they don't have Hey hey hey hey all right thank you i'm going to call to order the county commission workshop agenda for Tuesday April 15 2025 at this time please silence all
electronic devices and mute your phones please rise for the invocation and pledge of allegiance discussions that honor you and benefit everyone involved in your name amen america and to the republic for it stands one
nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all welcome chaplain would you like to say a prayer as well sure please everyone rise please good morning it's an honor to be here with you thank you let's pray
father we've gathered for a very important time this morning as uh we have gathered to discuss finances and Lord we know that uh finances can be a difficult topic to talk about and yet at
the same time we know that we've come here for a common purpose so I ask that in the course of this meeting that you give us all understanding you give us all grace and particularly Lord you give us wisdom to be able to make just the
right decisions in regard to how best to utilize the resources that we have because we know that we've come together for the betterment of our citizens so thank you Lord for your presence amen
we started something new at the county we're we're rotating chaplain so thank you for being here today you're our first one oh we'll get our routine down okay um we're going to call this meeting to
order are you on i don't have an All right we'll call the roll district one Commissioner here district two Commissioner W he's excused today here district five
Commissioner Ariana here district three here okay so um welcome everybody thank you all for attending this morning and um I am uh excited kind of to go through
this exercise this morning and um I'm going to now recognize Mr carbala our county administrator thank you thank you Madam Chair and uh thank you board members for for joining us today and our constitutional officers and representatives um judges as well this is uh again this is I think the second
time that we've done this um in in in the hopes of the board understanding better what's what's going on in your worlds as as constitutionally elected uh officers and and your budget challenges as we are putting together uh the budget uh for fiscal year 26 so we've
established an order i know some of you have presentations some of you don't it's it's okay we'll just uh have that conversation and open it up uh open it up so I just uh Madame Clerk you are first up thank you um does someone have the clicker do Okay do I just tell you next slide
okay thank you okay let me just practice real quick wait did y'all notice our new setup here in the room yeah it's nice yeah just want to make sure you notice thank our facilities folks for for working on this this was kind of the idea here
eventually to not be crammed up in front of the deis and and everyone to have a seat at the table so yeah it's working well all right very well i'm going to just get right to it you have a long lineup of of uh presenters today uh there is a division of responsibilities between court related and county related
duties performed by my office therefore my office's expenses and funding sources are bifurcated as such my office is required by law to submit its budget request in two parts one part is for court related functions and the other is for county related duties the clerk's
county related duties are funded by the county pursuant to section 21835 sub paragraph 2B and the county also funds specific court related functions pursuant to section 29.08 O8 sub paragraphs 1 and
two in addition in 2016 the county approached the clerk and controllers's office to enter into an interlocal agreement for the clerk's office to take over management of the law libraries for the county my office manages the law library services in its legal resource
centers located in both courouses my office does not receive funding from the county to provide law library services funding for law libraries comes from section 939.185 Florida statutes wherein 25% of $65 collected on criminal cases is
allocated to fund personnel and legal materials for the law libraries so far this fiscal year my office has served over 8,200 customers served in the legal resource centers okay the county related services that my office provides with the county
funds are services specifically provided to this board to county departments and to county staff those services listed in section 218 uh.35 sub paragraph 2B and are provided on this slide so clerk of
the board of county commissioners the county auditor custodian and treasurer of all county funds and then other county related duties what are other county related duties those things include um services that my office provides to the value adjustment board and to the 32 various boards and
committees such as the planning commission and the tourist development council i have been listening to the board of county commission meetings and the topic of using an MSTU to fund the constitutional officers has been discussed however I do not know where
the board stands on that thought and I have not heard the requirements of 125.01 01 sub paragraph 1 Q Florida statutes brought to this board's attention on this slide is the list of municipal type services specifically provided in that statute for which the
county may establish an MSTU the services my office provides that the county funds does not fall into any of the municipal services listed in this statute rather the county related services that my office provides which the county funds are services
specifically provided to this board to the county departments and to county staff and not to the public um and MSTU is not an appropriate funding mechanism for my office pursuant to this statute and the county is not authorized to create the MSTU for the purposes of
funding the clerk's office madam Chair yes i mean just to address that if I could yes thank you on that we talked about doing with the sheriff's office we did talk about doing that years ago but I think that's the only topic that came up with it and I don't know that even has any legs i appreciate
that thank you all right um so now I will address what my office is putting in the fisc year 26 county related budget so first I would like to say I am going to give you numbers but please don't hold me to
those numbers because they're preliminary budget isn't in due for just a couple more weeks so if you could um but I wanted to provide them so that there's some sort of understanding and discussion that can be had from that um so after talking with county administration my office is budgeting 3%
increases for salaries in the fiscal year 26 budget however if the board provides a higher percent increase for either its or another constitutional office's budget um we ask that our office be treated the same regarding um F FRS increases the preliminary budget
numbers that we will discuss today include the F FRS increases provided in Senate Bill 7022 which if it's signed into law becomes effective July 1 but we'll continue to monitor it because it's it's not into law yet um and then we'll
adjust the budget depending on the outcome of that Senate bill we are budgeting for increases in information technology to strengthen cyber security which we will go over in just a few minutes and we are budgeting for increases in the inspector general
department for both personnel and software cost so pursuant to the board request I will also go over futureyear budget considerations i'd like to call up um to the microphone my information technology director to go over the IT expenses in
the budget uh this is Tim Timothy Jameson good morning everyone so as you can tell from watching the news cyber security needs uh they continue to grow and as we discussed last year we've continued to layer in
and increase our protections taking good advantage of the state funding that was available under the cyber security grant program however these extra layers extra protection they add complexity to to the systems they increase our amount of work
that's associated with it especially after hours work also they increase the level of u detailed planning that's needed for all the various scenarios that you're trying to cover and when we look at the our current staffing levels we only have three people who are
focused on computer infrastructure networks and their related security and of those three people I'm one of them and and I'm the director i'm the key backup on numerous tools and and systems
so we're basically we've been running really thin on staff for quite a while but something came to our attention you know from hearing other the experiences such as Hernando County and their experience when they're down you have
weeks of extended effort lots of after hours work to recover and so we would be dramatically understaffed in that kind of a scenario and so we're asking for two positions both are for the technical
support networking security area one's an IT manager for the technical support area and the other's what we call an operations specialist and what they would focus on is managing these systems on the technical support area and their increased
complexity and really focusing in on improving our planning and improving our documentation in these technical support areas because there's so many options there's so many ways to go there's so many scenarios you have to plan for it's a lot of work and we're falling behind
in that area now what is it going to cost well the FY26 estimated increase doesn't include any potential salary increases yet uh these numbers I'm about to give you uh it's 127,000 year-over-year increase and that's
broken into two parts the first part is equipment and services which is $5,000 increase and so there's inflation of course some items have gone up but we've also managed to identify some savings such as stretching out our PC
replacement cycle we feel we're in a pretty good spot we're going to stretch that out to five years to lower our our costs for the coming year uh then the second area is the personnel costs for the two positions that I just described they're they're critical positions and
they're the uh the most costly and they're allocated across all of the our cost centers so the estimated request to the board is 122,000 for the wages FRS FICA benefits etc and then the rest of
the cost of the positions falls within the clerk's internal cost centers that the clerk's budget would pay for and not use county sourced funds for that so that's the overview of the IT increase again it's 127,000 year-over-year happy to answer any
questions okay thank you Mr jameson i'm going to now call up my inspector general to go over her area so I'd like to introduce Christine Colliano good morning every excuse me a frog in
my throat nice way to start the day good morning everyone over the past several years the inspector general community um has experienced hiring challenges in both filling vacant positions and retaining personnel challenges include salaries
are not competitive with private sector uh private private sector professional auditors and a lack of qualified experienced applicants right now our department is at 67% vacancy with two of six positions filled and that includes
me reclassifying the manager position to assistant director offers a higher paygrade commensurate with professional management responsibilities having an assistant director to support the day-to-day operations will enable our department's capacity to build and
grow relationships with our stakeholders with the county administrator with assistant county administrators and with department directors reclassifying auditor positions to exempt offers a higher pay grade for the specialized skill set and certifications required of professional
auditors this does not affect the current number of FTDEs we currently have in the department it remains unchanged these reclassifications equate to an estimated increase in personnel costs of 87,000 for fiscal year 26 it
covers wages FRS FICA and benefits there's also an estimated minor increase in operational costs of $16,675 which includes training for continuing professional education requirements uh professional membership requirements
and our officewide required annual ethics training next slide the other immediate operational need is software replacement our current audit management software is 18 years old and has exceeded its end of life
there is no more tech support and it's critical to have current technology to support project management and increased efficiency in our in our processes and workflows some risks with current software are compatibility and capability issues it does not work well
with newer hardware and our operating systems it causes errors and crashes and performance problems it does not provide the latest performance optimizations and it leads to reduced productivity and efficiency these issues increase costs
to avoid these risks it's time to replace our software with new software there is a one-time firstear expense for implementation estimated at 100,000 the annual subscription cost for future years is estimated at 60,000 per
year next slide so what I've shared so far addresses items that have been included in our budget however we are tracking Senate Bill 7:30 filed on February 13 2025 by Senator Jonathan Martin of Lee County
senate Bill 7:30 represents a significant effort to expand the scope and authority of the clerk and controller as both the county auditor and county inspector general through the proposed sections 28.51 and 28.52
Florida statutes it expands the clerk and controllers audit authority to county officers and constitutional officers district school board dependent and independent special districts a community college district board of
trustees or any other agency or political subdivision of the county this would be an enormous amount of additional audit responsibility an area of large concern is the number of special districts according to the official list of
special districts on the Florida Commerce website Pasco County has over 100 active special districts this number is considerably more than a majority of other counties in fact 62 counties have less than 100 special districts there
are only five counties Hillsboro Lee Miami Dade Pasco and Pope that have over 100 are these the CDD districts correct largely yes mosquito control and some of the water management districts environmental districts so it seems like the bill is
shifting burden from the state to the clerk's office to date there is no companion bill however if it were to pass it would be effective July 1 2025 uh and have tremendous operational and fiscal impact next slide
the expansion of the clerk and controllers duties under SB730 would require further investments in staff and resources a conservative estimate is that we would need a minimum of 10 additional positions to support audits of various other agencies and
