--------- long. I will talk to you. We found them. They got they got our letters to get a lawyer. Andrea, you can't really make to her. She doesn't understand.
I want to follow. This is enough to go. They're going to go in there. Just keep them all queued up. You'll never know. Welcome to our That's our strategy, right? Good morning and welcome to the Seminal
County Board of County Commission budget work session. The date is June 17, 2025. If I would be kind enough if you would silence all your cell phones, any of your other electronic devices, we would appreciate that. We're going to have uh
Kurt from SGTV lead us in prayer this morning and then I have Commissioner Delorei lead us in the pledge. Please stand. In the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Heavenly Father, we just give you thanks and praise Lord for another glorious day in
your name. Lord, we thank you for the so many blessings that we receive here in Seminal County. And Lord, as we begin this budget session, we just ask for your grace, your wisdom for all the commissioners, for all of our county staff to work through these tough decisions that need to be made, Lord,
and and pull out the positive things that will help make Seminal County continue to shine. Yes, it's not easy, Lord, but we know that when we rely on your assistance, your help, all things are possible. And so we just thank you for the gift of this county and for all of our employees. We we thank you, Lord,
for our our freedom in our country. And we just ask to continue to pray for those uh that are afflicted by war uh especially the conflict in in Israel and with Israel and Iran. We pray for peace, Lord, and we pray that that we will
continue to be protected by the brave men and women that put their lives out there each and every day, our our military to keep us safe. And back here at home, we we thank you for the gift of our fire department, our police department, EMS, and all those in public
safety that continue to safeguard each and every one of us. And we ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. Please join me in the pledge. I pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it
stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty, justice for all. Thank you, Kurt, and thank you, Commissioner Delari. We sincerely appreciate that. We're going to start this morning. We're going to have our first uh presentation
uh which will be links, and we're going to have our county manager, which this is his budget at this point. Uh open up. We will have public comment uh towards the end when everybody has presented their budgets for us to have review. Uh and then the board will have discussion
later this afternoon. We will break promptly at 12:30 or slightly before then because we have commissioners that have commitments during lunch hour. We will reconvene at 1:30 or close thereabouts. Mr. Gray. Thank you uh Mr. Chairman and commissioners. Um so today
first I want to run through our thank you right through uh the agenda for this morning. As you had mentioned we did not finish all the outside agency at our May 20th meeting. So this morning we'll kick off with uh Miss Hawkins from Lynx. We also have our tax collector here, J.R.
Croll. Then we're going to move right into this morning our public safety uh uh presentations departments. And we'll lead that off with our sheriff uh with Sheriff Lima, followed by Chief Kennley and Alan Harris u from the fire department and emergency management. Um
chairman and board if any of those go uh a little longer or expected we can bump this in the afternoon however the the board feels. Sure. Um again uh we'll break for lunch and then in the afternoon to uh we will focus on our general fund departments this a uh this
afternoon uh with development services and Mr. Gomez followed by Allison Thaw and our community services department. Mr. Durr will be here to talk about our parks and wreck uh department. Chad Wilsky will then uh discuss fleet and facilities and some of the things that we're doing in that area and then we'll
close uh for the general fund departments with our information technology uh team will be here. We would like to reserve this a late afternoon for Mr. Jex. He is going to discuss our proposed budget and our general fund overview. Um then following
that our next step will be in July. On July 22nd, it we'll have a work session and then we'll do our main operating departments, utilities, environmental services, public works. Um, and at that time, if the board is ready, we can set the millillage uh for the trim notice.
Okay. So, very good. With that, I do have a few opening comments if you would like, please. So, as we began this year's workshop, I want to take a moment to reflect on the path that brought us here. This has been one of the most complex budgets we faced, not just
because of this year's numbers, but because of the long-term challenges that have been building over time. Some of those pressures were eased temporarily during the pandemic with the federal relief funding, but underlying issues um were were really the issue was rising
cost, a growing population, structural limitations in our revenue have all remained. That's why we began this process earlier than usual to ensure that we had time to review options, collaborate across the departments, and have honest conversations about where
we're headed. This first slide that you will see is the total proposed county budget for FY26. It's just over 1.2 billion. That's an increase of approximately 12% over last year's adopted budget. This increase is not driven by expansion, but the rising cost
of maintaining essential services, including increased service demands, contractual cost, and capital needs. Our population continues to grow, and with that comes more demand for services. This budget reflects our commitment to keeping pace with that growth while
staying responsible with taxpayer dollars. The next chart provides an overview of how our unrestricted countywide revenues are allocated. Public safety remains the largest share, a reflection of both community priorities and the operational
reality of keeping pace with demand. Other areas include infrastructure, storm water, roads, and general government. These categories don't shift dramatically year-to-year, but the costs continue to increase. This next slide really focuses on our
advalorum property tax is our which is our backbone of our general fund. This slide shows how dollars are allocated with the largest share going to public safety. That includes fire, emergency medical services, the sheriff's office, and emergency communications. The
remainder supports general government functions such as the court operations and reserves. These are essential functions, and the cost to deliver them continues to grow. Knowing the scale of the challenge ahead, as you all know, we started early
this year. In January, I began meeting with each of you individually to preview the forecast. In March, we brought forward options and scenarios at uh the board's strategic planning retreat. Then in April, we brought together leadership from across the organization for a
workshop focused on identifying cost-saving ideas and efficiencies. For the first time, we also shared early budget considerations with our constitutional offices, helping align the entire organization around the fiscal realities and creating synergies
in our approach. All of this was done in advance of today so we could approach this budget with transparency, clarity, and a shared purpose. The next chart will on this uh slide reflects the requested base operating
budgets for the departments in fiscal year 26. This does exclude our grants and other restricted funds and personnel impacts from the proposed uh limit uh limitations. We are looking to eliminate 10 FTEEs. These are the annual operating
budgets for all major funds. And as you can see, all of our base budgets for all of our departments have decreased. This next slide also provides a department by department view of the proposed full-time equivalent positions for fiscal year 26. Again, in total, 10
FTEEs are proposed for elimination, primarily through attrition. These changes are still under review and the final decisions will be made during budget adoption. We approach these proposed reductions thoughtfully with a focus on preserving the essential services while addressing long-term cost
pressures. The next as you all have seen uh what we have talked about over the over this last couple months is our siminal moments and this year we tried something new. Across the country governments are using AIdriven tools to identify budget
efficiencies. We did some of that too by working with a local graduate student to run datainformed models on county operations. But we also knew that algorithms alone don't understand community impact. So in April, we brought together real people into the
room. Leaders from across the organization came together for a full day efficiency workshop. That collaboration produced 42 actionable strategies, cost-saving ideas that came from within. We call these seminal moments as they reflect a shared
commitment to the public service and fiscal responsibility. We followed up with more than two dozen meetings to refine the proposals. And we didn't stop at ideas. We made real structural changes again eliminating 10 positions through realignment and attrition. We
consolidated internal services, recalibrated base budgets, deferred or redesigned non-essential capital programmatic request. These aren't acrosstheboard cuts. They're smarter ways of doing business and are more and
they are already in motion. And that's what responsible budgeting looks like. just not balancing the numbers but improving how we serve. This next slide focuses on the BCC department's operating budget. It excludes Oh, sorry. That was I just
already talked about that. Hold on. Sorry. My notes were uh What's the next one, Tim? Is that the lesson? All right. This is Sorry. These numbers reflect the real impact of a work our teams have done. The seminal moments initiatives
alone are projected to be $3.1 million worth of savings. And if you look over five years, it's a $25 million uh impact uh to our organization. Combined with the reductions in personnel and operating costs along with our deferral
of select capital projects, we've generated meaningful internal savings. And these savings are already built into the FY26 budget. This wasn't just about identifying efficiencies. It was about acting on them as well. And that's all I
have, Mr. Well, thank you very much. We will now move to links, Miss Tiffany Hawkins. Welcome to Semol County and good morning to you and your team. Mr. Chairman, commissioners, uh, thank you for having us today. Um, if all your speakers would
just identify themselves, uh, when they're when it's appropriate for the record, we'd appreciate it. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman, today I'm joined by our CFO, Lenny Antman, and our director of finance, Michelle Daly. Uh I also have uh Mr. James Bole, our chief development
officer, who uh you and your staff have become very acquainted with over the last year. Uh as well as Matt Freriedman, our uh director of marketing and communications. Great. Please proceed at your at your time.
It is not advancing too far away. Okay, thank you. There we go. All right. Uh today's outline uh will uh be brief before I turn it over to Lenny.
Um I do want to say and set the stage that um we understand that the commission is moving forward in a microtransit direction. Our staffs have been coordinating uh we have our next meeting on Friday to discuss uh
transition transfers with not only links but Sunrail. So this budget process for FY26 is going to be very iterative. Uh, and I say that because historically we've had to do that. Um, this is not the first time a funding partner is
making a service change. Um, as we get through the budget process, things will change. Um, things will become more clear on dates and services. So, please keep that in mind as we talk about uh basease budget and alternative scenarios
when we get to that part. We'll get to the next slide. Thank you. Just real quick on FY24 as it relates to Simino County. Um uh not only in FY24 for ridership. Next slide please. Um but we
had some highlights in uh calendar year 24. Uh Link Central Station celebrated 20 years uh of its opening from 2004 and 30 years of links doing business as it currently stands. The transition with
Tri County Transit and the Central Florida Regional Transportation Authority began in 1992 and it concluded in 1994 and so we are kind of going through that same thing with Sunreil as we speak and
it will be very uh timely. So currently today uh Semino County has 12 local routes, two neighbor link routes. Um we have our span of service starting at almost 5:00 am going to almost 1:00 am.
Uh frequency on some peak is every 20 to 30 minutes. The majority is on our headways. The wrership in Simino County uh for fiscal year 24 is 7,700 weekday boardings. those numbers have increased
from what you all have been uh seeing last uh July as well as November um in discussing uh microtransit and then we have uh 2.1 million passenger trips in semino county and again some of those
routes are shared with orange and um those that wrership is included in those routes. Next slide. And just hitting on our access links for FY24, we had 113,000 trips in Simino County alone. Um, with a
wrership of 127,000. Those numbers are different because some of our access links passengers do have attendants and caregivers. And uh you can see that the writership on access links over the last 5 years has increased and the number of eligible
clients in Simol County is about 2400 eligible access links clients. That does not mean that they are all writing um during the year. Uh but that is who is eligible uh to uh ride access links and they do go through a two-year
reertification. Um next slide. We do know the upcoming changes will have an impact. So we are working through how do we coordinate uh the messaging uh not only with links and uh the microtransit provider that you all
have chosen. Um we don't look at them as just links passengers or the microtransit pass. They're our writers. So making sure that we are um the folks that rely on public transit and that
will be utilizing microtransit understand what is getting ready to uh uh change for them. So um again that process has been collaborative and iterative and will continue to be so uh
as we move through uh this transition phase with Simino County. So, with that, I'm going to turn it over to uh Mr. Antman to walk through the uh budget and go through the request. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Thank you. And if I
could just ask you all to pull your microphones as close as you can to you so we audience can hear you. Thank you. Thank you. And don't be afraid to speak into it. Not shy. Next.
All right. So the key budget assumptions that we um built for uh this year um include to maintain the fiscal year 25 level of service as it is currently and I'll remind you that is for the base case budget we're doing. We did do an alternative scenario where we took
consideration the suggested changes that seminal is uh planning on and so we'll get to that separately. Um, we currently include no fair increases, although there is a pending fair analysis study that is about to begin and based on the
outcome of that, the board will make a decision on uh future fair um changes. Uh prevent uh federal preventive maintenance funding will be at the $6.8 million. Uh funding partner contributions will be based upon the
approved regional funding model policy. uh fleet replacements to rightsize the fleet and provide safe and reliable service and also passenger amenity program and facility improvements are included in our capital program.
Next, so the budget itself next is uh for fiscal year 26 is at $222.8 million as compared to fiscal year 251.2. It's an increase of 11.6 $6 million or
5.5%. I can tell you in going through the budget, uh, link staff work very diligently to try and control cost and keep things as flat as possible. Majority of the increases, you'll see it when we get to the expenses are in, uh, wages due to contract increases and
purchase transportation for paratransit. The bulk of the rest of the budget is very flat year-over-year. So on revenues, uh we did include a $1 million increase on fair revenue. Uh and that's based upon the current trends. We
are seeing a little uptick on ridership both on paratransit and fixed route. And so we tried to build that in and included a $1 million increase. Moving down to interest and other income, we're actually budgeting a $1.2 $2 million decrease over the current
budget because the interest revenues that we have are based on the balances and current interest rates. As we utilize those reserves in our budget stabilization fund, the balances available to interest are decreasing and also it's anticipated the interest rates
will start to go down over the course of the next year. And so um that is a decrease of $1.2 million. Um most of the other revenue sources are very flat year-over-year. The local uh funding partner increases are at 15 a.5% as re
reviewed and agreed upon with the uh finance audit committee and oversight uh groups. Uh and then the budget stabilization funds used to balance the budget for fiscal year 26 come in at 19.3 million, a decrease of 4.8 million
as we get closer to full funding by the funding partners. Next uh and so the revenue as a whole uh is the 222 million. Out of that 73% of it is provided by local revenue. As I'm
sure everybody's aware, Lynx has no dedicated funding. Uh after the 73% from local funding, we have 10% that we receive from customer affairs. And then it goes down 7% in state revenue, 6% in
uh federal revenue, and then 2% each for advertising interest and contract services. Next, on the expense side, also an increase of $1.6 $6 million as it is a balanced
budget. Uh 5.5%. Wages and benefits are going up year-over-year by $8.5 million. And that's broken out into a couple areas. Um the actual wage increases associated with uh union contracts are at $4.6
million. Other significant increases that are in there is the additional staffing for nine operators for the Orange County ATSB program at 700,000, pension cost increases at 1.3 million, and medical cost increases at 1.1
million. From there, we move down to other services. A $740,000 increase. The lion share that is associated with a contract um that we had entered into this past year for um bus shelter trash pickup and
maintenance. That's 640 of the 840. And the balance of that increase is associated with security services for the new Pine Hills Transfer Center that is about to open. After that, we move down to uh purchase transportation. That's an increase of
$2.5 million year-over-year. That $2.5 million is broken down as 1.8 associated with the uh contract uh CPI increase and 700,000 associated with projected increase trips that will be performed.
So once again, out of the 11.6, six. If we take the two and a half for purchase transportation and the salaries and wages, that accounts for 11 million of the of the 11.6 and the rest of it is the is the contract associated with picking up trash at the bus stops. So,
the balance of the rest of the budget, there's some pluses and minuses, but it's all relatively flat. Next, um the expenses are broken out as 59% for wages and benefits, 19% for purchase
transportation. Purchase transportation is largely purchased labor for performing those trips. So, in total, we've got 78% of our total cost is uh wages and benefits. After that, 6% for fuel, uh 6% for other services, what
includes professional fees and contract maintenance, uh 5% for utilities, and 5% for materials and supplies, which includes maintenance of our facilities and our buses. on the capital budget.
This uh the budget for fiscal year 26 is projected to be at $188 million versus the $145 in the current uh fiscal year 25 budget. That's an increase of $43 million. Uh we did not get a increase in
funding available on a as a ongoing basis. We did have a spe couple of special grants that were provided to us that account for that large increase. It's a onetime thing. Uh we received a grant from FTA to purchase 20 uh for $27.6 million to purchase 30 CG fixed
route buses. Uh we also received a protect grant at $5.8 million and we're also uh receiving $3 million a year from Orange County towards additional shelters.
Next, uh it is a fully funded budget. Uh the line share of it is federal funds at $173.8 million. Uh state funds at 2.3 and local 11.9. Now the local includes about $8 million from Orange County
that's built up for their ATSP program and the other three million and change is the $3 per service hour we get from the funding partners as matches on federal grants, federal and state grants. Next. Um, so out of the total
$1888 million, 92.4% is federal funds, 6.4% is local and 1.2% is state funds. Now, normally the local would be down around the state level. This year, because of those um Orange County funds where it's a little bit
higher. Next, now the um program itself is broken out into um categories. the lion share of it. Usually almost half of all of the funds that we um put into capital program are for vehicles. So we can rolling stock to provide revenue
service. Um out of those ve vehicles it includes uh 80 vehicles for fixed route CNG um fixed route buses. 50 of those are
rollover vehicles and balance are new uh vehicles to be purchased next year. on paratransit includes 111 vehicles. 65 of those are new and the balance will roll over when they're ordered and waiting for them to come in. And on vampool 125
vehicles, 50 of them are new, 75 are rollover. On facilities, it's um the short of $67 million. It includes a couple of major items. We have um 11.5 million put aside for HVAC
replacement in our three major facilities, $7.1 million for window replacement at DLCS um office tower and uh station area and $36.8 million put aside towards southern operation base
for land purchase and design planning on no back. passenger amenities $19.3 million that includes $8.5 million from Orange County for the uh ATSP program for additional shelters in Orange County
and the balance of it is associated with the traditional shelter program for the three counties. Okay. Next. So out of that 49.2% is for vehicles, 35.6 6 is facilities, 10.3% passenger
amenities, and then uh technology and uh support bring out the rest. Next, uh we get to the actual funding section. 74.3% of the funds that we're requesting come
from Orange County, 13% from Oyola County, and 12.7% Semino County. Next, um, looking at it, uh, the fixed route enabling service for this year is coming in at $87.9 million. Um, as opposed to
the 25 budget of 78.1, paratransit at 34.8 uh, and Sunreil feeder routes. Normally, the Sunreil feeder routes would be inward with fixed route, but last year we started transitioning to the partners paying for it versus the states. And so
the budget included nine months of funding. So we kept it out separate as in fiscal 26 it'll be 12 months of funding. And so you see the significant increases. It's the annualization of the funding process. So um Sunreal in total coming in at $1.7 million.
Next um leaving our total operating uh request at $124.4 $4 million for fiscal year 26 and uh capital contributions which is the $3 per service hour for matching on grants at 3.8 bringing the
overall funding to $128.3 million. Now as this applies next to Semino County the request is on uh fixed route and par transit uh just short of $9 million 8.9 power transit uh 6.2 2 million sun rail
feeder routes $770,000 total operating at 15.9 and the capital contribution at 376,000 bringing the total request to $16,280,000. Now the one thing I'll point out is I
have on there the um other scenarios I wanted to point that out. These scenarios are not based upon the latest current conversations going on with our planning department in Seml County. These
scenarios were built off of the presentation in April to this board. We took those um projected uh route changes and fed it into our models to come up to give us an idea of what the alternative solutions would be. And so if we were to
go live with the changes January 11th, instead of 16 um.3 million, it would be 11.6 million, a savings of $4.7 million to the county. And if it were to go live October 1st, it would be at 9.5 million,
a savings of uh $6.7 million to the county. Um, and but again, I just wanted to it's probably fairly close to where it's going to end up, but it's based upon the April model that was presented. So, there have been some tweaks to the
actual service levels and until we actually have a final go live date, these numbers will fluctuate slightly. If there are any questions, I'll try to answer them. Any questions from the board? Want to start? You're you're on the
links board, so you start. Well, I yeah, I saw you start to lean and I thought, okay, I'll let you go. Um, one of disrespect, but I think you should take points at John. Well, thank you. Um, the one of the things that we talked about during the links board meeting
last month, was it last month? Time flies. Um, when we looked at the capital uh budget, one of the things that I noted, uh, Lenny was that you had about $1.3ish million allocated for capital. um investment in Semino County. And when I
asked what that was, you said it was for new um bus shelters. And I said that I didn't think that that was probably um necessary given the fact that we're talking about removing routes significantly and and I don't know why
we would be planning for additional shelters. So, can you talk about whether or not you've removed that from the budget or what your thought? Yeah. Well, and that's a combination. And it's new shelters and renovations of existing shelters that have been out there for a long time. But there's still a significant number of routes and shelters that are out there. And we
don't want to preclude Seminal County. If on the remaining routes there was a need for a shelter, we want to make sure funding was available. If it's not, it could always be reallocated. Just wanted to bring that to the board's attention. um the given that
salary and benefits is the largest portion of any organization's budget that involves people. I mean that's our the largest portion of our budget. Um, one of the things that we had talked about quite some time ago was I when I was kind of trying to get a handle on
where there might be some cost savings and and efficiencies in the links budget was we talked about benefits and the um plan design of the benefits that are currently being offered to links and would there be an opportunity to see some cost savings and um we left that
conversation kind of open and I just wondered if if you could tell me what you all have done in the way of working on your health benefits plan design for cost savings. We did um as a follow-up to the conversation that uh you were involved with with the Gearing Group.
