county administrator came and was
comparing the 25 to 26 numbers. Um, I did go through there is one correction of 28,000 that we will have to adjust. It is for the school crossing guards because they're the part-time part-time and so when I did my evaluations I did mess that up and so there is a $28,000
adjustment. Okay. So I think on the slide that had the wage broken out for instance the training wages for your training officers was increasing $770,000.
Yes. For seven so deputies. So that is an accurate number. Yes. Yes. I'll read it. Okay. I ap I apologize. It was done at the 11th hour last night. So, I was I worked through everything that was a variance
of 100,000 or more. For training, I have to find it because it's very small. For fiscal year 25, uh for fiscal year 25, we had 21 positions. For fiscal year 26, we have 26 positions. There was $119,000 increase for overtime because I
bumped up overtime. I believe one of the questions that the county administrator had sent was why was I increasing my budget for overtime to two million? And I provided the trend that showed three years ago it was 2.5 2.7 two years ago it was 3.7 and then last year it was 2.5
and change and this year we're on track to also be 2.5. I budgeted 1.2 we're always over budget and overtime. Okay. So that wasn't exactly my qu I don't know what question you're answering but the so where it says
training the 770,000 right? How many deputies does that? Because this is just wages for people, correct? So how many people is that? That's for 26 positions last year. So that's 26 positions. Last year was 21. Okay.
The the increase in overtime attributed to training based on actual was 119,000 and then the sworn pay scale adjustment that we're trying to do attributed to 256,000. So it's three parts to that 770. Yes sir. What she's what she's saying in
there is when we bring deputies in, they fall under training until they're completely trained. So that category because we do have people who want to work here. We have people coming in and so they stay in that category until they make it over to the law enforcement side. So that's what that's how come
that number is up. The 77822 represents 26 deputies. Yes, ma'am. So if you divide that out, that's $29,000 per deputy. I don't have my calculation. So that's I
wasn't looking that's the increase over what they're currently getting. So the training wage budget represent I just want to make sure I'm interpreting all this right because you know there's been some back and forth. Sure. The training wage budget
represents an additional $29,000 per deputy in wages for basic math. Yes, that is correct. I would,000 more. Yes, that's what my calculator says. I just divided 770 822 by 26.
I I would recommend that we have Amy and maybe Kristen go in the other room and look at whatever this spreadsheet is because like I said, she was not in the meeting yesterday. The first time I saw this was at 4:00 yesterday afternoon. So, if you want us to answer this, we'll answer it for you. But Amy needs to take a look at it to be able to answer it effectively.
Sheriff, I I could appreciate that because I I saw a sheet indicating $168,000 for increases for uniform deputies. And I just did the simple math and it looked like they were getting about $1,120. But this is something you guys have generated. This is not something we've
generated, right? We have to take a look at it. No, hold on. We've asked the questions. I mean, I've seen the emails going back and forth asking these questions. So, it's it's not as if this is the first time you've had these questions presented to
you. This isn't like I feel like you're trying to make this a gotcha moment, and it it's really not. like we we've had this back and forth and I just want to make sure if if what you're saying and what John is saying is not matching and the numbers are based off the budget that you've presented. I want to make
sure I'm understanding because for the past four years we've talked about giving money for either compression raises, civilian raises, sworn deputy raises. And the reason I'm asking is as you
supplied us with statute um 30.49 49. And I know you quoted section 4, but section 12 states, notwithstanding any other law, and in order to effectuate, fulfill, and preserve the independence
of sheriffs, as specified in 30.53, a sheriff may transfer funds between the fund and functional categories in object and subobject code levels after his or her budget has been approved by the board of county commissioners, city
council, or budget commission and this sub section shall apply to a sheriff. So in in essence what you're presenting you can then go back and change and I want to make sure this year I understand
what you're proposing to fund because if the numbers have been wrong in past years and that's what we have or we haven't understood them completely because maybe we're interpreting them differently and then you go back and
move money between funds that doesn't have to come back to to us. You can totally do that on your own without even letting us know or or making us aware of it. I want to make sure if we're talking about salary increases this year, we all
understand what you need, how it's interpreted because as we spoke last year, the 5.8 that you got was unsustainable moving forward. And here we are asking for 14.
And every year the past several years that major increase that we have given you that's beyond what's been done in the past has been to go to these salary compression wage related issues. And I just want to make sure since you
have the ability to switch it around once you leave here that what's being presented today I fully understand. So I'm not caught in a situation where I think that we are approving a budget for one thing
and it turns out it's really something else. So that's why I'm asking. I'm not trying to create a gotcha moment in any way. I just want to make sure we're all understanding the same ask because I feel like you guys and you you think
that we don't understand but all we have is what you presented. And thank you for that. And know uh sheriff just made a an excellent recommendation and we're going to take you up on that. Okay. Because um I did you you came up to the office
and you gave me you know some salary information I had asked for and uh in looking at it then looking at past budgets it wasn't consistent. It wasn't consistent. I didn't say it was wrong.
Just was not consistent with what the actual as opposed to presented opposed to what the budget was. And that's okay. Past history is past history. But it appears that some of that confusion
might be present today as uh you suggest and as you recommended that perhaps maybe we have both these sets of numbers get together to ensure that we all have accurate information,
they all have accurate information and there's no misunderstanding. So, with that, we're going we're going to take a little little bit of a recess. Okay. Yeah. How long do you think you need for this?
10 15 minutes. 10 15 minutes. Give them 15 minutes. 15 minutes. You know what? Um we we can go ahead and do that, but let's just cover cover this and then this way we can wrap it up with your
item. Okay? If you don't mind. What do we cover? Uh what we're going to do is going to move on to the the rest of the items and we'll take a 15minute recess and then we'll come back with it. Okay. That
okay. All good. So, do you want No, I think what we're going to do is uh let's go over the min municipal services and then during the lunch. So, Mr. Mr. Chair, Kristen and Amy is going to need me
because it's my spreadsheet. I I uploaded their FY2021 personnel expense budget all the way through 26 in a spreadsheet and that's was the basis. And I understand that and
uh we weren't notified when you got information and then I and it's clear that there is a correspondence level and information that was exchanged back and forth. But
if the sheriff is indicating that we don't have those numbers and we're hearing and I've seen that the numbers aren't comparative, then that means that we need to look at as you and I personally pointed out about that for
the the starting pay for deputies uh it could not be covered with the increase for what was denoted. Correct. Maybe. So there was a little misinformation. No, I I mean I'm looking at the sheet she provided and it matches what's in
here and I used as a basis. The only thing that's changed to her comment was the part-time wages for the crossing guards. Mr. Mr. What I'm trying to say is I developed the spreadsheet and based on the information and so if they if we want to validate it
with Amy, I need to go through and show her the actual here's the data source because I sourced the data. I source the data right below page 59 of thing and then also the subsequent fiscal year budget uh approvals
and I think that can be accomplished in 15 minutes. I I yeah just can I just make just a little suggestion since we have a lot of other people here for other sections of this budget that that are patiently waiting and the sheriff's conversation might
take a little bit longer that we work until noon. That's only about another 30 minutes and try to get through as much as we can and then maybe take a little bit longer lunch break and let them hash it out and then and then come Oh, that Okay. I thought they were we were breaking now and No. Okay.
No, we're not. Remember, you have a 130. As I said, let's go forward with the municipal services taxing unit. Come back for that. Sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't understand. It's okay. So, no, we're we're going to continue
this till 12 and then we're going to do it then. So, we're moving forward with the municipal services taxing unit, sir. Yes. Yes. Sir, we work until the work is done.
Thank you, sir. So the next section of our budget, Mr. Chair, members of the board, is the municipal service tax unit which covers the unincorporated area. The advalum tax role for the unincorporated area. There's an 8.7% increase which will
generate. Go ahead. Just go. Huh? Okay. generating 1.557 million uh in additional revenue. Again, assuming the 95% collections at the proposed military. Uh the military uh 1.1506
is no change from last fiscal year. Uh the there are transfers out to fund transportation. Uh $9.8 million almost 9.9 and then 31 almost 31.9 million to fund law enforcement. Uh we do have workers comp, you know, rate impact
increase and it's about $11,935 or 10%. And then environmental planning, uh one portion of it, uh that that portion of natural resources is re returning to planning and development services based on input received from the respective departments. My
concurrence. So moving on to the next would be the looking at the mil fund millillage history and um again um in this case we are recommending I'm recommending to keep the recommend keeping the military
for the MSTU at 1.1506 mills which also is the the same for the sixth year in a row. Again notably this is a 6.09% 09% higher than the roll back rate. And while the milit rate is
recommended to stay the same, it is legally considered a tax increase. So the expenses as it relates to our MSTU funds, uh, as you can see, you know, with the exception of the the tax collector, which we know we get their
her budget on August 1st, um, there's 1.4% 4% increase in Gford Aquatic and then all the you can you can see all the others you know North County aquatic centers and some of these are related to repairs and projects that were undertaken. Uh I can go over those
individually if you would like me to I don't think it's necessary. Okay. So but that represents for the MSTU departments a $1.7 million decrease or 12.7% Transportation budget overview. Um we
essentially have we are facing increased costs related to retirement uh about 1.1% or $15,87 increase in workers compensation costs additional $55,000 or 13.5%.
The gas tax revenue totals $2.6 million which does represent about a 1.1% decrease or $29,000. There are transfers from the general and the MSTU funds uh which account for 77.2% of the total funds revenues and
they're increasing by 1 million28,839 or 5.1%. So the those funded expenses include road and bridge, public works, county engineering, traffic engineering, storm water. Again, you know, uh you can see
that we have, you know, we've worked with our departments and we ultimately you're looking at for all the transportation related departments going from 27,91,654 to 25,254,1518 or a $1.8 million decrease or 6.8%
decrease. So the the next would be our emergency services district. Uh the advalorum tax ro increase uh is 8.6% that will generate approximately 4,627,48 and additional revenue
assuming the um the 95% collections. Uh the military 2.3531. No change from last year. No recommended change from last year. Uh there is three additional full-time positions. There are captains uh largely being funded
through the uh a core grant for the first couple years. And uh the increased retirement, you know, to the FRS increase is 1.5 million or 15.2% 2% and the capital with a capital budget of
three million, you know, $3.7 million. John, why did that go down so much? Why did it go down so much? In large measure, if you look at fire rescue operating one, we had some Milton expenses. Uh we also had uh building
maintenance was down. Uh we had uh let's see here, we the PEMT grant is being rolled. That's $318,000. So there's the the decrease there to total about $1.1 million down. So in terms of the ESD millillage,
uh again the roll back the we're recommending 2.3531. Uh this would be the u fifth yeah fifth fifth fifth year in a row for
this rate. Um and uh again notably it is 6.2% 6.25% higher than the current milit rate. Uh while the military is staying the same, it is
legally considered a tax increase. And I think it's important to note as it relates to the emergency services district so the board is aware uh with the new fire station being completed over the next year and will be required to be staffed you're like we we will likely have to take a hard look at the
emergency service district military in the following year uh because to to fund those uh personnel expenses related to the station. So when you look at the uh this is a little bit better breakdown of the 11.9%
decrease when you look at you know the salaries you know generally 6.5% increase benefits uh there's about that n I don't think it's 99.4 9.4 9.4% 4%. Uh the operating is a
reduction as we just discussed 1.1 million. Uh capital I mean there's a significant decrease there because if you recall we have pre- purchased and some of that stuff in advance like a couple years ago we already pre- purchased it. Uh that's about an 80%
decrease but there's still $3.78 million towards capital. other uses there. It's uh you got $6.3 million for recommended which is an increase of about 2.5% or $2.5 million. So overall for total fire
rescue going from an 83 million 198 $83 million 19,519 budget to 73 million51,810 budget which is roughly a $10 million $9.9 million 12% decrease for for life
safety. Um overall I mean when you break it down to salaries you know you can see that it goes back to the total emergency service district budget is going to decrease by again 9.9 million or 11.9%. Our state agencies
um switch here. So we obviously we received requests and we met with you know uh the our at least we met with the I know the the court administrator who provides the information related to guardian at
lightam victim's assistance program state attorney public defender medical examiner submitted their budget and then we have a DJJ they've kind of submitted theirs or it's actually estimate it's estimate estimate it's like the tax collector so uh treasure coast regional
planning council They sent us the revised amount based on our membership. Uh, New Horizons, I will note New Horizons did make a request for a very substantial increase of about 77% and uh, their requested amount to be
exact was did I go too far? Yes. Okay. So, New Horizons, they asked for $725,000. Their current funding level is $45,000. Mhm. And so we we did you know and they
mentioned raised increased raises increased operation costs provide additional mobile response units and and so uh we just could not support anything beyond that you know uh basically we 44,563.
So that's for a for total a budget of 450. the health department uh they've submitted their budget you know it's increasing 7% uh largely due to support staffing levels and that's about 56,464
mentioned the Treasure Coast DJJ department juvenile justice again that's an estimate at 10% the teen court u essentially same budget uh the Indian River program same budget Medicare so we're seeing Medicaid we're seeing about
$179,000 increase or 11.6%. Uh certainly something we're keeping our eyes on, especially with what they're talking about at the federal level and how that may affect us. Uh court administration, this is one of the larger increases in terms of uh
$762,950 or 85.2%. Uh so they're going from 895,000 to 1.65 million. uh the guardian editum and what I will say about the it's largely you know it's our it's based on
our we pay for these state agencies our portion that for the services that are available or being used by uh those agencies uh guardian kind of modest increase 3.7 or $2,400 victim's
assistance program getting modest 1.6 6 $1,945. State attorney uh 8/10 of a percent, you know, decrease or 3,879. Public defender, 6.7% increase, but it's very modest in the amount, 7,128.
Medical examiner, uh $261,000 increase, 32.3%. And that's largely because the new budget does include the raises and and clearly the higher salary for our our share uh as it relates to. So overall
our state agencies are up 22.7% and again these are mandated by the state that the board has to fund. uh our economic development division. If you if you please recall that the chamber of commerce serves as the county's formal economic development
organization while we are hiring sorry uh John Oconor 2076 35th Avenue are we going to be able to to talk about any of the stuff that he's going over in between the like emergency services
district or are we going to be able to ask questions about it? Yes. Okay. Because I I didn't know if you guys were going all the way to the end and then you were going to have public commentarily what we do. Okay. Just clarifying. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. So, for economic development, this is through a contractual arrangement with the chamber. It has reduced over time. It's uh the the requested amount is $245,885 7 $7,160 increase of 3%.
Uh and then children's services as you know SEAC met yesterday again their budget is one year behind in terms of the revenue used for their expenses. Uh in 2024 there was uh 25 was 3,58,348.
there's an increase of 421,000 or 3.479 million. It's 13.8% increase. Uh if you recall that we have two uh CRAAS uh community redevelopment agencies whereby the county has agreed or the
county partners with these municipalities that have created a redevelopment agency and there is a tax increment finance redevelopment redevelopment trust fund and our portion of that goes into that trust fund for the city of Sebastian is is increasing
by 11.8 11.8% 8% or 3 to 339,892 and for the city of Felsmere uh it is is increasing by 81.8% and the amount is $119,790 total.
Does anybody have any questions of the county administrator? I I did on court admin. I know that wasn't that section. We kind of zoomed past it. Is that increase the 762,000
court administration. Oh, yes. The grant went away as it relates to the mental health court. So, that increases for in part. Uh and uh you know so we you know what I will say is you know we've had a meeting with at least one trustee
and the executive director for the the Indian River Hospital District and we know the amounts about $515,000. uh this current year I think they budgeted if I recall correctly after meeting se $711,000 but they're
projecting about uh an end of the year expenditure of about 545,000 and our request to them is that you know this 515,000 for next year that in essence that we share in that cost. Okay,
you know that we would split it you know like so 250750 500 if you will. So that would make it a little bit easier and then we So um so we've had conversations with them on this. So that's what we're hopeful for. I just want to clarify that for the record. Thank you.