constitutional officers there would also be an increase in operational costs such as required CPE training to maintain existing auditor certifications acquiring and maintaining equipment and software licenses and expanding workspace needs for both locations on
both sides of the county these positions and costs will not be included in FY26 budget requests as the legislative session progresses we will have conversations with the county administrator and see where this goes are there any questions that you have
for me well if there's no companion bill we'll we'll see what happens but is there a possibility of um charging the CDD districts for the audit is that in the bill that is not in the bill there is a section of the bill that
says audits by independent parties do not absolve the clerk's role of performing an audit under this new authority so payment to or providing of there is no provision in that in that bill about
who funds obviously it's a county um it's a county uh role that we have so the thought would be that the county would fund the extra positions and the cost to run it now would they be able to CDD right could you charge them that is
not clear okay that is not stated that is not clear Okay yes sir yeah it might be good to investigate if they have to do an audit maybe it's just instead of the other audit that the clerk just does the audit and they pay the clerk direct yeah that that it's it's not in statute
it's unknown and it would it would look like at this point to me in my opinion that the county funds it but there's no mechanism for the county to get reimbursed or to charge that cost onto the the special district or the school board or whomever it is have you guys
talked at all in conversation with the other clerks about what they think of this bill and what they think we could do with legislation maybe tweak it if it is going to go through which again does have a companion bill but Right right we are in conversations statewide we are also uh like watch and see we're meeting
with our legislative delegation trying to find out where did this come from why is this here why are we expanding the authority so much um and there really isn't a really great answers to those types of questions i think that it might
be a local issue um in in the county um Lee County in Lee County and I think it perhaps is a local issue that the legislature there wanted to fix and is doing it this way okay thanks
okay thank you Miss Kiano all right so um basically this slide is the the bottom line for next year's uh proposed budget again please do not hold me to this number just yet um so with everything you've just heard the
preliminary estimate shows an increase over last year of about $500,000 which is 5.2% uh increase from last year of which 3% is for the salaries and I'd like to pause here if that's
okay the rest of the presentation is to go over future budget considerations i can continue going um or if you'd like to ask any further questions I can pause all right plow ahead go on
okay all right um so in the past six years my office has enhanced the level of services and implemented efficiencies provided to this board and to the citizens of Pasco County the items listed on this slide are just a few of the accomplishments the county of the
county related areas of my office so my office has imaged all historic board records and we plan to make those images available online so that is a big undertaking but we've imaged all of the old records that were on film in microfich my office created the tide
tool which you might not be aware of but tide stands for the transparency initiative data extraction this tool is used throughout the state of Florida by clerk's offices court administration sheriffs state attorneys public defenders to extract their criminal
justice data and transmit it to the um to FDLE to provide access to the public on a statewide level for criminal justice data very proud of that that was homegrown right here by um my IT group my office also work closely with county
IT the state attorney sheriff's office and the judiciary in implementing an electronic warrant system so I just mentioning a couple of these things because all of these initiatives provide either enhanced levels of services um or efficiencies to our customers or government
offices so what's up on the horizon we're looking at electronic value adjustment board applications vab stands for value adjustment board so the VAB process is currently very manual very paperdriven and we are looking into
options of accepting applications electronically future phases will include accepting payments electronically historical board records online i mentioned in the prior slide that our office imaged all historic board records the next step is to create
online access to the historic board records going back to 1887 so we are currently in the process of standardizing the indexing of the older uh records and that is a big lift so that's going to take a little bit of time um e inventory tracking we're
looking to develop and implement an electronic system to track and inventory approximately 18,000 items across the county the process of utilizing scanning equipment integrating with the county's financial system and that will significantly reduce manual data in um
entry and improve the accuracy and timeliness of inventory management i think I have one more on that slide so debt management software so we are looking into a dedicated electronic system designed to manage and track post issuance compliance for all
current and historic county related debt the current county ERP system does not offer this functionality the software helps This software helps ensure continued compliance with IRS regulations and generally accepted accounting principles
implementing this efficiency will allow for enhanced audit readiness reduced risk of non-compliance and centralized documentation for easier access and reporting so there are other factors that will have a fiscal impact in future years the
rising personnel costs wages and benefits increases are necessary to remain competitive and retain quality staff without adjustments to compensation and benefits we run the risk of losing current and prospective teammates which would impact productivity and morale one-time
expenditures there is a need for non-recurring expenditures to replace aging and end of life equipment to ensure effic efficiencies and operational e- effect effectiveness the CDBG funds that the county has received and I know that the BCC is working on
developing a spending plan for the um 858.7 million in funding and that is related to disaster recovery from the impacts of hurricanes Helen and Milton so while this is temporary funding the board anticipates getting approval for
the plan in the summer of 2025 the impact to my office is unknown at this time but if the county but this is county initiative will impact the pre- audit functions in accounts payable as well as various audit functions in general ledger and treasury management
and then growth in Pasco the county has seen substantial substantial growth in the past few years this growth has continued to increase workload for our county related services my team constantly looks to efficiencies to keep up with the workload before adding
teammates if growth continues we will need to add teammates to address the increased workload so the next few slides will show where we're seeing growth that has will affect the workload and potential future resource requests you can't really see that very
well on the thing out but this is um population An increase in population places additional demands on public service and staffing requiring strategic resource allocation per workforce connect the population in Pasco is
projected to increase 123,000 between 2024 and 2029 that is 19.3% increase in 5 years that's that is tremendous yes uh just to say with with this slide I mean you get a yearly increase all the way through and your last one where the thing jumps up you get a fiveyear
condensed plan it's really kind of disingenuous I think to show that sharp increase when it doesn't go you're going from 24 to 29 right this is a But you don't do a chart that way it's not my chart i grabbed the chart from the uh
Florida Legislature Office of Economic and Development Research that's This is not my chart i know it's it's like I said it's shows something dramatically different you have to read the fine print here yes well no that is fiveyear jump not one year i never designed a chart that way so right so economics
major five-year example of how population growth impacts my office higher volumes of financial transactions more residents means increased government revenues from taxes fees and permits as the controller my office must manage a larger volume of
financial transactions including processing payments reconciling accounts and overseeing expenditures more public records and auditing responsibilities as a controller my office is responsible for maintaining and auditing financial records a large population results in
more contracts grants and financial agreements all of which require review of for compliance with local and state regulations higher demand for vendors um with the growth in population local governments contract additional vendors
for public projects as a controller my office must oversee vendor payments and procurement processes increasing administrative workload so with population growth the county increases staffing levels to meet that growth and the need with more
personnel across county departments this results in higher volumes of work um regarding records and transactions and compliance tasks my office must oversee at a minimum there will be additional work for just payroll to process as a result as the county expands their team
since my office conducts our work for the county my office will need to expand its team to ensure efficient processing accurate recordkeeping and timely financial reporting while maintaining transparency and accountability more employees require procurement of office supplies equipment and operational
resources as a controller my office will process a higher volume of purchase orders and reimbursements and vendor payments requiring increased auditing and financial tracking so outstanding debt has increased 64% since n um since 2016 the
first general obligation bonds were acquired in September of 2019 and with much of the increase occurring during fiscal years 20 and 21 leveraging debt has been a key uh county strategy in funding essential services higher debt level means the county has to allocate
more funds to principal and interest payments as the controller my office must ensure timely payments cash uh managing cash flows effectively and coordinating with county to prevent defaults with the increase in compliance requirements my office must closely
monitor debt obligations repayment schedules and compliance with financial policies this requires detailed tracking and reporting as a controller my office is responsible for preparing accurate financial reports debt disclosures and audit documents to maintain compliance
and uphold public trust increased acquisition of debt will lead to increased reporting to comply with state and federal regulations an increase in debt leads to increased investment management for my office for example as the county takes on more debt my office invests those funds to generate returns
to offset interest payments and ensure long-term fiscal stability investment balances so investment balances have increased by 82.6% since 20 uh 2016 my office continues tracking investments monitoring market conditions and
ensuring compliance with legal and financial regulations this responsibility requires more resources to manage the growing complexities of financial transactions investment portfolios and risk mitigation strategies an example of how increased investments impact my office is
increased cash flow management with more investments my office must oversee the higher volume of funds transfers interest earnings and reinvestments ensuring the county maintains liquidity for operational expenses while optimizing returns this may involve preparing financial projections
conducting risk analysis and making policy recommendations another example is risk assessment and mitigation larger investments expose county to market fluctuations credit risks and interest rate changes as a controller my office works with financial adviserss to assess
risk tolerance diversify investments port uh investment portfolios and implement safeguards to protect public funds capital assets the total number of of assets managed has doubled since 2016 and the value of
capital assets has increased by 226% an increase in the management of capital assets significantly expands the workload across all aspects of the financial process this includes a rise in the auditing of journal entries to ensure accuracy and compliance more
intensive processing and tracking of inventory and a greater focus on contract review and management to maintain control over asset related agreements additionally the pre- audit function for expenditures will require increased attention to verify that all costs associated with capital assets are
properly documented and aligned with budgetary guidelines managing more assets means handling more contracts for construction repairs and maintenance my office is responsible for processing payments to vendors and ensuring expenditures align with contract terms and approved budgets these factors
collectively demand more time resources and coordination to maintain financial integrity and oversight so the number of financial transactions have increased 64% since 2017 as the volume of financial transaction continues to rise the workload of my office grows
significantly advanced financial systems and additional staff are needed to manage and reconcile the increased volume of transactions and for accurate and precise reporting it is crucial for my office to maintain compliance with both state regulations and local ordinances
the responsibility not only requires careful tracking of funds but also the implementation of strict auditing measures to prevent fraud and ensure transparency in public financial records can I ask you a question yes ma'am um what was your staff level at 2017
so um in 2017 my staff level I don't know that off the top of my head but I can get that for you and I don't the way I have my data just so you know is I don't have positions filled in 2017 i have the number of positions i can give you that
okay okay and I can give it to you through from 17 through current okay that's helpful okay um all right so last year this board approved an additional position for board records mostly due to the increase of value adjustment board