They did an analysis on uh what it would be and essentially you have two providers, Sigma or United Health that they could compare cost to and it was comparable. Um it as far as what we are
doing now versus moving uh what United we are with Sigma United Health we go to contract negotiations um next year and so there are some opportunities in that plan design that
we can walk through with the board um as we are getting ready for negotiations. So 85% of our employees are under union contract, right? And after reviewing the contract, what I picked up is that the design of
the plan is not something that's negotiable. That's not one of the things that's negotiated. It's that you would offer benefits, which is completely reasonable, but the plan design would be something that would be under the the opaces of the organization. So um I'll
be anxious to hear how that goes moving forward. Okay. Anything else? Not for now. Thank you. Commissioner Constantine, do you have anything? And by the way, for those that are feeling chilly in the in the room, I have asked staff to elevate the
temperature a little bit. I know if if I'm feeling cold, it's got to be cold. Commissioner, thank you very much. Um, I'm not going to dwell on the cost, everything like that. I think we've all
worked this out pretty much with the the microtransit and what's happening. But back in during co I recall when I was on the board that we said, "Okay, we're not
going to look at at fairs now. We haven't changed them for a while, but we're going to do a study and we're going to get, you know, some changes made because there's, you know, one of two things and and we all know we're never going to make this, we're not
trying to ever make it a balanced. It's not going to happen. um it would be cost prohibitive if we did try to make it balanced, but we did say that more of the money has to come from fairs and and
every time since then that I've not been on the board, you come back up and said, you know, and we're looking at starting a fair rate study. And I'm just, you know, when are we really going to do that? I mean it's
unfortunately it's you we what when did you say it? How long has it been since we've looked at the rates and changed them? It's been several years and the last time we did it was 2016 2017 and the board chose not to implement an
increase. I understand. So the point is is that I think that that is um for yourself and we are still part of links that that is something that really needs to be looked at. And if I may, Commissioner, uh, at our, uh, June board
meeting, an award of the contract for a fair analysis will be, uh, presented for approval. Good. Then we're right on time. Huh? Just Commissioner Glory, do you have anything? I have a couple quick questions if I may. Thank you for presenting to us today.
You just finished talking about uh, potentially doing a fail an a fair analysis. If you do get the permission to move forward, when would you be expecting to get that analysis back? I think I believe James and I don't want to speak. It's about a six-month uh
study. So once it's approved, you six to seven months, we should see the results. Correct. We should be able to see everybody will. Okay. Just wanted to make sure on one of your slides which is the uh 2026 partner operation funds where it says Sunreil feeders
contribution, there's an asterisk. What does that asterisk mean? That is to to um point out that it's comparing a 12-month uh expense to a 9-month expense that we're annualizing. It's that note that I tried to make when we presented that slide. That's what that means
because I don't see that anywhere in the presentation. And I probably it was originally a footnote. I'm sure it probably got cut off in Okay. So, that's basically normalizing this from right in fiscal 25 F. paid for the first quarter, October, November, December. Funding
Partners pay January forward and fiscal 26 funding partners will be paying the entire 12 months. So, we wanted to point out that it's not a year to a year, but it's 12 months. I get that. I just didn't I didn't know what the asterisk meant. Yeah. Okay. Then on uh when it
says seminal county budget requested when it's got the different scenarios uh I'm assuming uh that looking at the number 16 I'm rounding up to the nearest million 16 million 11 million 9 million and 14
million when you go to the 9 million that's when we go to full microtransit is that correct that's based on the fiscal 26 preliminary budget if if it changes were to happen October 1st Yes, that would be a full 12-month
impact. Correct. But that's when we actually make the changes that we've all been talking about. Correct. Yes. I just want to make sure that's what we're and then so for the capital contribution of 126 thou 123,000. What
does that capital go towards? That's the matching on uh state and federal grants. A lot of the grants are 8020 9010 grants and we need to have a local so that money be spent in seinal it's spent on as part of the regional model is for it
could be for vehicles it could be anything and the vehicles could be anywhere in within the system. So it could be anywhere in the system but it won't be spent particularly or earmarked for seminal. It's just system as a whole. No, we purchase vehicles. The
vehicles aren't assigned to a route that's they pull out in the order in which they're parked. So, not every vehicle goes to the same route every day. Okay. So, would that be normalized as a percentage of how many vehicles each
county has? Uh the model that was agreed upon by the board was that it would be $3 per service hour provided. That's why the number of dollars go down depending upon the amount of service hours that are being provided. So in the full base case it's so it is based on service
hours in a particular county. Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. Anything else? That's it. Commissioner her. I think there's great interest in the fair study and you've heard that loud and clear. I think there's also great interest in actually changing the fairs
once the study has been done. And I think you heard that at that end, but I think I don't want to speak for you all, but that didn't get said in the middle here. Um, but I we certainly have talked about it, I think, from the time Commissioner Constantine was on your board, the time I was on your board, and certainly under Commissioner Lockhart.
Um, we realize that we are a minority voice on that board and that is a struggle and I do think that u making sure that you carry our voice back is really, really important. And I know you do that, but I
can't say that enough. We want to be a regional partner and we want to be treated like a regional partner. And I think that's been a struggle. And I say that um to you and to our regional partners who may be listening. Uh I would also just with regard to the
benefits just because I can't not go there. Um did you do an RFP? I just don't remember. We have not. So how did Garing do a study? Garing is our broker. I do know who they are. And uh we asked
them to do uh it was basically request for information. So there are a lot of carriers out there. There are a lot of third party administrators out there now that are viable
um competitors to Bua, Blue Cross United, Sigma, and Etna. Etna wasn't mentioned and Etna actually is a player in this market now and they weren't before. Um I won't lean in any direction toward any vendor but if they have not actually
looked at it on a broader base I do think there's opportunity there without negatively impacting your benefits. Um but I do think that one of the challenges that we all have in government is that we don't like to change benefits because we work here for
the benefits. At the same time, salaries have been increasing and every year we're hearing salaries are increasing and that's the driver of budgets and we've been increasing them quite frankly higher than the private sector. We're increasing ours higher than the private
sector at this point. And so I do think there's a look to benefit plans that that needs to take place. I would also tell you there's opportunities for carving out pharmacy that will save money hands down. And if no one's looked at your pharmacy contract, they need to be doing that. And I suspect they have
not. Just my market knowledge. So there's money sitting there and it's minimum six digits, more than likely seven without benefit changes. That's my input. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Um I think everything's
been covered that that I may go into. And you know, since I've arrived here, I've been pretty vocal what I thought about the business model at Lynx. And I and I won't go into it again, but hopefully you all are embracing uh the
technology uh as well as what is going to occur and force changes quite frankly in your organization as things move forward. This microtransit seminal county is doing is just one step of where ultimately this transportation model is headed. and hopefully you're
preparing your workforce and your business model and looking at that before it's forced upon you all um which would not be a benefit to the region. So hopefully you're looking at all those dynamics and and things that are moving through technology to allow a better
model uh business model to come forward. But with that said, we sincerely appreciate you all being here today and sincerely appreciate you willing to work with us and as we find our new wings and our microtransit uh realm and we appreciate and will continue to work
with links as need be. So, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. If I may, I'd like to ask Darren Greg a question or two. Sure. Yes, sir. Great. Thank you, Darren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Darren, as they were stating here that the capital contribution is based on service hours and I know we're reducing our
service hours for the county. So, I just want to make sure that your staff is tracking that correctly. Yes, which I'm sure they will. Yes. And then also understand they said that they had uh par transit customers to see how do we if there was an opportunity to use some
of those customers to go into microtransit. I want to make sure that that's going on as well. Absolutely. because it'd be great if we can review those two numbers. Absolutely. I agree. So, just wanted to make sure we're on the record for that. Yes. Thank good. All right. Anything else? That's it. Seeing none, thank you all very much. We
sincerely appreciate you being here. Hopefully, we didn't freeze you too bad this morning. Next up is going to be J.R. Croll, the Simol County Tax Collector. Mr. Croll, happy belated birthday. All right. Good morning everyone.
Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. So, uh I want to go over a little bit. Oh, that one. Okay. Let's hope it works right. So, so this morning I want to go over a little bit first um explaining about my office and how it how it works a little
bit before I go into my budget detail. Um it's you know our office is is basically we have two two big parts of the office. first of all obviously is a tax collection. That's where we are, you know, collecting all the taxes, the property taxes for the for the county and and then redistributing those those
funds. Our the big part of what we do every day is really the DMV that we run for the state. I mean for the you know through for the state, but you know, not not statewide. Um because those fees are mandated by the state and they do not cover and for what they pay us on it,
it's pretty much a loss leader on that. We lose money on that. So, it is subsidized by the taxes of Seol County is where some of that money comes in because we just don't make enough on the transactions. And let's say we get $6.25 and it takes an hour. Well, we're paying a, you know, $167 an hour to to an
employee. Well, you know, quick math says we're we're losing money, you know, but that's part of just what what we what we work with every day. And that's, you know, we do also do the the the concealed weapon permits and we do um the the agricultural for the for the
hunting and fishing licenses. Those are smaller parts of what we do, but the big part of what we do is is that DMV side. So, that being said, you know, our budget has has to come and cover cover these expenses. Um I'll go through a bunch of things today. we have the our
introduction and then the the tax taxable values and I'll go I'll go through a number of these right now on what we have. So, here in Florida, the tax collector budget is determined through a multi-step process that emphasis us as a fee, a fee office, meaning that we
actually generate revenue. Um, and that is through the DMV side, even though that's a loss, and then collection of the taxes. We collect some that's how we subsidize the tax on the cost of the DMV. And our operations are funded, I'll get to the next screen here. So, our
oper operations are funded by fees and commissions earned on those services rendered. And those fees are outlined in the Florida statutes and established by the Florida legislature. So we don't get to determine anything. We have very little determination of anything for the DMV side. Um to give an example, we have
122 employees right now, I believe, total. And I think 70 60 or 70 are basically in the DMV side. And we have another 10 to 15 that we do through the tax department. So, if we only did taxes, we could we could run a lot more efficiently, obviously, because having
six offices and that many employees all run through the DMV side. Um, so we're required by Florida statute to submit our annual budget to the Florida Department of Revenue. And the budget is due by August 1st of every year. So, we are a little early and that's why we never do ours the same as the rest of the as the rest of the constitutional
officers and everyone else. So the department of revenue is who determines and reviews our budget to ensure that it's adequate to to run our tax collector operations. Um we have if the department finds that our budget is not adequate or it's excessive, they'll return it to us and tell with their
ruling and tell us we have to adjust it. Um once it's finally approved by the department, the budget can't be reduced or increased without their approval. So we have so our tax collector office collects the fees in excess of the budget. Then this is excess revenue and we're it's not kept by our office but
instead we turn it over to the board of county commissioners and you know the assortment of the cities and all that get all the evenly spread for that. So we go through our taxable values and how much it's been increasing. You can see by that chart that it's definitely going up every year. Um the taxable
value amount. So we had from 2020 when I first got elected we were at 37 uh billion and then now 2021 39 44 49 53 billion. So it just keeps the the amount keeps going up because property values increased which everybody's happy about.
Now when we look at our revenue versus our expenses that's where I try to keep things the same. So our actual revenue totals were going have gone up but then we had COVID in there. So it gets a little little little wonky for a little while but in uh in 2019 we had like 14
billion then 13 billion with the COVID and all 13 billion went then it started increasing again to 14 billion and last year was 16 billion. So we're looking at our expense totals our actual expenses have been lower. We had a tax program that we had to implement which was very
costly for us but we got that we got through that already and we also uh when I first got elected we built the Altoont Springs branch which was costly. So these are some major expenses when I first got in but I haven't had anything since then. Mr. Cole just want to make sure the numbers you were quoting were
in billions. They're actually millions. Correct. Uh yes. Just want to make sure. Sorry. Yes. That's that's there is a dot there. Great. I'm looking at the wrong numbers here. So, I should wear my glasses. Okay. So, now our um our approved budget
goes through each year where we have we're typically at 13 13.5 million is our typical budget. Um we started that in 2019. Then we were a little bit lower in 2020. Then we got very low for 2021. Our budget was a lot lower. And same thing with 2022. and
then we went up again for 2023 24 because that's where we're transitioning from that that tax program. So we've been trying to always keep our but our expenses low is what we try to do and our biggest like I said our biggest expense is the employees of the DMV um which are employees but they work we
work as an agent. So each with each one of those it shows our how much we're under budget every year when you look at our actual expenses and our approved budget. And you know typically when we're one one to two one and a half to two million sometimes even three million under budget. So because we plan for
something we couldn't get accomplished and we're under budget. So our average under budget since I've been elected has been over $2 million that were under budget every year. And then now come to our excess revenue. So we have our average excess revenue which is because our budget's not
completed yet this year. So we'll know it by August. And of course we submit everything in there. But we've had excess budget as high as you know 4 million to 4.4 million one year and as low as 3 million. But when you act when you average that we're at like 3.3
million average excess fees that we have that we end up returning to the county every year. So, in our Let's see where I'm at here. I think I got lost a little bit. Oh, that's it.
So, yeah, our average uh budget request, if I can read that now. average. Yeah, the average budget request is about it's about 13 million is what we come in with. And pretty much that's what I have for my presentation. It's short and sweet, but um if I had questions from the board
about it, we can go through that. Um Sure. We'll go to the board. Commissioner, we'll start at your end. I have no questions. Commissioner Glory. No comments. Just thank you very much, J.R. Appreciate that. Commissioner Constine. Jim, what's the increase percentage-wise
from last year for this budget from the total revenue increase? Yes. Three in the general fund. Yes. 3%. Thank you. That I mean for this office? Oh, the this request, excuse me. The tax collector's increase is based on a
formula which is uh aligned with property taxes. So, his increase would be 6.75% from what we would be giving to him. Thank you, Commissioner Lockhart. On topic, but off topic, in light of
recent issues with driver's licenses and real IDs being um given out, where where are we in Semino County with ensuring that we're following state law? Um, in regards to the Real ID, in regards to making sure that we're compliant with state law and not giving illegal
immigrants driver's licenses, well, I mean, that's that's part of the Real ID process is why they why we started. We're we're at 99% at this point of Semino County has has gotten their real IDs compliant. Um, it's it really what we're doing is comp making sure that that person is who they say they are.
And obviously, if you don't have the right documentation when you come in to get a driver's license, you you could still not be a US citizen and get a driver's license, but you're going to have to have the documentation. If you come in without it, we do have people who try to forge it. I mean, if that's an everyday thing, we work with the department every day about that. You
know, someone once off comes in and tries to, you know, forge some paperwork or a fake, you know, birth certificate or something and, you know, we usually catch it. Our people are pretty good about that. Okay, that's great. I know the attorney general um you know recently announced there have been some arrests around the state and I just
thought it would be important for us to know where where we stand in Semino County with with our processes. Yeah, we're we're not Miami date because they all these problems that usually come up we always hear it's Miami date. You know, that's where all these issues are really happening. You know, we're we've got we've got pretty good hold on it.
You know, we're just the small community, so we can really manage this a lot easier than something like Miami date, especially that they just transitioned to a tax collector. So they've they've got a whole nightmare of other things happening in that office right now. Okay. All right. Thank you so much. Okay. Hey, Mr. Commissioner
Constine, you have something additional. Well, no, I just wanted to say I asked the question of Tim. I but at the same time, I think u speaking for myself, but I I've heard this from many other people on this dis and other places that we thank you for the for the consistency of
of your job that you have done for Seol County. Well, thank you. Anything else? Commissioner, one more. I just want to point out for the record if you go back one slide because I did it. That math doesn't add up to the percentage that you said
because that is this year's budget. Your current budget, the new budget is not in this slide. So, I did the math year-over-year. That was last year's. Yeah. So, for anybody out there that was like, "Wait a minute, that's not the number." Uh, that's the reason because
your budget isn't done yet because it's due in August and I heard you say that four times, but I still did the math. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. No, we will have it due as you do. You know, it's just August 1. Anything else? We're good. I just want
to thank you on behalf of the citizens of the county and what you return uh to the county taxpayers um average yearly and hopefully that continues to occur and continues to uh rise accordingly to
help offset uh their burden. So uh I sincerely thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. Great. All right. Thank you. We will now move to Sheriff Dennis Lima and uh his team. Welcome, Sheriff. Good morning.