Thank you. Okay. So now we we've completed um 9 10 and 11 the elements. Is there anybody from the public? Seeing no questions from the dis. Is there anyone from the public that would like to comment on any
one of those elements? Disappeared. Nine. Mr. Okconor, I think you emergency services. Good afternoon, John Oconor, 2076 35th Avenue. Welcome. Um, you guys are talking about emergency
services right now. Sure. Is it on? Yes, it's on there now. Um, are you okay? Uh if you could go back to the slide where um actually can you explain the the
decrease in the operating expenses the 10%. The operating expenses the operating expenses are proposed to go up. Oh the 10%. Well I answered that but I'll go back and do it again for the uh as
Commissioner Earman asked that question. the uh back that page. So, it's $1.1 million reduction. $174,000 of it was related to Milton expenses.
Uh there was there was a rollover last year of $45,000 that'll come out. Uh the building maintenance has been was decreased by $100,000 because some of the things were taken care of in current fiscal year. Uh the fuel has been down
$13,000 based on trends. Last year we purchased the uh the hybrid suits. There was $512,000. Huh. Yeah. And then the other what I will tell you is the uh uh the supplies are just generally down the cost by
150,000. And then our uh our P PMT grant was rolled and that's coming off and that's $318,000 and that totals the 1.1 million. Thanks. Appreciate it. Um I also noticed in the in the previous sections in human
resources we had a they talked about personal retention back in 2021 the rate was like 6.1% and then in uh well fiscal year 2021 and then 2122 it went from there's two different numbers there was 7.2 and 7.6
six and then 2022 or 2223 was which budget are you talking about talking about the slide the human resources slide when I talked about retention employee retention we don't have that slide not unless you're referring to the sheriff's budget
I'm referring to the it's in the it's like page 117 of of your budget talks it's like human resources I think he's talking about the human resources budget itself is that does that refer to overall personnel retention county. Get there.
What page? 117. I want to say it was one in the human resources area like page 117. General fund 0 117 shows the uh 203 shows shows the sheriff's budget. 117 is a sheriff's budget. We don't have
anything about retention. This is Oh, that's the budget book. That's not today. I'm sorry. That's the that's the annual budget book. Those are performance indicators in the budget book. Those would be for
the prior year. Okay. The budget book isn't done for this budget yet. Is it understand? Okay. Well, I just I guess I wanted to speak to it because I guess I would assume it's a little relevant to today because of the human resources performance of of how we're retaining employees, you know. So we're
at we were at 6.1% in the FY 2021 and now we're I didn't have the numbers for 2425 but they're at they were at 8.7% in 23 24. So we're seeing a pretty steady incline and um
our turnover retention. So if we employ what a thousand people in the county roughly you know between all of everybody that's covered. I mean, if you go up to I mean, if it goes to up to 10%, you're talking about 100 people a year that we're turning over, you know, at what cost. So, just making the board
aware of it. Um, and my last question is, was there any uh what was proposed from the fire chief to staff? Was there anything cut um or after the fact, and what was that? I'm not I don't understand that
question. You're saying the fact of the fire chief proposed his budget at whatever 50 million and was there anything cut out of the count the our fire chief's proposal to what is been recommended by staff.
Okay. County. The department request was actually 73,47,521. The county administrator's recommendation is 73,216,776. So, no, it's actually we added to it. Oh, good.
All right. Well, hang. So, uh 76. So, actually, let's go back. We were looking at expenses. So, that's revenue. This is Okay. So, it was proposed 76 76 million258,049
was the request and the the cut was or the recommendation is 73,585,471. Um the largest change was on the capital line for about $4 million. Um, and it's not necessarily that we I mean some of the stuff we did kind of push out um
into a a subsequent year, but we also had the ability to move some to optional sales tax to take the burden off the taxing fund. Um, so it's not necessarily that I mean this shows a decrease, but it just got moved to optional sales tax instead of the district. Okay. For the apparatus
that was already planned. Understand? Thank you. Anyone else? Steve Gier from Vero Beach Highlands a couple slides back. Yeah. Okay. Uh that you were showing on the emergency
services district that it says benefits 99.4%. Now, I assume that that's a it's 9.4%. Yeah, it's a misprint. Okay. But down but down below it says other uses. It's jacked up 66.8%.
What is that? Pull that up. It's going to be reserved for contingency in the transfers. Okay. Also in the emergency services, it shows three new positions at $121,000 a piece.
Yes, they're captains. Captain and they're being funded by a grant. Okay. So, that's not really part of part of our budget then. Well, it it's part of the budget. It just the revenue will come into the will. It's part of the budget. It's just funded by a grant instead of the mill
rate because we have those grant revenues. So, that's what will fund it. So there's not a burden on the taxpayers for those three positions and the two Taho and the equipment. Okay. Thank you very much. What that grant expires
it. We have multiple years to spend it, but it's a finite amount. So it really depends on how fast we spend it. I anticipate there may be some ability to cover salaries um in a second year, but it probably won't cover all three for an
entire year. the district will have to start to assume those expenses when the grant runs out. Yes, absolutely. So, next year we'll have an increased concern. I do believe and Dave can probably speak about this better than I can. There may be the ability to request additional funding, but I'm not sure how um secure
that funding is at at this moment. Is it federal? Yes, there's a proposal out there now to um extend the funding for another couple of years, but uh our forecast says we could pay for these positions for about two and a half years
if there's no increase currently, but there is talk of increases. Um it was funded out for three years, but with the prices that we have now, we it equals out to two and a half. Thank you, Chief. And that's through the core program which stands for the
coordinated opioid recovery program. Thank you. Anything else? Sir, welcome. Thank you. Uh my name is Matt Redstone. On behalf of the deputies association,
uh we we stand side by side with our firefighters and uh support their request uh for additional pay this year. Thank you. Thank you, sir. All right. Well, we can move on to
nonprofits. Yeah. Okay. So, here we have the nonprofits. Um, per the outside agency funding policy, those are capped at 2%, which is the CPI for April of this year. Um, so although each of them did request more than 2% that's all we're recommending for the current
fiscal year, for the upcoming fiscal year. Okay. Next are the quasi nonprofits um veterans council an increase of 10.2%. They're seeing increased writership to the VA um and are requesting that
additional funding to provide those services. Uh SRRA additional 10.6 6% those are matching funds for the grants for her um purchase of vehicles. Um Gford Youth Achievement Center again
capped at the 2%. Keep going. Progressive Civic League is flat. Humane Society 10% increase in the event that the contract extends past November of 2025. That's a staff estimate. Um and
then Treasure Coast Homeless Services additional 5%. Uh they did request an additional 38% however uh the budget did not allow us to grant that request. So 5% is the county administrator's recommendation there.
You think there's some What is it? Anybody wishing to speak on the nonprofit organizations? Hi. Good morning. Uh Phil Cromer, Mental Health Association. I'm the CEO. Uh first and foremost, I just want to say
thank you. Um, I might be preaching to the choir, but these are difficult times, different economic times, a lot of uh turmoil, and it it just funnels down into to everything. So, you know, not to state the obvious here, but it
also does funnel into what we do at the mental health association, uh, because we see all of this angst and, uh, uh, anger and anxiety and depression and all of this kind of filters down into people and how we
manage things. So, the funding you're giving us really helps tremendously. it helps our uh residents of Indian River County um in particular. And I'll just kind of mention just a couple of brief things because we have had increases across the board. We've had increases in
the number of uh psychological services that we provide, the number of screenings that we provide, uh suicide and risk assessments, they've gone up. Our psychiatric services, they've also gone up. Uh but what we're doing is working. It's working. And I know that
because of not just the satisfaction surveys and the treatment plans that we're doing with all these individuals being successfully accomplished and these people being discharged. Uh but we've had zero Baker acts uh up until this point in the year and compared to
the last time we were here. So that's tremendous. So we're not having to send anyone to the hospital. It saves tremendous amount of money if we can do it inhouse. uh we kind of manage our crisis and um just thank you. We we
appreciate all that you do. So, I'll keep it brief. Thank you, Dr. Phil. We appreciate your work. As a matter of fact, uh and then you you uh mentioned the high-risising uh cost of doing business. Yeah. But I want to say thank you for the your
efficient uh manner in which you address the issues and the way you run your organization. Thanks, Joe. Thank you, everyone. Thanks. We are a 501c. So if I may be allowed the time. Yeah, sure. Okay. So I'm here as a chairman of the
Indian River County Victim's Rights Coalition. And uh our purpose and our goals are to help those financially who are crimes or victims of crime. um we provide emergency services to those people and we don't take one penny of uh
taxpayers money. It's all funded by the money that the uh convicted DUI offenders give to us at the victim impact panel. So um that's that's why I'm here. Think of me maybe as not as myself but as a voice for the voiceless.
So uh let me just draw a few comparisons here. A health care professional usually upon exam they see things that we don't see. Okay. A teacher sees behaviors in our children that affect learning that parents don't always see.
Law enforcement officer sees dangers that we don't effectively see as civilians. And so it is with the victims of crime. They see the life, the grief, the hardships, the fun, the financial losses
that others don't see. A very important part of the county's budget for police protection must be weighed against the real possibility of property tax increases levy levied against struggling families. We the people will pay for the critical
decisions that you make that control our safety and balance it with the quality of our lives. So, I want to congratulate the law enforcement officers of Indian River County because along with the victim impact panel, they accomplished an
unprecedented zero zero highway fatalities from alcoholrelated deaths in 2024. That's a significant $5 million per fatality. And I'd like to know if that's reflected
in any way in the budget since there's a lot of resources, law enforcement refor resources that are being used. So in order to appreciate the number of lives saved, let's compare apples with apples. We have Well, I I appreciate your comments.
We're we're not talking about the sheriff's budget now. And uh if that's where we're going with this there, let's now I thought you talking about the service you provide for the 501c3. But yes, with that in mind, why don't we uh take
your presentation later on when we're talking about the sheriff's budget once again. All right. Okay. Thank you. Hi. Good morning, uh chairman and commissioners. I'm Ty Barnes with 211 Palm Beach. Uh we are 21 Palm Beach and
Treasure Coast. Um uh just to you know inform we do cover Indian River, St. Lucy, Martin and Okachchobee counties as well. Um your funds are critical for the impact we have in the community. We are a 247 365 um community helpline uh
mostly known for suicide prevention and crisis intervention, but we also have programs um that that benefit the public. Can we maintain a database of thousands of resources um within the community? Our impact in Indian River County in 2024, just to give you an
idea, we had over 4,000 contacts with um members of the Indian River County community. 91 of those were suicide related. We do answer the 988 national um lifeline calls for the area as well. And we made over 600 uh made over 6,100
referrals to other agencies in the community. So again, we thank you for your support. We appreciate it. Thank you for what you do. Thank you. Any further commission, it's your pleasure to move
forward break now and we have to return back to a meeting at 1:30 uh which is time certain and we will also have a meeting from 2:00 on. Uh we'll have to try to work
that all that through. The 1:30 meeting should uh take about 15 minutes uh 20 minutes which will get us right into that 2:00 time. Yep. I think is that all right if you is everybody okay with taking a break now?
You want to take a break till what? 1:30. Is that what you're saying? Give them time to work out and have lunch. 1:30. Okay. I want to advise the public that can chairman can you advise us the ones who want to speak on behalf of the That's what I was about to do. Sorry. Thank you. Uh I I do want to advise the
public that if that's the case and knowing the commitments that we have that we would not anticipate any uh go movement forward of this hearing until uh after after the 2:00 time when we
would have to have that session uh which should be very brief uh and it will be here and you're welcome to be here but uh we would not have any interaction with the rest the continuence of the budget hearing till about 2:15 I would
say in in all fairness. So if you need a break or whatever you want to do and you come back you're more than welcome and we seek your input meeting for now. This is back.
We'll be moving on to the SWID portion of our presentation. One minute, Mr. Chair. That's a sw solid waste disposal fish. There we go. All right. Good
morning, chair. Hope everybody enjoyed their lunch. Thank you. And obviously a long day, but you know they say that this is arguably one of the most important days and most important decisions that a a board will make in ter determining the resource
allocation and the priorities for the community. So the solid waste disposal district, excuse me. So as the board knows, you already voted to adopt universal collection. uh this budget is uh this
this is the budget and adopted rates you approved with the exception of the universal collection assessment. So for the landfill just by budget because as you know we landfill and recycling we went out for contracts for the landfill we we have you know we went both with
the republic and so the increase with the new contracts uh it goes from 19.8 8 this fiscal year to 32.1 next fiscal year. And the recommendation is a 12.3 million increase, 62.4%.
Recycling, uh, only a 29.8% looks good compared to 62, but is still a 3.6 million increase. So the total expenses for SWID, you know, lessing out the capital is you 42,47,435
and that is a $13.1 million increase which represents a 45.6% you know increase. The if you recall below the universal collection it's in bold because you've already approved the residential eru, the commercial waste generation unit and
the readiness to use fee. So for the universal collection the the annual assessment would be 18170 and I'll return it to the board for any comments on that or for public comment.
Yeah, return to the board for any public comments or public. Any questions for County administrator regarding SWID. Seeing none, is there any member of the public that wishes to
enter into discussion on the SWID assessment? Seeing none, thank you, county administrator. This portion of the meeting is now closed. We will now
suspend the budget hearing, budget workshop, and we'll now open up a special call meeting that will be No, I can't do it. If you want, we can go back and do the
street lights and the MSBUs because the special calls at 2:00 time certain or or after or after two or after because we didn't know exactly when we'd get to this item. So, you were real quick then. All right.
Well, some things we're going to have to suspend that and we'll now go return back to the street lighting districts and special uh assessment rates for so my only comment is Mr. Chair, you have the honor to announce the
assessment rates or who you're going to pick to present the assessment rates for our street light district MSB. I know that Commissioner Moss was very uh uh anxious to be a presenter, so we'll turn it over to Commissioner Moss.
I I'd be happy to. And I I'll start reading them now. Uh this is Gford. Uh $21 per parcel acre and there will be no difference. Also $21 in the coming year. Uh Laurelwood, $44 per parcel acre and
again no difference. $44 in the coming year. Rock Ridge uh $3 for parcel acre and again no no no change $3 in the coming uh new fiscal year. Uh Vera Highlands $47
and part parcel acre and remaining at $47 in the coming year. Uh Porpus Point $7 and remaining at $7 in the coming year. That's for Parcel Acre. Um, Laurel
Court $48 and remaining at $48 a parcel acre in the coming year. Tiara Linda, there is a change. It's 5050, excuse me, $55 parcel acre and going to 56. So that is a $1, uh, difference in the coming
year. Bureau Shores uh, $34 for parcel acre and remaining at $34 in the coming year. Zora Park, uh, $32 for parcel acre and remaining at $32. Royal Point Sienna, $51 for parcel acre
and remaining at $51 in the coming year. Rosland, $3 and remaining at $3 for parcel acre in the coming year. Whispering Pines, uh, we have a change there. That's $25 per parcel acre and that will be going to $31
parcel acre and that is a change of $6. Uh the moorings $9 of a parcel acre and that will stay the same in the coming year at $9. Uh Walker's Glenn $20 parcel acre and that will stay the same at $20
in the coming year. Glendale Lakes $40 per parcel acre and that will remain at $40. Uh Floralton Beach $45 and that will remain at $45 in the new year. West Wabaso $18 which will remain at $18 in
the coming year and it's a parcel acre. Um Oceanside is a parlot charge and that's $51 and that will remain at $51 in the coming year. Osel Park also is a per lot charge and that is at $20 and
will remain at $20 in the coming year. Is there is there more? If there's more then I'm reading from the screen. No, he said you spiked it. You did a good job. Oh, okay. Thank you. Anytime. I'll do it every year if you want. We've all had the opportunity and sometimes it takes a
different current. You got it straight. All right. Any questions? Anybody have any input? What is that? The next one would be the MSPUs and other assessments.
So pleases the board I can go over all three of them real quickly. So Ver Lake Estates, the MSBU, it's per parcel or acre. Uh it's currently $50, you know, per parcel or acre and the proposal is no increase and it's at $50 for the
upcoming 2526 year. The East Gford stormwater MSBU is per partial acre and it's currently $10 in the fiscal year and then for the upcoming fiscal year 2526 proposed to remain the same. So there's zero difference. The North County water assessment per parcel acre
is $29053. Uh there is a it's proposed to reduce by $7.31 which would bring it to 283.22. Thank you. We'll move on. Okay. Next is golf course. Uh the proposed budget is 5.1 million. It's a 7
1% increase um or $339,65. This is mainly due to the increase in the contract that we have to maintain the greens. Um and that's going up $219,000. Next, we have building department proposed budget is 7,713,641.