petitions and the work associated with the board of county commission meetings just wanted to say thank you for the position it was well needed and um because value adjustment board is labor intensive like I mentioned this year the number of value adjustment board
petitions once again doubled so they doubled last year and then they doubled again this year so if we didn't have that position I don't know what we would have done um hopefully this trend does not continue in future years because if it keeps happening we're going to need to come back and ask for another
position this is my last slide we made it all right and so in summary as it relates to future fiscal year budgetary impacts as county government grows to meet the demands of the increasing population my office must
grow to provide the necessary service to county government in addition knowing what the county plans to do in the future years will better help my office determine if there will be an impact and to our office and its future budget request that said my office continually
looks to implement technologies to maximize efficiencies so I am happy to answer any questions that you may have um I have a question on the uh VAB um that you're looking you're looking to um do them electronically
yes the applications I would imagine that's going to save a lot of a lot of work there we are certainly hope in in the same line of thinking um it's and it's also processing the paper for all the board members too um so if we can have all that electronic that would be
great and so that the board members could have it electronically my office could have it electronically and then um members of the public could submit it electronically excellent any other questions yes u Wells um what do you think's driving
that high rate for the VAB petitions to give you an example do we have the numbers for Ryan Holmes or Ryan yeah it was a few thousand for Ryan last year yeah just primarily tax represent we ended up settled with the tax reps like Ryan they're coming in and challenging
values on like thousands of houses and it would have taken her office like a month just to go through them so we were able to settle at I believe 95% value which is good um Daniel my other chief deputy did a fantastic job with it but and her team does a great job but
everything's manual it takes them and trust me we met because we talk about money i mean I didn't put a number to it but it's a big number that it would have taken literally would have taken her team months right to to even go through everything so who's Ryan um it's a tax large tax rep company that that tax rep
yes company they represent could you please talk into the microphone so that we can capture it yes thank you yeah because I I don't know what you're speaking about oh microphone go to you it's sort of a statewide issue at this point um in that these tax
representative groups are coming into communities where there's large private equity investment with single family homes and otherwise and they are challenging values on that so our rental our our corporate rental homes right so any any level of a win that exceeds the
cost for application is potentially a win in the eyes of a client there so you're seeing petition volumes that never were that are in the ranges of thousands um topping 10,000 in some counties as we work through South Florida and things like that so and that and and really those are businesses not
correct correct homes so should be that's a whole another issue with the with the what it costs to be able to file a petition at $15 I believe and that's why they do it i would love to raise it but you don't want to hurt somebody that's just has their house and they want to challenge the value we hate to see them pay more but I think if we
were it's a state problem not us we can't do it but still it's state sets the amount oh um but we can work on our rental registry where we charge these companies we we started that and we you remember
we worked on that and I think we have a meeting coming up on our rental registry okay and you probably don't know much about it um we'll have a workshop a rental registry
any other questions for the clerk great job thank you okay next we have Mike are you running at this point all right ma'am so six judicial second all right thank you very much uh for purpose of the record I do need to click
here oh no that's great thank you um well I This is great um I'm Sean Crane i'm the chief judge for the sixth judicial circuit i want to thank you all for giving me the opportunity to be here and speak about some things first and foremost what I'd like to do is thank
you all for the um for the support you all have given us um through in in our our mutual positions that we have um and the support that helps us do our jobs better and serve the citizens of our community better i've had a great working relationship and been able to
work with your staff with uh your office um uh and with the county attorney's office for instance we have all this and as I'm sure Mr steiner is aware we have all this new immigration things going on and everything with detention and everything so we've been able to work with them and Bobby Hail there and
they've done a fabulous job uh helping us work through some of those issues um and also the the position for the magistrate that you all gave us very very helpful thank you very much it's been uh that has been a great service to the folks of our community who are in in
desperate straits and and being able to fund that and utilize that that asset and uh that that resource has been very very very helpful so I thank you for that to help you know some folks who are in their worst possible situation personally so thank you um I also want
to um uh just note for the record that we have a great working relationship for instance with the clerk's office a lot of these systems you see overlap and we've we try to work our best to be good partners with with all those folks so uh
that's been been very very helpful um so there's so pretty much in every turn we've been very fortunate as the court system to work closely with members of your staff Kathy included um who have been very very helpful for us to do our job and do it the best we can um I did
not bring I was going to bring a prop in and it was just going to be another it was going to be an old drum and I was going to bang on it some more as you can see from my PowerPoint uh it's funny when I walked in the uh question was "I wonder what Judge Crane's here for." Um well you all know why I'm here um like I
said I'm kind of not going away and this is just kind of uh you know and and this may have slowed a little bit but I just left this slide in as we know at one point in time Pasco County was the third fastest growing um county in the in the country um with our growth and I know
maybe that's uh slowed a little bit but nonetheless I think we have this incredible growth and that past growth certainly um um moves into and pretty much every person here I think uh that that's going to present today is going to talk about the growth and you all
know that i mean it's no surprise um is going to talk about the growth and the impact that has on them the impact that has on their their their personnel their workload their budgets i mean it's I know it's affecting all of us and so I know I'm just one of many who who that is affecting and uh we're trying to be
as as um efficient as we can with that we've heard uh we we we've heard um uh Mr wells talk about the um efficiencies of of of some of the electronic things we've heard that from our clerk as well our clerk controller
as well uh we're trying to work through some systems to make that easier we talked about electronic warrants we talked about we have a judicial automated system also known as JAWS which which helps us process and helps us helps the clerk I think the state attorney's office public defenders office private
lawyers the county attorney's office if they file things through draws the public if they have an account and we file over a 100,000 orders a year electronically to save that to to automate and and and uh uh make that workload much more efficient 100 over
100,000 like I said orders circuitwide per year so it's a very important system uh to to just move move documents through and that sort of thing so uh that automation is is is is I think very helpful to all um we we know about the
population growth we have that next slide thank you Nikki and um uh and it's just what we've talked about some of these sub some of these areas these subdivisions are massive anybody who's driven south on Little Road can see those houses going up i think there's 3,500 going in there it seems like every
time I drive by there's five new houses i They're the fastest builders known to mankind I guess because every time I drive by it seems like there's more you know five or six new houses so they're they're going up like crazy over there madam Chair if I could and so there's another chart is this from the state i'm
sorry no the population growth um we got this from the master plan update if you look underneath uh population growth Pasco County facilities master plan update August 2022 okay so when I look at the numbers you go from 20 to 23 2020 to 23 2023 then 2026 and then you get a
15-year gap in the same thing showing a huge spike that shouldn't be there yeah this is once again this is from your I just just the appearance of these charts you're showing or this chart shows it shows all of a sudden the big jump and it's not it's more much more gradual like the other well and and Kendall I think this number may be a little bit
low I know we've talked before here I'm talking the 15-year gap in the next No I understand that but the point is also once again this is from the county your the past I know but the way you're proposing it just kind of shows a huge gap just like the other chart did all right and and I appreciate I I
appreciate appreciate that and and I think that brings a good point out though but I appreciate the question commissioner because I think this number and we've talked about this at a prior workshop this number may be low um I know uh I think um the 2026 I think
we're going to be above 650 we may be 650 now um so I think this number these numbers may be actually low i heard I heard we're at 638 i'm sorry i heard we're at 638 and that's See so right this is low this is So I think that number is a bit low
well we're 2025 yeah so if we get another if we're at 638 now the difference between 638 and 650 was at 12,000 so if we can get 12,000 more people in the year which I suspect we may not be out out you know that just may be pretty
reasonable to think we're going to grow that much in a year we're growing um we talked about the additional development um like I said these are just some additional developments i'm going to move through this pretty quick um uh through these charts you all like I
said you all are aware of these things the growth is is significant we've been as you know working on the uh Pasco central court complex um uh for over 23 years now i've read over 23 years worth of notes and everything uh along with uh
Michelle Emerman our deputy trial court administrator and uh uh we And this has been recognized as a need since as early as 1998 1999 um I just threw in some of the names just because I thought it was interesting you know from from the past
some of the people that have been in our county for a while you know everybody from Judge Webb then Judge Bray Ter uh Bernie McCabe uh Jed Pitman Lee Cannon Annne Hildebrand who is near and dear to my heart um uh as I knew growing up and
she was friends with my parents Bob Dillinger John Gallagher and Daniel Johnson so these people started looking at this central complex john Gallagher has said uh uh in in these committee notes that when they bought that property it was for two things it was
for a courthouse and a jail um you all have supported us in the past i want to thank you again for being supportive at at the last meeting at our last workshop um and kind of greenlighted this project uh as long as we can kind of work through the finances this has happened
once before and um we got pretty much almost to the finish line and and unfortunately uh things did not work out but we did get a design and build in place and that sort of thing and I want to just mention this a little bit um I had the good fortune to be on a panelis
uh uh com committee uh they're building a new courthouse bord county commissioners and all the constitutionals they're moving them from downtown Clearwater to a site off Ometon Road and um so for the last few months I've been on the committee to do that
i've seen lots of submissions lots of proposals lots of um design and builds lots of uh art you know construction companies uh that have put in for those that project it's estimated to be around $300 million and um I think our 200
million number may be high uh just based upon what I've seen that number uh Um I've seen that it's I think it's a bit high unfortunately because those that whole process is not God bless you finalized um I can't bring those uh
those examples to you but I think if we get maybe uh some folks in place to u kind of do a an initial uh uh construct with regard to the cost and and put that out there and and uh get some consultants involved we may be able to
see what the we get a little closer on that number but that number to me seemed seemed a bit high uh from everything that was that I saw in some of these other presentations with buildings that were significantly larger and came in at numbers significantly less than 200,000 but I saw all kinds of buildings every
you know every type of government building you possibly see condos I mean every building every every type of thing you could see um but that number did seem to be a bit high to me so I I think we may get closer um once again facilities master plan 2014
um came out that the central uh courthouse was a priority and this is a plan that you all set forth and paid for um master plan was a a priority um in the one to fiveyear building plan uh
2015 you put out an RFI uh which indicated uh correctly so that the East Pasco courthouse is not was not then and I suspect now it's not presently rated for a criminal court because of uh because of the design of that courthouse
and uh obviously things have moved on since that courthouse was built for security purposes and security reasons um we and I think it's important to note if that central complex is built it extends the life of the two side complexes exponentially because they
then become civil courouses strictly civil obviously uh the date city uh uh the sum courthouse does not need to have all of the security issues that a criminal court does um and so that would stay in place
as would the the courthouse behind me over here and that would be all for civil family and and those sorts of things so it would extend the life of those two courouses um I think um uh CGL indicated an extra 20 years uh so it's a