So, I I'll be joined this morning with um Chief Lisa Spriggs over our administrative services and then our financial director Mary Hope as well. So, uh chairman, commissioners, county manager, and staff, thank you so much
for the opportunity to speak with you this morning. Let me begin by expressing my sincere gratitude for your ongoing leadership and your continued commitment to fiscal responsibility. Each of you have consistently demonstrated a thoughtful, disciplined
approach to balancing the essential needs of this community while also being mindful stewards of taxpayer dollars. And as a fiscal conservative, I share your values and appreciate the challenges that you face in maintaining that balance. The meetings and
conversations that we've had with each of you over the past couple of weeks have been incredibly productive and meaningful, particularly in a year where my budget request comes with a significant increase. Each of you have approached these conversations after
reviewing what we initially submitted and in many cases asked for additional documentation and followup. Uh, our residents deserve to know that our ongoing partnership and shared commitment to transparency have resulted in us providing a more detailed
information list than ever in our history. And I want to commend each of you for your interest in this process. I'm submitting our sheriff's office proposed budget for our fiscal year 2025 to 2026,
which reflects a 9% increase year-over-year. As we've as we've discussed, I fully recognize that our agency represents more than half of the overall general fund budget. However, as you know, approximately 40% or $80 million of that
supports correctional facility operations, county probation, our school safety partnership, our juvenile detention center, and then of course juvenile court programs. We commonly refer to this as BCC vested services. These arrangements have entrusted the
sheriff's office with addressing crime, safety, and recidivism through corrective behavior programs and re-entry programs as it aligns with my constitutional responsibilities as sheriff. This proposed in increase is driven by
the compensation market and not a reflection of excess but necessity. For the first time in my tenure as sheriff, this request exceeds the annual growth of property tax revenues. This increase is personnel focused, which you
know takes over 85% of our overall operating budget. Even when we're experiencing increases in material costs, we present no increases to capital or operational outlays. Across the state of Florida, support for public
safety professionals has gone beyond rhetoric. Our state leaders have taken bold action to attract qualified candidates. The legislature and Governor Ronda Santis have introduced numerous incentive programs to recruit law enforcement officers from across the
country. Municipalities and counties have followed suit, creating highly competitive compensation packages. And as a result, within the past 12 months alone, the starting salary of a deputy sheriff in Semino County has fallen to
one of the lowest amongst local seminal county law enforcement agencies, currently $8,500 behind the highest paid in Seminal. Regionally, neighborhood agencies offer higher starting salaries than Seinal as
well. in recent years. I focus on comparisons to our peer agencies within Semino County. However, I think a fair comparison should also be made against other sheriff's offices with similar population sizes, responsibilities, and
socioeconomic characteristics of those communities from across the state. These are important comparisons to make and agencies from across the state are also finding themselves in similar situations. I remain incredibly grateful that this board has worked closely with us over
the years to remain competitive. But the market has changed again. Agencies are now offering significant signing bonuses along with adjusted base salary for experience. The reality that we face right now is is deputies are financially
incentivized and recruited to change agencies every few years, collecting signing bonuses and maintaining their seniority pay. And this has created a cycle of attrition and competition that we have seen in other professions, but
this is relatively new to the policing field. The workforce is also evolving. Fewer recruits seek long-term careers in policing. Many possess undergraduate and graduate degrees, military service, or
private sector experience, and they serve proudly for the time that they're here. But they transition within a few years because the skills learned on the job are often incredibly lucrative in the private sector. That is the new reality that we work and live in, and
our job is to adapt to make the most of their service during the times that they're here. It costs between $144 and $214,000 to onboard and properly train a deputy. Employee attrition is a significant loss
of taxpayer funded investment. Our 9% increase includes 6% for fair and competitive compensation and 1.5% for overtime, which is heavily used during the onboarding and corrections backfill, which remains one of the most
challenging areas to staff. And although we've seen recruitment success with our academy, our team remains committed and professional. Even though recruitment and retention have proven difficult, we expect these costs to normalize as
more recruits complete training and graduate nearly the 40 cadets that will be graduating from our academy and being sworn in later this afternoon. Another 1% goes towards increasing contributions to the Florida retirement system and then less than 1% towards health care
costs. We aim to ensure for fair and competitive compensation for the men and women serving our community. And our team has reviewed our agency structure and daily operation to identify potential reductions that would not negatively impact public safety. Earlier
this year, we strategically consolidated two of our divisions to increase efficiency without compromising services. While at the same time, we were able to eliminate one senior level captain position within our ranks. We've converted sworn positions into civilian
investigators in areas such as in our major crimes and our digital forensics, knowing that a civilian total compensation package is lower than a sworn position. We will continue to look to civilianized positions whenever we can as long as it doesn't jeopardize
overall safety and operations. We've used volunteers. Last year alone, over 40,000 hours were given back in in 2024, equating to 20 full-time equivalent positions. We continue to utilize non-traditional
resources as well, grants and partnerships to support our agency. And as we move forward, we will continue to examine every possible cost-saving strategy that we can. And I want to reaffirm that I am fully prepared, as I typically do, to walk through each
division and explain the critical functions of our office as in years past. And as outlined in this current presentation today, our community engagement and crime prevention sections remain integral to our crime fighting success, as do our
organization's investment in prevention programs, particularly surrounding our youth. Semino County remains one of the safest counties because of our proactive efforts to regularly develop relationships and connect with law-
abiding residents, deter victimization, and reduce the fear of crime. In part, this is why we've experienced a 20.3% decrease in our unincorporated crime rate just last year alone and approximately a 53% decrease over the
past eight years. Long before state or federal mandates existed and in direct partnership with Semino County Public Schools, together we chose to assign a professionally trained deputy sheriff or police officer
to every single public school campus rather than solely utilize the guardian program. These deputies not only ensure for safety on our campus, but investigate crimes, build trust with our youth, and serve as mentors and positive role
models. We also recognize that there is a high level of uncertainty right now at both the state and federal level when it comes to funding, particularly in grants and reimbursement programs. The Semino County Sheriff's Office has always stood ready with our partners at the Semino
County Fire Department, uh, Semino County Emergency Management, and other public safety entities to prepare for and respond to emergency situations. That does not change. Additionally, we know that some programs that previously have provided funding
and support and grants may no longer be available or at a bare minimum significantly reduced, particularly with drug trafficking operations and Haida's reduction. Together, we plan and prepare for what lies around the corner. And as
mentioned, we've we've implemented division consolidation, civilianization, overtime controls, and position elimination. But market pressure have outpaced our efforts. This budget is about preserving what we've built. It's
about ensuring that Semino County remains a destination for top tier public safety professionals and that the services expected of Semino County rec residents are never compromised. The risks of an action are clear. Without adequate resources, we run the risk of
losing capable, well-trained personnel. And as a result, morale can suffer. Over time, costs will skyrocket and community safety could be jeopardized. I understand the difficult decisions lie ahead, and we've had very candid and
honest conversations about the options that are on the table right now. However, it is my responsibility as sheriff to respond to the unique market dynamics affecting law enforcement. The market for sworn personnel has changed
dramatically in recent years. While it's easy to make surface level comparisons across roles in government, the reality is that law enforcement recruitment and retention challenges are being driven by market forces well outside of our
control here. Adjustments must be made in accordance with fair market value. And our current challenge is to ensure that the men and women serving on the front lines of public safety are not left behind in that process. And I am confident that the citizens of Semino
County will continue to support the men and women of law enforcement who raise their hand, take an oath to protect our domestic freedoms. They keep our community safe and continue to to allow us to preserve the quality of life we're accustomed to. And I know this board has
strongly supported these heroes and you are proud of the work that they do. I will submit that this is an investment in our safety, stability, and long-term fiscal health as the cost of not keeping up is more significant in the long term
than to keep pace. So in accordance with the requirements set for forth in Florida State Chat statute chapter 30.49 49 and fulfillment of my constitutional responsibilities. I respectfully submit the Semino County Sheriff's Office
proposed budget for fiscal year 2025 to 2026. The total proposed certified budget is $196,15,000 representing a 9% increase over the current fiscal year. The budget is reasonable and necessary for appropriate
and efficient running of the Semino County Sheriff's Office. This increase is attributable to essential investments in personnel, our single greatest asset in response to sustained labor market challenges affecting law enforcement
agencies across Florida and the nation. I want to thank you all for your partnership, your stewardship, and your commitment to the citizens of Semino County time and time again. At this time, we can answer any questions or proceed along with our presentation that
outlines uh the the the sheriff's office budget in greater detail and then breaks down division division, section to section of how this money is being spent. What's the pleasure of the board, Sheriff? Why don't you go ahead and proceed working through your budget?
First slide is our uh organizational breakdown. This is um how the chiefs and the departments are aligned and set. Uh one interesting thing to point out and and I typically say this each and every year is is we are incredibly unique when
it comes to more than 50% of our executive team are actually civilian members and not sworn law enforcement members. Uh there's two benefits to that. A civilian member who is in an executive position within our team is
less expensive than a high-risk um uh level sworn person within the agency. So we try to civilianize as much as we can. Uh you see the breakdown section from the chiefs that are there in yellow and the areas of
responsibility that that fall uh under them. Again, this budget uh since the last time we appeared before you has been reduced by one captain position and two divisions were consolidated into one. That was the special operations
division that has SWAT, aviation, K9, bomb teams, all of the high-speed stuff. We aligned that with our domestic security division uh for for greater efficiency and cost savings. This slide shows our complete budget. Uh
when the sheriff certifies his budget, that is the net amount that we're requesting draw from your county general fund. This slide actually shows our total budget. It shows the $24 million
budget for general fund includes contractual revenue that we'll show the detail here in a minute. That includes our partnership with Semino County Public Schools for our SRD program and our partnership with our municipalities
for our dispatching services countywide. The second column reflects our special revenue funds and we'll show a detail and talk briefly about those in a minute. And then the third column request BCC facilities, which is a
partnership between county facilities and seminal county sheriff's personnel facilities to mainly facilitate um different repairs and maintenance within our correctional facility. Th this is the breakdown of total
positions. Uh the unique thing here is you can see we're just shy of 1,400 uh total members when you combine the full and part-time. Part-time are a variety of positions, but a good majority of those part-time positions are our school crossing guard program uh that are out
there. The interesting fact here is by far, as you can see, the largest component of our organization is still civilian members of the agency. And sometimes when people think about a sheriff's office or a policing function, they don't realize that the largest component are actually civilians. When
you look at the various positions that we have, our attempt to to do what we can to civilianize, and of course, a big portion of that is consolidated dispatch that we have on the third floor of of our operations building. This slide uh depicts the statutory
requirement that the sheriff is required to certify his budget. It's set up by the statutory requirement of law enforcement, correctional activities, and then court security. On this slide, you can see the breakdown
of our certified budget, what we're requesting from the county general fund as our draw. And this compares last fiscal year, fiscal year 25 or the current fiscal year that we're in to our requested ask this year. And as you can
see, all of the additional funding is going into the personal services line. And we'll get into the detail and I'll explain uh the reduction in operating expenditures in the next few slides.
And in my opening remarks, I had I had mentioned that u you know the breakdown the 6040 breakdown 40% of the services that we provide are what we call BCC vested services uh for the entire 112 year existence of seminal county. Those
services largely of correctional facility have been delegated to the sheriff as it aligns with the constitutional responsibilities of running a correctional facility because citizens expect that if we apprehend somebody for breaking the law and we incarcerate them that we do whatever we
can to do to fix whatever's broken. And the the continuum of of work on the inside to the work on the outside just works incredibly well. uh something that we're grateful for the the other functions that are there. But we put this slide in just uh just to make sure
that the public is aware that again $80 million of the operating budget that we have are really services that the the board uh delegates to us to take care of on their behalf. And and again, we just list this there. We still recognize that
more than half of the general fund budget is the sheriff's office, but this this um breakdown of 40% is a is a big portion of it as well. This reconciliation shows how we get from our general fund expenditures
and reducing out our revenues that we collect directly through contracts and agreement. Again, the majority of those are with Seminal County Public Schools and our municipalities for SRD and dispatching services and down to our net
general fund expenditures. This is a breakdown in detail of our revenues. At the bottom, you you'll see the contractual revenues that we just showed net. The ones at the top, the 4,335,000 are all revenues that are collected from
operational activities within the sheriff's office, but they go direct into the county's general fund budget. They are not netted against ours. The largest of those is our federal inmate contract where we house federal inmates
within the facility. Um, currently we are looking at reviewing the rate for this contract so that when we get to our public hearing, we may be able to adjust that number up slightly, but we're going through that process starting in the
next couple of weeks. As as was mentioned in my comments and actually mentioned even before our presentation is our organization again is mostly personnel and and this slide is incredibly important particularly when you're asking for a significant
increase as we are this year. It it is it is all people and and unless you're going to carve out and cut services that are direct service to people, uh it makes it incredibly difficult considering an operation operating budget that is 85% of that people. Of
course, some of the the capital and and the other components that we have, it takes equipment and things in order for us to do our job. Bad guys look at technology. We have to make sure that we're keeping pace with that. We need vehicles and equipment not only for routine patrol, but in the event of an
emergency, natural disaster, the flooding and all of those things. So again, that is a small port percentage of that. Um I don't have to tell the citizens or the board that inflation has affected all of us in what we do. The cost of everything has gone up over the
years, but we remain uh flat in operating in in capital uh only because we've been able to move resources. We operate a vacancy rate in detention deputy and deputy sheriff anywhere from 15 to 20%. Uh although we've backed
filled those with use of overtime positions, u those overtime positions are usually to meet minimum staffing requirements. So if you have FTEEs that are not being filled, it has allowed us to move some money around in order to remain flat within those areas. and and
again the people that represent that 85% I will break down towards the end of this presentation of who they are and and particularly what they do. Uh last interesting note uh on here is as our population has grown uh significantly
there's been very little growth in our neighborhood policing concepts like the same amount of community service areas or patrol functions have remained the same for the past 20 years and we just make make do with with the partnerships we have with the municipalities and
taking on more responsibilities. And commissioners, I'm going to back up on this slide one uh minute and point something else out that is worth noting today. The inmate telephone commissions, you'll see, is at zero. That was a
federal enacted mandate where we can no longer collect commissions on the correctional phone system for inmates. That was enacted a couple months ago. And so next year we will collect no revenues there where in prior years
we've collected a little over a half a million dollars. This slide starts into our detailed line item budget. We also provided the commission with a supplemental package that even breaks these line items down a little bit further so you could see the
detail within them. I'm just going to highlight a couple of things here on the salaries and wages line. You'll see in a minute in operating when we get there that we have reclass contractual expenditures for nursing services that
we use contracted nursing. Um we are going to try this year to hire full-time nurses. With the market the way it was in the last five to seven years, it had been extremely hard to attract uh FTE
that were full-time. It's much more efficient to have nursing on staff and not have the changeover that you do have with contractual nurses. So, um this does include about 1.2 2 million in the
salaries and wages that has been reclassed from operating expenditures. As the sheriff mentioned earlier, overtime has been a challenge. Part of that is related to the onboarding of
vacancies. Even if we have a hired deputy recruit, um we're we're paying for that deputy recruit while they go through that training. and we provided in the supplemental information the the hours and the time that it takes and also the cost and then in some cases
we're backfilling that same position at the same time. So that has been over the years very challenging to be able to um cover that overtime. So we're hoping again in future years as we begin to uh get those
vacancies down that we can mitigate the overtime in future budgets. Retirement contributions is another noteworthy line to point out. High-risk retirement in specifically has been
raised uh 10.7% over the last 5 years. That's a contribution rate, not a percentage increase, which means that 10.7% of all wages are going into the pension system.
This year, the impact of the state's increase in contribution has impacted us an additional 1.7 million just within that line item. Getting into our operating budget, I just spoke about the professional
services line. That's where our contracted nursing services are. That recclass of 1,260,000 is then reflected uh so it's budget neutral up within the salaries and wages to support those FTE that we would like
to start to try to hire over this next year. Contractual services has a minor adjustment um mainly here within and we've provided that detail within this line. We've had some reductions, but the increases are generally in the area of
inmate food and GPS monitoring services. Operating supplies we've been able to reduce um in various areas, but mainly the price of fuel is coming down. For us, fuel is a large spend item. So as that comes down, we also benefit from
the ability to reduce our operating in insurance. We've kept that relatively flat. We are looking at some different ways that we can uh provide for our insurance and maybe do some of the services um within our repair area
inhouse. So that has remained flat. Overall operating expenditures are reduced by the 1,260,000, but as we said, we've really kept it flat. That was a reclass up into the personnel area
for capital outlay. Um 4.5 million, 2.5 million of that is for our replacement and renewal of our fleet. about 1.5 million of that is related to
technology and networking and about a half a million of that is related to other specialty equipment. Just want to point out if you go back into a previous budget and we've also supplied this in our line item detail,
we did reclass uh a little over $2 million of that into the operating supply line. That's why the operating supply line is so large. Um, a lot of what we do now is system
oriented and the purchase of those type of systems like for our bodywn cameras, our incar cameras, our taser system, our entire digital evidence system is considered subscriptionbased. So from an accounting and recording
standpoint, it is an operating supply. The good thing about that is over the last 5 years, we've been able to transition a lot of our contracts to this basis, which for us means we are now locked in for a period of time to a
flat contract rate, so they won't increase. And part of those uh agreements, we actually just have the equipment portion of those systems replaced. So if something happens, if they break, we
swap them out. And that's part of the contractual agreement. There's no more cost in that um in that repair. Our reserve for contingency, I want to point out, we raised it a couple years
ago. uh we tried to raise it so that we had enough money there to at least support relatively one storm. We talked about FEMA reimbursement. That's been somewhat of a challenge. So sometimes for us when it occurs at year
end, we have to cash flow it. Um so um we we continue to hold that reserve for contingency of 350,000. Is there any questions on general fund before I move forward? You want to Commissioner Lockart?
So I I spent a lot of time and I asked for a lot of information and I appreciate so much you giving it because in in years prior I think it's kind of been like well what does she want that for? You know like but this is a very different year. It it is and and I feel
like all of us do that um this year may be a little bit more invasive than prior years um because of the overall situation that we're finding ourselves in. So, I just picked a line
item just the office supplies and operating supplies and I want you to walk me through one of the reasons I asked for budget versus actual spreadsheets which you provided and I think were shared with the entire board and so that I mean down to the like it's like you seven point font you can barely
read it level of detail is what we've we've gone into here and I think I've I've worked with Lisa for many years and and it's I think I might be off the Christmas card list this year But um so when we look at I'm I'm comparing the '
04 budget actual to the '05 which I know we haven't done the we're not through the entire '05. So, I'm looking at the office supply line and in ' 04 we had $78,000 as a part of the
adopted budget. And then we made a budget adjustment of an additional $50,000 at some point. Uh the actuals were 113. Am am I are are
you the spread? It's the first very first sheet of the spreadsheet that we had talked about. Are are you following me? Do you have it? I'm following you. Okay. I do not have it in front of me. Unfortunately, I have my computer closed. Commissioner Dvaleri will
appreciate this because he knows I love my computer because it froze up. So, I don't have the detail, but we would be happy to look at budget cuts. Again, I'm probably not going to be able to answer that question off the top of our head, but we can look at the detail. I
want to look at just just as an example because it's a low number line item. It's not sexy, right? It's office supplies and operating supplies. So, we're not talking about anything that's, you know, privileged law enforcement, you know, information.
But I'm seeing some numbers that are changing. the operating supply of of 04 was 6.4 million budgeted um in ' 04 this for 25 it's 7.2 2 but
you've got up there that it was 9.5 so at some point I think I don't okay so that is the recclass the operating supplies when we went from if you look at our capital there was about two and a4 million
recclassed and if you go to not that supplemental information the big report but the the smaller packet We did give you a line item breakdown and you'll see specifically that reclass and that is related to all of those
agreements that I was talking about mainly like bodywn cameras and car cameras. It's our digital evidence system. It's our tasers. There's there's some other technology included. They're considered subscriptionbased. Okay. And that's been something that
over the last few years in the accounting world, they've actually tackled and said, "No, they're they're truly operating because we don't own the equipment. It's under a subscription." Okay. I just, you know, when when you look at numbers and we're comparing year-over-year, that's how I get a sense
of where the need for our budget where like, well, we didn't spend everything that we budgeted. Did it carry forward? What what do we see happening in the next year that we're going to need more? And so I kind of did that with a lot of these different line items. Um particularly the you know the
Yeah. And and the top sheet that you're talking about that that's Mary's creation, but that that is a reconciliation to get to our audited numbers. So sometimes with the contracts and agreements, we're also putting um budget in the general fund budget
going going all the way back. it's worth since you're asking the question um going all the way back to here where you have the the general fund revenues that 8.4 4 million
uncontractual. And the reason Mary does this reconciliation here um is that we have to include that within our total budget. And when we get audited and we're submitting the audit to you, that's part of our general fund. Even
though it's not coming from Seminal County general fund taxpayers, it might be coming from the municipalities. It might be coming from the the school board and our partnerships. So those are contractual revenues that adjust our general fund budget, if that makes
sense. It does. It does. Yeah. So that's what that reconciliation you have, right, shows and commissioner, I do appreciate the fact that you took the time to go in and look. Um it is not that we are we are a transparent book.
We did not want to overload anyone with, you know, hundreds of pages of detail. We do account for our operations and we'll we'll talk about the divisions in a minute down to cost centers just like the county does. So our divisions are broken down into many many areas um and
and we account for those and then we also have a lot of special revenue sources that we can go into here that um also require us to account for those separately. So it ends up being you know a lot of numbers and a lot of details.
So, we don't like to overload you with that either. Yeah. I appreciate the offer to not overload, but this year we're in overload. Yeah. So, thank you. I appreciate it. You're welcome. Any other questions before we move? Anything else from the board? I just have one question. Okay. I'm going to hold mine
till the presentation's complete. And I will do that, but just in brief, you have one slide that says proposed budget breakdown by services. Uh, I know you were talking about it's 40% 40.5% BCC vested services. Uh, the
jail was specifically mentioned, but there's other vested services that you contract or we contract with you. Is all that in that number? Yes, it is. So, not today, but can you give me a list of what those are? Absolutely. Um, in fact, we have So, there was a separate packet
that Tim distributed was supplemental. It does have the breakdown of all of those services because I know there's a jail. There's dispatch back there's juvenile court programs within there. There's uh juvenile detention center, the school resource deputy portion that the that the county the total number
correct total number. I just want to make sure it's only for the jail so far. Right. So the difference would be you have a 79.4 million. If you go back to Wait a minute, maybe it was forward. Sorry. certification. You can see
corrections. So, the correctional there includes both the juvenile detention center and Johnny Pulk. Okay. I just didn't because then there's a slide further in your presentation. It talks about dispatch, but it wasn't identified
during that slide that dispatch and other services are in that number. That's all. Mr. Chairman, Commissioner, follow up on that same uh slot, that same follow-up supplemental
piece of um the packet. The BCC vested services. Um one of those listed was code enforcement, which is moving back to the BCC. And that line item when this was given to us was left blank. And you have a number now you said that we can plug in there.