Uh an increase of 10%. We do have nine Okay, we do have nine new positions. uh proposed for the building division, but we've also been able to decrease our supplemental building spec inspector services by $500,000
um because we did add those in-house positions. Next, we have utilities. Proposed budget is 65,151,757. That's a 3.8% decrease. Um that decrease is mainly because of the fluctuation in capital from year to year. We are adding
one additional full-time position and reclassing one position as well. Um, as the board is aware and and has already approved in the past, we are going to have a 12% increase in our utility rates effective October 1st of 2025. Um, that
coupled with new growth is proposed to generate an additional about $ 8.6 million in the utilities revenue budget. The next two are our water and sewer impact fees. Um, water impact fees, $876,256. Uh, that's a $320,744
decrease. This past year was the first year we separated those impact fees out into two funds. Um, so we're just kind of trueing up to actuals there. So that's why there's a large decrease. Same with sewer impact fees. On the next line, the proposed budget is $1,19,87,
which is a decrease of 29.6%. 6%. Next, we have the internal service fund uh fleet management budget proposed at $4,656,014. That's a 1.6% increase. That's mainly due to the increased costs that we're seeing for our sublet repairs. Those are
the repairs that we um contract out that we are not able to perform inhouse. risk management self- insurance proposed budget is 10,381,272 an increase of 8.5%. Um, as the board is aware, we brought you the agenda item a
couple months back for the raising of the premium the increased premium cost we're seeing in risk management employee health insurance fund. The proposed budget is 35,2 uh 2,730.
That's a $1.7 million increase or 5.1%. That's obviously due to the rising pharmacy and um pharmaceutical costs that we're seeing uh with the GLP1 specifically. There's also an additional position being proposed in that budget
for the upcoming fiscal year. And then lastly, we have information technology. Proposed budget is 7,158,160. That's an additional $931,668 or 15%. Um, and without going into too much detail, it's additional software
and and hardware um, expenses that we're going to face in the upcoming fiscal year. And dovetailing on that, some of that is going to become be paid for through the Florida's cyber security grant. It could we're estimating about 450 could go higher or lower depending on how much
they negotiate the price with the vendors but we've already agreed to the solutions. So uh we're excited that our consultants were able to uh you know that stood in for us when we had a a change in leadership uh were able to secure that grant because they paid for
themselves about four times over five. Any other any questions on the enterprise funds or anybody from the public? I do uh denote that uh we have Spoon
Bill and Osprey and the other marsh projects are under conservation. They're not enterprise. there would be a question since we have so many others. Okay. Well,
down to the wire now and we still have uh 11 minutes to go. So, we can probably get the miscellaneous funds out of the way. Right. All right. First, we have traffic improvement fees. Um this fund 102 are
the impact fees that are no longer levied. The budget is zero for next year. Um because we are hoping to spend those down this fiscal year. Anything that we have left at the end of the fiscal year will just roll into next fiscal year via budget amendment. Uh FO 103 additional impact fees of proposed
budget is 1,94,483. Uh this is a $10.2 million decrease. That's just the fluctuation of the capital projects that are ongoing that will be rolled into the to the upcoming fiscal year. Traffic impact fees 2020. The proposed MI uh budget is 14.7
million. Again, um an increase of 7 million due to capital projects rental assistance. The proposed budget is 3,993,330. This decrease is due to um rental revenue that they're experiencing in the fund. Secondary road construction
proposed budget is 8.8 million. This is a $348,000 increase. Um again fluctuation of projects from year to year for our road projects. Special law enforcement fund the proposed budget is zero. Um those those funds are handled via budget
amendment throughout the fiscal year as they're requested. Tree ordinance fines. Proposed budget is $360,000, a decrease of $10,000. Tourist development fund uh 2.2 million for $2,243,900.
That's a proposed increase of $260,681. Um the board already approved this budget. They approved the TDC's recommendation. But just as a reminder, we are expecting um a 10% increase in revenues there in addition to the fifth cent that will be levied for the whole
time uh this fiscal year. Next is our 911 searchcharge fund. $1,627,75. That's a $1.6 million decrease. That's due to um call taking equipment that they have budgeted in the current fiscal year that they received grant funding
for. Next is a drug abuse trust fund 75,000. That's a $25,000 increase that's been requested uh from the 19th judic judicial uh circuit court. Next, we have our SHIP funding, 1.9 million. That's a
$1.8 million decrease. Uh as John mentioned before, there's a decrease in our allocation from the state for the upcoming fiscal year. Next, we have our MO fund. proposed budget is $791,34, a decrease of $24,211.
Um, we're seeing a reduction in the grants they're anticipated to receive uh for next fiscal year. Native Upland's acquisition fund, the proposed budget is $100,000. It's a decrease of $40,000. And lastly, we have our coastal engineering fund. The
proposed budget is um 10,400,329. This is a 101 $191,925 decrease. Um again, capital project difference there. In the current fiscal year, we have sector sector 4 budgeted and then the next fiscal year we have sector five that's planned to start.
Moving on, we have our neighborhood stabilization plan. Um that's a $10,000 proposed budget with no change from the current fiscal year. Florida Boating Improvements Fund proposed budget is $65,000. It's a decrease of $550,900
due to the completion of some capital projects that we had planned in the current fiscal year. Disabled access programs proposed budget is zero. That's a decrease of almost $35,000. Um, and we're just awaiting for new projects to be proposed to use for those
funds. Intergovernmental grants, the proposed budget is zero. It's a decrease of almost 591,000. Treasure Coast Homeless is scheduled to take over these grants, which is why there's um the decrease to zero there. Dory Sosber Driver Education Safety Act,
49,000. Um that's level funding that's proposed. The ARP and CARES Act funding um those funds will just roll over into the next fiscal year depending on what's left at the end of this current fiscal year. We have some contracts outstanding
and and some some expenses that we're trying to wrap up there. Court facility searchcharge fund proposed budget is $120,824. A slight decrease there of only $176. Additional court cost funds uh proposed
budget is $95,000. This is decreasing $53,871 because we were building up cash in that fund. So last year we decided to use some of that cash because the leftover uh expenses that we can't afford to fund out of these funds get funded from the
general fund. So we've reduced that burden on the general fund last year. Um so that's why the decrease is for this upcoming fiscal year. Uh next we have court technology fund proposed budget is 300,000 a difference of 200 uh $20,000
there. land acquisition series. Um, this is our old our previous land acquisition bond funding. The proposed budget is zero. We're hoping to have that fund spent down in the current fiscal year for the plan projects that we have and then it will just go away um going
forward. Fund 147 opioid settlement funding. Um, that's the funding that we've received from those different the two different settlements that we've received. We handle those via budget amendment as we receive them because the numbers have changed um from time to
time on what we have been scheduled to receive. And then last we have the land acquisition series. This is the most recent um issuance that the board did last year for the 25 million. We have no way of anticipating what's going to be spent between now and the end of the
fiscal year. So whatever is left as of se as of September 30th will just roll into the next fiscal year and the board can uh spend those funds then. Nick, this should be the last slide I think we should do because the next one after this is the aggregate mill that you may
want to suspend and wait till we finish with the sheriff's budget. Absolutely, sir. Okay. So, next we have the Dodger bonds fund. Proposed budget is 500,000. This is for the debt service payment that we have that's funded by the 500,000 that
we receive uh by the state every fiscal year. land acquisition bond fund. This is where the debt service is for the 25 million that I just mentioned. Um, this budget is 1.8 million and that's the principal and interest for the bond that
we have. That's the 0.061. Yeah. Village that we mentioned earlier. Um, fund 308 Jackie Robinson Training Complex proposed budget is $424,768. This is our lease obligation for the capital maintenance out at the Jackie Robinson Training Complex. Um it is
increasing annually by the CPI now. Um which is why we're seeing an an increase in their normal allocation. The decrease is because we've funded additional projects outside of their normal capital and maintenance obligations um for some upkeep out out there and those projects
are wrapping up. And then last we have the optional sales tax fund. proposed budget is 53,870,236, a decrease of $34,263,675. And again, that's just a fluctuation of capital projects. Any of that 88 million that's outstanding incomplete at the end
of uh this fiscal year will be rolled into next fiscal year and completed. Then any questions? Anybody from the public? Well, at this point, we really have no
choice but to uh take a brief recess as we're obligated to initiate at 2:00. So, at that point, we have about 9 minutes to go. So, we'll take a break until then. And uh you'll have your
conversation with the sheriff. John. Yes, sir. You all had your conversation with the sheriff? We did. Yes. Okay. So, or what? With his staff. Uh I mean, and they're not here, but I what I can tell you is that the the sheet and the information I
presented has been validated with his staff. Thank you. Okay. So, was correct. We'll be back in eight minutes. What does it now reconvene
and we will again suspend the workshop and move forward to a special meeting uh that uh will consider the initial assessment resolution for solid waste collection services. I turn it over to
our county attorney. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um you know, just now you had your uh budget presentation where you had your SWID hearing and you looked at those rates for your solid waste collection and disposal. Um, but
the solid waste collection special assessment is new and it hasn't technically been formed yet. So even though you've been discussing it, this is actually the mechanics of forming that special assessment under our new master assessment ordinance. So basically what this initial assessment
resolution does is describes the assessment um, which will fund garbage, weekly carted yard waste, and weekly limited bulk collection in um, the unincorporated area. You've got your estimated rate, which was shown before,
which is 18170 for each dwelling unit. And upon approval of this resolution, um, it directs the county administrator to prepare the assessment role, uh, schedule a final public hearing and provide for public notice of that
hearing. And the public notice that most people are going to get is through their trimmed bill, which is what Mr. uh, our property appraiser Davis described. So basically um at this point I know that Hamanchu is here in case the board has
any questions about um the the specifics but I know you've talked this one a lot already. So uh my recommendation is that the board approve the initial assessment resolution for the solid waste collection services.
Any questions? And I don't know if there's public comment on this, but it is an action item. This is not a public public hearing item. However, if anybody wishes to speak about the special assessment thank you having given ample opportunity
if anyone wish to come forward. Is there any discussion here on the board? Mr. Chair, if there's no further discussion or questions from the commissioner, I'll be happy to move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second by
Commissioner Adams and myself. Any further discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Opposed? Nay. and that's consistent with my uh previous voting record with regard to uh mandatory universal collection.
Thank you. Thank you. Motion passes 4 to one with Commissioner Moss dissenting. Thank you. Special call meeting will now be
terminated. And now we'll go back to the Do we see the is the sheriff here? Yes, we Council, you were so expeditious and there was not much question involved. So, we did advise 215, but uh I do now see the
sheriff here. So, we'll continue on with our budget workshop. And I believe we left off with the sheriff having to uh or wanting to compare numbers to ensure that we were in the right spot and
position uh with accurate numbers. Nothing has changed. We've met multiple times. your county administrator is nowhere near where I need to be to fund my raises. I have nothing left to say about this. You guys might as well start hearing from the public. And when you're
done and you decide how much you're going to give us, put in writing what you want me to cut. You have a copy of the budget. Thank you, Sheriff. Sir, the the the question before we had uh terminated the uh meeting for some time
or suspended the meeting. Uh there was some discussion as to the numbers the comparison of what was allotted and what was uh actually reflected from office management budget from the sheriff's office and to our office of management of budget. Has that been
There was one item that will be amended on our uh that we will fix. It was about crossing guards. They were um listed as full-time and they are actually part-time employees. So it was over. It ends up being about 8 million and 8
million 9 8 million 8 something around that area. And so um we will amend that item. But it's uh it's interpretation. It's uh you know the way that we put our information in there is correct. It is not wrong. um when the county administrator springs these last minute
11th hour spreadsheets on us um the way he's interpreting it the way we interpret it are two different things. So okay you we're not talking about the same thing. So I I you have my ask you have my budget you have the entire thing funded or don't that's where I'm at. You
listen to the public. So, Mr. Chair, wait a minute. You you you're just com you're stating that the the disparity in numbers was interpretation. There definitely an an element of interpretation. Yes, there is an element of that in there. The way that I mean,
is Amy up there somewhere? You ready to come? I mean, numbers are what the numbers are, Sheriff. Yeah, I just and that's why we we wanted to hold off because I want the public I want this board and yourself to have accurate information
that is justifiable. Sure. And and I stand behind the budget we submitted. Are there things that we need to update? Yeah, absolutely. We'll get those things updated for you. No problem. inclusive of the that uh estimate of what was
being allotted for the deputies increase. You comment notifying it. Amy, go ahead. Good afternoon. Uh yes, the numbers that were on the county admin administrator's spreadsheet, the differences, those are legit differences. However, the reason
for the differences is the information he did not have. whether it was based on positions in fiscal year 25 versus positions in fiscal year 26 transfers the numbers the numbers he had were legit because what he had was the
difference between 25 and 26 but there's reasonable explanations which I provided I I feel that possibly maybe we're looking for just a flat number of positions the the difference divided by number of positions is a per
average. We're not going to get there, but that doesn't mean the numbers aren't accurate. Mr. Chair, if I can ask a question. So after your your lunch meeting, um if the deputies were to get $9,800 a year
and civilians get $2,500 a year for $6 million. That gets you very close uh to the numbers you're looking for. And that was, I believe, discussed over lunch. Then we don't agree. We're not there. I am
not there. I'm not going to get there. I asked for $14 million. I asked for $14 million. There's a reason for it. We've given you line by line. You guys are arguing about crossing guards right now. Do you want to protect this community? Do you want to have public safety? Well,
what I'm saying is $6 million uh according to the math that was discussed at lunch is almost $10,000 a year for sworn and $2,500 for civilians. That would leave you, according to your math, another $9 million.
You guys do whatever you want to do. I'm telling you that this is not going to get us there. Sheriff, I'm just looking at the numbers and these are the numbers that were discussed at lunch. This is the same thing that has happened when you were sheriff. This is the same thing. The kicking of the can, the not
funding what needs to occur. You guys do not understand all the things that are happening. The cost of everything going through the roof over there. Uniforms alone, 15 to 40% increases that don't even exist in this budget right now. That's come up after we submitted it May
1st. Tariff incidents, things that we have to pay for. So th this whole discussion when we're when we're splitting hairs when you guys are sitting here picking apart this. You're not going down the right path on this because the public is tired of this
nonsense. We get calls every day. How come you're not dealing with traffic? How come you're not dealing with this? How come you're not dealing with my neighborhood? How come you're not dealing with that? I have zero new positions in this budget. Zero. You guys are getting 28. I have zero new
positions. I'm asking you to pay these people so they don't leave on me. They want to be here. They want to work. They want to stay and be a part of this community. I I'm telling you, I know you guys think that I've drawn this crazy budget. Every
time we go back to zero dollar, we go back and start all over. We look at trends. We look at what it's cost us in the past, but we go all the way to the bottom. We say, "What can we do this?" They will tell you. I sit in staff meetings and I say, "Tell every one of our vendors that the sheriff is angry
with them. Find someone who will do it faster, better, and cheaper. Every one of our vendors, we revisit every single contract. If you guys give us 6 million and I've asked for 14, I will have to make cuts. There is no
situation that that gets me to where I need to be. I will have to make cuts." So, I think the beginning of the discussion was about taking care of the men and women, which I think all five of us agree. Okay. If we're talking $10,000
per sworn employee and $2,500 per civilian, that is $6 million. You may have come up you may have come up with that math, but that is not what I'm asking for, Sheriff. That's what your comproller and our comproller came up with at lunch.
Okay? That's not what we're asking for. That's not what we're asking for. That was the recommendation. That was the recommendation by the county administrator was to change our starting pay from 50 to 59 or 595 60.
I thought you had 9,500. Oh, it's 619 9381 brings it to the $60,000 that the I forget the gentleman's name said that needs to be at. So the 60,000 would put them in a line the parody for the
firefighters. The the second issue though was our civilians were only he put a 3500 average raise and due to the pay study that we did to try to bring our civilians up to more comparative and competitive pay. That was too short.