cost cost savings there as well uh to extend the life of those courouses as well so um and then we we we went into um uh we go to the uh 16 2016 through 2022 update all of those updates indicate the importance for the central
uh complex um and remember the central what the central complex does it allows people from the east side of the county to have access uh to from the east side to the center of the county from the west side to the center of the county and uh it consolidates not only the state attorney's office the public
defender's office it is an economy of scale for them and as you know they've all presented with you before about bringing those to side uh bringing uh their officers from the side and consolidating them will better allow them to serve the citizens of uh Pasco
County um and once again as we've seen we are um uh by your own by the own the studies that you all commissioned um the Central Pasco Courthouse is was a priority in each one of those uh each
one of those uh studies um I can move on past the savings i can move on to the next one square footage deficit um uh we we did point out Commissioner Mariana we have a 10-year jump in the last one um and once again
this is uh from the master plan that you all uh uh commissioned to be have done um and it shows u that presently or in 2026 we're going to be 253,423 square feet what they what you
all did was you took a county of our size with the workload of our size this is what the square footage you'd expect the the court system to have and these are our deficits that we uh that we are presently involved in uh uh by once
again by Pasco's own master plan and by the uh uh experts that you all commission to do that study uh judge to courtroom ratio as you can see we're we're in kind of bad shape there um we have 22 judges in Pasco County 13.5
courtrooms most every other circuit in the state of Florida has one to one or better than one to one ratio um at times Miss Emerman who's here in the audience our deputy trial court administrator um which by the way is our first one from
Pasco County uh she many times uh uh we should give her a uniform as a traffic cop or crossing guard because she has to uh manage courtroom space in different courouses and uh slow one judge down no you can't go yet you can go you can't go
you're ready you're not ready you know we have jurors we don't have jurors and uh she's literally like a traffic cop in the middle of the courthouse trying to make sure that we uh uh give people and uh their opportunity to uh exercise their constitutional rights to to to
have a a jury trial and she does a fine job of that but as you can see we're our ratio is obviously pretty much out of whack um that we have in Pasco uh as you can see in in the over in Day City the Sun Judicial Building uh four and a half
courtrooms for nine judges and in the West Pasco we have nine courtrooms for 13 judges uh which causes many times hearings that are may maybe be very volatile people are literally sitting this distance apart and I've done um hearings with uh in in domestic court uh
where literally one side like I had a case once where a husband was literally threatening a wife this far away during a hearing uh when the lawyers were presenting a legal point over here to me they were sitting there and he was actually threatening her because uh because of the the process that was
going on so sometimes it's not nice to have people that are involved in a very uh very tense situation sitting within arms length of each other and hence the reason we have courtrooms um case filings you can see I I I did not update
that slide i apologize um and then we'll move to benefits if I could uh but as we know with people come come cases i'm sure the sheriff's office and that's and that's what's on my last slide here i just put a little aster i'm sure they're going to ask they're going to tell you
that with increased population comes increased cases comes they have larger areas to patrol the cases are much more complex they take much more court time all of that is accurate and I suspect Mr daniels will be addressing that um as well and then all of those people
remember 99% of those people wind up coming through the the justice system in the criminal part and once again by having it centrally located it's convenient for law enforcement from the east side of the county there's not an additional you know uh it's just convenient for them to get from you know
the east side to the central from the west side to the central there's long-term cost savings as we talked about with the other two courouses uh being sustained for another 20 uh years and uh it also uh intend you know it also provides for future growth um and I
just noted once again my fear is that something's going to happen because of the nature of the East Pasco courthouse uh we've uh because of the good work of the sheriff's office we've had some situations that they've been able to handle um that could have been really uh difficult situations uh most recent I
can't talk about because it's there's three still pending cases as a result of it so I need to just move on from that but uh but there's certainly a potential problem for that um uh and that's kind of where we are so I appreciate the support you've all given me in the past
uh I know it's been uh the topic hopefully maybe even up in Tallahassee a little bit um so the the central uh the central courthouse like I said and I appreciate uh Commissioner Starky and and pretty much all the commissioners commissioner Oakley and everybody being
so supportive of of that in the past as chairperson um you know talking about kicking the can down the road i can't thank you enough but I think this is something we need to get done sooner rather than later the county is not going to stop growing this is not going to become less expensive in the future
so um kind of if not now when I've already uh indicated uh that I'm looking for a county commission and uh that wants to put their name on the side of a building that's going to serve this community for decades to come and uh I'm
in so uh I think uh you sucked us into that oneic but I you know it's like and I know a little bit and I apologize you're all probably a little bit tired of hearing about this but you know as a citizen of Pasco County who grew up here you know I think this is an important thing like I
said as far back as John Gallagher who uh was a teacher at G High when I went there initially um pointed out you know they knew that they were going to have to build one in the center of the county our former sheriff I believe White said at some point in time the citizens of the central part of our county are going
to there will be an outcry for a courthouse there to service those people in the center part of our county and I think he makes a good point and that was way back when when when that statement was made so certainly the growth in the center part of our county is not going to slow anytime in the future once again
I want to thank you all for your support uh you've all been very supportive of us i thank you for your support of this project um and now we just uh I guess we need to figure out how to fund it and how to move forward in in a reasonable way to uh get this thing get a shovel in
the ground and get this moving but thank you once again for your support for that commissioner Oakley has some questions i have some questions okay um thank you uh Judge Crane for being here and your presentation last year when you made the presentation basically on the fact of
needing that central courthouse and I'd heard that story before but never as well as you told it last year and because of that we've brought up several times that central courthouse in in our talkings and planning for the future thank you uh which prior to this and
I've been here I'm in my ninth year prior to that we didn't talk much about it but we realized that we're grow steadily growing u as we go and things are slowing down a little bit right now but that there are still a lot of projects and a lot of
houses to be built so but we know the needs is there and we keep talking about it it all comes down to money and if we could get that money I know we would build it sooner than later because we know we're going to need that and uh but
the fact is we we do have to work on that but the conversation's come up and we will work out a way that you possibly can get that courthouse built in the center park we need it and it will help and lengthen the lives of both courous houses on both sides uh after that's
done so we know the importance of that and I look forward to uh looking at that being done as as soon as possible well I appreciate that thank you very much Commissioner and I look forward to standing next to you when we put that shovel in the ground and get that thing moving but thank you for your kind words
and and also recognizing the importance of the project thank you yeah Mariano thank you and Judge Grant thanks for your great service over the years you've been a true true Pasco citizen protected and everything that goes on so thank you for all your your service question for you on the uh one of your slides has
four and a half courtrooms can you describe what the half a courtroom yeah it's courtroom E over there it used to be part of the law library and the clerk's office was gracious enough like I said I'm not I'm not subtle about this stuff you know i'm like well can I can I have that area you know that used to be
the law library and uh they were gracious enough to give it up so we have it doesn't have a jury box it's smaller it's much smaller but we can use it for uh we use it like I I would do dependency court in there i would do injunctions in there uh because we can
still separate the people not as much as we'd like but we can still separate them so they're not you know I'm getting an injunction out against you know our our clerk here we're not sitting right next to each other in like a in like a conference room or at least spread out a little bit because as you might imagine
many of those injunction cases can be quite uh quite there can be quite a lot of tension in those and they can be pretty ugly at times so that's what the half courtroom is it's e if you ever go over there it's just a little tiny courtroom no I remember the story from a
few years back about it um so if you're looking to a new criminal court in the center of the county uh compared to the large courtrooms on this side over here when I see you got all the let's say the
criminals in their area a lot of lot of time walking in and out in and out uh a lot of space in that courtroom not designed for like a regular trial right so a lot of these half courtrooms could be very effective in working a lot of these situations when they're setting
the sentencing up have they come to terms have they gone through to you know setting a trial date is there more information needed you could probably do well with a bunch of half courtrooms couldn't you well I'm not sure if we can say a bunch but I can tell you that we when we look at this we we are setting
aside room for like magistrates and stuff for exactly what you're saying they don't need a big courtroom and it's funny because as I did the preliminary work on the one south of here um uh we we talked about that some of the courtrooms are going to and we actually went in and saw some of the smaller courtrooms for magistrates and uh you
know um a child support hearing and and uh and even um some small claims and things like that we can do with a smaller courtroom for that and we we actually did exactly that we we keep some that are larger for for the jury trials but the ones where you don't need that big courtroom we've actually
downsized them and said this you know we can go two to one kind of thing this is a more much more efficient use of space to do it that way and literally I just got through that kind of whole project uh when we are setting up the parameters for the courthouse in uh the new courthouse they're going to build at
Penllis that I referenced that I was on the committee for so yeah we've actually done exactly that so I think uh many years ago with Commissioner Hilderman the Senate committee with all the judges and they kind of like looked at a plan put it together so probably a change may be needed now and I think it's going to be a little bit more efficient with
Ridge Road being completed December this year that uh ease of going back and forth may be better now for folks as well uh but I think it probably is time to let's go take another look at it let's go try to look at trying to make it as efficient as we can to what we need uh making sure we the criminal part
can go easily if there's more space available to build some of those half courtrooms we don't need the full courtroom it may make things work better so I'm I'm in favor to put another study together to go look at what we did and maybe what we can do to tweak it and I
will say that our lobbyists up in in DC they told me of the story of when Pensacola was struggling with their growth uh many many years ago they got a huge allocation actually got the state to fund the whole thing so I'm off wherever that money comes from i'm I'm as long as a legal source I'm good with
that yeah so I mean so so so so at least we need to try that but I think if you put a new current plan in place now that we've got the new jail now that we can address our growth it may be a better way to approach it because for us to pay the whole thing right now we just don't have the funds for it but if we get the help from the state redesign it show
them we're trying to be modern efficient maybe we can get the support to get get some help to make that happen i'm you know I'm all for looking at that like I said we like I said literally kind of went through that same exercise south of here not like three months ago four months ago um to do that and and I'm like I said all for that um I know that
that Pasco has been fortunate enough to receive some federal money as well so I don't know if that's if that's accessible or not for this sort of thing but uh you know if that is obviously that would be a great opportunity for us to fund the courthouse with some of the federal money that's come down recently
um but I think um you know we we are certainly able to do that the one thing I do want to stress that I that I think is being financially and fiscally responsible for our citizens is when this is built I still think it's as they've done elsewhere you know build it
out to a shell for a certain size with the ability to build internally extra courtrooms for the to manage the growth instead of adding on a whole new wing it's much more cost effective to make it make the shell a little bit bigger and then maybe have like initially we talked