So our budget for code enforcement was right at a half a million dollars that included six FTE and we did account for them separate even though they were part of seminal neighborhood policing in the past. Um we have zeroed that out of our
budget. Okay. And that 600 you said 600,000 500,000 six fully loaded positions. What other than salaries was in that 500,000? very minor operating we can we can provide you the detail I think we have
provided that to oh your staff yeah do we have that I don't we have that we can provide that in the cost details for that would it be in in one of these
spreadsheets I will look to be in the detail that was behind that was the top level and all those other you know, tabs of that spreadsheet, but we'll send you the code enforcement cost center. Okay, great. Thank you so much. And and in that
transition, we also have some vehicles that we agreed to transition over to the BCC, their relatively late model. So, so were you So, I'm sorry, I'm just perplexed. So, there was no fuel
attributed for those cars driving around in that 500,000. that is charged to the fuel to the uh fleet cost center. So we don't allocate out our central services unless it's a direct we do do it a little bit for
corrections so that we can account for the different but we do not do cost allocation. So when you see our fleet division in the back you're going to see an all-in with fuel. Okay. So we do account for it across from law enforcement corrections and courts just like we have it broken down on the
certified budget. Okay. Yeah. Chairman, thank you. They answered my question. I just want to make sure that all those items were in that breakdown. That's all. Well, it's my recollection. I know I requested and I think it was provided by the county manager's office, a full breakdown of the costs that were being transferred to
the BCC on code enforcement, including the vehicles. That's what I recall seeing separate this budget discussion uh were presented to us. Correct. Okay. Just want to make sure. Okay. All righty. Looks like we can proceed. Okay.
Um, this slide uh requests the money that is outside of our general constitutional responsibilities um for BCC facilities. It remains flat. We have not uh fully submitted nor discussed
with your facilities team yet what our projects for the 975,000 will be for next year. We're in the process of reviewing and prioritizing and we'll do that along with your your county team. Um the other thing I want to note is
that you will receive a supplemental spreadsheet. uh Mary Hope went back and did a detailed uh recap of the 975 since you've been funding that so that you can see all the projects that have been
funded over the years with that 975,000 the major projects special revenue funds are broken down here you can see that um the um American Rescue plan act funding
that we had under our $9 million agreement that terminated within this fiscal year. So that's zero going into next year. I'll mention that the Haida program is federal funding. The sheriff mentioned that some of these uh funding
measures are at risk. we manage and our fiduciary for the Central Florida Haida which includes money that we directly benefit from and also uh services that are happening within the area but are for some of the federal agencies but we
act as fiduciary. So that is the all-in number but um some of those funding numbers may adjust as we find out more at the federal level. The other thing of note here is ourou
with the department of children and families that will end this July 1st. So we have terminated thatou. That's why it's zero going into the next budget year and they will be uh moving out of
the facility by the end of this month. The next slide is also special revenue funds. These are transfers from the county general revenue funds. The opioid settlement funds picked up where the ARPA money left off. It continues to
fund our score um opioid and mental health area. It um encompasses about nine positions. Seven of them are sworn and two are civilian. And then we have our offset of emergency 911 funds that offsets our communication center
operation. Teen court. Uh police education is for law enforcement education specifically and then a small amount of alcohol drug abuse funding. If there's no questions, we'll go into the We're going to try to hold our
questions till y'all get wrapped up unless something really impressive. Okay. the uh uh the sheriff's office community foundation. It it's um it's very important to talk about this during the budget presentation because citizens may see the sheriff's office involved
and engaged in a lot of activities and wonder, well, how is this being funded? Who's paying for this stuff? So, 8 years ago, we created a 501c3 uh community foundation that helps raise raise money throughout the community. We have an independent board of directors.
They're they're out there hitting it to help support the shop at the sheriff events, the Christmas village events, uh the the Halloween uh spooktacular event that we do each each and every year. Uh some of the proceeds also help us support those other organizations uh
some private mostly nonprofit uh that are looking for contributions and donations from government. uh a lot of the money comes from our community foundation instead of just rolling u on on the backs of taxpayers. This represents our uh various law
enforcement accreditations. The the icons up there uh basically represent a state and federal uh law enforcement and corrections accreditation uh holding to the highest standards of policing. But in addition to that, the others represent an accreditation for
our communication center, our aviation unit, and our in our medical department within our correction facility, as well as a shared accreditation for emergency management. There are up to 3,500 standards that independent reviews and auditors come in every 3 years or so to
ensure that that that we have these. And we are the uh one of the most accredited uh law enforcement organizations in the state of Florida. uh which again something that that I know our community and at least we are incredibly proud of. This is the nuts and bolts of our
operation. It's going to be a breakdown albeit high level breakdown of our uh sections and divisions. Um starting with the office of sheriff. Uh this is uh the people who who work uh directly in um
our office. uh the the chiefs uh the under sheriff uh people who are there you can see they're sworn uh four positions seven positions I mentioned this in my of my opening comments that we try to civilianize as much as we can
uh again we have administrative support uh positions there that work with your support staff over here as well uh chief counsel office where we provide uh services not only to the men and women of the semino county sheriff's office We we assist our municipalities
whenever we can. Uh there are certain functions that are countywide functions whether it's uh a civil process, a risk protection order or something like that. And typically the cities don't have dedicated police general counsels within their areas. Their general counsels are
more broadly uh position. So sometimes going to somebody that can work on on policing functions. They also uh uh handle forfeertures in court and all of these things and of course the amount of lawsuits that that come in. Uh professional development uh this is
the group of people that that is not them that actually worked there. That's one of the graduating classes of our new academy. Uh you've worked with us uh very closely to ensure that we can not only on board uh the academy. Uh I think seminal state college has done a great
job. They've they've really um made some huge improvements over the past couple of years. But the benefit of having our own academy allows us to expedite the training process of onboarding of a deputy sheriff and a detention deputy. Ultimately, from a fiscal standpoint,
eliminating up to six weeks of their required field training process. Um and and it actually becomes costneutral when we look at how much we were actually paying to get them through and and sometimes we would suspend the
graduation or suspend the the academy program on days that the college would actually close particularly most affecting us during the last quarter of the year around Thanksgiving and Christmas and all of that. We can run uh our classes straight through even on
holidays uh here uh to move forward with that. But in addition to that, professional development ensures that our workforce of of 1400 particularly our sworn and certified are required to meet annual expectations of training. Uh
and and every four years they have to make sure that they reertify by taking a certain amount of hours in every single topic that you can imagine is relevant to policing. So it is much more than drive, fighting and shooting. Although driving, fighting and shooting is is key
components that require annual reacredititations. Lastly, and certainly not not least, is they offer uh career and professional development to our civilian workforce as well. And sometimes when you have sworn and certified, sometimes you can overlook the professional development
responsibility of our civilian workforce and they offer those services there as well. uh professional standards. Um the professional standards is is of course a smaller unit, but this was uh a unit we call professional standards. It's mostly
known as like internal affairs across a broad spectrum across the country. when we get complaints, when we generate initiatives ourself, these are the people that would actually follow up, investigate, look for um uh whether or not there's any any
corrective action that is required within our office. Uh not only do they investigate allegations of misconduct, they also work with our professional uh development section to look for trends uh things that may need uh advanced training on if they're seeing deputies
or or officers or civilian members do or act in certain ways that may not necessarily violate policy but bring concern to the norms, values, and customs of the agency. Then then they bring that back to professional development to ensure that we're training for that.
public affairs. This is again a smaller unit, but this has our uh public information, our forward- facing community engagement, uh community involvement team. And on the surface, sometimes uh these positions can look like they're they're nice to have
instead of need to have positions. But I think that when you look at the the uh 40,000 hours equivalent to 20 full-time equivalents of of volunteer work of people coming out, it's this unit that's actually doing the the majority of the
work of of coordinating volunteer. Whether it's the one initiative, it's our community law enforcement academy. It's workering with um crime watch programs or neighborhood watch programs. It's getting out there and engaging with the community. And by doing so, every
person that has a cell phone and has a relationship with a member of our office can can provide natural surveillance and report criminal activity, which again lessens the burden on our tax dollars because we don't need a deputy standing on every corner if law-abiding citizens are willing to pick up the phone and
partner with us and bring our attention to problems that may be occurring within the areas. Uh fiscal services, as as you can see, the the team and the involvement. Lisa, you want to talk about this? Well, this is Mary's team directly and she oversees
not only the financial management, the budget and the financial management, but also payroll and that includes uh benefit oversight and management. We also run the material supply shop. So, we're also doing all the supplies not
only for uh the jail, but also to equip and um outfit our sworn and certified staff and all of our our staff throughout the agency. Um, a lot of this area also is uh purchasing and contractual agreements. So, they do all
the purchasing process and contracts and work very closely with our legal team. And why don't you carry over to building services as well? Building services is uh a staff that mainly is uh assigned to
the correctional facility. Works very heavily with your team here at the county. They do the inside the facility repair daily uh maintenance that needs to be done across the correctional facility. We also have a couple positions that uh we utilize to run our
facilities that that we lease. Then we have fleet services. And going back to Commissioner Lockhart's question, you can see the all-in cost of our fleet here is 7 and 1.5 million. That includes within the operating
supplies, the fuel repairs, um changing out things such as brakes, tires, all all the stuff that um would go along with the fleet operation. They also handle any type of insurance claims. uh again working very closely
with our legal team. I'll start with HR and then maybe you can pick up at the end of it. I I think it's important that when you look at uh HR, um there's a couple of factors that that we're experiencing in policing that really have a bearing on the work that
they do. Uh once upon a time, you know, somebody would come in and they would average stay for 10, 12, sometimes 25 years when they came in. So as we're experiencing a turnover rate that is five times the turnover rate as it was 20 years ago where people are staying
four or five years that means HR is having to process five people for every one person that they would normally process with the work demand and when compared to normal HR functions I think that there's certain things that policing HR have to take into
consideration like the extra metrics that they have to go with polygraph examination and when we do background checks we have to knock on neighbors doors and talk to neighbors and we physically go and look at files from other agencies, particularly other law enforcement agencies to make sure that nobody is slipping through the cracks
and actually getting into a position of trust without doing the the thorough and complete uh background investigation. So the time and the work demand with background checks, investigators, polygraph examinations, credit checks, going in person and talking to every agency that they work for, not just
relying on a report, uh, has become incredibly demanding. And one of the things that I've spoken about at the federal level is when there was healthy grants, there were typically healthy grants for policing professionals and tried to attract people in the business. But as those as as those numbers are
affected, so are the HR numbers that that are w within those areas of responsibility as well. They also handle some of the risk functions. They do workers comp and FMLA. Um they also and and to tag on to what the sheriff's
saying, we have a lot of compliance requirements with FDLE. Um they come in and check our files regularly after hiring. So they handle all of that um information in our civil service board which is um statutory and oversees both
our certified and sworn staff and some of our civilian staff. One of the things that I want to note here and and came up within our commissioner discussions and in the future we'll we'll uh notate it on this slide is human resources director actually oversees our law
enforcement records section. So the 23 positions you see there, nine of those are for our law enforcement records section, which takes care of all the law enforcement records plus any inquiries and public records requests within the
agency. Um, and to be fair, so that brings our HR team down to 14. We also have about four FTE that report under uh professional development with our academy. We um rearranged a little bit
and how we reorged some of our uh people and we have a recruitment team that also does hiring uh responsibilities in coordination with HR um within that team. So um all in dedicated to HR it's
about 18 FTE within our organization and and the photographs are are graduates of corrections academy and and law enforcement academy that that is mostly civilian except for one position that that actually work in there
technology solutions is um again an all-in cost. So we don't allocate out unless it is a direct contract under a a main division. So you can see that's uh 12.7 million. We also and we've mentioned before we have uh developers
on our team. We actually have in-house um applications for our main CAD system and for our law enforcement reporting system which we entitle cafe. So, um, Technology Solutions is full service and
they handle all of our technology needs throughout the agency. And just a note on, uh, technology solutions, it it's, uh, it it is very fiscally responsible to find people that are willing to serve as programmers and work for what the
government is able to pay them. These people write programs and develop software packages that would cost us millions of dollars to buy off of the shelf, which is the common practice in most jurisdictions is they don't have the the capable staff that are willing to to come together and write these
programs. So everything that we do here, the programs that we have, the cafe system, the shared um um you know, databases between the municipalities and us and really some contiguous areas to Semino County are all developed by this team that's there.
Sheriff, if I may, if I may interrupt, um, for the county manager for scheduling for this morning, if it's the will of the commission to go through each department and division of the sheriff's office as we are, it looks like the sheriff's going to need probably another
40 minutes, give or take, and we've got two more presentations scheduled this morning. So, what is the will of the board? Do you want to go down through each one of these broke out divisions of employees and departments at the sheriff's or do you want to forego that
or do you want to hear all that and let's let the other two that are scheduled this morning to regroup and come back this afternoon? I mean I don't have a desire to go through each and every one of these. I've seen them. I've reviewed it. It's in the agenda packet. Um,
based on what we're doing right now, we're we're Chairman, I'd be happy to speed up as well if you'd like that as an option. I mean, I can speed up. I mean, I'd rather have the sheriff speed up because I think it's critical that not just us, but the public hears the presentation. Sure. Okay. So, I would
release at least probably one of your presentators this morning. Okay. Sheriff, please proceed. Yes, sir. So, uh, seinal neighborhood policing is our patrol function. There are 144 people that work in in various uh community
service areas. There's 190 total sworn when you put in supervisors and canines and all of these folks. But but this is the area that I mentioned during my opening remarks that we re remain relatively flat. There's the same amount of community service areas as there were
20 years ago. So this is the patrol function. Four deputy sheriffs have a geographic area responsibility 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And that's the function of neighbor neighborhood policing. By far the most visible aspect of what we do, patrol cars and deputies
wearing uniforms like mine. Uh community uh engagement. This is a a part of a small group of uh individuals that are again partnering with our foundation groups. They're making sure that others that want to volunteer, they
want to give back. They're running the one initiatives. They're doing the community law enforcement academy. Every time that there is an event, whether it's a a recruiting event or a different type of event, we do have recruiters and we do have community engagement. So, they're trying to encourage positive
interaction between law-abiding citizens and members of our organization in hopes that when they see something wrong, they pick up the phone, they call, and they report back that activity. And again, a lot of people in our recruitment base, whether they're they're um volunteer citizens on patrol or our crossing
guards, come from the contacts that they have uh in that space. Uh communications, um you guys want to talk about that or I just go real fast. You go real fast. Yeah. So, so communications, we have, as you know,
consolidated dispatches, 115 communication officers that are working up there. They are far exceeding the gold standard of answering 911 calls within the the 5-second window, the majority of them. Last year, they took on 800,000 calls for service and and had
a 90 98% or higher rate of answering those calls within the first 5 seconds. And I think that, you know, some of this has been recent news stories in in a local area. But again, we're incredibly proud of what they're doing and how professional they are. And we've had some balance there as well because it
was incredibly difficult to to recruit and retain them. But but we're doing a better job with that and they're they're sticking around and they're staying. Uh forensic services. Uh these are are our scientists. Uh sometimes literally scientists, a couple of PhD people that
are doing forensic uh analysis of crime scenes. We we of course do that for all unincorporated areas of Semino County. Um, we also support and supplement the municipalities when they should need it on a large crime scene. But this is typically the people that you see in the
middle of the night when when there's a breaking news, typically a bad news story, and they're the ones that are out there processing the scene uh sometimes for days. They see some of the most horrible things that any society can ever imagine. uh special operations. That was one of
the divisions that we consolidated with our uh with our move last year, eliminating one of those captain positions. But this is the all the high-risk stuff. You see me sell uh this package on on our behalf when we can have these folks that are required to do
a certain amount of training hours. This is the package that I'm saying. The flying in the helicopter and on the boat and all of those things. uh range and water, special operations, aviation, K-9, bomb squad, SWAT team, um all of these high level functions are in
special operations. They also deploy and you know sometimes the FEMA reimbursement. I've heard the chairman talk about the fe FEMA reimbursement as well as other commissioners uh during our discussions. These are the teams that are probably largely affected by by deployments to other areas within our
region to offer assistance. Uh domestic security again that other division that was consolidated domestic security worked close on uh domestic and international threats. So when you get those bizarre emails that are coming to your inbox and and they require somebody
taking an extra look. It's typically somebody from our domestic security division. They also work very closely with school threats and assessment to to have timely delivery of services and and they also have a fugitive apprehension uh unit that's that's a part of that as well. They also address gangs and we
don't have much of a gang problem here, but I think that last year, if you watch the news, there was a pretty pretty significant thing up in the north end of the county that involve gang activity. Uh, our gang component is under our domestic security division as well. Uh, criminal investigations, this is all
of the the investigative functions, whether it's white crime investigations, white collar crime, digital forensics investigations, we have crimes uh that are committed against children. We have autotheft units. Uh some of those units are multi- agency units that that
municipalities come and join with us on it. But but again, those the heart of uh what every investigative show on TV uh shows, the the major crimes, the callouts, as you can see from that photograph, the crime scene, these are the people that are in a designated unit that is beyond property crimes. property
crimes is still decentralized to the regions in patrol because the information that the CSA or the neighborhood deputies have works harmoniously with the with the property crime investigators uh drug enforcement and behavioral services. This is what uh you guys have
partnered with us with with us very closely over the years um and and then continue continue to support us through the opioid abatement settlement fund. Uh this is what you hear us talking about largely with a uh 42% reduction in
fatalities, a 29% reduction in overdoses, and then Semino County still holds the record for prosecutions of first-degree murder with 35 prosecutions of first-degree murder for drug dealers. When other law enforcement agencies are um working to enforce the law, uh we're
working to actually create the law. So, with the assistance of Representative Rachel Plakin and Senator Jason Broer, we've brought uh many of those those laws uh to bear here and I know Commissioner Constantine has been a national ambassador of the work that's being done here uh as well as a state
ambassador of of doing the work there. But it's the traditional stuff. Uh Haida, our Haida director of this region has been uh directed as part of the big beautiful bill. It reduces the Haida funding by 33%. So, Haida that offsets in hundreds of thousands of dollars with
um wire investigations or or undercover investigations or overtime uh is likely to be diminished and that was outlined as a part of the budget. Uh behavioral services of course um uh we have a a mental health crisis and and connecting the dots. We we involuntarily emit in
Semino County nearly 3,500 people per year under Florida's Baker Act law. and and again it's a big component and we're working harmoniously with other stakeholders to include uh Advent Health who's been a great partner uh school safety. This is the arrangement that u you guys were
forwardleaning many years ago with the school board to ensure that there's a dedicated professionally trained school resource officer or deputy on every single public school campus. uh over the years that that has expanded just slightly to ensure that we have every single one of the charter schools uh
covered in some of the larger campuses. There's more than one. Uh when the legislative changes were made made requiring this to occur, I think we added just a couple of float positions because we saw areas of vulnerability. Should a law enforcement officer
actually make an arrest on campus, if they leave campus to take them to to the detention center or the correctional facility, that creates vulnerability. So, there's a couple of float positions to ensure that there's never a time where the campuses are not covered by a
police officer or a deputy. Uh, juvenile justice, uh, of course, we're running our our detention center. It's uh we're one of two counties in the entire state of Florida that's running our detention center. As a part of cost-saving measures, I had a
conversation recently with the secretary of of uh DJJ and DCF to ensure that committed kids are actually moved from our facility and moved into state custody because what was doing is there was a bit of a delay and we were holding them longer than probably we should
have. And then it it's a financial burden because a lot of these kids, we're talking young kids, may require one-on-one supervision of a staff member. Uh that should should um reduce our overtime usage uh significantly. We've already seen a a a huge change in
that process. Uh probation services, of course, uh county probation, the transition um um a handful of years ago was moved um from from the county uh BCC responsibility over to us. That's one of the five things that we list out along with
juvenile courts, probation services, and and the juvenile detention center as well as the correctional facility. This just aligns what again the constitutional responsibility is to address crime and recidivism, it is a form of community corrections. So when they're out there doing that, if they if
they violate uh it it is a costly process of bringing them back into the criminal justice system, uh greater sanctions. So, I think our team is doing really, really well working with folks on on the road in patrol as well as folks in the correctional facility.