That that was too low. So, we did not the the sheriff had authorized us to walk out with 8.8. That's the 9 million with my $28,000 correction for the school crossing guards. So, 8.8 was
where we left it. Did we get any correspondence regarding $6 million from the sheriff's office? Not correspondence but it was conversation. Conversation that conversation was from our office
management. I think it was it was an rough estimate and I think it was only for the wages. I don't think it included the other cover the wages only. Yeah, it was just wages salaries. Nothing else that in the sheriff's request.
This is $10,000 across the board for every sworn, all boats rice on both sides, as well as significant increase for the civilians. I I tell you, Sheriff, that's that's a
hard number to leave. I understand that's a hard number to leave on the table. $10,000 per deputy. Every year we settle. I'm done settling. I gave you the Florida statute. Put it in writing what
you're not funding me for. Listen to these people who are applying for food stamps that work for me. You guys have a what was it? You guys told me during the break you got an an administrative assistant job for $51,000. My starting deputies are making 50. You're on your website. $51,000.
I don't know what to tell you. predictable. Sheriff is done. There anybody from the public that wishes to uh speak regarding this matter? Yes.
Told you. Hello, please state your your name and uh my name is Renee Reya. I am the essential records manager and I kind of wanted to talk on a little bit about what the sheriff had said. I know everybody's kind of, you know,
concentrating a lot on the deputies, which is extremely important, but we tend to forget the civilians a little bit. And I know you guys had said something a little bit about the civilians, but one of the things I want to say is our starting salary for civilians makes $16.67.
Okay? We ask these people to do a large number of job tasks that require a high level of accuracy because if we're not accurate, it affects the men and women that are putting their lives on the line. We could be pulling somebody over that they we don't need have any
business pulling over because we made a mistake. So, we need to be accurate in the jobs that we do. And I know everybody goes, "Oh, but the benefits, the benefits are not what they used to be." I have parents that cannot afford our health insurance. Okay? They have to
have their children on the state health insurance because they can't afford our family health insurance. The other thing we have is I've got out of 17 employees, 10 of them can't leave their parents or family homes. they cannot move out on their own because they don't make enough
money. So that these are things to consider and like the sheriff had said, I've got employees putting in for food stamps. They can't put food on their table because we don't pay them enough. I understand, you know, Commissioner Fletcher, you had said you have to take
care of the taxpayers. You have to take care of the the people. These are your people. We can they can't even live the American dream, right? that's supposed to be able to move out, have your own home, put food on the table for your kids or your people. They can't afford to do that. How are we how are we taking
care of our people when they can't even, you know, leave their own home. Everybody wants to be what? Independent, right? They want to live out on their own. They want to get their first apartment, their first whatever. They're incapable because of what we are paying them. This is part of what the sheriff has said. I know they're concentrated on the
deputies, but part of what it is is also the civilians who help. We're in the back of, you know, the background of these sworn people making sure that they are safe every day. I mean, I'm just kind of going with what you had said about taking care of the
people. That's all I got. Thank you. No problem. Good afternoon. My name is Lisa Bair and I live up in Sebastian. I would like to address this issue because this is all about priorities.
You're not going to like this, but things have changed since May. And I think the sheriff needs $20 million in his budget right now. And I'm going to explain why. The two most important things that local government provides is
safety and the perception of safety. It's the quality of life. If you are not safe or if you feel you are not safe, you are not going to enjoy the golf courses and all the other things that you've listed in your
budgets. You're not going to be leaving your house. All the money that's put into downtown Vero and bringing in more revenue, forget it. When people don't go to the restaurants, they are not bringing in revenue. The restaurants
close, the businesses close. your revenue from those businesses dries up all because our priorities are not the safety of the people. The safety of the people is provided primarily by the police forces which
include the sheriff and the fire department. At the moment, the fire department is making competitive wages with Brevard and with St. Lucy County, and that is great and they deserve it. It's a hard job. They put their lives on
the line, but so do our police officers. So do our sheriff's officers. The other thing that makes the budget even more important that it grows exponentially
is just look around. It's hard to find a single lot left that isn't being taken up and built upon. This is not the Indian River County that it was just a few years ago. And guess what? It's going to continue to grow. They're now
putting up more and more buildings. And you saw, we all saw what happened in New York City. If you don't think there's going to be an explosion of even more people coming down here, you're not watching the news. There's going to be a
lot of people fleeing New York City, winding up here in Indian River County. That was not contemplated when the budget was held given to you in May of this year. This is a recent thing. We
have to be ahead of the curve, not behind it. We have to provide safety for our people knowing what's coming down the line. If we wind up losing our deputy sheriffs because they can go to
Brevard or they can go to St. Lucy and make significantly more, what are we really doing? We're training them. We're spending the money to train them. They then turn around. Thank you. Thank you.
[Music] Good afternoon. Katherine Gibson, retired deputy for a year from Indian River County Sheriff's Office, and I sat on our board of our union for all of Daryl Lur's time and
most of Eric's time so far. This has been a continuous problem that I've been in front of this board, whether it's you all personally, I know two that have been on this board. Um, it's it's been a kick the can, I
believe. I heard, pass it to next year, let's just do whatever. This board has been historically um reactive instead of proactive when it comes to this problem. I sat at that table every year negotiating wages with then Jim
Harpering Daryl Lure asking for more money providing wage surveys and the wage surveys were all done nice and neat handing them over and we got told to pound sand. This has been a problem that's been con, you know, just
accumulating over the years. Over the years we have been doing nothing but trying to play catch-up. When Eric took office, he gave us a step plan. We had been trying to get that for years under Daryl Lure. Uh that was we were told to pound sand on that, too. I'm not quite
sure why it is that this board does not understand the problem which arises. You could talk six years ago, seven years ago, we were losing people to other agencies that were paying more and now it's getting predominantly worse. Nobody feels that they should stay at an agency
out of loyalty anymore. The loyalty is out the window. They want to get paid. And our benefit package compared to other counties benefit patch package blows. I don't know what else to tell you all this. I have come in front of
you all over and over and over again telling you all that this is a problem. I have come out of retirement to come stand at this podium to tell you all how big of a problem it is. Daryl Lur ignored it for his years in office. Eric's trying to fix it. He's already
behind the time and yet you all are sitting there and pissing and moaning over a few million dollars. Tap into your reserves. Tap into something. Raise the millage rate. do something because you sure raised it for the firefighters to get their nice big fat raise, but you
won't do something for the law enforcement. Is it personal? Are y'all mad at him? Do you hate him? Do you hate the sheriff's office? What is it? What is it going to take for y'all to realize that this is an extreme problem? I don't
know what else to say on this subject other than I've said it every time in front of y'all. I packed the house a few years ago. Y'all were mad about that. I didn't pack the house today, but I sure came out today because I wouldn't want y'all to miss me. Thank you for pushing
it back to 2 o'clock so I could make it because I had other prior engagements, but I'm here. This is ridiculous. Are you going to suit up? Are you going to suit up and get in a car and go protect? Thank you, Miss Gibson. Good afternoon. My name is James Dick. I
live in West Vero in the unincorporated county. I've only been here a year and a half. I met the sheriff early on because I'm active in neighborhood watch because we have a lot of problems out there. Homeless people coming through stealing bikes, stealing all kinds of stuff. So, we got organized and the sheriff's
department gave us a great plan to work from. He's the best sheriff I've ever seen. I've lived in 17 counties around the United States with sheriffs. There have been some good ones. There have been some bad ones. There have been some wishy-washy one. This is a great one.
This guy is good. I came down here from Elatchua County. It was a snake pit. They were having shootouts in the streets and nothing ever happened. Here's what's going to happen. If you get rid of the good deputies that you have, they leave here. This place is going to turn into a dump just like New
York, just like Jacksonville, just like Miami is parts of the place. Wake up, folks. It's not the same world. He's absolutely right. The constitutional sheriff was designed to be the most powerful person in any county because of
what he does. Safety. The primary purpose of government is keeping your international borders safe and your internal country safe. We're not doing either one right now because everybody's wishy-washy. Look, it doesn't matter how much money you take home or how many
taxes you pay if you're dead. It's dangerous out here. It's getting worse all the time. These guys risk their life 247 and they're not afraid to. They're good. They're qualified. They treat citizens like they're a customer. They don't
treat you like a customer when you deserve to be treated differently. And you guys need to understand that. I don't care. I'm 78 years old and I can get with the times. I know damn well that you can't police today like you did 30 years ago. If you do, you get run
over. and I was an army guy and I served in the service and went to a combat zone in those days for the whopping amount of $121 a month. Today they'd have to pay me$10,000 to even think about it. Come on people, wake up. This is absolutely a
disgrace. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Good afternoon, Indian River County Commissioners and staff. My name is Serenity Marsh and I'm entering the 10th grade at Vero Beach High School. I take pride in my strong work ethic, deeply value the opinions of other and I
believe in our community. Thank you for the opportunity to speak at these historic proceedings as they occur during our centennial and will no doubt be reviewed by our children than 100 years to come. I plan to attend the University of Miami and major in criminal justice. I am currently an AP
honors and dual enrollment student with aspirations to pursue a career in law enforcement or criminal justice. The Indian River County Sheriff's Office has an outstanding program known as the Explorers. I am proud to stand before you as a corporal in my post. The Explorers program is an amazing
community service provided by our sheriff to not only protect youth like me, but to show us the discipline, the responsibilities, and the amazing community service provided by our staff. It is not lost on me that these programs cost money. And it is abundantly clear
that these programs are at risk of losing funding within the proposed budget cuts ahead. If funding is lost and programs like this are no longer available for youth like me, it would be more than sad. It will be devastated to the community and our county's future.
As a future community leader, taxpayer, and homeowner of Indian River County, I'm here to ask you to provide the sheriff with the resources needed to protect our community, protect our schools, protect our way of life, and support the brave men and women who risk their lives day in and day out so we can
have a brighter 100 years to come. Thank you. Thank that's it. Hi, my name is Steve Gier. I live in the Vero Beach Highlands. I'm also the treasurer of the Hispanic Republicans of Indian River. Uh I've been going over
these and I just asked the the young lady here to bring up this slide. I appreciate the time that the uh board is taking to look over the numbers. I especially appreciate the time that you your office took to prepare these numbers and thank you very much.
However, I'm looking at this and if you look at the uh portion of the millillage for the sheriff's office, it shows in uh 2021 uh 20 2021 to 2022 that the sheriff's portion was 55.7%
and in 2024 to 2025, it had dropped to 52.8%. If you look down below under the MSTU fund, it's at 62.8% 8% for 202122 and it is down to 59.9%. That's a a a net drop of nearly 3%
for each each of those numbers from 2022 to 2025. And if we normalize on what that port what that portion was of the total budget that nets out to a 5% cut to the sheriff's department with the proposed numbers that are coming up. If
we were to just try to normalize on the numbers for 2022, it would the amount that would be being allowed for them would be nearly twice what is being offered. And I I think that the sheriff's department definitely deserves
the the what they need to be able to continue doing the great job that they've been doing. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Thank you for your service. Good afternoon, Michael C. Marsh. More with less. That's what the sheriff's
been doing since he's been in office. He's leveraged technology. But one of the items that I heard recently, sheriff gave the analogy, you know, a family has $1,000. They're going to go to Disney or they going to use that $1,000 to buy
tires. Tires aren't fun, but it's a necessity for our lives. Law enforcement is that necessity. It should be the cornerstone of the budget process. But let's look at numbers because that's what we've been listening to, right? We will spend 11 million in a golf
clubhouse, but not give these men and women the money that they so rightfully deserve. But that's not it. But wait, there's more. How much money was spent on consulting fees? Over 80% that didn't even stay here in New River County. Millions of dollars of consulting fees.
But we can't give the money to these brave men and women. Now, sheriff mentioned about exit interviews. Deputy Bolognia, one of the amazing deputies from Bureau Beach High School as well as Oslo Mill High School. He couldn't stay here because he couldn't survive, right? He went over to Port St. Lucy Police
Department to make almost $80,000. That was in the exit interview. Let's look at retaining versus training. What costs less? Well, according to the other night, $140,000 to undergo an intensive training program and be
provided with new gear. So, isn't it cheaper just to keep these amazing men, women now instead of keep bringing in new deputies? Let's look at the general fund. Any river county general fund 26% increase since 2010, 19% increase since
2020. Sheriff's Office budget 26.29 29 since 2010 and 16.45 since 2020. Let's look at the numbers. The 14 million your Indian River County Sheriff is asking for over 9 million will go directly to raises. 4 million to
make sure that they have the operational costs including additional training so on so forth. Crime is going down over 25% of clearance rate thanks to your brave men and women of the Indian River County Sheriff's Office. the explorer.
You heard a beautiful young lady that was before me. What if that program goes away? John Lazada, who you saw recently up in the sky, he was also an explorer as well. Let's be clear what the sheriff has said. This is not about Eric Flowers. This is not even about the office. It's about the next hundred
years here in Indian River County. Do we want to be safe? We want to continue to be protected by these men and women so we can live, work, and play in Indian River County. And hopefully it's not personal because we put a sheriff in office that no one behind the scenes could control. So we put the right one
there. Let's give these men and women what they deserve. We can find the money through public records. The money is already there, right? So let's give these men and women what they so rightfully deserve. And across the board, the civilians and everybody else. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Marsh. Hi, my name is Lydia Davis and I've been in Indian River County for three years and I deeply appreciate the security that I feel in this county. I ran from a
previous county because it was getting too crowded, but it's beginning to look like it's going to get the same here. I just want to give you one simple example, but simple, but it's it was big for me.
I'm 70 years old, a senior citizen living in a senior community. And at 2:00 in the morning, I heard some awful sounds in my porch and I called 911 and they they came in five minutes. They
were there and they took care of of what was going on. And I couldn't believe that they were there that fast. So knowing that they are compensated properly that those guys are going to
stay here and not go to other other places helps me feel more secure. They are also very helpful in our community. Like Jim said before, we have homeless people in the bushes around the the
place and they always come when we call them when we see suspicious activities. They also come and talk to our uh clubhouse and community about safety and security and how to protect oursel. It's
it's very uh scary living by yourself as a senior and and knowing that uh your community is well protected. It feel it helps you feel so much better. They're also gentlemen.
Everyone that I talk to and encounter is is so respectful and and so wonderful. I had one encounter with with a with an officer in Porsalus and he was so rude.
As a senior, you know, we take um we take this personal because who can treat a like a grandmother rude with rudeness especially wearing a badge and a uniform that should be respected.
I respect these guys. I admire them and I I I find a lot of worth in what they do and I hope and pray to God that you guys see what they see and hear them and
hear us and and give us what they need so that they can continue to do their job and do it well like they do. Thank you very much. Thank you. Paul Zelno, Indian River County Victim's
Rights Coalition. We deal with the victims of crime in the county, provide financial services to them at no no cost to the taxpayer. It's all volunteer 501c, which I I believed I
was called the last time I was up here. But uh I I got some n we had a lot of numbers today. Woo. So I'm gonna give you a couple I hope you'll remember. Okay. We had zero fatalities. None
alcoholrelated in Indian River County last 2024. That didn't happen in a vacuum. Didn't happen by itself. It happened because of these guys back here. Let's just compare that relatively. Five
of the top 10 had as much as 23 fatalities per 100,000 people. Putnham, Nassau, Flaggler, Colombia, all about the same size as Vero. Top 10. Vero in sorry, Indian River County, one of the
safest counties in the state at 6100,000 people. 6 How much does one fatality cost the county? Anybody have an idea? County cost. Is that in the budget of fatalities? Do we have that?