about eight courtrooms um which I think is probably about the right number but also build build it such that there's room for expansion in the future without just putting up walls instead of building a whole new wing on which becomes exponentially more expensive as as we've learned with some of the
projects you know when they open and they're too small and then you've got to try to add on to it that becomes much much more expensive i have instead of like said just throwing up some walls and stuff i'm sorry i have a couple questions i think uh I don't remember if it was back when
I first became a commissioner or before then that the law library used to be in a like a a mobile home or a manufactured it was in a trailer or something is anyone else around for for a while we had for a while I know we had like FEMA trailers that were Yeah the law library
was not in the courthouse doing stuff with um I don't know if the law cuz I went to it i remember doing depots way back when in in one of the one of the court reporters was in like one of those trailers what what I'm wondering is if it would make sense to move the law
library out and give you a full courtroom is there a place that we can move the law library to well the law it's already been moved out we've already done that so the law library is actually moved into my area the clerk's area i mean it's part of our lobby okay
but if if you've got half of it for a half courtroom can we give you all that space for a full court it's on a completely separate floor oh it is mhm it's it's in my civil lobby basically and you have a door that you go into that you can get into it um so we're
talking this is the one that's on the east side that they had we had given the space up because it's on the first floor with all the other courtrooms in Date City um the next question I have is I know we got into a little um discussion with the clerk having two courouses for her to
manage what does that do to the clerk's office to have three courouses to manage in her budget i'm just wondering which is really the most efficient way to handle this so there will be um some efficiencies gained but there's also going to be some triplicated triplicated
is that the word i don't know do you know what I'm saying i'm following triplicate we're going to go with it that's a Florida law not a Florida i don't know next year that's right
so there there will be some efficiencies some not efficiencies for example um when we came out of COVID we went from having jury trials pulled Mondays only for the week to being pulled Monday Tuesday Wednesday sometimes Thursday sometimes Friday on very rare occasions
um that increased um our costs in both courouses and then now we'll have a third location where we would have Monday Tuesday Wednesday jury trials going on on three courouses so just to kind of give you an example of what would increase in in that kind of cost
to the office and being able to make sure that we have enough staffing to cover that but it wouldn't be like a full office like you have here and in Oh yes it would we're talking this is all criminal court and that's a a huge
amount of case load is in the criminal court they they do that in in Penllis we have uh nor we have a civil court civil family courthouse in St pete one in Cleor and then a criminal court house in the middle so they they they're managing the three offices what it's a little bit
different is in in civil they don't bring in as many jurors they don't have as many jury trial weeks um as they do like on two like in on the in the two civil courouses than they do in crime and crime right we're bringing in jurors
every day but Friday because the the the the workload is just so significant you have to get cases moving great those judges are doing trials every day every day every day just to keep them moving um uh because you know we have time constraints we have a lot of different you know uh and also you just want to
get cases resolved in a timely fashion for victims of crime and that sort of thing so yeah in crime it's it's like you know every day every day every judge every day kind of thing uh they take uh and and I say every day they take Mondays for uh in uh for pre-trial
hearings you know uh the preliminary hearings Tuesday Wednesday Thursday um we do uh trials down there in panels here we do them every day to try to get cases moving because we got so backlogged from COVID and then like I said pretty rarely but every so often we
have to bring jurors in on a Friday and that would be for like a large case where the where you're just trying to pick a jury during that week of high publicity to murder case or something like that where it's hard to get a jury because of the publicity and we've had a few of those recently that we even bring people on Friday to start the trial the
next week uh because like I said everybody's seen it on TV everybody's seen it on the internet so it's much harder to pick a jury um judge how do they do it in in um Hillsboro County is there one courthouse or multiple courthouse that is a great question as a matter of fact Hillsboro County I just
spoke to the chief judge over there and he um the county the the county has has advised him they've already set us at 155 million for a new criminal courthouse theirs is old that's apparently got a lot of issues you may be reading about it shortly in the St pete or in the Tampa Bay Times because
they're going to write a story about you know the fact that this you know this courthouse needs to be replaced or so I've been told uh and so they're they're kind of struggling withh making find the right place for it um uh and their their criminal courthouse is going to be much
larger than ours because what they remember theirs is like combining Penel and Pasco together so we you know we have them in two counties they smush them all into Hillsboro so they need more more courtrooms more space will it be downtown or are they going to Well they're hoping I think they want it to be somewhere by downtown and apparently
they own a lot maybe or an area plot of land not that far from the immediate downtown but I'm told that the the criminal courthouse is pretty much right across the street there's like a walkway from the Edge Edgecomb courthouse over to the Criminal Courthouse but apparently that courthouse has a lot of
issues so they're uh thinking about you know they're working on building a new one and like I said they've already set aside about 155 million for that and they're are they just getting that money from general fund i have no idea where they're get getting that money from but somehow they're coming up with it i guess that's and that's what that's what
the chief judge over there has been advised that they have that available so I wondered if um if courthouse could also be part of the funding if we did a an impact fee for um I don't know what
you would call it yes you could you could do a an impact fee for judicial for that portion which the county is responsible for and is not remedying a death i I don't know where we get the money
from a bond i don't know i have no idea so we have to talk about that i do I do definitely think you need something no thank you we we we've got to do something but um so we'll I don't know yeah we're we're I've spoken with the team about uh freshening up past studies
looking at things of cost of of a central versus consolidating operations as well as looking at what costs might be as well as funding strategies to to include up into general operation bonds public uh safety we we discussed public
safety um impact fees and again to to Mr stein Snider's point things that are not already in deficit so it would have to be future growth those are all strategies that that we could employ to make this reality this board would like to see um something brought back to us with ideas yes ma'am whether it's ideas
on how to go look at something or look at something and then bring those ideas to us commissioner start talking back to you about where that funding source is coming from and I know and I and I've uh had conversations um uh with and and I'm going to actually be meeting next week with the county
administrator in Penllis i can ask how their funding is coming from i know Mike's had the opportunity to speak with them as well and uh and find out how they're they're Yeah they're I believe they're doing debt financing i don't know what they're I don't know what revenues they're they're correct they're
also pledging revenue sources to Okay yeah so there's a lot of maybe there's a lot of different ways different people do it and I'm not the expert in that and don't profess to be and I certainly you know have every confidence you guys are and certainly willing to do anything I can to work to to to help you uh move
that forward in any way shape or form I can well you have graciously come every year and asked for this and we have to do something so well you guys are gracious enough candidly to listen to me i mean no kidding i mean I mean because you know I walk in and I'm just so afraid everybody's going to go here he
comes again we just can't get rid of this guy he's like it's a salesman who stands at the front door going you sure you don't want to buy these encyclopedias no really I don't I don't need them no thanks i got a vacuum no I don't need a vacuum thanks JCreen uh we'll move on to the uh supervisor of
elections good morning madam chair and commissioners um no PowerPoint just just me i'm the show thank you for hosting today's workshop and I appreciate the opportunity to participate um as I say every year I'm just especially proud of the partnerships between my office and
the board as well as my fellow constitutionals um I would say in my ever so humble opinion that Pasco epitomizes responsive and accountable government so I'm proud to be part of that team um speaking of team my team and I just completed literally yesterday afternoon our statutory duties for the
2025 municipal uh election cycle uh I say that because we're obviously still finalizing our our budget for our submission uh I don't have exact numbers but I do estimate a minimal increase by minimal looking around 5% uh don't hold
me to that i would say that of all the 67 supervisor elections offices in our great state my office has consistently been one of the lowest with regards to cost per voter uh the ever so slight increase is primarily due to the following we have two major elections in
2026 as you all hear me talk about over the years my office the budgetary nature it's heavy verse less heavy uh meaning we have budgets that overlap with elections for example in the upcoming uh budget year we will administer the 2026 midterms which includes the complete
cost of the primary in August as well as some upfront costs for the general uh in November which would be the following budget year but we have some upfront costs that are statutoily required um and compared with our current year for example we uh have a decrease in the year we're in now because it was a less
heavy year um some additional budgetary impacts that we're looking at for the increase minimum wage you know we we my office is strange in that it's very very small as you all know but it swells up to become I was told the fourth largest employer in the county with like 1500
election workers um minimum wage impacts that when we're doing training um we're because of the the sad politicalization of vote by mail uh there's been a subsequent decrease and as such means more in-person voting which is not necessarily a bad thing in the sense as
long as people are voting but because of the growth uh we anticipate having to add an additional early voting site there's a cost affiliated with that obviously um there are some there's some multiple IT services that were previously funded by the Department of Homeland Security and because what we're seeing out in Washington we're being
advised those are being cut um and so we're going to have to fund those they're not large dollar i think we're looking at 1520,000 but for my office that's a large you know every every dollar counts certainly um there's also uh Senate Bill 7016 it's working its way
through the process uh there's a specific retire requirement that for any voter who signs a initiative petition we are to reach out to that voter send correspondence via USPS we did like 60 or 70,000 really the mail yeah basically
send them a letter um we're talking 50 60 70,000 yeah um it's a letter that goes to the voter said "Hey voter you signed this initiative was it you if not let's let's prosecute the fraud." Um so there is there is some there's some provision in the law that's working it
way through as well that may involve uh increasing the cost of the petition that'll be the responsibility of the the sponsor if you will so the groups have to pay for that but that's yet to be determined so uh we'll know more once session ends so is there a companion in
the house for that bill yes do you know who has that uh is it Marcus Powell I believe in the house i believe um yeah the house is sort of driving the train I'm told to this bill and it's going to pass i have a very good information it's going to pass so um that's all I have for y'all
today be happy to take any questions y'all have anybody have any questions if not I'm okay with that too all right thank you Ryan great job as always um now we are on to our tech i think it's I think it's me oh
you're right i skipped you the other Yes it's the other mic is this thing on is it working okay got it okay good morning and uh just like Mr corley said I want to thank you all for the partnership that we've had the last four years obviously I had the honor to serve with each of you up there on the board for
six years but the last four years you know starting with like True Roll which I know Chairwoman Starky um understands that very well they've done a great job to help us catch fraud with VBO VRBO stuff Airbnb and as of
late we partner with you all with Vexel which is an aerial company that is going to be able to help both of us picks up structural changes which is some folks aren't going to like but it's a good thing yes so it's it's not a bad thing it's a great thing for us to use tools department of
Revenue accepts it so we're able to do a lot more going forward inhouse on the computer on the screen instead of going out and do rechecks which at this point in time we really don't even walk on property for several reasons um so anyhow
um first slide so um our team remains among the strongest and most efficient in the state in fact if you take a look at the annual budgets and operations of property appraiser offices throughout Florida you'll find counties with similar parcel counts and roughly double the budget and full-time employees
headcounts as of us um our office budget per capita is only $12.81 for reference um that's the third lowest of the state's 67 counties and we're proud of that the statewide average is $20.69 69 cents per capita per property appraisers