Uh, court security operations. Of course, we have the three buildings. Uh, we have the security to our main building uh on on Esinger Way and of course this building right here. Uh, the deputies that are assigned here that all falls under the court security
operations. In individual meetings, I have uh uh asked to see if there's some opportunity to save some money through the civilianization of certain positions that the team is actually looking at. And they're going to come back with a more detailed report on potentially what
they're able to do with that. uh particularly um when it comes to working magnetometers and and other types of functions. I want to make sure that deputies are used for safety and security and and and not performing in functions that maybe a civilian can can
do instead of a a sworn person. Uh again, that again saves money and allows the security of the deputies there to keep their eyes for any threats that may be developing within the area. soon as they get back with us, we'll make sure that all the commissioners know kind of where we stand on that because I did
mention it in our in our private meetings. Correction security. Correction security. This is our operations in our correctional facility, our detention deputies that are working within the area um holding to minimum
staffing. there's uh less f flexibility when it comes to this because a housing unit doesn't really care if you've got 75 inmates that are incarcerated or 100 inmates. It cost basically the same to keep a pod open. Uh we've looked at uh ways that we can maybe consolidate. We
run a population of around thousand uh at any given day. We've booked in 10,000 uh people per year. But if if given the choice, a lot of people are choosing the law enforcement side of things. So again, having our own academy, getting people through the process, uh having a
graduation today keeps these positions filled, but they work um so incredibly hard in in a very very challenging environment, and they do the best what they can. And this is uh support staff with operations. We have uh civilian functions, whether it's our programs. We
were one of the first correctional facilities to offer medical-based treatment therapy on the inside. Uh there's classifications, programs, a lot of civilian positions that are trying to to to get people out or offer programs to address recidivism. You've heard me say this a lot is is uh uh
rehabilitation means make what it once was. For some, they need to be habilitated as much as they are rehabilitated. So that's what that team of civilian support operations does, as well as inmate transportation and and other functions like that that are that
are necessary in moving people around. You got healthcare um uh Chief Spriggs mentioned uh costneutral move ultimately is to get our own uh nursing staff that that that is there and hired on and brought on. We're using contractual services right now. But again, there's a
lot of sick people within the correctional facility and this is a this is a huge responsibility and a burden and u and we always do the best we can to negotiate the best contracts and the best deals, but it all centers around having the greatest quality people that are there as well. And this is another
area that we experience overtime in the detention deputy in that when we have an inmate that has to actually be in the hospital, we have to provide 247 security for that inmate. So that varies depending on who's in the facility. Um
but it is it is a cost that adds pressure on overtime. Judicial services. I covered that already. The the court building. So, that's the that's the 85%. Um, that's the breakdown of who the people are, where they're at, what they're doing.
Um, so with that, we'll yield uh for questions. Thank you very much, Sheriff. We will start with Commissioner Herrer and work our way the other direction. So, I'll start by saying thank you for keeping us a very safe community. I'll
also um for purposes of today not thank you as much as I'm going to thank Lisa and Mary for all the work they did to get you to this table. Fabulous. Good. Uh because it's that is not an easy task. The thousands of spreadsheets and all the questions that we're asking. I'm going to work backwards through the
presentation and I'll do it by page number so you know where I am. I'm on your slide number 45 and the question is how much are we spending out of our funds for hope and healing?
I'm not even sure if that's the right part. Nothing. So, we do not support hope and healing. We have had legislative appropriations um over I think now we're going on what seven years maybe. Thank you. Nothing out of ours. Uh, next
question is on slide 42. How many special ops packages do we have a year to give away to occupy that training space? I've always wondered this and it just popped into my head to ask you today. So, we do. Brian, do you know the number we actually do? And as he's
thinking about that, what's interesting about the special ops packages is is I think the majority of the people that buy them never use them. uh when I come up at these events, they're like, I bought three of these things. So, I think what's what's started to happen is
people walk into an event, they're like, I'm going to give a $10,000 company donation, and what I'll do is I'll just bid on this thing. I'll keep it in my pocket. So, people come up to me constantly like, I bought one of these two or three years ago, but Brian, do you know the number of how many we
actually do? We do about 15 a year. Um that's that's for the full day of the experience. We also do about 10 the air or the helicopter ride. All right. So, for the record, that was 15 a year full ride and 10 a year for just the partial
ride. Um, I cannot tell you how many times I have bought the spend a weekend with George Cosmack in a sailboat back in the school district days, which I never had the intention of doing. It was a couple's thing and it was the crazy,
but no one ever bid on that. Sorry, George. Um, and it I I still have my certificates though, just so uh, page 38. Um, you did mention that you have the same number in in that
patrol unit as we did 20 years ago. And I just want to get it on the record that due to annexation, the amount of land that we're covering in that patrol unit is smaller. So, the community is just as safe with the patrol units that you have today as they were 20 years ago. And
that may not have come through in that. Indeed, it's it's um there is not a void in our coverage and and I know that that each one of you have open up the invitation to have those conversations and I promise that if if that were the case, I I would be laying that out as
well. Yeah. I will go to page 36. We spent a significant amount of time in my briefing on this because the number of people in HR is stunning, but it is not stunning when you put the nine people in records. You guys did a great job of explaining that, but if you just look at
this on this document, it jumps off the page as an opportunity. And I think we need to make sure that we all understand this is not just HR. The title of the slide is is uh I think understated and we're going to break that out in the future, commissioner, because that was a
great point. Yep. Very unrelated function. Nine for the record. You're also doing workers comp and FMLA and risk and there's a that is that is the all other department page 21 the footnote
and I think the footnote on page 21 referenced a thank you the critical capital improvements for the 2526 are currently under review and will be submitted separately ely. So, we all know this freaked me out. You're
submitting them under the budget number that's here, not in addition to. Correct. Correct. So, it's the 975 that we'll discuss with county facilities. And we're going to give you a recap of that throughout the years.
And then we had in our briefing, just so I can share with the board here, a discussion around benefits and looking at them, similar to what I talked about with Tiffany, although the work is already being done uh by the sheriff's office.
Um and then I think I get to the I think the three bigger picture questions and that is um do you expect after this budget to come back again for a different number
similar to what happened last year? That that's a tough question to answer. Um I did not expect doing last. Yeah, I did not expect coming back uh last year. uh last year you worked with us and and I was incredibly comfortable with where we
were at and and then you see what happens and you know I mentioned the highest of being now $8,500 behind the highest in seminal but we're we're $5,000 behind every other municipality. I think that this has to end somewhere.
I I think that you you you can't keep going back and forth while at the same time I I think our policing professionals deserve whatever we as citizens are willing to pay. I mean, it's an incredibly dangerous job. You turn on the news every single day and and you see an incredibly dangerous
environment and you say to yourself, who the hell is doing that job for for what you can work out of BIES? Um, I I will say this. Um, you know, it is important for for me as sheriff to make sure that we remain consistent with what fair market value
is. Um, that never results as a surprise. I I think that, you know, um, county manager and Darren and Tim and their team have been just fabulous to work with and I think for a good portion of this year, we've been kind of reading the tea leaves and kind of having
conversations about what we can expect. So, so, so if we do, and again, there is no plans to do that. I think that we're going to be incredibly comfortable here. I can't imagine the municipalities uh being able to make a move again, but it will be something that we we we discuss
in in harmony. I know every one of you to be incredibly fiscally conservative and mindful of balancing the resources and support of law enforcement as well. So, again, I can't predict the future, but but I know that's something that we will be collaborative with.
And then uh second to last question I promise, chairman, what will you be doing over the next 12 months to make sure we don't end up here? I feel like we're in the nuclear armament race of
uh level setting on bonuses and salaries and we maybe can't have as much influence outside of our county as we can within our county, but we really need your help. And you mentioned mayors and managers, but that's mayors and managers, and we do need help to try to
level this out. Yeah, it it's, you know, we I and our team have a fabulous relationship with all of the chiefs of police. I think up until this point, um, all of us serving as the best leaders for our team as we can possibly be,
we've been advocating for quite frankly, I mean, what what they deserve, but there's a little bit of I'm here, you're there. It's back and forth, back and forth. Um, not only locally here, I mean, it's it's across the state and and probably starting in in Tallahassee where where it's been disproportionate
reward for people in policing, which was a catalyst for for making people move. Um, but I will tell you that I will do everything that I can to create chemistry and camaraderie and open communication. We have a monthly chief's meeting where we talk about these things. As a chief moves in a direction,
the first thing that that chief does is send a text message out to our group. So, so again, I for the record, I I think that every uh city that has adjusted the pay for their police officers, I think that they deserve it. And I and I was one of the first people to send them a text message back in
response congratulating them on the success. Uh but I do think that we can uh maybe come together in some type of um lock step in uniformity. So if we're competing, we're not competing against each other. were maybe competing outside
of regional sources and and maybe it's chiefs and managers so that there's alignment around the senior management as well as the chiefs and then the last question that I have and we discussed this in briefing as well is what happens
if we say no just walk us through statute 30.49 49. Yeah. So, uh if you say no, um then what what the responsibility would be is either um I adjust or you outline areas of our
budget that you would like to see cut. Um I will not adjust from this because adjusting this would compromise services of that 85%. Uh it's important to me that we're doing and we're looking for ways to to save money. We will continue to do that. Uh
but with the civilianization of as many positions as we can and I think that I lightly touched on it from um judicial that there may be some other opportunities of cost savings there. Consolidation of two divisions into one
division. Elimination of a of a captain evaluation of new technology comes in if it can actually make people obsolete. Um, it would be then incumbent upon you to outline what that I just presented you would want to cut, which again
creates, I understand, creates an incredibly difficult position for you. Um, but I've cut as much as we feel that we can cut without compromising public safety. And I know that um more than 50% as it's laid out year after year of the
general funds and the tough decisions that you have to make is influenced um significantly u by what I've just laid out and our team has just laid out over the past couple of hours. So I will I will hold to what we've done. I I I really read
through that statutory requirement of of chapter 30 and and uh you know I say what's reasonable and necessary for the effective and efficient running of the office because that means something to me as a constitutionally elected official that means something to me and
if I could have come in leaner I would have. I promise you I understand the difficult position that you're in. Thank you. And if I can add to that, um I think the coming back for additional funds since we submitted this budget on
May 1st, salary changes have already been significant within those couple of months. Um we have heard you. We have also gone back and we have looked very hard. We have a lot of things in the works that we're trying to do to uh
reduce some costs in some areas. Um, but every dollar that we save, we're going to put toward the effort of keeping the market value where it needs to be. So, it my my uh conveyance here is that
we're not stopping. We're still we're still looking at efficiency measures. Um, but that doesn't allow us to reduce our budget. It actually allows us to keep within the market of the salaries. Okay with that? Good. Commissioner
Lockhart. We're not going down the All right. I'll mix it up. Changing it up. All right. Fabulous. So, I had nuclear arms race written on my sheet and I scratched through it because I thought, you know, with everything going on in the Middle East right now, Amy, that would be a
really bad comparison. So, thank you for saying it so that didn't happen. Or maybe I shouldn't have said it. No, it's okay because that is exactly how I felt and we've had this conversation multiple times. It reminds me very much of the um the travel nurse scenario that we had
for years where it was just, you know, and again, not that the people in these positions don't deserve it. I'm not sure, just like teachers that we can ever pay them enough for putting their lives on the line. But there is a there
is a limit to to what the community can um can afford. And I guess we're we're about to learn what that is. Um because we're we're getting feedback um already about about the the total budget. And of course, you
know, our friends in the media don't exactly dissect exactly what is going on with the budget and the numbers and where it's coming from. you just see the headline and and so um you know a lot of the emails that I'm getting are asking us to uh evaluate all of the other
departments and things that are coming later on um for us to talk about but really truly and I'm glad Commissioner Hurry you brought up um what happens if we say no um because I don't want to be the sheriff.
I don't I don't want to piggy I don't I don't want to armchair quarterback the job that you do. I think you and your team do an amazing job and and as an elected official whose expertise is not in law enforcement, to think that I could go through your budget and say, "Well, this is where I think you should
cut," I I think would be um very foolish. So, um there's a trust factor involved in these conversations um for sure. Um, talk to me about um compression
with these changes. What would normally happen in most organizations is that um we would say, well, we're changing the and then next year we have the $10 million increase to fix compression. So, how how are you
going to avoid that issue or are you So, let let me start and then I'll turn it over um to Lisa. You know, this process is early um for us because I have not been in front of our members and of course our members
will watch this video back and they'll want to know what has the sheriff said, what is he what what what has he done? uh the the the pace as influenced by fair market value of law enforcement has outpaced
the fair market value for corrections. And I think that somewhere down the path, we have to take a look at where we're at based upon commensurate positions within the same type of field to determine where we're comfortable at.
In addition, some of the comparisons that we've made here were blanket adjustments across the board. Um when when our adjustments are largely almost exclusively but but largely at the the the rank of entry level position of
deputy sheriff and detention deputy. The the salary adjustments are are there to the starting the starting pay. that creates a little bit of compression particularly with the first couple of years where you have to adjust for that because as I laid out in my initial
remarks what has even become more difficult than the competitiveness within our local area is these counties and and cities that are not only paying for experience so you don't lose any of your seniority
you get a signing bonus and I think that you know we haven't mentioned counties but you know Panelis counties is offering a $70,000 signing bonus for a three-year commitment in addition to experience pay. Um, so you are three or four year person. Normally you would
never have any incentive, but now you do because you're not going to lose any time and grade. You're not going to lose any money. You're going to stay in the same retirement system and then you can you can get a $70,000 jump. That's got to end. It it's actually incentivized people to to jump and leave and and go around to different agencies.
uh you have worked very closely with us over the years and we're proud of Lisa and Mary and the team to to to really create compression in a way that makes sense. And for those that may watch this back and not understand what compression is, it's somebody who works in a job for
two years should make a little bit less than somebody who works in the same job for 5 years. And sometimes if you only adjust to the bottom, you can wash out any experience pay for your veteran members of the organization. So what
we've done is we've included in here um and again we haven't laid this out because I haven't been able to speak back home to our team some adjustments at topend salaries as well. And this doesn't really affect that much of the ranking people within the agency. But
I'll turn it over to Lisa or Mary for a more sophisticated u summary of of that. So the sheriff did a great job of explaining it and um this job this budget does include some adjustment for compression
because over the years over the past few years the uh starting salary has significantly increased. What's also happened in the profession and it's happened in other professions that we've talked about over time um when you get into market
competitiveness what happens is the starting goes up but the backend or the max does not increase to the tune of what the starting's uh going. So basically when we're doing our adjustments that starting salary is
going up the max is going up a little and the actual range of the profession is shortening. So it's becoming more concentrated. So back to what the sheriff was saying uh back in 2018 when
we really did a a largecale adjustment and redid our pay plan. we had more of a disparity between somebody who was maybe three years and somebody that was five years. Now, because you've continued to
to crunch up that beginning salary, you have less less of a disparity, but we aren't having them all make the same. We do have a little bit in there for compression. So, there is a distinction. And then really um emphasizing what the
sheriff said, our competition is not only starting salary, it is the experienced officers. And that is what we look at when we're doing the pay plan and the compression adjustments. We're looking at what can my 2-year deputy go
make in an organization um that is paying for experience. And we really really need to adjust the people that are 2 to 5 years to compensate for that because right now it's a significant difference. It's not only
starting pay. Okay. Um, I'm also glad we talked about neighborhood policing because that is something that um I think my neighbor since we're talking neighborhood policing um they believe impa feel
impacts them the most about law enforcement. All of the other things that you do that we know you do that no one else sees that help to keep them safe. Folks in neighborhoods look at who's speeding down my street. was my bike stolen? Things like that that are
um that I would imagine involve neighborhood policing. So, I'm really glad we we um talked about that a little bit more. Um talk to me about how unfunded mandates impact your organization and can you identify for us what some of
those may be? man, you know, we can go back and try to pull some things that have happened over the last few years, but really in law enforcement, I mean, I've heard uh I've heard article 5 thrown all around a lot.
I've heard um CEUS discussed at these meetings. Um we're under FDLE standards. We're under so many compliance standards, but probably the biggest area that has to operate within rules and regulations, and the sheriff may be able
to expound on this, is the correctional facility and how they deal with with the inmates and the things that we have to do there. Yeah. as as um as sheriffs across the country, we have greater flexibilities
in rejecting some of these things. But I will say that um as as the federal system leans up and the state system leans up, it makes it incredibly difficult to maintain the level of services uh if you're if you're losing
resources. I'll give you an example of of if Haida reduces its budget federally uh by 33% and I've spoken with our senators and I've spoken to the to the DEA administrator and uh the heads of these these organizations but if they
lean up federally by 33% well either somebody's got to make up the difference or you have to compromise services that's where it comes down to. So, I think that, you know, maybe maybe an unfunded mandate is a stretch for kind
of what we do, but there is absolutely a void as as people start to eliminate positions and grant opportunities and things that help offset uh the work that we do. So, we're then left with with picking it up. Uh there is good contracts with with our federal
partners. Uh you know, we've housed for the US Marshalss. uh we charge them the day rate of the true all-in cost associated with that. I know that there's conversations about whether or not uh local facilities will kind of
expand to the immigration concern as bed space becomes occupied and unavailable. We're not there yet. Smok County is not a a partnering organization when it comes to the housing of of illegal immigrants. We do work with ICE. We have
the 287G program that has had zero impact on our budget. Quite frankly, we had all of that just 10 or 15 years ago. So, it it hasn't adjusted anything that we do. But should local facilities because there is some conversation about whether or not the 67 counties could
help offset should there be a need. Uh we would we would get an actual cost associated from the from the federal partners. But I think that to answer your question, as as federal grants are drying up, as state assistance uh may slow down, somebody's got to pay for
that. And it it it's not only policing. There are other functions that that we as leaders in this county have to be aware of. I think that, you know, we look at our hurricane response, what what Allen Harris and his team does at emergency management, what the fire chief does within the communities. I
mean all of this stuff cannot be compromised and it has to be funded some way somehow. Okay. Thank you. Um you touched on a little bit uh talking about the reimbursement uh for the the marshalss um for the other types of
services and I know we have agreements with our cities and or maybe it's even a constitutional mandate to to cover law enforcement within the bounds of the county. when we go out of the county or when we utilize equipment or personnel outside of the bounds of Semino County,
is there a reimbursement function from those other entities? Um whether it's local, state, or federal? I know we talked a little bit about FEMA reimbursement, but what about for, you know, if if we have a a piece of equipment that another neighboring county doesn't have and they need to
utilize it, do we get reimbursed for that? How does that work? I'll let Lisa speak to to the more uh administrative aspects of it, but I I think that regionally it is it is mutually beneficial to share our
resources because I think we call upon uh other contiguous jurisdictions as much as they call upon us, maybe even more. uh if we're doing fire suppression, let's say, and we have our helicopters up and we're doing Bambi bucket water drops on on the fires and
if there's surrounding areas that you know can come in and assist us, whether it's Felicia County or Orange County, the two we typically lean on as much. I think it's kind of this mutual back and forth almost like if you were going to uh go out to lunch with a partner and you pick up the tab one day and they
pick up the tab the next day. I think that a lot of it kind of goes that way. Uh there are certain resources to the Florida Sheriff's Association that are shared resources that you have to sign commitments and contracts to to hold and maintain a piece of property or an item.