Okay, I'll tell you how much. And this comes from the Florida Safety Council. $5 million. One fatality. One. Loss of income, medical costs, legal fees, wrongful death awards. law
enforcement resources, incarceration, premiums on insurance, and I have to believe somewhere in there there's allowances for the taxes that are that are t that we are taxed for those kinds of expenses. 5 million bucks. We had
zero. All right, one more thing. Talk about your gotcha moments. Here you go. Here's a gotcha moment for all the retirees to come to come to the table here. Those of us who are responsible enough
to put money aside so we're not a burden on society. When we get to retirement age, the government imposes something on us, a federal tax. It's called minimum requirement distribution. Our accountant probably knows about it. What does that
mean? It means you don't get to choose how much money you take out of your retirement fund. They tell you how much and they tell you when you could take it. This catapults the retirees in their golden years into a income bracket that
many of us pay $1 for every four that we that we take out. This is a hardship. It's a hardship on people like myself. It's a hardship on many of the people here. We can work with a reasonable reasonable
budget budget, but we can't put a price tag on safety and lives. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Tony Conselo. I am a 52-year resident of Indian River County, 28-year veteran of Indian River County Sheriff's
Department, retired captain, graduate of the FBI National Academy, and the Southern Police Institute. I recently read a survey that was conducted in 2022 by the police executive research forum. Survey indicated an increase of tw I'm
sorry 18% of resignations and 40% retirements. I also have a degree in economics from Emory University and one of the basic tenets of economics is supply and demand. There are less people getting into this job. Less people want to be
officers nowadays. Media has something to do with that. There's a lot of things, a lot of factors. Okay. The with these people leaving the agencies have to there there's a small pool of people. Okay. So, you either pay those
people properly and draw good candidates or you lower your expectations of those people. And the cost of lowering those expectations and lowering the lowering the qualification and standards of those people is going to cost you more money than it is to pay them what they
deserve. I looked over this budget. I'm familiar with the budget as I know two of the commissioners know that I am. And I do see some areas to cut. Okay? I'm going to be honest. That's an operating side, not in the salary side. Okay? You've got to pay these folks, these men
and women that protect us what they deserve. Okay? One of the things in the operating side and Paul Zelna who just spoke, you know, kind of brought something up and made me think maybe I'm not right on that. There's a $45,000 contract for jiu-jitsu training. Okay.
So, I thought to myself, something that would help me determine if that's a legitimate cost is how many people are taking advantage of it. Okay. Has it reduced our workers comp claims? Has it reduced the number of officer involved complaints for excessive force? I don't know those numbers, so I really can't
tell you. But if it saved one officer or saved one individual from getting shot because of the amount of force that they were using, then that was a $5 million savings, I think Paul said, if I'm not mistaken. So, I really can't make a judgment call. But what I have to do is rely on the expert that provided this
budget to you. And I want to say there's a couple people that said, "I hope this wasn't personal." This seemed a little personal at first. Okay? Eric was the only one that was told once you get your budget, you know, that's your budget. You can do whatever you want. All the constitutional officers are the same way. There was no reason to single him out and tell him that. This sounded
personal. The little shell game about we're increasing taxes. No, we're not. And stuff like that. That's a shell game. Okay. So, let's be fair. Be fair to the men and women. If there's any personal beefs against Eric, put those aside. Be fair to the men and women back here that are protecting and serving us.
Put everything else aside and give them the money that they deserve. Okay. I still think there's some cuts in the capital. I'll be honest. I mean, in the uh operational, you know, maybe a 4x4 doesn't need to be bought and stuff like that. So, I do think there's some minor cuts, but I'm going to go with the expert that says this is what we need
and I think you should approve his budget. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is uh Baris Fanning. I'm a deputy in the correctional division anywhere county sheriff's office. Um I'm currently a maintenance. Um, I'm a father of two. I have a disabled
son. My son has got muscular drophy. You might remember the Jerry Lewis tellathon, one in 3,000 boys. That's my son. Life expecty 21 26 tops. Uh, so I'm facing this very sincerely. I reside in
St. Lucy County. I chose to come here. Since I've been here, I came here. I've been employed by the Florida Department of Create 13 years. I came here and I've in 2021 so I got four years of sheriff's department. Since I've been here, they keep talking about where the money's went or you know the stuff that they've
spent on. I've seen this department in this county do some of the best things that I've ever seen any facility I've ever worked at. Their accreditation is second to none. Their medical department has been second to none since I've been
here. They've involved us in so many human or excuse me, community affairs um involvement like with road crews. We we were out right after the hurricanes cleaning up. Um so I get phone calls every day from deputies of co-workers
that I used to work with, Martin County, St. Lucy County, Palm Beach County, and it's very devastating when you hear them come up and say, "You need to come down here. You you need to do what you're doing up there down here. We need you. We can get you at 93,000 in three years. We can get you 87 in four years at
Martin County. So, the numbers are very real and I don't want to leave. I love this place. They've invested in me. I've invested back in them. Currently in the maintenance department, I've been trying my best to save the county as much money as I can. Um, I come from an AC
background, electrical, air conditioning, plumbing. I've done light repairs, parking light repairs. um a lot of repairs around facility, saving the sheriff's department thousands of dollars. And I do that because it's part of who I am. I'm a hard worker. I always
want to excel and be the best I can for the department. And I don't want to have to choose between what's right for my family when my son gets to the point where my wife has to quit her job and stay home and me trying to survive on $58,000 a year and take care of a
disabled kid. It's very difficult to see those kind of numbers. I'm not leaving. I'm going to stay right here because this is the county I want to move to. And I love the co-workers here. These people treat me like family. If I ever need anything, there's any one of them is going to show
up at any time and help me. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, commissioners. I can truly say Tom Lawer, 1655 27th
Street and looking out through this room, I can truly tell you all I have been where you're sitting. It's hard to believe 20 years ago this year, I was right in the same movement. And I too had a former sheriff sitting
on the county commission. That was Gary Wheeler. I think Commissioner Man, you would realize when I got elected in 2002, my goal was to unify the fire department and paramedics. That was an ugly, ugly battle. You remember that
money was an issue, but it was all about safety, was it not? Commissioner Flesher, I believe you're a deputy when we were sitting here talking about pay raises just like we are today. I believe that might have been a day that we correct me
if I'm wrong. Was it a 13% pay increase that we did? Well, I I can't remember 20 years long ago. It's, you know, I had her back then because I was elected, but plain and simple, I remember Sheriff
Wheeler was just dead set against all this. And one thing I haven't heard, maybe it's because I haven't been here all day. I do have to work still, believe it or not. The way I dress, uh, I haven't heard one thing about Martin County. We always kind of adjusted oursel with
Martin County because it's same size, same money. I understand the sheriff's budget, there's 110 million. I might be wrong. I think truly today, you all can't look at this as a money item, an issue, as I
did 20 years ago. I look at this as the health, safety, and welfare of Indian River County and these hardworking people that protect us. I didn't realize firefighters make $60,000. God bless them because I battled that
for four years. I truly believe that you all need to dig deep, have some intestinal fortitude, and vote for what you all feel, not for what's good for the tax base because
Indian County is growing. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners. I'm Bob SL. I'm the president of our sergeants union at the sheriff's office. I'm currently a sergeant. We're a special victim's unit. I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to speak today on behalf of the sheriff's office and the men and women who serve this county with
dedication and pride. I'm going to get straight to the point though. We're being underfunded again. While every other constitutional office is receiving full support in this budget, our deputies are working long hours, often with less pay than surrounding counties, and the gap is continuing to grow. Retention is becoming harder.
Recruitment is falling behind. Morale is being tested. Meanwhile, the county had no problem approving 27.25 25 additional positions for you guys. Over the past two years, you spent 34 million on consulting fees and only 12% of that went to local companies, meaning 88% of
that money left in River County entirely. That's tens of millions of dollars that could have been reinvested right here in our community, but instead does nothing to support our local economy. It also begs another more uncomfortable question. Does somebody in county government have personal ties to these consulting companies? Because from
where we stand, the spending doesn't appear to reflect the needs of the citizens or the people putting their lives on the line. So I have to ask, is this about budgeting or is this personal? Is there a problem with the sheriff? Is there a problem with the office of the sheriff? Once again, from where we stand, it looks deliberate. We
are the only constitutional office in this county that's being left out. And here's the reality you'll be facing that doesn't change. Are you planning to hire more consultants again when 30 deputies walk out the door for higher paying jobs in neighboring counties? Will you pay for another study to figure out how to run a sheriff's office with no staff
left? We don't need more reports. We need action. We're not asking for luxuries. We're not We're asking for fairness. We're asking for you to show fairness and equity to those who responded to the shootings, the overdoses, domestic calls, and traffic fatalities every single day. Public safety is not an afterthought. It's a
responsibility. It's time that Indian County stepped up and treated it like one. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Bobby Lindsay. I was born here almost 80 years ago. I supported every one of you guys on
this commission when you were running for office. The first sheriff that I got to know pretty well was Sam Joyce. That goes back 60 65 years ago. We have been
blessed in this county to have better than average law enforcement over the years. Commissioner Lore, you know, I supported you. I think it's just almost a no-brainer
that from a priority standpoint, you know, you have x amount of money to spend. What are you going to spend it on? What's going to be your priority? Back when I was still trying to grow citrus before I became a cattleman,
if I had a decision to make between buying fertilizer or buying a new boat, I bought fertilizer. And I think it's just that simple with what you're dealing with here.
We should have right at two deputies per thousand population. We've got 1.6. Back in the days of when Marshall Dylan was running Dodge City,
there was a deterrent factor just based on the fact that anybody that was uninformed or drunk enough to challenge him didn't survive for long. So,
and if I mean if Miss Kitty hadn't been doing such a good job at her saloon and had a really good bartender, they probably wouldn't have needed the old dock because they wouldn't have gotten as many people shot. Thank you. Thank you, Rob.
Good afternoon. I am Dr. Angela Rosala Jones and I am the current capacity of one of your captains at your local jail. After 19 years serving as a correctional officer, I've seen a lot. I've seen the violence, the trauma, the pressure, and the strength that it takes to keep
going. But what truly weighs on me today is what's happening to the people who I love and see as a brother and sister. And to see what they're going through at this present time. I have had many, many conversations with the good men and
women, both sworn and civilian. I have seen deputies cry because they're behind two to three months on their mortgage, their rent, and their car payment. I have seen deputies cry because they don't have enough money to put food on their tables. I have seen deputies cry
and work overtime in order to just to make ends meet. And yet they still come each and every day to do the job which is serve, protect, and take care of our community. In the last few years, we have seen some
of the best of the best walk away from our agency. Not because they wanted to, they had no choice. You see, because at some point, it not only becomes about the community, it becomes about their family. And as we all know, if you have
to choose between your family and the community, the average person is going to choose their family. And why are they choosing their families? because what they're making currently does not make it through the end of the month or even barely to the next two weeks. So I ask
you, what's going to happen when our jail or our jails are no longer fully staffed? When our road patrols are on patrol, when our when we don't have enough dispatchers to answer your and my 911 calls, what are we going to do then?
When our crime scene texts are struck so thin, when our pilots cannot be retained, when people who are to man an entire agency are forced to leave for the sake of survival. What happens when the safety and
stability of our community we have and the very infrastructure of public safety begins to collapse? What happens then? This is not just about what and who. is about protecting the future of our agency and pro protecting the community
in New River community. That's who we're protecting. So the commit so to our commissioners these fine men and women both sworn and both civilian alike. They love this county. They believe in our agency. They serve with integrity,
pride, and unwavering commitment. But love for the job, like I said, it doesn't pay the bill. We need your approval. We need your support. We need real time action that reflects the value of their work, not just in words and compensation that allows our people to
live with dignity while continuing to serve. When our jails, ROS, and dispatch centers, our forensic labs, and our helicopters are done, then you tell me who is going to serve. Thank you for your time. Yes.
Good afternoon. My name is Trinity Marsh. I'm here today because I think it's just ridiculous to not give the sheriff's department a race. These men and women risk their lives every day for us to protect us. They're not even getting paid what they deserve. That's
not right. They show up when there's danger, when someone's in trouble, or when there something scary is happening. But we expect them to all do is without fair play. That makes no sense. Think about it. If we don't pay our our officers enough, how do we expect them to stay? How do we expect new ones to
want to join? If we don't lose If we lose good officers because they can't afford to stay in their job, our community suffers, especially us, the youth. We need safe neighbors, safe schools, and trusted adults who are trained and ready to help us when we need them. Without a strong sheriff's
department, these things get dangerous real fast. So, I'm asking you to think about their future. Think about us, the youth. If you want us to grow in a safe place, healthy place, then support the people who protect us. Give the sheriff department the raise that they deserve. It's not just about the money. It's
about the respect, safety, and doing what's right. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name's Gordon Michael. Um 2655 69th Street in Vero Beach. I'm a lifetime resident, former deputy and
reserve officer. I guess today's meeting has been about a lot about numbers. So, I'll give you some more numbers. Uh, some of that's already been mentioned about ladies with some of the other arguments. The In County Sheriff's Department now starting fee is $50,600.
St. Lucy County is $60,800. Martin County is 66,500. Port St. Lucy is 72,500. Fort Pierce is 55,4400. And the fire rescue, as mentioned earlier, is 60,000.
This thing has gone on since I was a deputy. And both the two of you I've worked with in the past, the Commissioner Fletcher and Commissioner Lure, and we've discussed this many of times over conversations and other
times. And I have to respectfully disagree with the uh county minister. I think that uh with President Trump passing the big new bill that this economy is going to take off. All you have to do is drive north of uh on Kings
Highway north of 49th Street where that big development's going in there with restaurants, theater, and u homes. I've got 118 homes going on at Dead End Street on 69th Street between 65th Street and 69th Street. There's five
different developments going on right now building just as fast as they can build. So I respect the county minister with his numbers saying that the figures are down. I'm sure that's probably accurate to him, but what a person sees
driving around this county is a different story. Uh, another thing I want to mention to you is, as somebody has mentioned earlier, it $140,000 to train and complete an FTO program with the deputy and we'd lost four to Martin
County and we'd lost four to Port St. Lucy just in this year. We can't keep losing the people before we even get them out and get any time on. I was told a long time ago when started, you really don't know yourself around the being a cop until you've been there five years. But you can't stay somewhere if you
can't buy a house and provide for your family. They've got to have some money to be able to provide for their family. Three of you have wore the uniform of this county. Commissioner Man has a son that's on the sheriff's department. I'm sure he's discussed you discussed with
you the situations and stuff. It's it's just not right. Uh it says we have right now 1.6 deputies for 10,000 residents. the uh with counting the school resources we have 1.8 deputies and then
the county recommends 2.8 8 deputies and per 10,000 resident SBI recommends 2.5 and as some other people have mentioned the growth that's going on in this county and the money that we can find to do salt I mean uh San Ridge u country
club and things like that we've got to find a number to pay be able to support these deputies one last quick thing I don't want another Richard Kowski on this county I was here when it happened please don't make one of these other people and you have to go to somebody
else's deputy funeral. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. My name's uh Matt Redstone. Um I'm a lifelong resident county. I'm here to represent the deputies of county. My family's been here for over 120 years and 50 of those years have
been supporting the sheriff's office every single day. I've seen it firsthand. Our deputies not only do a great job working patrol, but they do a great job in our community outside of um wearing the uniform, but today we sit at a crossroads. Multiple deputies are sitting here watching this today
deciding what their next step is. Are they going to stay in this community or are they going to go elect to work somewhere else? Are they going to stay or are they going to go make $20,000 more at the Port St. Lucy Police Department? Are they going to stay or are they going to go down to Martin
County, have their insurance and have all their uh retirements transfer and go go make $15,000 more tomorrow? That's the decision they're making here today. They're not going to wait till September. They're not going to wait till this budget process is over. They're seeing what decisions are made
here today and what's coming out of that and they are going to be firing up their computers and filling out applications. So, these aren't empty threats. the these this is actually what's happening. This is what we're hearing and this is why we're all here. We love this community and we want to keep our
deputies here. We're not we're not even asking to be the highest paid that multiple people have come up here and said how much money these other people are making. We're not asking for that. We're just asking to be competitive. I don't understand. Um we love our firefighters. We work with them every
day. There there's no comprehension to say that they deserve to be paid $60,000 a year starting or we're making 50. I I don't get it. It's hard to it's hard to sit here and talk to our deputies and and say that and even comprehend that.