our budget per parcel is just 2378 that's the fifth lowest in the state of Florida um the statewide average is $3921 our parcels per position is almost 5,000 the statewide average is um 3,400 which
places us at the sixth most parcels per position and again it's very important we take it very seriously um so who is ultimately responsible for ensuring the property appraisers budgets are adequate but not excessive um section 195.087 of
the Florida statute um requires every property appraiser regardless of the form of county government to submit a budget for their offic's operations to the department of revenue um this budget is due by June 1st each year um when the department of revenue receives property
appraisers budget request it performs a comprehensive analysis and review the do is responsible for reviewing the budget request and may amend or change the request as necessary so the budget will either be in inadequate nor excessive and if anybody has any questions just
stop me um so why is this process different than any other agency or department budgets that come before this board um give you an example just last week at the Citizens Academy what a great group of folks by the way um I had a class member um that spoke up who
happens to be a private appraiser and he asked a question that reminded me of how important this is to share this information with each of you um he said "How do you preserve the integrity of an impartial appraisal process against all the needs and wishes of the board of county of the board of the board and
other county agencies um it was a good reminder of why the Florida legislature gave the Department of Revenue this authority over property appraisers offices and the property tax oversight program to ensure a fair equitable and uniform property tax system in the state of Florida
this budget process also serves as an important separation of power and local government so the taxing authorities which set the millage rates do not have financial or budgetary influence over the property appraisers who set the tax base by assessing
property though we're just beginning our budget um season with the department of revenue literally today um we have some idea of what things will look like for the year ahead we accept we expect a nominal increase despite the county's exceptional growth and parcel count
increases personnel associated costs such as FRS insurance etc are expected to rise within single digits our estimate is about 5% um don't hold me to that it might fluctuate a little bit but obviously when it comes to raises we try to match what you all
do i know we all do um so anyhow so this graph um provides a quick breakdown of just how exceptional Pascos County's growth has been in the last four years the market has certainly changed this year from an annual from an
annual average of roughly 15% increase but we still anticipate growth pretty pretty eye opening um we work with three values during the appraisal process um you saw them on the previous chart but here they're defined
um just value is the market value established January 1st by the property appraisers office assessed value is the just value minus assessment limitations like the 3% or 10% save our home caps and taxable value is the assessed value
minus exemptions homestead widow etc and this is the value used to calculate taxes due and lastly we also like to we always want to remind our value customers the transactions in the marketplace create value not us not the property appraiser
u mass appraisal values groups using common data standard standardized methods statistical testing and market analysis the three appro approaches we use are sales comparison cost do we have
to do the mass appro you know I'm not a fan of those why do we why do we have to do that it's in statute so anything you want to add to that Brendan here hang on you need to And do you want to explain what that is to the the folks
listening sure so mass appraisal commissioner is as it says in the definition there we're valuing groups large groups using common data standardized methods and statistical testing so what does that mean means that we're taking transactions in a like area let's say a
neighborhood a subdivision etc similar homes and sales then we get into established methodologies um that the international assessing officers association as well as the department of revenue and administrative code um require us to use in the assessment of properties and you'll see those things
here the sales comparison approach that's that's when a property changes hands of course or is purchased new we come in Florida's level of assessment is 100% less reasonable cost of sale so that's when you see that number let's say a new home is built you may see it valued by us at approximately I'll say
90% right of the purchase price um so sales comparison is your primary driver um for value increases and things among neighborhoods then we get into the cost approach um that considers you know what it would cost today in today's market to
replace something and then the income approach which is of course capitalization rates for commercial property that's when we're looking at net operating income to generate a capitalization rate which is a product of against the market value so basically those three things okay all contribute
to the appraisal process as a whole countywide with the different types of property we have whereas you may see in some instances the appraiser may take rather than just a singular approach a blended approach that would consider multiple approaches ba based on various comps and other data
i was just wondering in in today's world when um with technology when a house is sold um that that new value couldn't just be reflected immediately rather than wait to do a
mass neighborhood so the that's an important point in that when we talk about reappraisal the fiveyear cycle and we hear that often like we have to reappraise every five years those those are actual field rechecks and things we are reappraising property every single
year every parcel is touched during the mass appraisal process every year that's where part of the efficiency comes when we're dealing with 328,000 parcels versus a singular subdivision or something like that so it's it's a good point to make that it's not lost value
that's uncaptured it is touched every year during that process okay all right keep on going thanks thank you thank you all oh are you done i'm done oh so I didn't realize you're done madam chair does
anyone else have any uh questions for me let's make one quick comment thank you for all the work you're doing and uh thanks for keeping a nice stable chart system that was uniform we're Yeah no I looked at that and it was no problem and we're I know you had your budget
workshop again our fi numbers aren't final but we are we will be single digits i I don't know what that number is as we will know in the next couple weeks and we'll make sure the phone call comes to Mr carbala as soon as possible well and of course we had heard that and so we are being very frugal this year
with our um budgetary requests and we've asked I think everybody to be to be frugal as well okay u good good morning commissioners uh Mike Fano Pasco Tax Collector i as
you know um I don't ask for anything uh our money is generated but through fees um we don't get any money from the state the county or the federal government so what whatever we earn we do it every time we provide a service to a customer um so I'm here to ask for only one thing
and that is a permit no just a permit for my a permit so I can start building my Angelene office um but anyway uh we have uh uh we're ready to go with our Angelene office we had the groundbreaking thank you for all those who who came i also want to thank Mike
Carvala and his staff uh our relationship with them is second to none and with you as well we're always here to help uh our budget uh goes to the Department of Revenue uh on August the 1st uh they so far they've never turned us down they've never not approved
anything we've asked for um we we do see probably a reduction in in in value so I'm sure that we'll see uh less money that we'll be turning over to you uh than we have in the past along with the the other um taxing authorities that are
on our on our tax bill um and that's really about it i um got 227 employees no openings turnover is very low we start people at $20 an hour uh when I first started 10 years ago it was 925 we
have a very little turnover and uh we give out bonuses things like that and uh retention bonuses which I'm happy that the uh the stat the Florida statute allows us to do that now and people are sticking around so Mike are you seeing
an influx with this new ID uh yes great question uh as you know uh come May the 7th uh you're not going to get on an airplane or on a cruise without uh your driver's license showing the gold star up in the right corner i'm I believe everybody probably have no I don't know
but I'm assuming everyone has the gold star but you'd be amazed everybody's checking um here in Pasco we've done it our tax collector and our staff has done a wonderful job for the last few years those driver licenses that have been
coming up for renewal we've been sending them a letter saying "Hey you're not you're not ID compliant you need to bring us these documents." Uh Pasco we have less than 3,000 people left in Pasco that not voter ID compliant when you compared to other counties we've done very well we did send out a letter
to all those who are non-compliant just recently and say "Hey uh you know come to our office we're seeing an influx now from people who are coming in um with a uh having to renew or replace their driver's license with the with with their documents it's kind of it's kind
of uh you know it's gotten a little rough with the state the Department of Motor Vehicle has uh has said these are the only documents they can use for address proof of address um and they have to be within 30 days um it used to be that if somebody came in with a
friend who maybe that person is living with them if they came in all they had to do is sign something saying "Yeah that person's living." They could use their address and their name no now we need a lease or a a deed to show proof that that person is actually living in the home so it they've made it a little
more difficult but I think there's a lot of fraud going on out there and I I appreciate the state what they're trying to do so I'm I'm curious um and Cath Kathy Pearson's over here we we had a lot of displaced folks from the hurricane yes and is that affecting their ability to get a proper ID um well
uh it are seniors too well first of all as you know the governor signed a um uh declaration if you will uh uh during after the hurricane to a certain date uh if they lost their license uh misplaced it because of the storm we would provide
a free one to them uh if they uh if their title to their vehicle or their boat was lost or damaged or destroyed because of the storm we would provide a free one to them that has all ended though the governor's uh declaration ended gez about a month or so ago but if
anybody anybody needs help I mean we have the the ones that we do get are that we we go above and beyond are the homeless um we when a homeless person comes in uh we want to make certain we we we work with several different entities nonprofits who are trying to
help people coming out of jail or the homeless trying to get them to work you know and help them find a job we do our best to make sure they have at least an ID work with them getting the proper documentation and not charging them of course can I make one yes so to ask
about your displace my son just got his driver's license and we're displaced so some of it has my address and some has my old address it was very It was great because the state is very strict about it but it was very tough
because I truly have everything split right the So um but I we did get a we did I was able to they gave me many options to provide what I needed any and my second part was just thank you for all you do for the community you guys
are always giving back and helping people and um I just appreciate that so much everything you do so when we first started one of the things that we looked at uh we see 50 to 60,000 people a month in our in our five office and it's growing um and um one of the things we
try to do is give back to the community so each month we do a different charity uh we've given back about a million and a half $1,500,000 plus to Pasco charities we try to give back we have buckets at all our stations we also put a flyer in each
of our uh uh renewals for that month we send out 30 to 40,000 uh registration renewals each month both auto and and boats and uh yeah I'm I I tell you I'm very very blessed to have a great staff and we have a lot of fun doing it so I I
was listening in the news with this new ID requirement um that it was taking like a week to get an appointment in Miami date yeah oh oh yeah well that's a that's that's pretty short in Hillsboro it's two weeks really yes penllis and here you just walk up right well Penllis
doesn't take any out of county anymore oh hillsboro doesn't take anybody out of county i don't believe they do pope doesn't uh Hernando does but you have to make an appointment we take everybody up till 4:00 after 4 on Saturdays right but after 4:00 we only take Pasco residents
on Saturday Pasco residents on Saturday believe it or not in our two offices we will serve between 850 950 customers in three and a half hours from 8:30 to 12:00 noon yeah yeah somebody ought to stop by it's really amazing my staff is
phenomenal m Madam Chair if I may have a moment I just want to comment on u the good work of the tax collectors when we do veterans court yes yes when we do veterans court and what we're able to do is we're able to really help those veterans who come out to veterans court we have a what's called the standown
where we move veterans court out to um uh safety town and uh we're ready to go in fact yeah we have a mobile unit now right so we bring the mobile unit out to safety town we bring the mobile unit to our nursing homes now our assisted living facilities who can't get to our
office we go to them we do it right there and we come back that same day with their driver's license or their ID and we do that with our veterans over in fact we've gone to people's homes who can't get to us and we do it right in their home in fact in a cooperative manner with the state attorney's office
public defenders office all get together we have court I I become very popular because I wave all kinds of costs state costs and fees to help veterans get their license I can't get I can't get popular that way but when they walk out they come through your office and when