Uh that is a shared asset. Um I don't think I don't think that we're holding much of those shared assets, but there there's sometimes it's a shared asset where it's implied that if the state's going to help help funding uh with it or the Florida Sheriff's Association through our task force model that we'll
do that. the biggest concern that we have in the the biggest financial burden is the uh time delay for FEMA reimbursement and Lisa can speak to that a little bit. So yes, to answer your question, it is reciprocal. Um we work
with the contiguous areas. Um they work with us. Um you know, there's no boundary, right, to the bad guys. So think of it that way also. Um, but as the sheriff said, there is also those
federal uh grant opportunities and uh assets are placed with different counties and they're held um I think you have some of that within your fire department too um for specific purposes. So we are able to utilize those or they
are able to utilize ours. Um but no we don't have any direct charge. If we do um if we are deployed to help another community um in a disaster, that's usually coordinated through FDLE and then we
seek reimbursement through FEMA through the state. Um but that's specifically coordinated through the sheriffs. And in the in the meantime, the salaries and the overtime that are being paid for those individuals is impacting your budget. you're waiting for
reimbursement. It is, but the nice thing about if you're deployed outside of the area to assist another community, you are able to reimburse yourself for backfill positions. So, in doing that, we do um
if we have to incur overtime to back fill a position because somebody is deployed and we're now down staff, we get to reimburse all of that. Plus, we get to obviously um reimburse ourselves for the equipment that we deploy with
them. Okay. Um one last question has to do with um leases of facilities. Um we had a little hiccup this last year. I think we worked through that, but um it drew to our attention that we've got a a lot of leases, facilities,
leases, um buildings out and around the county. And I think there's I think the lawyers have had conversations about, you know, who who should be holding these lease agreements. and and and I don't know where we are with that, but that might be one area where we could
partner together a little bit more cohesively um so that we can drive those costs down if possible and colllocate and and collaborate on that. I don't Can you give me an update on where we are with some of those conversations? I'll start then then you go. Um, I know
the county manager and I have had uh as well as Lisa great conversations about his interest in moving down with a real estate function on on behalf of the county and we want to be great partners in that. I mean, you guys have always been incredibly generous with us. Um,
you know, my philosophy has always been, you know, I I don't need lavish buildings and all of these things. I need a a space where community can come together that we can deploy from, that we can provide services. I' I'd rather for us focus on our services out there
in the community. There are certain functions that really need space, whether it's undercover operations, training space, and all of those things. So although we haven't gone too far down, I think that we were open to the idea of doing whatever we could do to to to be a good partner with that. And if I
could, I just as as you know, we just hired our real estate manager that uh you all graciously approved in the budget this year. We got our new team set up. And so that's one of the first tasks that we are looking at is all of our leases that we have in and including our constitutional. So that's a big
project this year that we're going to be uh reviewing and looking at. All right. Great. Thank you so much. Thank you. That's all I have for now. Commissioner Constine, I want to point out for those who have to depart on time, it's uh 10 after 12.
So we probably won't get any more presentations before 12:30. Thank you very much. And I'm want to um just start out with asking a few questions and then maybe some comments here. Uh Chief Spriggs, uh explain to me
again because I I didn't understand because I heard 1.5 million and and I looked at the difference and it was like 4.6 million increase. Explain to me more about the retirement contributions, please. The 1.7 million that I was referring to
was specific to the increase this year that was made by the legislature to the contribution rate. Florida retirement within our budget has increased more than that because when you increase wages obviously you're
paying the rate currently the rate for high risk is 35.2% starting July 1. So when we increase wages obviously it compounds the increase on the FRS and that is paid on all wages including overtime.
Okay. And explain to me um the overtime the $2.7 million increase in overtime. I mean it went from what something like 7 million to 10 million approximately. explain you know that to me please.
So this is not something that happened from the current budget to this budget. It has been occurring. So our our run on overtime has been significant over the last few years. um coming before you. We
try to be very fiscally conservative and every year Mary can tell you when we look at the budget I always go we can't come in with that high of an overtime increase. Um we have been able to offset that with other savings in our budget
throughout the years. We've we've um quite honestly we're talking about FEMA been fortunate that sometimes we have the storms because that encompasses some of those operation times that you may have overtime in normal situations and we're getting reimbursed for it. So what
I will tell you is that we have just covered barely over the last few years the overtime that we have been incurring and with the increase in wages and with the vacancies that we've shown you um since 22 our operational we call it our
operational vacancy rate meaning that we currently have people in training. So we're paying for them as a deputy recruit. we're paying for them to go through training once they're sworn in. And you can again look at that supplemental information. It's a long
period of time that this occurs. Um when you get to the point where you're operational vacancies are at a point where as the sheriff in overtime. So it's significantly increased um our overtime. The other thing that we have
had the pleasure of being able to offset some of the increases that we've had to make over the last few years um in inmate medical and also overtime is that we have housed for Pasco County some of their inmates. And so we have made some
money that has offset the overtime and the inmate medical function over the past few years with uh Pasco County uh being um dependent on us uh in part until their jail is built. That will no
longer be the case because their facility is being finalized. Thank you. I believe that um Commissioner Her asked the question about the the experiences and I think it
was 15 full and 10 partial. Was I to understand that that is now part of the foundation that you have established or is it still coming out of operations and costs? So, so the staff
is coming out of operations and costs. the foundation um is is running by an independent board of non-sheriff's office employees, but the the monies that they raise uh from that group go to offset kids house and
and boys and girls clubs and and these other things and then fund um those those larger scale uh operations that are forward- facing public. Uh the community engagement team, the number that you saw there, they're typically doing our community law enforcement academy
Uh they're out at Walmart um I think today and tomorrow for various fundraising events. They're facilitating a program called one initiative that goes into the communities that provides a week-long experience uh within the sheriff's office. Um you know what the
operations of the sheriff's office and that typically results in a handful of people from those groups either uh on boarding as a crossing guard or or serving as a volunteer. That's those those circles and those events are the largest volunteer base that we have that
represent that 40,000 hours that we had last year, but they are on the the county payroll. Thank you for that. I you know, my fellow commissioners, uh, Commissioner and Commissioner Lockhart have really delved into a lot of um issues and I
appreciate it because a number of them needed to be pointed out and everything. the on this one. One of the things that I think Commissioner Lockheart said is that I don't want to be the sheriff. I don't want to run your business. And you
and I have had a number of conversations. Uh, and I think you know how much I value our relationship, but those conversations have been very animated and um and and to the point because we are looking at as you know
this is extremely difficult year when we look at all the budgets things and without trying to run the office, I would just ask if that potentially in the foundation could be looked at as potentially not coming from uh the
general revenue or the budget. Um, and again, I, you know, I want to thank you for the work that you do. I want to thank all the all the staff, all the people, but we are in a situation right now where I call it
shared sacrifice and we've talked about that. And in the course of this, it's hard for me to go back to as citizens of Semino County and say that we have to increase
revenues until I have looked at every single budget of every single item and everybody in my opinion is the shared sacrifice. And I I I heard what you said and I agree with you that I I do believe that
you have gone back, you have tried to cut costs, but we all know that the vast vast majority, I don't even know the number, but it's got to be in the 90s% or more of the increases that
you're asking for is in personnel and not blowing smoke, but you are a great communicator and I believe strong. You and I are on so many boards together
and and I I see how much value you have and how much status you have with your fellow sheriffs, chiefs, etc., not only in this county but the state and the nation.
And we are in somebody said nuclear we're we're in a sick cycle that's not sustainable. and each and every whether it be Penllis County giving $70,000
or or a city in Seino County increasing over yours and quite frankly I think the way that you run your operation I probably would take a little bit less to work for you than I would some of the cities honestly
but I look to you to say how are we going to stop this cycle and it's been said by others, but I am I guess I'm putting a challenge on you as a as a friend and as a colleague and as somebody that I really admire in what
you have done to say we've got to stop this. We've got to find a way that you know we are looking at how we can change this. We have had in the last two years
30 million additional dollars of revenue that have come into this county. You have requested in two years $30 million of new dollars. Every single dollar of new revenue.
And and and I I can't challenge it. I can't challenge what you're asking for. I get it. But every single dollar that we're getting is going to if you in theory to the sheriff's department and therefore if we maintained no in
increase at all with anybody else which is we can't do it but if we because all the costs are rising salary whatever you want to do you know but mostly construction everything
else would have to take a zero base and I'm just as as I say to every single person that I have talked to in this every single um uh constitutional um and I will be talking to all of the
others as I have talked to the county manager over and over again on this thing. It's a thing about shared sacrifice. And I'm not asking people to cut their budget. I'm asking people to ask for less of an
increase. Yeah. I'm not, you know, everybody says, "Well, I can't cut my budget." Well, no. I'm not asking you to cut your I'm asking you to everybody, not just you, Sheriff, but we're at this point right now. This is the tipping point right
here. 56% of the budget of the county goes to public safety. And I'm saying, you know, at at some point, you know, I'm asking everyone to cut their increases, just a little bit less increase. And I'm
asking you the same. And if it and I know the realities commissioner her asked, what happens if we say no? Not only it unrealistic for me to even think and I know that you're doing what you think is right and if you had to you would if
you felt that we were not giving you what the resources you need you'd go to the governor and I understand you get it okay and I also understand that once we give you the budget $196 million that you can move it anywhere you want
to by law this is not and I know you have been very good about not doing that and I appreciate that and you have been you know a partner and you have been you know you have shared in this pain and I
I get it. I know that. Um but at the same time I also know that in that 1696 million you can move it anywhere occurring reoccurring you can go back and we all understand non-reoccurring to reoccurring and what that implies in the
next budget. So, um, I I respectfully for what you did, for what you've done, you, your staff, I appreciate that you are coming in and saying, "I need this to protect the
citizens." And I'm just saying as we continue to go through this process, and we're not making any final decisions today. as we continue to go through this process, keep in mind
whatever you can do and and sharpen the pencils again on shared sacrifice. And I guess this is a good time to tell the the the county manager my my my opinion is that and I don't know what you're forget about the um the sworn officers,
but everyone else I don't know what anybody has. It's not in the budget what they're asking for increases in salaries. But I think the whole again outside of what we're talking about with the with the officers, I think everybody should have the same increase whatever
that is 2% 4% whatever we come to. I think that we all all county uh um uh employees should have the same increase. Not one having higher than the other. Um, I'm just going to finish with
saying, Sheriff, thank you very much. I've really enjoyed the debate, the discussion with you and I privately. I look forward to working with you again on all of our other boards that we're on. But, um, I am I am once again, and
I'm not asking you to push back on me, you know, I'm just I'm stating facts. I'm just asking you to please continue to sharpen your pencil as we go through this process. Well, uh, Commissioner, thank you. And, uh, uh, all of you have been tough as
hell, actually. U which, which shows that you're good stewards of of your responsibility and advocating for the people and, uh, I expect actually we walk away from those conversations saying this is exactly, you know, what should happen in this process. And
there's not a moment that that we drafted up this thing and we walked and looked at ourselves and say, you know, we feel great about this. We absolutely know what this means. Um, but like in my opening comments, it is driven by by by
factors that are outside of our reach, even here in Sino County alone. And the cost of gas at Wawwa is influenced largely by the cost of gas at racetrack. Uh and if you're way out of whack,
nobody buys gas at at your station. And I know it's a parable and it's going back and forth, but we're trying to attract and retain and preserve the quality of life that we have here. And we have fallen out of balance. The only thing that we can cut and we will continue to look at positions to to
the commissioner's point to civilianize to eliminate if we can. You know, those crimerevention positions uh actually allow us to eliminate some sworn positions when we get law-abiding citizens kind of involved and engaged in
in part of the process. Uh but each one of you have asked us to sharpen our pencils to take another deep dive to take a look and and I can promise you that consolidation, civilianization, elimination of a of a captain, re-evaluating every position that comes in, seeing if technology can
move forward, offsetting the budget with with uh uh grants and collaboration. We will continue to do that, not just now and through this budget process, but but we make that a part of our everyday average practice. Lastly,
you know, I as a citizen, uh, I want my taxes to be as low as possible, but I also want to have services. I want to be protected. Government exists for the things that that that we're providing, not just at the sheriff's
office, but many people who are represented in this room. And I think that our citizens stand behind our men and women that are out there protecting and serving, whether in fire, police, or military. And any person only has to watch the
news for a few minutes to realize it's been a tough 10 years for people in this business. And our community has come together not just with words, but with action. And I think that that started in a Florida legislature. It started with Governor
DeSantis advocating and pushing and it was followed by folks like you meeting the call each and every year. So I stand committed I I I stand um firm on looking for ways that we can even sharpen the
pencil but I feel that we have come in as lean as we can without compromising services. And I think it would be disingenuous for us to appear here today if we did not feel that we were in that position.
Anything else, Commissioner? Commissioner Delari, I'll let you go ahead and get started. Commissioner her has to depart pretty soon. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, Sheriff, thank you. Thank you for your presentation. I want to thank you and your staff. Uh, I've had
quite a bit of conversations with you and your staff over the past couple of months in great detail with the budget. We spent quite a bit of time going over the budget in my office and I know that Lisa and her staff has spoken to me many times about the budget uh throughout the
past couple of months if not the year. And uh I want to thank you for doing that. You've heard this from all of us. Uh thank you for keeping uh the crime rate as low as it's been and keep on reducing
it. Uh one of our primary concerns here in this county is safety. Not just from the law enforcement side but from fire side. So I don't want to just focus just on law enforcement. Uh but since you are the law enforcement side
of it, I will focus just on law enforcement here. Uh I think you do a critical job. I think all your men and women of the sheriff department do an incredible job. So, thank you. One of the biggest issues that you have as well as we do is salaries. Uh I've
heard some of the cities have raised their entrylevel position in law enforcement. Have all the cities finished with theirs or is it I think there's one city that has not set theirs
which is I believe it's Oto. Okay. Uh, every other city has a starting salary of $5,000 higher than us. Uh, the city of Sanford has a salary, starting salary of $8,500 higher than us. So, you feel comfortable with the salaries that you
presented to us so far? I do. I think it keeps us within. Uh, I say that because I want to make sure that we are properly funding law enforcement. Uh, I don't think anyone here wants to defund law enforcement. I don't think anyone's ever said that. I
don't think anyone's making that move to do that. So, let the record show that we, all five of us, are not trying to defund law enforcement. We're just asking questions. Sure. And I think it's important, as you stated uh many times here today, it's important for us to
have an open exchange of not just questions, but dialogue and uh asking and you informing us. So, thank you for doing that and be thank you for being as clear as you have. uh in one of your slides and I think it's slide 21 uh I don't know what slide in the whole
packet it is but it talks about uh critical capital improvements and you talked about uh the jail uh we've had a couple of studies of the jail uh I know we had a study about and I'm guessing it was about maybe 10 years
ago and it was redone again uh where are we with all the critical infrastructure of the facility And I just want to make sure that there's nothing that we're not totally up to speed with because I don't want to have a budget where we're
talking about critical improvements on this page of $975,000. Are we done with all the critical infrastructure of that facility or is there still more outstanding? So I'll I'll start commissioner and I'll turn it over to Lisa uh for for
followup. Uh the reports have uh shown that just clarification. is our facility that you're using. Yes. Okay. County facility that you're occupying and we're running on on your behalf. Uh those surveys have come back in uh you know
layman's language of critical need of repair in certain areas of infrastructure at least to the older portions of the jail. Uh we have newer sections of the jail that are operating just fine. Those are the uh expansions. But the the more uh traditional pod
area, particularly the control 2 area, as we call it, I believe it was uh uh built in the in the late 80s, has uh critical improvements that we spend over a million dollars a year just trying to to maintain um important things,
electricity, plumbing, uh the doors working properly, and all of those things. So when you look at a correctional facility, there's also a cost savings to a more modern facility. Now, for the record, I'm not advocating for a new facility,
but responding to the question of the of the amount of money that we use each year to patch up problems to ensure that we can uh push this further uh down the road. The new design of the correctional facility is less staff inensive because
it's open dormatory style of housing which ultimately allows for uh greater interaction, greater visibility and from a fiscal standpoint less staff to actually run a dormatory than it does a more traditional pod linear type of
correctional environment. I know you've built correctional facilities um personally, so you're very familiar with this. Legally, I've done a couple. I've not been inside of them from a perspective, but not yet anyway. Not yet.
So, Commissioner, um, you're correct. We had an assessment study done a couple times. I think the one that we have right now might be approximately four or five years old. Um, the study pretty much says the same thing. We know what we're dealing with at at the jail. I
want to make sure that we clarify that what we have here is the ongoing operating and maintenance. The 2 million the 975 critical capital improvements is just the portion of your budget that we
handle through our facility staff and that can be things that the the main and you'll you'll get the recap of the projects. Um the largest project we've ever done is the uh door project which is all controlled um through a system
and was all reinstalled and actually is being completed right now as we speak. Um we've also renovated the kitchen. It also includes large capital improvement items um mainly within the kitchen. um
we just ordered and are replacing the freezers within the facilities which also have to be professionally installed. So they're they're very large ticket items and that's what's being spent out of that uh funding. In addition, we do security cameras not
only for the uh correctional facility but also for the courouses. Now again, we're working in tandem with county staff. Sometimes when you're doing like the uh CJC renovation that'll start some
of the camera system project will be within that project. So um when your facility staff comes before you, they may also talk about projects within the jail. They're going to do the main structural systems of the building.
They're responsible for the air conditioning, the main plumbing systems, the electrical systems, the roof. So which there are there are challenges there. So I don't want you to think that this number here is the all-in number. It's just the portion that we're
utilizing to do stuff really operationally within the facility. I'll be I'll be asking facilities when they come up in front those same questions. So they're having a little quick preview right now. So thank you. Okay. U so I appreciate that. That's just from
your perspective. There's other items that could be potentially critical that you're not addressing. Um, we are in the process of reviewing. I have not been briefed on it. Um, our facilities manager, Joe Fenwick, works closely with county staff. We intend on
reviewing uh what we have and then sitting down with the county staff and kind of coming up with what is the plan for next year. Joe Joe speaks with your staff almost daily. um I assure you because there's a lot of stuff that goes on at the correctional facility. So um
we just need to get together and and really prioritize those projects and bring them forward. Okay. Thank you again, Sheriff. I I as we all sit up here, we want to keep the millage rate and the budget as low as possible. You
even said that yourself. uh as we all do uh as we move forward uh the BCC uh vested services which is outside your control that we're asking to contract with you. Uh I'd like to be asking our county staff uh what those services are
and are there any services there that are on those that are partly responsibility of some of the seven cities because there are uh dispatch is one of them. I mean, I remember dispatch the seven cities used to do it and it
wasn't until the late 90s, early 2000s that we consolidated them all. And so, at some point, I know I'll be asking our staff to look at those as well. So, Sheriff, I want to thank you and your staff for your leadership keeping us safe and uh look forward to continue
working with you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, a lot of things have been asked and a lot of things have been said, so I don't know that I need to go into any of those any further. I want to sincerely thank you and your team for the amount of time that you've spent with me and going over
a lot. I would just note uh a lot of things have been discussed. Um I would note that you are asking for staffing um for your current FTEES which is
approximately 42 or 41 below the 2023 level which in our discussions goes to show why the increase in overtime goes to show the trouble in the market and what the market pressures have have come to bear on this. There was some
discussion about, you know, the arms race has to stop. Um, that's market pressures. They're cyclical in nature. Uh, 3 years, four years from now, it'll be maybe engineers. Uh, five, six years after
that, it'll be another profession. uh this is not something that is a novel idea uh in the world of having to hire professionals or experts uh to do do a job. I do however believe that you have
done a wonderful job and I think with the academy process I think this puts the taxpayers in a much better space uh of retention and cost savings which to me goes to show your concern for for the
taxpayers dollars uh by bringing that in to your own ability to oversee that fasttrack that retain those individuals should eventually start to weigh on the overtime time costs and the cost to recruit and keep those people employed.