What you know, at the end of the day, what's worth being cut? Are we is it is is at the end of the day is the plan that the sheriff laid out is that is that less important than a new $13 million clubhouse are the 28 new positions that you guys are accounting for. Are those are those people going to
answer 911 calls at 3:00 in the morning outside of the three asking um for the fire district? You know what happens when 16 deputies leave? That's a whole shift. What are we going to do then? What services are we cutting? So it to me and to a lot of people, it it truly
seems like we're putting the handcuffs on the sheriff of this county that was elected to protect this community. And county is a special place. It's a very special place. We love this place. I love this place. I want to continue to be here, but we need to support those who protect this place
every single day. I thank you for your time. Thanks so much. Uh good afternoon, commissioners and citizens of the Evin River County. I thank you for supporting us today. Uh it means a lot that we have all these individuals here from our community to
support us. Um my name is Paul Godier. I'm a 20-year employee of the sheriff's office and I'm currently a correction sergeant assigned to the maintenance unit. I am also the president of the IUPA local 6084 correction correction sergeants.
Um I'm here today on behalf of the Indian River County Sheriff's Office to respect respectfully request your support for a budget increase specifically for our sheriff's office civilians, law enforcement, and corrections deputies. I am also here
today to impress upon you the importance of keeping our experienced trained deputies and civilians in the correction setting. While many think our jail simply as a place of of confinement, what happens inside our correctional facility goes
far beyond that. Excuse me. Our deputies every day not only to ma excuse me. Our deputies work every day not only to maintain security but to transform lives. We offer vital programs like Narcotics Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous to help inmate inmates
confront addiction. GED programs offer a path to education while anger management classes teach critical uh skills for breaking cycles of violence. Our re-entry programs prepare individuals to reintegrate into society, reducing recidivis reducing the recidivism rate
and introducing a more and introducing a more civily responsible citizen back into our community. These programs are investments in the public safety, reducing future crime, and helping create safer neighborhoods across Indian River County. But the impact of our corrections division extends even
further into the community. Corrections deputies and inmate work crews support programs that many may not realize originate from our facilities. Roadside cleanups that keep our comm communities beautiful. Homeless camp cleanups that help maintain public health. and safety,
public health and safety, excuse me, food bank distributions that support families in need and even courthouse security that ensure justice can function safely and effectively. However, we are facing a crisis of retention. Neighboring counties are offering significantly higher salaries
and we are losing skilled deputies, both law enforcement and corrections, to those better paying jobs. Each time we lose a deputy, we lose not just a person, but years of experience, training, and the relationships that make our programs effective and our
facility safe. In corrections, we don't have the option to run short staffed. Florida model jail standards require mandatory minimum staffing levels to safely operate a correctional facility. When we fall below those
levels, we risk the safety of inmates, deputies, and ultimately the community. If we continue to lose corrections deputies, it will directly impact the community programs I mentioned and potentially force cuts to serve the uh roadside cleanups, homeless, uh,
outreach, and food banks. I one more thing. Um, my question, thank you. Sorry. Sorry. Oh, thank you. I lost it. Mr. Chairman members, it's nice to be here today. Nice to see you all. I'm Joan Johnson,
Coral Wind subdivision. Um, I spent a lot of my career, not all of it, but a good portion as a budget analyst. And as a budget analyst on the Polaris Poseidon program, submarine program, Department of Navy, we did five-year
budget plans. And I don't see anything here looking forward beyond this year. And I just would like to suggest that you all give some thought to where you're going to find the money in the next couple years when the sheriff comes in and says, "Our
population has grown and I need more deputies." if you're having trouble finding money to give salaries to the guys not working for you, where are you going to find money for new recruits? So, just as a thought,
thank you, Joe. Yeah, I was even going to get up here and speak today, but I think it' be in vain. Some of you guys are in the same position I am. I've earned my career already in at another police department. I'm fortunate to have a retirement, an
extra retirement. And some of you on the dasis have that luxury as well. Some of you have two retirements. I'm I speak from the heart. I don't have a fancy speech. I don't have a bunch of numbers, but I'm going to tell you a story. And I witnessed this just last year. There's a
young deputy. We're working at a school function protecting your children. Breakfast was served every morning and lunch was served every morning to the children at this function. This deputy is a father of a child. Had
his child with him every day so he would get breakfast and lunch every day. Whatever breakfast and lunch was left there every day, this child would bring a pillowcase and take everything from that cooler and transfer it into his dad's cooler. Me and some deputies kind
of made fun of that. Thought it was funny. That's why I'm so passionate right now. And I and I'm almost ready to cry because that story resonates right now. And I thought about it. Friday came, it was our payday. I know what I make over there as a
deputy, as a beginning deputy, even though I have a retirement. I mean, I keep everyone in my paycheck to show people. And I'm talking experienced deputy. That's what I am. Experienced. I bring a lot to the table. And my paycheck is just as bad as that deputy I saw scrapping for food every
day. Friday came, it was our payday. I'm like, man, today is payday, man. We can the weekend things going to be good. And this same deputy that had his child scrapping for food every day that we made fun of said, "I can't even pay my
rent, man. I have to wait the next payday to pay my rent." The same deputy that the sheriff told you about that left here to go to Port St. Lucy, I take it back. He got a federal job. I roommate with that deputy at a school function in Orlando last year. And this
deputy cried in bed next to me telling me how he can't even pay his mortgage payment off this paycheck. And you guys listen, you guys done did this job. I know you guys got to be physically conservative. I understand that. I fought this battle with Val
Beach Police Department in 2012. I don't know if Laura Mars was in the city council then, but we won that battle. And they saying the same things that you guys are saying. We don't have the money. We can't find the money. But guess what they did? Because the public spoke. They found that money. Nobody got
demoted and no one got a pay cut. And you guys just need to search your hearts. I know you guys are politicians and you expect the public to to say, "Hey, these guys are physically concerned." But sometimes you got to do what's right. Public safety should be number one. This shouldn't even be a question right now. It should be done.
And I'm speaking from the heart. I don't have a fancy speech or any word say. And I yelled just like this the last time in 2012. And guess what? The city of V Beach did the right thing. You can laugh for them now, but they did the right thing then. And you guys search your arts and do the right thing.
[Applause] Hi, my name is John Clark. Um, been a resident of this county since 1983. Um, I work for the sheriff's office. I've been with the sheriff's office a long time. Also, uh, with a short reprieve. There's a lot of talk with you guys
about this here. It's the trash bins. Trash bins. And and it's already now going to be in our county tax roll or fee or however you do it. But the the fact that we still every resident's going to be paying for this now when
they did they weren't required to, it's a necessity. So this is a necessity. $13 million difference according to the funds you guys just put up there. It's a necessity. Uh, but the sheriff's deputies back here are not. I'm not going to be in this job very much longer. I've been doing it a long time
here. Uh, I worked in West Palm Beach before that, but I'm going to live in this county for a long time. The people that are coming in now that we're training, we want them to stay. We want the people that are already here to stay. You want people like me, like these guys that worked here their whole
lives, Tony Consalo and all these other people that have been here, the institutional knowledge of being in Indian River County and know who the bad guys are, know which cars belong in each driveway. That's what's important. There's a reserve fund here through the county, the county administrators, and
you guys use it's got $600 million in it. Okay? that that gets funded every year where you guys $12 million at a time, $7 million at a time. You can hold that back for one year to pay this and figure
out how to pay the deputies. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you for hearing me. And most importantly, I thank Jesus Christ that I'm able to stand here today and talk to you because there are several instances in this profession where I was not able nearly not able to.
I've been in law enforcement for six years and I recently left Bvard County over the same thing. I heard the same conversations and just like I told them, I'm telling you now, it's the same sentiment that I've heard in the hallways out here today and in the weeks leading up to this. Do not put me in a position to choose between this job and
my family. My wife and I just we just celebrated the birth of our first son in September of last year because of a very rare birth effect. She is not able to work and we took a $50,000 a year pay cut because my son by the end of this year will have had four major surgeries.
He was not even supposed to be alive today. We've spent $31,000 out of pocket completely draining my entire savings just to make sure that my son is alive. My check right now from the sheriff's office is roughly $2,000.
That does not cover my mortgage. I am stressed every single day when I go home. And I wonder how I'm going to provide for my wife and for my child. My wife has been woken up no less than 14 times in this profession in six years with a phone call from either me or my
friend saying, "Your husband was injured, hit by a car, not my car, me. Hit by a car by by a fleeing felon. I've been stuck by dirty needles and had to sleep in a different bed than my wife for months at a time waiting for test results to find out if I could tr pass on to her a lifealtering disease. And
thank God I didn't. The reality is is without without approving the sheriff's bills without approving his budget, you are going to experience the same thing that Bvard County did. I was a field training officer up there for two and a half years. In those two and a half years, I trained deputies who could not
even afford to move out of their mom and dad's house. We are asking men men and women to put on badges and guns and go into other people's houses and judge and tell them how to live and enforce laws of this state when they can't even afford to do it for themselves. There are deputies
now that without working overtime and details cannot make their bills meet. I come out ahead about $50 every month. If I need to buy a new set of tires for a car, a set of brakes, if my wife's car fails, if my truck fails, I don't I
don't make my bills meet just on my salary. I cannot afford to live and work here if you guys do not approve this. I want to stay here. I've been in law enforcement, like I said, 6 years. I've been with Indian River County for about four months now. I came here because I support the sheriff and I support what I
see when when he is out in the media and what he does behind closed doors to support us and the community at large. I'm telling you as a cautionary tale, I have seen no less than 30 people leave agencies over this exact same conversation. And while we were on our 2-hour lunch break waiting for this, I
walked through my phone and I can I can name 21 deputies either actively applying out or in the process of leaving Bard County over this exact same issue. All I'm asking for you is for you to do what you are constitutionally obligated to do and look out for the citizens of this county. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Anyone else? Uh hello, my name is uh John Tobaya. Uh, I have an expired notary license. Uh, my I'm my dad's third favorite kid and I possess three Bed Bath and Beyond coupons.
Uh, first of all, I want to thank you for your service. I know it's very difficult to be up there and uh, I appreciate what you do. My request here is not to increase the millillage. I uh very much respect the principles that
you have on on holding the line, but $6 million has been floated. And I just wanted to point out a few things about that $6 million as some sort of gobetween between the 4.7 and what was
requested. While $10,000 per deputy may sound like a good talking point, as you are well aware, this will create compression issues. This does not have parody with fire rescue. This does not solve overtime issues or this does not
increase the retirement uh retirement statemandated retirement contributions. Second of all, you mentioned $2,500 for non-uniform non-sworn officers. Again, that may sound good, but for uh non-sworn officer or nonsworn civilians
in the middle of service, that $2,500 may be below CPI. So, that's a concern. Uh, number three, $6 million. I'm sure the sheriff would give it all to employees. That does not include $1 of
increase for operating expenses. the other constitutional officers came up here and asked for money and receive money for operating expenses and employees. If you were to give $6 million, it it it leaves nothing on the bone. And finally, and most importantly,
um doesn't solve the issue. We're going to have the exact same issue, in fact, I'd argue worse, next year. We have, as you heard, we'd have attrition rates and we'd have greater operating needs since there would be no funding this year. So
again, $6 million may sound like a compromise, but it's a far cry from what is actually needed. Now, I'm going to go back real quickly, not asking uh for a millage increase. Um I'm asking you guys to prioritize. And if you can look
through this budget and say each and every dollar that you have in that budget is more important than providing those resources for the men and women that keep us all safe, then go down that road. But I have issues, as you've
heard, with the millions of dollars in here going to the Chamber of Commerce, those going to facade grants for CRAAS, uh those going to golf club uh club houses. I I don't know that that's the prioritization that uh is is best. Um
again, uh please rethink that $6 million. It does not get us anywhere where we need to be. Thank you for your time. Thank you, sir. Anyone else like to uh
discuss or entertain any of the comments that were made by the public? Um, I I have a few. I'd like to talk with the county administrator.
It was It was proposed that we pounded sand or we let told somebody else to pound sand. It was proposed that we did not address needs throughout the years.
I have a much different memory and I have a a a tremendous recall of what has happened the last few budget cycles. and for public consumption and for the
benefit of this this board and anybody who spoke today. Um, I would like the county administrator to reflect the the numbers that has been ticked for the past few years
specifically regarding sheriff's salaries or earmarked as we know that the the sheriff can do whatever he wishes with the budget that's allotted and he does not have to direct uh the
dollars where they are requested. gested to be allotted too. So on his approved budget he can make some changes adjustments. So but we do have some recollection over
the past few years of what has been infused during his watch to directly to deputy salaries. I just wanted to see if we have a recap.
Yeah. A a couple things. I just uh heard a couple recurring things I think that need to be addressed. Uh the golf clubhouse, San Ridge. Uh that is exclusive. It's a business. It's an enterprise fund that is exclusively being paid for by those that play golf
at Sand Ridge. No general fund dollars have subsidized that that the the clubhouse and there will be no backup pledge from the general fund or any other fund to support the debt service that they're taking out on that. So I
mean just so we understand that 1112 million that's not general fund dollars. That's an enterprise fund. Uh and it's it's it's a self- sustaining fund in of itself. You can't use the funds from uh that fund. you can even do a search charge onto the a round of golf and
bring it into the general fund. So just so we understand that um the you know I've heard the chamber comment several times and those funds are coming from the the million dollars that goes to this chamber and I think about the 350 or so that goes to Sebastian and uh but
as we saw the the tourist development it's about 2.3 I think it is and those are tourist development taxes those are paid by tourists that come in the beds and heads and they fund the tourist development activities. you know, within the county. Um, so I
mean, this year the the uh the legislature and the governor signed the bill expanding the use of those funds, but they are very narrowly restricted in how they can be used. Uh, the only thing that they can be used in the most recent thing is potentially, and we we probably
have in our own ordinance change our stuff, but is they the expansion was to allow for for beach lifeguards. We have three beaches. I mean arguably would free up 1.2 million if we were able to do that over a couple years. So uh but
with regard to the the amounts that the the the that have been provided over the last couple years I mean one this is the salary history in terms of what has been asked and what's been provided in 22 23 uh you know the request was to provide
7% the record for the budget workshop will reflect a a member of the commission asking directly is that what the the employees are going to be receiving and it was and what affirmative response and the board provided $7.35 million budget increase
in the preceding year it was about 2.9 just to clear that to to understand that for FI fiscal year 23 24 we know the civilian you know employees received 5% raise uh that those 5% you know maybe
not 2324 but I think 2324 was also was was about CPI and then 2425 was definitely above CPI. So, but so there's been those imple changes. And then in 23 24 for the sworn, we don't know what the average percent was or the average
amount was because they did the sheriff implemented a step plan. I understand it's a 13 uh step plan at 4% increase per year. They're they're paying for experience like many other agencies. And and and one of the things that you know
in our conversations because not just in here but elsewhere you know he he mentioned that he fixed the CA pay compression issue you know because there were some inequities. So and the comment was well would based on you fixing the pay compression issues if you do across
the board raise you know do all all personnel or all you know they say all boats rise. Do all personnel rise within that exact within that step system that you have or be placed you know appropriately and they all because everybody's benefiting by the same
amount. Um and 24 25 kind of same thing civilians 5% they increase the maximum pay for the deputy uh as well as they increase the starting pay for sergeants and then the maximum pay for both the sergeants and lieutenants. And then they just changed
the way they when they receive their pay increases. It's on their anniversary versus on October 1st. So the LA last two years 5.78 million. The year before that 5.79 million. And the one thing I would say is when I when we talk about that 7.35 million. I think it's
important to note that there was a portion of that money was a one-time allocation that was from it was either CARES or COVID funding and it never reset. We built the budget going forward with that
reset amount. I mean, it was actually $4 million over two years and we built the budget on that. We never deducted it like you would for a capital project or a capital purchase. So to go back to kind of just look at the the increases, you know, Mr. Chair, uh, and we're very
mindful and I I don't, you know, every year I get it, uh, at least since I've been here, we've had I've had a great working relationship with the sheriff, I believe, and uh, and we have in the last three years increased the budget in 2022,
12.11% on their budget. uh last year 8.5%. This year 7.83%. And I know those percentages like oh well that's not that much but look at the raw amount because obviously the
larger the the dollar the larger the the budget the smaller the percent is. So you're going from a a 57.8 million budget in 2020 and 21 to a 79 million.6 $6 bud $6 million budget in a matter of
five years. So, uh, and and we had the conversation last year about the the level of unsustainability at $5.8 million increases. Uh, and so I just, you know, we're getting 8.68 million from growth
in advorum tax revenues. The sheriff's request is 14.6. uh you know and I heard the comment I would think I need to you know because we talked about the the other constitutionals uh let's look at the they were funded completely but let's look at the amount
that we're talking about I mean 5.6 for the property appraiser and he's asking for he's getting 6.6 6 that's 348,000 clerk clerk of the circuit court 1.5 million he's getting 34,755
additional tax collector again estimate because August 1st is the day on which that the tax collector shall submit their bug budget to us we project at 10.4% 4% that'd be $448,000 and then the we'll leave out the VAB.