like you said here's a homeless veteran who now has a driver's license who now can get a job who now can move forward and I've actually had veterans come back to me and say "Thank you for what you did last year because now I have a car a home and a job." And thank you so much i wouldn't have any of those if I didn't
have the driver's license so it's really a collaborative effort of a of a group the clerk's office does a great job out there as well and uh and I'd invite any of you that want to come out it's the 23rd of April but it's a great event it is a great event we need to uh we need to update our flyer Kathy I think um
that we give out to homeless folks and and make sure that the clerk has a copy one of the things has a whole staff yeah absolutely one of the things that we've been doing uh we're the only tax collector in the state that does it it was offered by the Department of Veterans Affairs in Tallahassee to
recognize and and thank our Vietnam War veterans sadly uh I I was just a teenager but how they were treated when they came home uh we have a program now where if you know anybody who's a a Vietnam War vet just get in touch with
me we uh we go and present them with a with an a pin with a letter from the president of the United States and and other things thanking them for their service something they should have been thanked for years ago and we do that now when my dad sees somebody he always says "Welcome home to them." Yeah there you
go mr in fact I believe we did that for your dad in fact years ago go over on New York Time but we'll be here but uh Mike I'd just like to say thank you for all that you do in Pasco County for our citizens thank you sir and the fact of
it is you collect a lot of monies for a lot of 501c3s throughout the year yes and do a great job of that and your staff is they can I'm blessed very proud of what they do uh they're mentored very well by
you uh they're not only one of the better staffs in any department in the county but their bosses would you please let them know that but you do you you mentor them and you actually uh pick them up and they're
happy they're very happy group of people that that help us when we go in with our different issues about titles and you know tags and everything else that we have but uh bless you it's very appreciated what you do there and how they will handle our problems thank you
sir but thank you and it's because of their leadership wow and your mentoring that Yeah well I'm I'm blessed to have a great staff truly am thank you mariana yes and I want to thank you for my first gold star since fifth grade so I appreciate that
uh but I want to thank you for the great work you do with working with us when we try to do different things with my property appraiser well is to make sure we get things right for the citizens so every bit of foresight you give us helping us with the PACE program to kind of fix things that we're trying to do
the right thing and it's it's it's really you know with the new statute under the PACE and uh your your county attorney I saw David back I don't know if he still is worked with us and putting some legislation together that's really helped and uh going after the bad people in the PACE in the PACE loan
program so but always a forthright person like trying to do the right thing every step of the way i appreciate it thank you very much commissioner Jagger just real quick so how much does an ID cost when you go out to the mo with the mobile unit it's the same price an ID is $3625
okay i might be hitting you up for moonlight that'll be fine that'll be fine yeah you got to take us out to lunch though okay uh we are now going to move on to the sheriff's budget and welcome um under sheriff Daniels yes ma'am thank
you very much uh so sheriff sent his apologies he is in Tallahassee today uh as you know legislative session is uh is wrapping up so um instead you all get me today so my my apologies um but I will uh try to make this quick this is a presentation that I believe everyone has
has seen already um but just uh just to start off with our agency profile uh as I know this was something that was asked previously um so as of Friday March 14th 2025 you can see there our total number of budgeted FTEES is 1194 the total number of sworn deputies included in
that number is 612 uh noteworthy that also includes 37 SRO's three sergeants and one lieutenant which are required for school safety uh unlike Hillsboro and Penelis that have school police uh the Pasco Sheriff's Office provides those resources for the for the school board uh we also uh wish to note the
total number of civilians 403 uh of that approximately a quarter is uh positions that are legally required for school crossing safety as as well uh notably we are very proud as as tax statuo noted as well that our our vacancies are very low um so we have uh vacancies for deputies
of 16 which will be filled by an upcoming academy our total number of detectives is one and then our total number of vacancies for civilians is 40 uh and that is just standard attrition that we're in the process of filling uh and then I know this was a question that we had received before uh so just our total number of command staff which we
consider director captain and above uh is 39 which is 3% of our agency um for a 247 365 uh day year agency we're we're proud that uh that that number is so low with the effectiveness that we have this is our current year budget uh
as you can see for fiscal year 24 and 25 our total budget is $170,156,000 and uh and $613 of that 80% is salaries uh which also includes 11 million dollars or 11 and a half million dollars for insurance which makes up eight and a half% of that salary total our operating
is 19% of our total budget uh just over $32 million those operating needs they include IT fleet training and purchasing uh essentially those things that support the entire agency by providing training weapons IT needs vehicle maintenance uniforms etc um and then our budget the
the last 1% is nearly $2 million in capital uh and that is largely caused by uh by Penny for Pasco not fully funding our vehicle replacement plan uh so as such we have approximately $1.2 million annually that we we spend in our vehicle replacement plan um we are we are
working uh as efficiently as we can to extend the life of those vehicles um so again that that we're trying to keep that number as low as we can and then certainly in in the other I do wish to thank the the board for the 20 additional deputies uh that they provided last year they authorized last year the 10 additional deputies you've authorized the last several years um
that is making a significant impact to our citizens and we are very appreciative of of that partnership um as others have noted as our community continues to grow um you know we we will continue to to have needs for that so we are very appreciative of the partnership that this board has uh given us and and the ability to uh continue to serve our
our citizens and then also um the additional capital items that the board approved last year uh armored vehicles forensics and CSU equipment the pole barn as well as the the gap insurance um so again just to highlight some great partnerships between us um we are very appreciative of that moving forward into
our revenue for for this year and what that new revenue will fund um so currently ba based on the the numbers provided by by the county at your most recent budget workshop um we are thinking somewhere in the vicinity of of 8 to9 million um but again that that is uh based on the 40% of of new revenue
agreement that we've had in place last several years um so the the first three items that you'll see there the self- insurance the contract and equipment and the unknown increase on statemandated retirement are are have to haves um so as the sheriff has noted before we we
are a self- insurance fund um we do not have a reserve fund in our general fund and unfortunately last year we we did have a couple of catastrophics where where we unfortunately lo lost some members due to some healthcare issues um so that $2 million is is going to be needed to fully fund uh that self-
insurance this year um I would be remiss to to note and it's in a a later slide but we are committed to partnering with you guys uh if that is something that is feasible um I know our team and uh assistant county administrator Brightenbach's team have uh have begun those discussions um so we are certainly interested in in that partnership if it
exists yes and and Chase we appreciate that flexibility to work with us because I think when you spread that risk out it's a lot better for everybody and I think the the school board having a clinic system that's separate from ours I think that's probably another opportunity for us to combine two so I
want to do I do want to explore that with you and I appreciate your willingness to do that with us yes sir absolutely and and you full credit to the school district as well we we do use their clinics um and that is a a cost savings as well for for our members uh and then a cost savings on the taxpayers of Pasco County because uh you know that is significantly lower than walking into
an ER or an urgent care or even a private care doctor um so so yes sir but we are we're certainly committed to to working forward on that um the the $4.5 million uh that that is a an estimate uh of required contract and equipment escalators um so example of some of
those contracts we believe are going to go up is the the courthouse security um as as Judge Crane uh knows well we currently have G4S that that works within our uh baiffs or works with our baiffs at the courthouse so obviously there there may be some cost increased on that um the inmate transport that we
believe is an efficiency that we can provide the taxpayers of Pasco County essentially inmate transport does is instead of a deputy having to arrest someone in their zone which may be all the way in in Hudson or Holiday or or Crystal Springs and then drive all the way to to the jail to deposit them um we
have an inmate transport contract that allows those deputies to essentially return to their zone much quicker than having to to make that drive which which is an efficiency are you saying someone else does the inmate transport yes ma'am we we we have a contract with with that with that company i believe it's uh G4S
is Allied my my apologies yeah it's it's allied and so essentially what they'll do is a deputy will will drive a um someone that they have arrested to a set meeting point maybe a district office maybe somewhere in their zone uh that is significantly less time than them having to drive all the way to the jail allied
will then pick them up in a in a van and make several stops on the way and then transport to to the jail so that allows deputies to return their zones and work in calls for service in a in a quicker and more expeditious fashion um and then obviously it costs uh again continue to to go up and then um for us as well you
the cost of kelvarvest firearms ammunition is is also an increase um then uh as as other noted we do have an unknown increase that is pending the state legislature on on statemandated retirement um we are cognizant and aware that um one of the biggest increases within the the proposal right now is
special risk which will um inordinately affect us as well as the uh the county when it comes to to fire rescue and and corrections um so so with those things you know let me say we're looking at $2 million of self insurance $4 and half million dollars on required contract and equipment escalators and then that
unknown increase pending the state legislature anything additional over and above that that that meets that 40% of new revenue will be used on on raises to retain our members and we are not projecting uh any additional certified positions based on current projections
as it stands right now within our budget um do want to do want to talk briefly about the salaries of area agencies and and the need for for those raises um that is something we we feel very strongly about and I know um you know many of you were on this board whenever we had this issue before with with the city of Tampa and thank you for for your
commitment your partnership on on that to to make sure that we stem the flow of deputies leaving um and and as the sheriff has also talked about we we do feel it is uh much more cost effective to maintain our current members than it is to recruit train and certify uh
someone new to to fill a vacancy um so you see the starting salaries of the surrounding agencies as of uh 101 2024 uh I won't belver the point but but would just like to note uh in Panellis uh and Pulk County and not know that is not a typo on Penllis that is a a
$20,000 signon bonus um Pulk Esso also offers a $2,000 sign on bonus um so part of the discussion that that we had you know with some of the commissioners uh last week with the sheriff as well as the county administrator is you know we we don't need to to be at the level of of a Tampa a Hillsboro a Penelis we we
understand that that is not something that's going to be realistic for us um however some raise what you know whatever we can give our members will will help with that in addition to some of the other things that we do to to to keep our members happy and um and in place um and and then uh just to note as
well that we must also keep our civilian positions competitive as well um we are working on a on a civilian pay study um but we understand that that's probably not going to be something we're going to be able to fund this year but um just for awareness that is something that we're we're working on just to to get some better numbers and understanding of of where our civilian positions may may
need to be um regarding the future operating needs uh so they will largely look the same uh retaining our members is our top priority um self- insurance as I mentioned will will always be a priority as healthcare costs will not decrease though we are committed uh to to
partnering with uh with the county and and with the school district if so desired on on some type of uh joint uh shared insurance um we we are at the you know we we are at the mercy of the state legislature whenever it comes to state mandated retirement so that is something we will we will see every year um and and then we we do not suspect that the
cost of contracts and equipment will will decrease um so that is something we're going to have to continue to to do as well and then uh yeartoyear if there is any of that new revenue left over you know our first priority uh like I mentioned before is raises to retain new members and then the second priority is
is those new deputy positions um future capital needs i do want to highlight this slide as this is a a uh slightly changed slide um from what the commission saw la last week um notably we we did remove the high water rescue vehicles um we appreciate you the the administrator's partnership on that um