As far as what's going on in our own county, um with with one municipality doing something and this one goes up 3,000, this one goes up 5,000, the market pressures will come to bear there as well. Uh there there will come a time where it's it's no longer affordable.
And I think that we as as a county with our seven cities should be wise enough to understand that there there probably should be some very candid conversation about consolidation uh of law enforcement with the seven cities as
well as the county. And my perspective is is the sheriff's office as the lead agency and the and the top elected official law enforcement official in our county is is Sheriff Lima. We have to
back up all other municipalities as well as they back us up in those scenarios. We have the depth uh of manpower and woman power as well as all those critical aspects. uh that a lot of the
cities don't have. So, I think at some point there there's going to have to be some very candid conversation about what consolidation may look like. Um we we've been through that with our fire service. Uh I think all but two cities now have had that consolidation and I get it.
Each city is proud to have their own law enforcement, their own fire department. It it is something that is outward facing that most citizens embrace. um and they may not want to give that up. But I think there is a path and a way to do that. Um and I think that
conversation will likely be forced upon uh us to have as the market pressures come to bear. And finally uh I know you and I have spoke about this before as uh Chad Wilkey and our has finally got our
Ford Motor Company fleet uh warranty program uh in the hopper. And this is another aspect of of working together uh between the sheriff's office and the BCC. This will not only save taxpayers time and money
uh but long term is is a vast benefit to not only the county as taxpayers, but we have those crime fighting vehicles in the field instead of sitting somewhere waiting to be serviced or repaired. Uh and hopefully we can move forward with that. But I won't take any more time.
There's a lot of things I could say. Again, I sincerely appreciate the time you and your staff took with us in my office. Um, and I look forward to working with you on the future on on continuing um, great law enforcement, you know, on behalf of the men and women
of Semino County. So, thank you all very much. Thank you. And I want to thank all of you for your time, your effort, your energy, uh, not just during this budget cycle, but but each and every year. I know you all to be true ambassadors of of the work that's being done on behalf
of our county, but more directly the citizens that have elected each one of us into office. And um I want to commend uh uh Darren Gray uh and his team. I mean, we've had such a fabulous relationship, whether it's his his attorney Kate or, you know, Tim working
in finance and and and a lot to be proud of. And this is a difficult year and uh you're asking a lot a lot of tough questions. And u lastly, you know, I want to um well, I want to thank Lisa and Mary and their team because they do such remarkable work and as you can see,
it's a it's a complicated um I don't know how many pages are here, but there's a lot there's a there's a lot of stuff here. But but lastly, I want to thank the municipalities um the chiefs of police in the cities and and the way that we come together
here. It is it is just a benefit to the citizens regardless if they live in a city jurisdiction or unincorporated areas of the county. And I think that that's reflected with our reduction of crime while at the same time we're working to save lives in addressing
those underlying conditions that lead people down the path to commit crime in the first place. And I think that our job this year is harder than probably uh years past. But we all took an oath to to serve our community and preserving the quality of
life that our citizens have expected and deserved is um is the most important thing. So again, I know we went long and uh I appreciate your patience and um see you soon. Great. Thank you all very much.
We shall be adjourned till 1:30. Part: 2
[Music]
Heat. Heat.
[Music]
Heat. Heat. [Music] Good afternoon. We're back in uh session
this afternoon. We are going to go to Mr. Tim J for an update uh on the constitutionals. I would remind everyone if you would be kind enough to silence your cell phones, any other electronic devices you have at a courtesy for the presenters today. Mr. J. Thank you,
Chairman. I'm Tim J with the Office of Management and Budget. Uh I wanted to pull forward one slide that we have included in our general fund section. Uh it's slide number 108 and I think it gives a good snapshot of the top level view of our general fund. So the first column shows fiscal year 24 adopted
budget. If you look into the second column, that's fiscal year 25. So you see we had $20 million in new revenues going into the current fiscal year 25. Of that $14.6 million went to the constitutional officers and all other non-constitutional transfers. That
includes BCC personnel, BCC operating projects, uh, and unfunded mandates increased by $7 million or 4.9%. You'll also see ARPA revenues uh going into the general fund um reducing from 13.8 to 5.9. So we had $355 million in
expenditures for fiscal 25. Moving forward to fiscal 26, this is where you see the additional 10.5 million in revenue. So over the two years, our general fund revenue has grown by about $30.6 million. Uh for fiscal 26, the constitutional officer's requested
transfers increased by 18.1 million. And within this is also the uh tax collector transfer. This represents the amount paid by the general fund. So the presentation this morning, his budget included his fees as well. That's why you saw the $13 million number. The general fund support to the tax
collector. It's set by Florida statute. It's a formula based on um advalorum revenues. Uh so total increases to the constitutionals of 18.1 million. And then if you look from fiscal 25 to fiscal 26, all non-constitutional transfers are increasing by $2 million
in the general fund. Um this includes increases for health insurance, increases for unfunded mandates. Um so this is why we say while our budget is going up slightly, we did make a lot of cuts to get to this level. And you see in FY26, we'll have no ARB transfer. So
that's how we get to to total FY26 expenditures of 381 million which is a $35 million deficit. And I just wanted to show this to set the tone. Sometimes when you look at the department program budgets, you don't always see this level of reductions. There's different funds in there. There's different projects.
But this is a top level view of our general fund. Any inquiries? Yes. So that means in non um non nonfiscal language
coming into this budget um from last year we had $20 million that we took out of reserves to balance the budget last year. Yes, we have $10 million of new money this year. So in actuality it's 20
million that we are talking about that we have a deficit by including everything that everybody has put in then it would become a $35 million which we would have to take out of the reserves. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. simple language
and I just I just sort of I think I know the answer to this going from my memory in previous work sessions budget work sessions dating back three years ago give or take and my recollection is uh the budget office was forewarning that
this day was forthcoming that there would be a deficit to the point where we got into our reserves we'd be spending down our reserves and and I think what I'm hearing is that time has arrived. That's correct. So this is this is not
something that my fellow board members should not been aware at least those that were here 3 years ago or so that this this was the forecast. Uh and it's my also my understanding since that morning we've
asked our staff to cut find efficiencies and then here recently we've said the county manager back go find more. Um is that a fair analogy from from the budget office's understanding? Yes. Okay. Two we we've two years in a row the county manager has put out a direction no
increases in uh base budgets for our BCC departments. Right. And because I know I was very vocal about reserves and the fact that we should spend down reserves to a certain point um which was a spirit of debate amongst myself and my fellow commissioners and and staff. So uh here
we are. Commissioner Lockheart. Well, I think I'm glad we didn't um I'm glad you didn't win those spirited debates because we would have even fewer reserves to be pulling from right now. But um I just want to make sure that we're clear. you you're not making the implication that we're all acting
surprised. No. Okay. Cuz the way that it was phrased made it sound a little bit like, oh, my my fellow commissioner shouldn't be surprised by this. I I don't think we are at all. So, I just wanted to make sure that that wasn't the implication. Um, I I think what is a bit of a surprise and has been,
as much as we we had a great conversation with the sheriff and and he acknowledges and is that his increases have not been in line with the other constitutionals or with this organization. So, while we can control
and say hold the line, hold the line, if others don't hold the line, we can't do anything about that. So, I just wanted to make sure like I yes, we knew this was coming. Commissioner Delari did red line, green line um repeatedly for many years. Um I stopped
discussing it because I knew there was no point discussing it anymore. It just got to that place. So, here we are. And so, you're right. You are correct. We saw this we saw the writing on the wall and and now we have to figure out how we're going to handle it. Well, what we did but Mr. chairman. But what we did know, and I think we all, you know, were
pointing it out in one way or another, is that in two years we've received $30 million of new new revenue strictly, you know, which is not a lot of increase, but all that money has been taken in one
source. Well, so anybody else, even if they were straight line, we'd still have to find additional revenue. Correct. And and the other thing that none of us could have predicted, including our budget, our folks, is the cost of goods. There was no no way of anticipating
where that was going to be 3 years ago. Um the other thing that I think that that I've discovered is in the last 3 to four years, our development activity in this county has dropped way off. So, we
we have very little new uh tax base coming on board and some of that is just a fact of there's not a whole lot left to do in this county except redevelopment um activity. But if you go back five
years ago and move forward to the development activity that has occurred, it's not near I mean it's continued to drop off each and every year which is the revenue source in which runs a good portion of this county um even in the
cities. So you know I don't want to call it the perfect storm but there's a lot of things that have come to to bear pressure upon uh our budget process. Also though, Commissioner Zimbau, you know, the only revenue that has been
consistently going up, thank God, has been the advorum. Everything else has been pretty much at a at a a non. And those are those are other areas. Advorum increasing is because, you know, our value, the prices are going up because
our value of our land, everybody, you know, wants to live here, the value goes up. Thank God. But everything else that's controlled outside of us has been going down or remaining neutral. And that's our that's our real problem. Those in those revenues are not
increasing. Correct. Exactly. All right. Well, I think we're ready for the fire department. We are. Chief Kennley. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, sir. You're here to cure all of our wos. We could do that. I'll call the rescue. Um,
for the record, Matt Kinley, uh, Fire Chief S County Fire Department. Uh, with me I have financial manager Ryan Schwitzer. Um, he's our, uh, Mr. Spriggs and Tim J, our math wizard. Uh, and also Deputy Chief of Operations Benic. Um, I believe we're starting off the
presentation with Mr. Jex highlighting a few things. Yes. So, for each of the department presentations, I'll go over a few financial slides and then we'll turn it over to the director of the chief. Great. The fire department's total FY26 budget request is $125.3 million. 96.3%
is through our fire MSTU. 3.7% is through the general fund. There's 580 FTEES with no changes going into FY26. This slide shows um the total department budget. There's a full line item budget detail for the fire department which can be found in page 86 of your supplemental
package which is the same report found on page 453 of your work session book. This includes a full budget detail and a list of all projects in the proposed budget. The FY25 budget is 108 million which is growing by 16 million into FY26.
The top section shows base budgets where 91% is related to personnel services. The $5.6 $6 million variance is based on increases in salaries and the existing collective bargaining agreement. It's also includes increases for spe special risk retirement contributions, overtime
and health insurance. Below uh in the project section, CIP is primarily related to fire station construction and renovations. And the increase in fleet uh from FY25 to 26 reflects a BAR that was done prior to
FY25 uh in order to lock in lower prices and purchase vehicles early. This slide focuses on the fire department's base operating budget. It excludes personnel. It also includes $198,000 in supplies and contracted services that were funded through ARPA
in fiscal 25. The base operating budget for the fire department is down $14,000 going into FY26. So obviously uh under Darren's direction, we've made sure to keep us keep ourselves as flat as possible. Um even a slight decrease. Uh this slide
just shows structurally in budget world how we are uh portioned out. Uh we have emergency communication center, administration, operations and prevention. going through the exercise uh with the seminal moments. Uh one of the ones that we wanted to highlight was uh the
possibility of adjusting the transport fees for count for residents from outside of the county. Um obviously everybody who lives here is paying the taxes to receive a first class service u a nationally recognized first class service. Uh we do have uh with the
transitional uh traffic through Semino County um about 2,500 transports a year of those who live outside of the county. Um if we were to increase uh the transport fee uh to those individuals
even by $100, um if you go with our 70% collection rate, which is uh very good uh for any EMS organ organization that does transport, we could increase revenue by $175,000 and scale that uh to whatever would be
the pleasure of of the board uh moving into the future. You'll also see uh in our request uh some increases in fees for training out at the training center where we provide to people across the country. Um and also to our transport uh
mileage. Uh we actually just received this morning uh an updated spreadsheet of what is the averages out there. We're at $13 a mile and we're proposing to increase it at $13.73 a mile. that would bring us in line um with other
organizations. Uh we're not proposing any other increases to the transport fee. Uh we are in line with what would seem to be the the averages across Florida. Um major projects that we have going on
right now, fire station 25, uh just got an update this morning on the construction manager at risk and that has made it through purchasing. Uh we should be or will be scheduling uh some pre-construction uh events here in the
next uh weeks if not hopefully less than that. U if everyone understands station 25 is the one that's on the 436 exchange that goes onto Redbug Road or onto Redbug. I know Commissioner Lockhart's been out there and seen the traffic
accidents that almost happen on a regular basis. um a very old station from the merger and we have the property uh where the new Castleberry uh police headquarters is at and design is done, permits are done uh where to the end with platting uh but looking to move
forward with that very soon. Um next under that that's current is station 23. Uh that's our oldest station. Uh I know Mr. Orbath used to work there back when it was a vol in the volunteer days. Um it's that old.
It's older than I am. And we uh we did we did acquire the land directly across from that station to build the new one and we'll start design of that in the near future. Um to the sheriff's point,
uh as you know, we signed a new collective bargaining agreement with our a unit, our firefighters and lieutenants. Uh we were like the sheriff's office having some difficulties with recruitment and retention. Uh there was an increase of 15% to the starting salaries uh to get
us into the market. Uh we are in the market with everybody else that's surrounding us within the the cities. We're all within a couple of thousand dollars of each other. Um there's still we're a little bit behind some to the to the south of us. Uh but we're competitive. Uh and this is a great
place to work. It was a great fireart fire fire department to work at. We've also uh anxiously awaiting the delivery of our new tactical tanker. Uh that's the one that's going out at station 42 uh four-wheel drive. We're
using the Asella model. Uh and Asella is building it for us. Uh we're anxiously awaiting that. Uh that's going to be a great resource for us to hit those rural rural areas um of the county. Uh significant budget highlights. So, traffic blocking vehicle. So, you'll see
in there a traffic attenuator. Um, our current practice specifically on I4, uh, which is the most dangerous thing that we do. Um, me coming closest to becoming very hurt has been on I4. Um, the scarest I've ever been as a lieutenant
was on I4 when I thought one of my personnel got hit. Um, very dangerous area. Uh our current practice is we send another unit uh usually our $2 million tower truck to do the blocking. And if you just Google it, uh you'll see
organizations here in Central Florida that have had these apparatus uh be struck uh by a vehicle. And not only have you now ruined a multi-million dollar piece of equipment, but the lead times of two to three years to get one back uh let alone the repair costs um is
just it's not sustainable. Uh so for a a relatively small amount of dollars, $250,000, we can get a a traffic blocking vehicle that is designed to do that. Uh doesn't come with any personnel. We're going to treat it much like we do with a witch truck. When the crews go, they take it uh and do the
blocking to keep the crews safe. Out of our fire training center, um back quite a few years ago, in the last 5 years, we used to have a living quarters out at the training center. There was a double Y trailer out there that was sprinklered and and all the things where our tanker driver and our tech one, our
command tech stayed at for a couple of reasons. Um, one, uh, station or security out at that facility uh, as having a body out there or a couple of bodies. We have tens of millions of dollars of assets. That's our logistics hub. That's where all of our things are
at. That's where the crews come after after a call to drop off their gear, to get it cleaned, to restock their trucks when we run out of specific types of equipment. Uh we want to do it right this time and replace that facility that
was torn down about 5 years ago with a block structure so that we have living quarters out there that will last for at least 50 years. Um everything we build anymore is trying to get that 50 years. That way we have people out there for security, just eyes cuz we have caught people
sleeping in apparatus in the past. Uh but even more so, there's somebody on site for those logistical needs to take all of our great equipment, our amboo bus for mass casualties, our light trailers, our our multiple tankers, uh all these different
pieces of equipment that we have to dispatch somebody from another station to come get. Uh third thing, station security. Um, as you all know, um, in the Central Florida corridor here the last couple of years, there's been, uh, multiple instances of
people breaking into firefighters vehicles, uh, and stealing things out of them. Um, luckily, we haven't had anybody end up in a station. Uh, one of our neighbors to the south did. Uh, they actually had somebody that broke into the station while the firefighters were there. That didn't turn out well. Um,
hope to avoid that. Uh we have already um implemented security measures at a couple of our stations with lighting, with cameras as deterrence along with fences as a physical barrier. Uh we're looking to continue to do that into the future
targeting at first um our most vulnerable stations u because there's ones that are out in other areas that just aren't as vulnerable as others. So looking at some challenges um in emergency communication center you'll
see that we've deferred uh the CAD refresh upgrade of about 1.2 million. Um our CAD uh has been scheduled to get an upgrade. Um in 2023 24 everything is still working very well. Um so with
technologies advice uh we're continuing to to push that can down the road. Uh $1.2 $2 million is a significant amount of money. Um you'll see other slight reductions uh within the comm center to get us at at a slight negative uh and
mostly coming out of training. Um it hurts a little bit today. Um if we had to continue doing that going on in the future, it really starts to hurt. That starts to get us behind um our training for our people for take sending them to the outside. Not that we don't do the
internal stuff, but there's things that they can learn and bring back to us. Best practices going to training outside of the county. Um, again, a year of doing that, we can manage that. If that continued on, we start to miss out on those best practices that people will
learn going to outside going to outside training. Inflationary costs are a a tremendous part of our challenges. As you'll see, we've obviously kept it to a 0%. Um, we've done we've been able
to do that, not necessarily with cuts, but uh with creating some efficiencies. Um but just to to highlight some of the the different levels that we have challenges with. Um
you look at our stations and we're obviously trying to do some expansion to continue to keep our response times down. When you're looking from 2021 to 2025, construction costs for us have increased by almost 30%. That's a tremendous amount when you're talking
about millions of dollars for a fire station. when you start looking at costs. So in comparison 21 to 2025, a rescue truck, our ambulances in 2021 was $296,000
as they're now $443,000 almost a 50% increase. A fire truck from 600,000 to 924, almost a 53% increase. The helmet that a firefighter wears from 445 to 555, a 24% increase. bunker gear
going from $2,200 to $3,500 with the potential of that increasing even more when you start looking at the mandates coming from from Tallahassee which we are in support of. It's firefighter safety talking about toxic gear. Um, as
I know has been brought up here in this in this room before um the firefighter gear has PAS in it. We have the safest gear of all the gear that is on the market. There's three layers to your to their bunker gear. You have the outer shell, inner shell, and and a vapor
barrier in the middle. So, the outer and inner don't have PAS in our gear that we have. The only one that's left is that is that vapor barrier vapor barrier on the on the inside. And no one has that product yet. Um once they do and two or
more manufacturers are able to supply that, we will have to replace that. Um, the law is vague enough that it's being sent to the state fire marshall's office for rulemaking authority to figure out what it actually says and when we would
have to do it. I know the fire chief's uh concerns are is this an immediate we do it now or do we do it as the gear begins to be replaced. Uh much more measured approach. If everybody has to buy it today, it's not going to happen.