But if you just look at those I mean those are line items and some and some of and I'm not again I've shared with the sheriff you know absent of having to as a former city manager and managing the law the police department that came under me having reviewed law enforcement
budgets in the past working with the chief and all that. But I mean so I get it. I understand the importance uh and I certainly understand the importance and the criticality of making sure that our men and women in uniform, you know, are paid appropriately. I understand the sacrifice. I can tell you how many
times, and you all both know that I've had to, you know, step in as a single dad when my wife was deployed to Texas or deployed with the governor or been called out. My wife is a is a law enforcement. I get it. And I and I I don't disagree that the the salaries could not be that the salaries need to
be funded. So, we did to your point in the conversation you had, we ran a couple scenarios and and and the numbers that I used included a multiplier based on what we would arguably use for fire. And I think Amy the CFO agreed if you if you know
it's the multiplier is 1.5. So, if we're paying you know $10,000 times 1.5 and that gives you what the actual amount is. And we've run some scenarios to Commissioner Lur's point where you could do, you know, you could get to that $60,000, you know, and then you could provide the
25 or even you could go to 3500 at I think at 6 million. I'll tell it to you. I mean, I just we've been reticent about trying to tell the sheriff or, you know, outside of me talking with him about the initial uh presentation of which one of
the things that we found out in the presentation book, you know, the the discrepancy is the presentation that was put together, it's not the sheriff's, it's from the the union. And the errors that are in that presentation, as they told us, that's not theirs. Well, I used
those numbers just to say, well, well, it said 95 row deputies in that in that presentation. It's actually 76. All my columns, all my numbers, the the formulas, they were all correct. I use Excel. Again, I don't want to trust my fingers on a calculator.
But I can share with you what we had shared and and we did. I mean, in all fairness, I've talked to you. I've talked to sheriff. I looked at the budget. Kurt just looked at the budget. I did I looked at it for what were the red flags
that I used to look at you know on a municipal law enforcement budget when I see just you know taking a mil say a number that's like was 589 and now it's 1.2 2 million even, you know, it just so it's like those are things that kind of
stand out sometimes and we tal I I've made inquiries and as you know you've been copied on those emails. So we did estimate I said for $6 million79,000 you could do that what could be done is provide if to bring if the goal is to
bring everybody up what I was told at our lunch meeting is $60,000 and again I I think it's important to note our firefighter starts at $58,000. Once they get their EMT then they can be at $60,000. That's why there's an asterk
on the promotional advertisement. If you come as an EMT, you've spent those three, four months getting that license and that certification, then you'll get that incentive just like there's other incentive for crisis negotiation, for SWAT, for K9, for SN there's every on public safety, they all have incentives.
So, I understand this. So, you So, but the firefighter does start at 58. We don't have many, I don't think. I think but it's rare that we will hire somebody at this point right in time unless we were that short. So, uh, I would say so if you stuck with 60 and you gave a $9,381
increase, wage increase, and then you do the multiplier of 1.5, which would cover the FRS, cover the FICA, cover the life and health, uh, the workers comp. I said that that comes
out to 5.28 28 for sworn officers based on the 373 uh the numbers that were provided you know that the sheriff submitted in terms of u on a sheet and then the 190i 190 civilians the average increased to 3500
you know that that's another 831,000 so for 6 mill79,000 and 920 so we'll say six basically $6.1 million you can address that but what it does require and again I have not tried to get into the sheriff's budget. I've
asked questions with him privately. I don't think it's appropriate to do it publicly about specific line items or stuff like that because I'm I didn't get elected to be sheriff. I got selected appointed by you all to be your county administrator. So, uh but to is there a
possibility of deferring capital? Is there a possibility of holding the line? Is there a possibility maybe doing a phase in plan some this year, some next year? Those are all things that you could do. I mean, we've gone back the addition because we did start off with 4.7 because that's what it was more than
what we provided in percentage-wise of last year. We've gone back, we were able to find, not not find, cut certain things. That's it was cut in certain things. cutting money from animals, animal sheltering, an issue that we know that will also plague the community from
a public safety, you know, uh the facilities master plan, cutting an additional mile road resurfacing, which we know is a big issue within our county, you know, because we have so many roads that we're trying to get caught up from the years that we're behind. And then we received there's
some additional funds that the the 19th court, you know, when they resubmitted their budget right before we already printed this and was it 185 or something like that. Yeah. And then also the Gford neighborhood plan kind of cutting that and trying to see if we can do that
internal. So with that, that's how we came up with about a million dollars. So that's where I offered yesterday 5.7 and then we had conversations about me mental health court or the because the sheriff has a a component where they deal with mental health and they handle
they do case work and I said what if we were to you know over six-month period it's about there's $185,000 of expenses and salaries there's about $185,000 in operating expenses I said so what if we were to look at with our human services community services provided we can work
with the court administration and and they're okay with that. Uh that we could take that service off your hands. I said, "And we won't touch that that that those that extra $185,000 in your budget because it would take us six months to make sure we're appropriately doing what we need to do in terms of the
mental health court because we do believe we agree that it's an important, you know, service being provided and eliminates additional stressors on the on the criminal justice system. So that gives about 6.18, so almost 6.2. And so
that that would be able to fund it, you know, but the but today what I've heard is, you know, I've heard 7 million, you know, yesterday I heard 7 million. I couldn't get to 7 million without going in and making more cuts. And I do want to talk say something about the
everybody keeps talking about 28 positions. Five of those positions and and if if we have to, I'm willing to prioritize them for you, but they're general fund positions. The others are all sitting in other funds that are not being paid for by advalorum taxes.
They're being paid for by rateayers. And you can't make them pay, you know, for a general fund employee. It would undermine, you know, I mean, the utility person, the person that's paying their utility bills like, well, why am I paying for that person? Or if somebody's like, you know, you use the general fund because we augment the sheriff's
funding. We have the unincorporated and the MSTU because we're paying for services that he provides with the unincorporated. Then we we also augment for general fund because there are some services that go beyond the unincorporated area but it's not fair
for everybody in the general fund which is countywide to pay for services or uh or subsidize services within the unincorporated area. So it is a balancing acts. I mean there's no doubt but I mean we have I think we could do the the we'll just round up 61. I mean,
I really do. And I think that provides, you know, but what that also means is it does mean, and this is where I'm I'm very careful because again, I do not want to be the sheriff, you know, I don't envy him. I know it's got he's got a lot of demands. I mean, he uh in terms
of his operations, but evaluating, you know, those increases because some of them, I mean, I I listed them out here, the information that was provided to him and information that was provided to you. some of those increases just in operating were pretty significant just face value looking at it without details
because I don't we don't get the details just just saying face value. So, I mean, that's what I would say. I I I don't I kind of I I know when I watched the last three years, you know, and I wasn't here for the year one, every year, you know,
there was qu is this going to get your people raises? And then I think two years ago, you said because people were here, they were concerned as a new administrator. Well, are they going to change? He agreed to 57 and I just want to make sure the board's not going to
back off on that and and and people showed up, they talked and you said, "Listen, we're approving it and he gets to spend the money, you know, and and I didn't say that." And by the way, that does not that does not apply, my understanding is to every other constitutional. It's the legislature made that that sole provision for the
sheriff's office. It does not apply where you can take money from this account, go to this account, go to this account. So, but anyway, so I think the the board could do that. Uh, I will tell you I do not think, you know, one, we do not have what was the amount that was uh
$600 million in reserves. We do not have $600 million in reserves. You know, we've got about I want to say combined between the MSTU and the general fund, it's somewhere around about 102.5 million, but some of that is is they
it's restricted, non-spendable, committed, and then there's some unassigned. And you know, you we heard the conversation, well, if I have a bank account, a savings account, I got to keep dipping into it, sooner or later I'm going to run out. Well, that's what will happen with us. And we've seen
other communities do that throughout the state throughout the state where they they've dipped and then they don't have then they have to make draconian cuts in services that affects everybody. So what we're trying to do is set oursel up knowing that in 2728 whether it's
Florida tax economist whoever I mean I understand that there's homes being built there's some in the pipeline but I know our building permit revenues I know our building permit activity I mean I showed it new construction values were down this year you know by I think it was like 19%
impact fees are down so we're seeing what those who are the quote unquote experts and the prognosticators that forecast where the economy is going and none of those forecasts, they're all first quarter forecasts, took into account what the Florida legislature and
the governor is looking to do as it relates to the fundamental structure of how we fund local government services and they didn't take into account well I guess Dr. Snakes did from you know about the potential for the tariff. So there there are some unknowns. I mean, again,
I would agree that it's going to be like a tropical depression, maybe tropical storm, not a c not not a hurricane, whatever. But we need to be ready. I mean, that's why we have funds set aside so we don't go through what we did before. So, uh, I I would say, you know,
you know, but but I was told that that's that money was that wasn't good enough. But I mean, so we found about 1.3 more than what we originally asked or were recommending and I was told that wasn't good enough. And
thank you for that. And we also heard uh some of the comments about there's been no planning, no projection. Um I I I don't I don't see that, but we've in
three years time, we've put in from the budget to the sheriff 18.92 million. 18.92 million. I know you have that's that's the fourth year but 21 four years but the three years.
Yes. And now when I spoke with him he wanted to address compression and starting pay separation of rank and he wanted to add cola
for the men and women who serve and I said that's great news just not all at once. and and I believe that he has strategically worked a plan to ensure that
these elements are being addressed in hearing from some of the individuals about people leaving from other jurisdictions and or leaving here to go to other jurisdictions then hearing what the conditions are in those other jurisdictions.
this is a a great environment to work. Um I I can tell you that I worked in a little different kind of environment and and then this environment and to compare the two
yet when I first started I had a fish in the river so my family could eat. Okay, things haven't changed. I heard things change. Things haven't changed. The economy is still not well
with that. I'm men and women have to be and I said it earlier that you can't you can't do a salary study and say how much are you worth
because I can't say how much is your life worth? how much is the quality that we deliver us. The challenge that I I think we're not seeing is what we have available. And if we can come up with a a solution
because me personally I and I and I said it about the mill rate and I I think a few individuals said yeah don't change the mill rate. that you change the mill rate, you're going to hurt a huge population
to compensate for what needs to be done. So, there's got to be an alternative. There's got to be we have to raise the boat because
if we go to the shallow end to raise the attraction salary as it was compared, which the numbers were not accurate, um someone said 50 and 60 compared to fire and uh law enforcement. That's that's not
accurate. It it's far closer than that. But it should be more. And if it's going to take a little more to keep great individuals working,
and the sheriff was right, how much institutional knowledge did I work with? Well, now that a lot of the crowd left, uh, there's not many. I only see a couple.
With that, I'm gonna I'm gonna ask to take take a break after we're finished. Just as long as the my fellow commissioners have nothing further and when they do, we'll discuss that and then because we still
have to hit the aggregate and the final statement. Before we do that, we're going to take a break. But I I just want to add, Mr. Chair, I've heard some things. One was a little disturbing about our benefit package.
Um, and Mr. Administrator, isn't it true that our health insurance per employee has been flat for several years? Uh, that is correct. And and recognizing the Economic Times, right, the board elected to not impose any increases. And
I think the gold plan, the gold plan, I want to say it's three maybe $400 a month. And if you went out to an insurance exchange, you'd be looking at over $1,000. I mean, we have a very competitive package. We provide vision and dental free. We provide long-term
disability free. So, I mean, those are things that we've done that we've extended to the constitutionals as well. I mean, so I mean that offsets and plus we have an employee health clinic that is heavily utilized where our employees can get basic care without nec, you
know, trying to get in that appointment for primary care. They can go get things. They can get specific everyday prescriptions at no cost. Right. And then I heard uh briefly about compression, friends. $10,000 across the board. uh
you would not have a compression issue because each grade would have an additional $10,000. Right? So if someone's talking about compression, they're they're not speaking right. And the formula that uh Mr. Administrator used of 1.5 uh that is
a generous formula to use. Uh so you're looking at $10,000 across the board per sworn law enforcement and $3500 uh for civilians without raising the millage rate.
A question please. Thank you. Um how much time do we have to settle upon the budget? I mean is this something that we have to decide this week today? So what you're being asked to today is set the the tenative
millillage for the purposes of the trim notices going out saying these are the millages for the respective for the general fund for the uh the MSTU for the emergency service district. Uh do yes do we have time between now and September
the September 10th we'd have to have to have it be long be before that because we have to advertise but whatever military you set today you can go lower but you cannot go higher can only go lower you can only go lower I'm not interested in in changing the
mill rate I'm not as as we've discussed there already has been a tax increase just by virtue of the uh property value uh rising and And then a concern of mine is for people on fixed incomes and it's, you know, one of the problems that I had
with the universal uh garbage collection was that, you know, that's that's a bill that people didn't have and will have. And something that we haven't discussed today is that the water and sewer rates
uh will be increasing. And that was that that's actually catchup. the way we were catching up with the firefighters and we we've done that we solved that problem and I guess we created another in doing so but with the water um for 20 years I
think the rates went up about 12% or something like that 5% and it should have gone up what 200% over 20 years okay so now you're getting two increases within what is it a year one increase this uh this last October
and another increase this October So for people on fixed incomes um you know that's that's a lot of money. It's it's a lot of and it's unfortunate but we have to do it. I mean that you can't defund water you know we have to we have to have it. So we have
to do it but I understand that it can be painful on fixed income. So I'm not looking to change millillage. Um, that being said, uh, when I started on county commission, which was in 2020, the same year that,
uh, Sheriff Flowers, uh, took his position, um, he he took us, I think he took each one of us separately, but I know he took me around in a golf cart and showed showed me the sheriff's compound and his plans for the future and what he wanted to do. And I have to
say, you know, he he did everything, you know, he said that he wanted to do, you know, in that in that term. And I'm, you know, I'm very uh mindful of that and very respectful of that. I think I, you know, I think he's done a great job. What I would like to do is see if there
is any other place, and I appreciate that you've already come up with a million, a little bit over a million, but if there's any other place or places um within the budget where we can uh
trim spending and redirect it uh to the sheriff's budget. That's, you know, that that's my that's my position on it. So those are my thoughts, but I understand what you're saying about me. Not looking to change me. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Yes, sir. Um, I've listened to a lot today. I've been in the same boat there in I remember a 14-hour session we had here
with the board of county commissioners. I forget what year it is, but it was back in the in the 2010ish in that range somewhere before. We weren't successful. The board voted it down to to keep it down. It was a big
battle that we had at the firefighters for over the year and it still wasn't much better when I got elected in 2020. Our new administrator saw fit because we
can the fire department is directly under this board. We said as the board of county commissioners, Commissioner Flesher is the chair, I mean as the emergency service district or with the chairman, whoever the chairman, Commissioner Flesher being the chairman of that district.
And we saw fit to see what's happening in early in late 2020, 2021. Yeah, their starting pay increased. They got some benefits because we saw it coming. The problem that I'm having today is I'm
looking at this slide right here. $22 million in four years. Why is starting pay so low? Why are we still at $50,000 in 2015?
It doesn't fall upon the board of county commissioners. My son works there as you were told. I would love to see him get a good substantial raise and get back out get back on his two feet and get out from his uh divorce that he had a few years
ago. It would be wonderful. But I don't set his salary. I don't set how many patrol cars are on the road. I don't set how many people are in jail. I don't set anything. I
strictly deal with sheriff. Here's your check. This year he got a $78 million check. Every year he and I were elected the same year. Every year he's come into my office and the first question I asked the sheriff and
he'd be telling a lie if he didn't say this was true. The first question that I ask him is, "Sheriff, what are you giving your people this year?" Oh, we got them taken care of. We're working on compression issues. We're working on some starting pay issues.