the the sheriff's perspective is we do not necessarily care who owns those high water rescue vehicles and we understand there there is some work through fire rescue on that um just as long as as those exist in the county and for those emergency situations is is uh the big thing for us so that that has been
removed um so our future capital needs um we we are looking at at roughly $1.6 million for for radios for vehicles um with the new technology in vehicles it is not as easy as it used to be and not as possible as it used to be to just plug and play radios from from vehicles to vehicles you know as people are
getting updated vehicles they're now requiring uh new new radios so we we fund a replacement plan in our budget for about half a million dollars a year um but between the uh increase in price and because uh the replacement vehicles are now also starting to increase technology we we think that is uh going
going to be falling short so that's just a future capital need that that we're um aware of those needs for um radios and then also can I ask you a question on that yes ma'am i know it's been uh you know the the radios for a long time but
why do cell phones not work why do you have to have radios and not cell phones yes ma'am so so radios are are encrypted and and secure technology so deputies can discuss tactical things that that may not that is for instance why we we we have an encrypted radio system instead of a instead of a scanner just provides that level of security and and
detail um we we do use cell phones um but again whenever it is a a tactical situation that you may need you know several people listening in on on at one location in one time uh as well as a supervisory function and communication center the radios made
sense um $750,000 for for drone docks as well so I I would be remiss not not to talk about this um so we we know technology is is moving in this direction for for law enforcement we also believe this to be uh a future efficiency and cost savings you know it would reduce for instance some of the uh
some of the flight hours on on the helicopters which which I will discuss shortly um but we are uh you know begin to look at a drone as first responder program and what this would would be it would support emergency management operations such as flooding and search and rescue um but it also addresses
those daily needs so for instance a prime example we are currently in partnership with Skyo they have provided us uh free of charge essentially to test out for for a year or so as we look through this program um a drone dot that we have placed at MIDI pilock uh early learning academy uh we picked that
location based on calls for service data where we thought the biggest bang for the buck to really test this was uh and so last Friday we had unfortunately a report of a suicidal 15-year-old um that 15year-old had been missing for several hours deputies received a tip that that
juvenile was located possibly at an apartment uh the nearest deputy was was a 10 to 15 minute drive away but because of this dock at Mid Pock we were able to have a drone on site in about 2 minutes and we were able to maintain and establish uh visible confirmation that
that was a juvenile and direct incoming units to exactly where he was in that apartment complex which then saves time and and produces efficiencies um so that is something that we we see coming coming down uh and again we believe those drone dots that they're strategically placed throughout the county based on calls for service um
would would be uh would be a significant benefit to to the county and our agency as well m I just Oh sorry commissioner Mariano thank uh Chase one of the things too that uh happened this last storms you worked so well with fire rescue
other volunteers that came from as far as Texas to to work on rescue uh these drone docks as well in a storm situation could be used they could be used for other if we ever had a wildfire type thing you could actually help with those as well working together yes sir and
actually to to highlight the the partnership with fire rescue so we we have used our our drones before so we currently have have a drone team uh and those drones are deployed with the actual deputies um so they're not the the static docks that can flown from a remote location but they are actually embedded with with deputies that that
may make it as you know what you just brought up may make it eligible for that money yes ma'am and the ones along the coast and on the east side yeah and so so for instance with the partnership with Fire Rescue uh so there was a a report of a fire at at I believe the Amazon location Fire Rescue was
struggling to identify exactly where the fire was coming from so we were able to fly a fly a drone that had heat sensor we could actually identify and pinpoint exactly where that fire was which didn't help fire rescue out that' be a great story i'm sure JJ's around all right there he is moves
around that guy but yeah so I think that' be that would be something to work with too good thank you yes and I just want want to touch at the schools like you take a school like River Ridge High School any of middle the Riveridge Middle attached to it it is a massive c campus so if you had let's say an active
shooter a potential threat those drones would be able to identify someone like that so I I'm really really excited and a lost person in the park yeah no I'm excited yes ma'am absolutely and and and commissioner to to that point and an
excellent point um that that is where we we are working on those partnership with the school district we think it makes a lot of sense to house those at at existing facilities but but things like schools as well uh because it does add that security component then it has the ability to to also fly whenever it's not needed at at the school
um so my my final slide is a uh helicopter status update for for you all and we are uh again beyond appreciative of the commitment that this board gave on uh on Wednesday and we're thankful to uh to the administrator and and Miss Frell on on the flexibility on on the
funding as well um so as you all remember on Wednesday the the BOCC approved up to $7.5 million for the purchase of two Bell 407s from the Valuchia Sheriff's Office uh with the caveat that uh we would be uh returning the '0858 uh and selling or returning
the the Hueies to the county to offset uh that revenue so since Wednesday uh we have been actively working with our partners at the Blush Sheriff's Office and um we immediately contacted them and they are willing to essentially cut out the the intermediary and sell the two uh
Bell 407s to us for a total of $4.2 million um which is a significant cost savings over the 7.5 million that that we had initially talked about um again just to reiterate our our current fleet uh the four Madam Chair yes I got to stop you there i mean let's let's think
about what you guys did there they're given 7.5 million to go buy the helicopters good faith go try to get the best price you can work up the best terms and these guys work so hard to bring that price down to 4.2 that is a phenomenal job to a public meeting to
make that happen to get that reduction i can't thank you guys enough for watching out the taxpayer dollars that was tremendous tremendous job and it should be highlighted big time so and and who was the middleman that was making such a big percentage of that sale that's what I want to know i I I can get with you
offline because uh yeah we we we will be uh using them for for for some of the the part sales uh that that we'll that we'll discuss and commissioner but but thank you very very much for that and and none of it's possible without without the board's commitment uh to us last Wednesday which which we appreciate was
was a massive lift um so our our current fleet just to reiterate uh we we have four 0858s that were all provided by LISO uh those will be returned through LISO there is no issue with with that they they understand um we do have parts that are that are owned by us uh that we
that will sell for approximately $100,000 um you know as we work through the through the vendor um the the exact dollar figure on that is is TBD but in in the range of $100,000 to return those parts uh and then we have two Hueies uh one through LISO and one provided by FWC
uh that the agency owns um so the the Huey sale is presenting a bit of an issue and this is where where we're hoping uh for for the uh board's approval today so the Liso program requires that we return the Huey in the condition it was received uh currently
our Huey as as noted is not in a flyable condition uh it is current currently in parts and we estimate it would cost about $250,000 to repair that Huey just to return it to the federal government um we do have an option that Lisa has
provided us uh that if we keep the current FWC Huey uh which we did just um you get inspected we did have a new engine put in it is still still in flyable condition and we believe it has a couple years left uh Lisa would let us if we keep the FWC Huey they would let
us convert the um LISO Huey to parts uh again only if we have another Huey to use a parts in it or we would have to pay that $250,000 to return the condition we we received so our our request to to the board uh today based on on kind of the ever evolving nature of this uh request of this of this uh
transaction is that the board um authorize us and and allow us uh to amend our budget for $4.5 million instead of the the 7.5 um that would cover the the sale of or the purchase of the two helicopters and also give us you know $300,000 $250,000 in uh cost to
make it Pasco ready so a new paint job get our pilots trained in those specific 407s etc uh and then also allow us to um keep the FWC Huey through the end of its life which is what so uh essentially Commissioner we we uh in in a perfect
world we're hoping three three to five years but it's one of those things where if we have something catastrophic that breaks we would be able to go back to LISO and say "Hey so uh our other Huey has reached the end of its life we will we will re we will return the uh the parts and um with that LISO authority on
Yes ma'am and then um we we also uh do anticipate annual maintenance cost i know it was a question that that the administrator had asked um you know so so I asked our aviation team um annual maintenance cost is is roughly uh $100,000 just for the uh inspections and things that are required based on flight hours um but again if something
catastrophic happened it would be our intention to just end in end that life um so that that would be our request is is to allow us to amend our budget for for $4 and a half million dollars uh to cover the helicopters and the startups allow us to keep the the FWC Huey we would then uh move forward with LISO
converting our LISO Huey to parts uh and then we would return obviously to the commission um any any proceeds that we get from the from the sale of those O58 parts after we return those helicopters to Liso yeah is that a motion no we can't make a motion we can't make a motion
here we'll have to do that at our next board meeting but well commissioner you already agreed to amend this budget up to seven and a half so I can take that as direction followrough that's great great job yes ma'am i have a question but does any of my board members have any questions um I have a question for
you on the on the vehicles um have you moved everyone to those big SUVs or or do you still you know those I don't know what kind of cars they were before but I I see a lot of them parked around the county from other counties the cars but
it seems like we're all in the big SUVs and is that the most efficient way to do it i don't know so uh so we we are in the process now uh so essentially our sworn deputies we are moving to those bigger SUVs um because of the equipment they have to carry so uh as an agency we are not in a position that some agencies
may be in where they can have for instance a full-time SWAT team that does nothing but that so our our several of our deputies have to carry uh a lot of equipment so they may be on the SWAT team and have to carry SWAT equipment they may be on the drone team have to carry drone equipment um we also have active shooter kits that that deputies
carry so we moved to the to the SUVs to allow for the efficiency of of carrying that equipment and to not recognize that we don't have specific deputies in in specific teams for their full-time job but our our civilians our detectives uh that they are still largely and I I
believe it's Camry's yes come on up Tate for the record Colonel Sanborn Sheriff's Office um essentially what the sheriff has asked us to do is find the best vehicle for the job position so our SRO's that don't spend time out on patrol they're driving the smaller SUVs
the explorers um our command staff is all in explorers we don't carry transport prisoners we don't carry a lot of people um and so we use the smaller vehicles our detectives are pretty much exclusively in in a combination of u tauruses uh not tauruses I'm sorry
fusions and Camry depending on whichever is cheaper the year that we bought them and then our civilian staff those that need vehicles usually get uh handme-down vehicles from our detectives that still have u you know somewhere between 12 and 18 months useful life so uh are we
converting everybody to the larger SUVs the honest answer is no only those that really have a legitimate operational need and then the rest of them are uh are issued vehicles that more appropriately fit the need based on on Because again those larger ones they have greater fuel and things like that
we don't need to just go sit and park it at a school all we need at the schools is something that says the sheriff's office is here yes right and and we do that as efficiently as possible so thank you uh the board for their time madam Chair y with the big push for Americanmade etc
and I think American companies I would like to see us move away from the Toyota brands and I think I'll give you my my family's had like GMC Terrains Chevy Equinoxes they're the small SUVs very efficient they run forever don't have to do anything to them i'd rather have you look at some other American options from
our manufacturers that are companies that are here not just by name of manufacturing but uh I'd rather see you look to the to the Fords the Chevys even Chryslers whatever whatever products look good to try to make that shift yes sir understood yeah and my my first vehicle at the sheriff's office I see a
Ford Fusion okay okay um anything else to be brought before us i don't know why I was thinking we were approaching noon just approaching 11 very efficient okay ralph anything happening up in
Tallahassee that we should know about that we discussed this morning no all right okay then I think we are adjourned and thank you all very much all right pasco County waterways and wildlife depend on you to keep