Okay, I believe him. He's a good man. He's a friend of mine. He's the sheriff any river county. I respect that. It's 2025. We're still at $50,000 starting pay with 22 million over the
last four years. I am just floored by that every time I see it, you know. And then to compare to what we did with fire rescue when I was in the union and I remember the battles that we had here. I always
only compared myself to we always only compared oursel to other fire departments. We didn't use law enforcement in our in our criteria that we that we had to do. That's all well and good because it's local, but we saw it coming.
No, they're not at a starting salary of 50,000 a year like they were or even less. Some of them were like at 48 47. They are they're at 60,000 if you have your paramedic certification. And uh
I just I just look at 22 million over four years. I'm just I'm just absolutely floored by that. That where were the raises when the raises needed to be done? And I and I look at it now that we want another 15 million on top of the 78
million that that that he's automatically gonna get because you never you never take you never go back from what you had that that that would be a $93 million budget. I get it. And I want y'all to get pay. I
want you to get pay raises. I want you to be successful in your private life as you are in your professional life. But I mean, it's just it's just very tough for me to look at the look at that number and see what we're going to do. But I tell you
what I am in favor of. I am in favor of trying to of get more of what we can do. But we have to be careful and and uh one of my favorite commissioners up on this dis commissioner Adams will always tell you that
we can't necessarily hack the rest of the county's budget and every people that that what the county needs in order to support one entity whether it's the sheriff's department or whether it's public works or whether it's anything.
We can't we can't do that. So, the same as as fire rescue, the the the the benefit there is they are an emergency services district. So, I'm all in favor to see like what Commissioner Moss said to see what we
can do. But but the the the taxpayer is not going to stand for a millage increase in my opinion right now unless it can be minimal and bring in the tax dollars. But I don't think this
board would vote for it. Even if I did say yes, I think there would probably be four votes against me. So I don't think the the the millage increase is is is a is is a way to do it. Maybe there's another way to fund it. But you know what also troubles me is
the sheriff didn't meet me this year on the budget. Haven't spoke to him about it at all. We had lunch a few months ago at at at CJ Cannons and I said, "How's your budget coming up?" Oh, it it'll be a good budget. That was my only conversation with him. So, I haven't
talked to him this year about his budget. We hadn't had the conversation. I didn't get to ask him, "What are you going to pay your people this year?" But we need to pay y'all more than what you're making now, what you're starting at and what you're making now. And I think there's there's some ways to do
that. But I haven't heard a plan. And I haven't heard any any great suggestions from the sheriff that that this is what we can do. It's just I want $14 million. If that's what I need to have, I want
$14 million. If I went to my dad and asked him, "Dad, I need a hundred bucks." He'd make me explain why I need it and what I'm going to do with it. I mean, come on. Let's work together here. Let's don't don't arbitrarily say I'm 14 million. And I walk out the door.
Let's find a way to take care of you guys that are out there every day. That's all I got to say. Thank you. Take 10 minute break. hear from this guy again. Oh, okay. Well, thanks for asking.
Thank you. We got two more things to do. The meeting will now be called back to order. Thank you. I appreciate six points. We heard a lot today regarding the sheriff's budget. I think it was the
keynote speech and I think that I can speak for everyone of the commissioners that are sitting before you. We heard you. We heard the sheriff and we heard the concerns.
And personally, I began this with I want to see if you if the men and women who serve can get what they need. And I made a statement about
the sheriff wanting to take on hand three different elements that he felt were important when he took office. and we had a long talk and he was going to
do one of them at a time because it's a crash course for disaster if you try to complement all three of those elements. You know what he did that he worked
with the compression we had to come back with for the sergeants And then we had to work with the base pay and the records show it.
And you can't take away 21.865,155. It happened. And unfortunately the economy was happening in a different way, in a different light. in between those moves he did each year.
So, I want to compliment him for separating them and addressing the needs of the men and women who serve. With that said, personally, and I know you've heard from each one of us,
we want to do more It's very difficult when you're looking at this from 18,000 ft with the other 17 over 170,000 citizens,
but we want to do the right thing. So, I want to say that now that we've talked at this workshop that there's a little work to be done and I believe that some work will be
done and I believe it's going to take the sheriff and the county administrator a little extra time. We have two budget hearings after this. We have the another budget hearing. Then we have a final in
September and then the budget cycle is completed. [Music] I had wished that the conversations had happened more robustly
and earlier on than they occurred. I heard the comment about uh that the the there was some talk but I couldn't talk. There's great record of a lot of communication
but there has to be a willingness to embrace what we can do without raising the mill rate. That's the concept. I I do anticipate that
something will be done. Um fawn hopes. That's anticipation. Um I I want to let you know that there's not a brick wall here, but the the request at over 14 million is
a large one to climb over. I don't think we'll ever get there. I don't think we'll ever get there, but we can get a little closer and make this happen. As I had discussed with the
sheriff, and we looked at a a two-year cycle, and he didn't care for that too much. Did not have any appetite for that. So, we'll have to see what can be done. And I hold I hope I'm holding the
consensus of this board that we'd like to see absolutely the most that we can be doing to ensure that our first responders, our law enforcement officers are
comfortable, confident, and able to be able to work and live here at the same time. Even the ones that don't live here yet would like them to live here too. Anybody else want any comment?
With that we'll move on. We have uh discussion on the aggregate millillage. See you Saturday. God bless you. I'm sorry.
I know. [Music] We have a sidewalk. Okay, Mr. Sir find my slides. So the aggregate millillage that's being proposed is 6.1198.
Uh the roll back millillage is 5.7442 and the proposed is 6.1158 for a difference of 3716. This is not what everybody would pay. Okay, this is just the average you know in terms of the aggregate mil.
Oh, that's where it is. Sorry. So, um and it it is decreasing by 00040 ms alto together 6.1158. Okay. Okay. I'll move on to the recap, sir.
So, well, so the next we're just talking about this, you know, uh Kristen and I because it's just there's multiple funds involved here and it's not just general fund. we may have to move money and and try to figure something uh in terms of
how we could come up with going back looking at it come up come up with more uh because one of the things that she has to do is she has to advertise with the trim what the proposed budget is
not just the military advertisement that goes in the paper the Friday after the um prelim preliminary hearing has to be to the press journal before you have the preliminary hearing. Um, so
it kind of puts us in a bind if we don't know what each fund equals at that point. Um, so if you wanted to give us a number that you wanted to give the sheriff, that would be ideal. If you're not prepared to do so today,
maybe we need to have another workshop and do this again in August. I I'm not really prepared. I don't think we're really prepared to do that today. We only have one true commission meeting in August. So, I would be happy to I
mean, personally, I'd be happy to have a a special call or workshop specific to the questions that might surround that if that gives you a little bit of extra time to try to work something out um and
and crunch. I just think there's too many moving parts and it's too late in the day to really try to lock something in at this point based on the conversations. As far as direction um from you all, what is it that you expect from us? You
want us to do different scenarios giving different amounts and where those cuts would come from? Is there without raising the millage? I mean, how how we're not going to 14 million obviously, but well, you don't you don't have much to
work with. Um, again, we have to look directly at the general fund. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, the first thing that comes to mind, you know, is we are recommending a positions in the general fund. Uh, I'll go back and review those positions.
uh you know cuz some of these other positions that we people were talking about like you know there's a lot in building facility services but that's so we're not paying a private contractor $125 an hour. I mean it's we're saving money by doing that. So uh so I think
that would be one of the areas and we can look at some other things you know we can get together but um maybe what would be helpful is if you can create a few scenarios within the current millillage rate and then speak
to us individually and maybe that will narrow it down and bring something back for for a workshop. I think that's a good idea. You know that idea Where where where
you were able to get six 6.1? It's it's just over like 6.1. So it's like 6.1 6.2. Um and that's that that brings it up to the if you look at that that brings it up to the 60,000. So, it's it's not 10,000.
It's like 9,681 or something like that to bring it to 10 to the six the magic $60,000 number. Well, there's no delusional uh envisionment that we're going to get to 14 million. No, there's not nothing to
say about you know, as the sheriff mentioned, we met yesterday and I couldn't even conceive or, you know, we looked and we ran and it just even before getting there and looked at, you know, ran scenarios and kind of like, oh, what if we did this, what if we did
that? You know, I couldn't get to seven. I'm just going to tell you, I couldn't get to seven. And I'm going to say this in good conscience as your administrator. I don't recommend that you I think you got to be you got to be worried about that trajectory for future years. I'm not
saying the sky is falling, but but I'm just saying we need to be mindful and cautious of what we do today because it compounds for every year. But you think we can make it a little better? Do you want to show them? So what here? Yes, I can do that. It's
on here. Yeah. Yep. So, let me just let me just just voila. Surprise. Um, this is the 1.2 that gets the increase to 6 million. We could find another 100,000.
Yeah, we This is the six billion. If you want to show him the next slide is what? Okay. So, yeah. So, we were here's here's how we were getting to six million was to cut funding from animal services, get rid of, you know, um, you know,
the facility master plan for 247507, uh, some additional court administration in terms of that's the money that they have sub let us know that they're not. What's that? Is that the mental health court? No, that's not. So, there's still potential there if if the district agrees to
do half meaning like we split it. So, uh, so that would be that that that six there that that two there gives you the 62 if you will, but the neighborhood plan and then it's it's one mile of road paving resurfacing is $240,000. This doesn't look at any the the
positions and I'll meet with the the admin the uh deputy and the county admin the assistant county administrators regarding the positions in their u respective areas. But these cuts along with some rebalancing of some revenues between general and MSTU fund would get
you to a point where you could fund the sheriff an additional $6 million from his last year's request instead of the 4.7 that's in the recommended budget as of today. So that would be an additional 1.4 over what you originally recommended.
Yes. 4.7. Right. Coupled with that, and if the sheriff can take a deeper look at the uh medical costs, the uh
rather large uptick. Perhaps between a little adjustment here and a little adjustment there, we can get to where it needs to be for the men and women who serve. I I I think there is a bit of latitude
there. Uh that budget went up significantly. Um and maybe that can be re-engineered on his on his part. Mhm. Uh and as far as uh
our part on the administration, perhaps maybe there could be a few dollars found to build the bridge and get a little closer near that seven.
Just I don't I don't I don't believe so. We we'll meet with you individually. I mean, Chris and I will get together. We'll come up with some ideas. we'll meet with you all individually and then kind of go through there. Um, and but but we we understand, you know, generally right now we're looking at 62
and that's kind of unless there's something I don't want to say there's a magical unicorn in the budget to borrow Mr. D, but you know, but we will go back, we will do our best and we will look, you know, we'll look at our projections. We will make sure that
we're we're tight, you know, I mean, but within reason in terms of making sure that we're not placing the county in a a a situation where we're being fiscally irresponsible. Thank you. Yeah, that's the I mean, there's the other thing, you know, septic to sewer.
I mean, utilities is not going to be able to absorb all that by itself, you know, especially if you fund a program, you try to fund a program to help people connect. That's that's a 2030 mandate. I mean that's so I mean five years left.
Yeah. Five years to figure it out and so so can I ask my fellow commissioners if these funds is everybody okay with like the base of these funds being rem? Well the fourth one on the list is
pretty important. That's I mean we've been kind of working on that for a while. Yeah. many years and it's been delayed many years and uh I I just didn't know if this was like the base you guys want but we'll just all get together. We can I don't disagree because I I will
tell you I fundamentally believe and I've heard the comments about the consultants. I believe having an independent consultant team coming in and doing a a a Gford neighborhood plan would better serve the community and the county administ the county as a whole
versus what we have right now. I just really believe that because it's like, you know, but I have talked to Chris, you know, maybe this is something that we can read, you know, like, you know, Logan helped us in in a big way on the Oslo. So, let let me talk to PDS and
see if the if the the bandwidth exists, right? Well, let's together. Thank you. Mhm. I think we're in at least a better frame. There's some possibility, but yeah, the
item number four when I Yes. It it was was it was like a low it was a higher. Yeah. So, yeah. So what we do need to do is just kind of review these right now and in
terms of the overall budget in terms of the proposed overall budget is 597,623,32. It's a decrease of 73,351 from the amended bud FY25 budget as of March uh 31st 25.
So uh the proposed general fund military is uh is 3.5 recommended is 3.5475 which is again 6.69 above the roll back rate. So legally it is considered a tax increase but it's not an increase in the
military. Uh the proposed general fund budget is 156. General fund budget is 156.9 or 156,92,53 an increase of 196,559. For the municipal service taxing unit uh for the unincorporated area, the
proposed millillage is 1.1506 mills, which is 6.09% above the B the roll back rate. um not an increase in the military, but it legally considered a tax increase. And the proposed MSTU budget is 54,969,931,
a decrease of $2,285,375. So then the next would be, oops, I did have it there. the transportation fund. The proposed budget is 27,295,785, a decrease of1,386 and $172. For the emergency service district, the
proposed mill is 2.3531. It's 6.25% above the roll back rate. Again, don't increase the military, but legally consider tax increase. proposed budget is $73,585,471 a decrease of $9,992,199.
Uh the next one is our land acquisition bond uh series 2024. The proposed millich is uh and this is lastly the point 00610 and the budget is proposed budget is $1,843,432
an increase of $65,340. So m you know so now would be a time I think we've already discussed this you need to make a a motion to um to adopt the proposed milit rates. Okay. And as far as considering any
proposed uh budget changes um that will be um up to the exploration of your determination. and you'll speak with us all individually and you'll have discussion with chair.
Yes. Okay. Well, with that we can get the final motion going. The only motion of the day and that will be to have a motion to adopt the proposed millies.
Everybody has their own microphone and we need two people to move that and I can't be the first. I'll make a motion to approve military at 3.5475. Second.
There you go. We have a motion by Commissioner Airman, seconded by myself. Any further discussion? Yeah. Can I clarify? So, there's three different militates that you're ultimately adopting. That's the the general fund. The MSTU proposed military
four actually uh is 1.1506 for the MSTU the and then the emergency services 2.3531 and the land acquisition bond is 0610. So you would need to amend your motion
to include all those other my motion to include those mentioned by the county administrator. We have a an amended motion by wish by myself.
Any further discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Motion carried unanimously. So, Mr. Chair, I just have a couple comments. uh and I know this is the hearing schedule but we know obviously
there based on our discussion today there'll be in August a second workshop that will be scheduled at some point in August after we have consensus and scenarios and bringing them forward but I do want to state you know it's a reiteration uh of some of the comments I
made you know it's just as much as the state remains concerned about its revenue sources and what's going to happen with intergovernmental funds or revenue transfers as well as the economy uh as much as they're preparing for the cooling of the economy or a contraction
uh it would it would be full hearty for us not to do that as well. Uh so I just you know encourage that we continue to remain proactive and fiscally disciplined and and while we work to continue to deliver essential services trying to be resilient so when the
economy does bounce back we're able to capitalize on that. Um, and the last little I want to do, I want to thank, you know, Kristen, Elise, you Ronda, uh, Kristen Lee did a lot of heavy lift in this budget, you know, with the two of them when we normally have three. So, I really appreciate all the work they did.
But I also appreciate the work that our constitutionals did. I appreciate the work our departments. And then I want to thank each of you because you all have made yourself available throughout this process more than the last couple years. You know, the ongoing conversations that we've had to have individually. So I do
appreciate the the leadership, the guidance and um so uh with that I want to thank you and I want to thank our employees and our managers and all those work to deliver the services that we provide to our residents. Thank you. But work is not done.
Yes, actually just begun. But I'd just like to echo the thank you. We could not have done this without Elise and Rhonda. Like John said, we're we're we're one man down this year and and it's been a challenge, but we've got a great team and I thank them for their dedication. And with that, the preliminary budget
hearing is scheduled for September 10th at 2025 at 50:01 p.m. here at the BCC Chambers. And the final budget here will be September 17th, 2025 at 5:1 p.m. here at BCC Chambers. And the sooner that we
can I we will make this a priority to get meetings so we can um get this octo or this August workshop scheduled. Thank you. Appreciate you all and your time. Everything.
Thank you all. Meeting adjourned.