You're looking at simple things. A 35 ft ladder, 185% increase. Fire hose, the 5 in that we supply our trucks with, 63% increase. And you get something down to as simple as a mop handle, 120% increase. All of these are factors in
our costs. So, how do we combat that? We try to create efficiencies. Um, some of the things that we've done, so we put into service the mobile sim lab. We took a u retired rescue uh that
was no longer serviceable to transport patients but still under a light duty uh aspect we could keep on the road. We outfit that uh with some technology and we're now sending this truck out to the stations. Multi- factor benefit. Uh one
the crews are getting their training. Two, we're keeping multiple units from having to drive up to the training center. That's saving on diesel cost. That's saving on mileage on the trucks. Three, and what I think is the most important, it's keeping them in their district. So if something serious goes
down, they're still there. We have not vacated that district with with resources. They're there. The cardiac arrest, the structure fire goes down, they're still available to to respond. And the comm center, um, we're leveraging every technology that we pass
possibly can to make their jobs easier. uh with the CAD and its ability to recommend uh what units get dispatched using GPS. We're not relying on run cards anymore. Uh which takes time uh takes an operator to to do uh
dispatching of trucks. We've transitioned from a physical person getting on the radio telling what trucks are being dispatched to now it's done by the computer. The computer says what trucks are being dispatched just by the press of a button. Again, creating efficiencies.
something that many of you on the board approved many years ago. Um, EMS vending machines, which got a chuckle out of the board when we put that in. I was EMS division chief at the time. Uh we put a couple of different vending machines in a couple of stations centralized uh to
put our most expensive medications, durable equipment, EKG dots, things that are very expensive that we could centralize that resource so that each station didn't have to have as many. Since then, our supplier is now giving
them to us for free because it helps them out, too. Uh so in our new stations, we're putting these machines in uh and leveraging another part of that with medications uh and even the durable medical equipment looking at expiration dates. We're tracking that.
So when we have a medication that's out at one of our slower stations that's coming close to expiration, we move it to our busy stations in the hopefully it doesn't get used, but in the likelihood that it will. that's keeping our stock uh just a more efficient use of our
stock. Um, another thing which every one of you has seen at this point is our dashboards uh specifically the ones that I showed you uh that track all of our benchmarks, our times, our statistics for our
accreditations. Um, as you know, uh, we're an ISO1, uh, we're Cass accredited, we're CFAI, fire accredited, all the major, uh, accreditations that you can get. Um, and what used to happen is multiple people had to provide a
single person all of this data that we have to track monthly and they would have to compile it, they would have to put it together, um, it would have to get vetted, uh, a lot of staff time. Now, at the touch of a button, we have the statistics. It's all funneling into one spot. And that's just a huge
collaboration not just this isn't just on our part but with it uh creating a data data center for us. Um it's huge that's the only reason that we're able to do that. Uh again just leveraging uh those technologies to create as much as many efficiency efficiencies that we
can. Um other unfunded mandates you start looking at emissions uh from the federal government. Um we're no different than the passenger vehicle. Uh unlike the military who is exempt, uh our fire trucks have to meet those emission standards. We have deaf systems
on there. Um we just experienced a 100,000 plus increase in the cost of our fire engines specifically to that and the reductions that were coming with through the federal government again making those costs go up even more. Um electric vehicles are on are on the
horizon. Uh that includes fire trucks. Uh luckily there has been some relief of that uh coming in 2027 uh because that's going to double the price of a fire truck, not to even not to mention the infrastructure that's going to have to go in place. Um
just in conclusion, uh obviously our our costs are increasing. We're doing everything that we possibly can to create efficiencies and keep our our ask as minimal as possible. And that's all I have. That concludes
our presentation. Thank you very much. We'll start with Commissioner Delari and work our way this way and then we'll come back to Commissioner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Fire Chief. Thank you and all the men and women of the fire department. As I said earlier,
you all do a phenomenal job on so many different levels, and you definitely keep us safe, and I appreciate every one of you up and down the rank and file of the fire department. You all do a phenomenal job to say thank you. We'll be here all day. Uh you did talk about
some of the uh legislation that's coming down either from Washington or Tallahassee. Can you talk to us a little bit about uh House Bill 929? So House Bill 929 is the firefighter safety bill. Um there's multiple aspects in that. One of those I was talking
about the is the 42 hours. So, the the one that is not a mandate, it's a recommendation. Um, in 929 is reducing um many fire department schedules to a 42-hour work week. So, currently most um
organizations run off of a 56-hour work week. Uh they're 24 on, 48 off. Uh there has been some in the state uh that are transitioning to a 2472 work schedule, which gets them through the 42-hour work week. Now, there's lots of different ways you can get to the
42-hour work week. Um, but this is a rec recruitment, retention, and mental health um reasoning for transitioning to that. There's going to be challenges with that. U for those that are are switching to that, there's already a
firefighter deficit in the state. Um, and to accomplish this, um, most places will have to hire an entire additional shift. I know CMI just went to it. Correct. Uh CMI just agreed to go to it. Um the implementation of it, I'm
anticipating it's going to take years. I I don't know. They have to hire 50 people. I was watching the the uh the video of the actual meeting where they actually approved it. They didn't have a time frame, but they definitely approved it because I saw the fire chief comment
on it. Yes. So, uh, dispatch, uh, back in the day, and I know when I was with a veto, the city used to do their own dispatch. Which years did the county assume dispatch from all the seven cities? You remember? So, I could
not give you the exact date for each one. Okay. I know I was hired in 2001 and we took on Ovito, which was the last one, sometime. I was a part of that from the Ovito side. Yeah, I was a part of that from the Avidito side in the early
2000s. That's why I'm asking. So, do you know I don't know the exact dates of every single one of them. Okay. I if I were to venture a guess, it was in the '9s. Okay. Uh the carry forward uh this county is carrying a large car carry
forward from past years. And just a quick look at the carry forward statement that we got. You're up around 46 million plus or minus. Uh how do you plan on uh reducing that number
by building fire stations and renovating some fire stations? That's the the main part of those carry forward is about infrastructure. Yeah, the fire station about somewhere in the 40s in carry forward. Uh, when do you think station
39 will open? You'll have to ask facilities. I'll wait till they get up here any any day. You talk to that should be in the very near future. It's very close. Uh, Chief Dure and I were just out here. It looks as if
you could move in right now. Um, there's some there's just there's still a few things that need to be accomplished. Okay. I know you talked about the transfer fees. I agree with that. Some of the cities are charging more than what we're charging. uh for the transfer fees. Uh I know the training facility
when we originally purchased that uh they did talk about that being a revenue source and uh we stopped asking that question a number of years ago but uh I know it's not a real big revenue source but from people from not in the county
it should be from some perspective. So can I just add to that? So not a revenue source in the aggregate. Uh but uh how we try to run that and seems to be a workable model is we split the classes
up because obviously our crews need technical rescue training too um and all the different disciplines. So we try to split the class up to paying customers and those that we're putting in through our organization to try to break even. And that's and again when I meant revenue source I wasn't where it's a
profit center. It's a revenue source to reduce our overhead and cost. We are definitely doing that and uh that was the outcome that I we were able to get a number of years ago. So I think that's a good place to be. Uh when we talk about
the uh uh specialty teams that you all have uh what specialty teams do we have to help augment the city's uh departments? So I would say that the biggest service that none of them have uh is hazmat. Um
our shot team, special haz hazard and operations team um certified uh technicians through the state uh can go do a lot of things with the equipment that the cities just don't have. Um some everybody has an aerial at this point.
Um, not everybody has a platform like like we have makes rescue of elevated rescue easier. Some of them have high angle teams. Some of them have kind of a trench um but not to the level with the equipment that we have.
Thank you very much, Chief. Appreciate it. Commissioner Constine. Thank you. And chief, and I'm saying this to all of our staff that is now going, including um you know, the county manager, thank you for embracing the seminal moments and doing everything you
can to try to keep our budget flat as we as we go forward. And I'm talking, you know, all of the under the BCC. I really appreciate it. Um couple of things. We have been a leader in uh consolidation of the fire departments in not only this region, but the state. We have three of
the seven cities that are now under um uh the umbrella of the seminal county uh fire department and we have received the highest accolades and when it comes to accreditation um I know that you have there it's got to be apples to apples when we uh are
looking at these other things but has any of the others uh any of the other four cities talked to you at all preliminarily or talked to you know anybody as far as you know looking potential cons uh consolidation. So interesting that you ask uh because I
get that question at fire stations consistently and I have not been asked while being the fire chief anybody asking what a merger would actually would look like, what the cost would be um how it would be implemented, not once. Um and with some of the talk
that there has been over the past couple of years at the cities uh as far as fire fees, I thought that it would happen and it has not. Well, economy of scales always tell you that uh eventually it will be more efficient. I remember when we were talking about in Altoont Springs, which was the first one that
did it. Uh I think the biggest complaint was that everybody liked having a fire chief, you know, and they really couldn't come up with another good reason to have their own fire department. I I hope you feel the same. Absolutely. Well, I don't see us I don't
see us merging with Arch County anytime soon. Surprising answer. Um but uh yeah, I I I just think that in today's circumstance, it's always nice to continue that conversation uh with the others. The last thing, you and I have had a conversation about ACLS and
retirement homes. Uh when we're talking about transfer fees from people not in the county, it um occurs to me uh living that I live within three a mile within three ACLs andor retirement homes and right across the street from the
hospital that it seems like the it's it's awful expensive to send the big truck out there and uh then find out that it's really not, you know, an emergency. Um, I know it's hard to sit there and, you know, tell you them, you
know, when they concerned not to not to call out the 911 or ask for something, but there's got to be an educational process there that we need to find a way to to to make sure that they know that not every emergency is necessarily an
emergency that needs to have the big fire truck and everything else come out. So, have you steps on that? Oh, 100%. Um that's happened for years. Uh and we're actually making a a run at that right now. Um which includes our community
parame medicine um our EMS division and our medical director and one of his assistant medical directors. Uh going around to these facilities and doing that education. It's ongoing. We do that all of all the time. The challenge comes because the staff changes all the time.
So we'll get an increase. We'll identify where that's coming from. We'll go there. We'll educate and we'll get a decrease. We'll see an increase again. Oh, new nurse manager and we have to go back out again. So, we are actively and consistently doing that. It's it's such an expense. Sometimes it's not just the
care. It might need a little stick every once in a while with the uh ownership. Um maybe they'll have a little bit more thing. But I I I I see that not only as a major expense potential that we could, you know, have some cost savings, but also the fact that it reduces the
services potentially when you have everybody out there and not the the truck at the fire station. That's the biggest impact is the availability of the unit at state. Thank you, Commissioner Lockard. Oh, I know every one of us is going to
say we're so proud of our organization under your leadership and and um it's not just lip service. I for the few times that I've had to call 911 or have a an incident, I've I've always hoped that it was Semino County that showed up
because I know the training and I know the the skill set that your team has. It's it's not just about the equipment, although that's very very important. it's it's the people. Um so the fact that this board continues to support public
safety as being the primary importance and you know public you know we talk about public safety it's that's a big umbrella. Um yes it's the sheriff it's you all it's animal services it's emergency management it's it's a there
storm water during hurricanes. I mean, public safety is is a big umbrella for our community and um you are the reason why we exist. I believe local government exists to be able to provide the services that you provide to protect our
citizens. And um the fact that you have been able to deliver us this budget and continue to deliver the services that you deliver, I think is remarkable. It's commendable truly. So I have no questions. we have and thank you for
those kind words. Um it's easy to be the fire chief with the level of personnel that we have that you you can't train in reality the attitude and their want to to provide
that service to the citizens. And then to add on to that, the county manager's office and the board have been just extremely supportive of of public safety. the fire department in particular. Uh so it's not just me. I'm
I'm just trying to to to wrangle the circus and and it it's everybody. Uh and and you mentioned the other departments. Again, we couldn't do what we do without it, without storm water. Just there's so many things that we could not do without
our other partners, emergency management. I just it it's really incredibly collaborative here in Semino County. Thank you, Commissioner Her. I'm going to ask the questions and then I'll give you the accolades just so we get mix it up a little bit. Uh, does the
fire training center living quarters increase staff once it's open? No. So, you're moving people from other locations to Currently, Tech One and the tanker drivers are out of station 24, which is already busting at the scenes. That's where we moved them to when we
took down the double wide. Have we given any thought to allocating funding toward reserves? I'm completely comfortable with a carryover, by the way. I think our citizens are probably comfortable with carryovers. It's better than not having carryovers. Are have we
given any thought to allocating funding to reserves for the acquisition of the PAS free gear that we know is coming down the pike so that we don't take it upside the head like baseball with a baseball bat? We know it's coming. So we
haven't um and the reason being and talking to the state fire marshall's office and them giving indication of what end up will end up being the rule. They understand uh and even the legislature understood uh with the fire chiefs and union representation in the background that they can't do it all at
once. It's impossible. You're you're talking millions of sets of gear in reality. There's a manufacturing issue. it it's it it will get staged in and we will continue on which is in our CIP uh that
replacement of that gear. As long as that happens, there shouldn't be a tremendous impact. The the costs are going to go up a little bit. Um and the durability of the gear is going to go up a little bit. Just for lack of a better term, that
that PAS creates armor on on the gear. And so we're already experiencing with our PASF free outer layers when it goes to get uh cleaned, which it has to be per NFPA. Um we're starting to see some degradation of the gear. Uh so that's
what we're anticipating is an increase in cost. Hopefully not tremendous. Um first of the market I'm sure is going to be a little bit a little bit more and that's why they're at least having to have to be at to the market. But it's that longevity of the gear going out in
the future that um I'm most concerned of. Um computer dispatch of trucks. Just a heads up up to it. I think a question that we probably don't need to talk about publicly, but we probably should all be briefed on is how are how are we
securing that software? Um placement of the 42-hour work week. I whispered to Darren, we need to do the math and make sure that we're placed in that order of operation in the place that puts us in
the best position. So, for example, if we wait until the tail end of that and we have to keep escalating wages in order to keep recruiting because other people have a better work environment, we're going to be behind. So, if we know it's coming, let's figure this out and
and get in front of it is just food for thought. Um the last question is I I do want to sh I want I would like to create a little bit of a culture shift in the thinking here and that is we are shooting for break
even on anything that generates revenue. We ought to be shooting for just below market price. You got to buy it somewhere. And so if you're shooting for break even and the market price creates a differential, then our citizens are subsidizing other
areas whether we like it or not because there's no reserve in there for replacing all of that. That so we shouldn't be working for break even. Nobody works for break even. It's America. God bless it. So neither should we. I just want to rethink that. And
then I'm going to give you two accolades that haven't been said so far. First is a shout out to the union and to you all for the relationship that we have. We don't see that everywhere. Their in your interests are aligned. I think we all get that. We know it gets rough and
tumble every now and then. Trisha is looking down. She won't look at me while I'm saying this. Um but outside of those weeks of negotiation, it's an amazing relationship and our citizens benefit from that. And so I appreciate both sides of that equation for it. And then
lastly, dashboards. And they're being used to eliminate workload. Wow. So, if I didn't look ridiculous doing the happy dance on camera, I would be doing a happy dance probably right on top of this dice because that's what it's all about. So,
I'm super excited about that. So, thank you for that leadership. Commissioner Bar, you had some additional. I just want to follow up on two things that Commissioner Constine was talking about. And uh Lee, when you were talking about uh adult living facilities, there are a number of calls
that the adult living facilities have that are not true emergencies. I'm hoping that when you review that, you'll take that into account and if there's a fee structure that will address that just like false alarms with fire alarm systems. Just FYI. And then
the second thing that Mr. Constine talked about was uh consolidation of the remaining cities. Some of the cities are not looking at it from apples to apples because I was looking at the city of Avidito's uh sheet and there was some
things that they weren't in that calculation and I just want to make sure that it's clearly stated that uh in the consolidation number you also have to look at capital improvement of replacement of their vehicles as well as new stations and uh some of the cities
are not looking at that and so that's why they don't understand why consolidation makes sense. I would love to see us look at you know what are the remaining four cities we know what they are and what the number would be for consolidation to see so that the cities
actually have a real number and I think that would be prudent to do instead of them doing it on their own that there's a collaboration of what that number would be um so my my belief on consolidation it makes financial fiscal sense for our
taxpayers um they're to pay in taxes to this county, whether they live in a city or not, they're paying the same amount of taxes to this county whether they're incorporated or unincorporated, but they get the luxury of paying an additional tax to the cities. Um, if if us as elected officials throughout the county
really really want to leverage the efficiency for our taxpayers, it's it's about having those tough conversations about consolidation, the additional fire divisions, u, as well as law enforcement. I mean, there's going to come a time, I think, where the market
pressures are going to be so great, um, that each city is going to have to raise their taxes to a point where it's unaffordable and the county may end up doing the same thing, which is not where we all want to be and we should collaborate with each other and see
where we're we're headed. Um, the carry forwards, carry forwards don't bother me as well. Um so so everybody understands the carry forwards although they're not all encumbered they're pretty much encumbered for a purpose. Correct. Correct. Other words
there is an intention. Uh there are plans in the works there are um RFPs that will eventually go out that have been talked about considered that those monies will be allocated for pretty much in its entirety. Is that is
that a fair analogy? It's it's just like anybody you do in your household. Um you're looking out that I need to replace my car in 5 years. Well, you start saving up that money to make that replacement. So, that money is going to carry forward, right? I'm planning to buy a house in in 5 years. Sure. You
start to put together that money and that's that's what we're doing. And arguably that would be good fiscal practice to to plan ahead for those. uh one thing we can't plan ahead for is what market pressures may come to bear
on the cost of those improvements or or what uh those are planned for. So, I want to make sure that we're looking at that very closely from the standpoint of I don't know that any of us could have ever predicted we'd find ourselves in this situation. The cost of goods going
I mean fire trucks going up 53% in 5 years. Uh 30% increase in construction costs, labor increases of 12, 15, 20%. Um so hopefully we can try to get a better handle on that, you know, moving
forward. Mr. Chairman, if I may, just for clarification purposes, the reason why I'm concerned about carry forward is because once you have a decent number to actually build or replace what the carry forward is in deemed for, if you don't spend that money, inflation is going to
erode it. And so when the county has both enterprise funds and uh we call the general fund of $548 million of carry forward, it's time to look at the carry forward to see what needs to be spent instead of just holding on to it. So I
don't disagree with you and that's that's why I was so vocal on carry forwards 5 years ago. Mr. JS will tell you that or ask you know each department to go through and look if it's money that's encumbered and you plan to do a project and you were funded seven years
ago and you haven't started it yet. My opinion is if it was important enough seven years ago it'll be important enough two years from now. Uh come back and ask for but it needs to roll forward is tax dollars but when you get into that 2 threeyear period of time that is
good fiscal responsibility and planning for those those needs in the future. Um, finally, it has not been mentioned, but uh, you know, there's been a lot of talk about what the fire department does and and all the things it touches because
really my experience has been when nobody else in the county can handle it, it's the fire department that does it. Whether it's get the chainsaw out and go cut the tree out of the roadway, whether it's unplug the sewer drain during the middle of a storm. Um, but even saving
the dogs and cats from a fire and resuscitating them, uh, is fantastic. Um, it's not just about getting cats out of the top of the tree. It's, uh, you know, our our family members that sometimes are caught in these fires. And I I give your men and women of the fire
division uh kudos for being able to save those animals and and in many cases uh render emergency assistance that otherwise would not happen. So even snakes. Yes, exact it's exact. That's a
weird one. I don't understand all that. Um no, good work. So thank you all very much. If there's nothing else, we will move on to emergency management. And I'll just say one thing, Mr. Chairman, real quick, if I if I could, one thing that the the chief and I have talked about, we'll bring back to you this fall is our 5-year uh capital improvement
plan on these fire station placements and where they're going to go just to update the board and to ensure that we're all on the same page on where they need to go. We've been talking about that um recently and so we'll be bringing that uh back to you on that. When you bring that up, what kind of
multiplier is staff currently used in light of the cost escalations that we've seen over the last couple years? Are you using any kind of escalator as you move forward? So, the answer is yes. Uh, and we're doing that not only we're doing that with everything, but specifically
stations and apparatus, we have escalators in there predictive into the future. I think it's 3% right now for for stations uh because the the the construction prices seem to be leveling out. So yes, everything that we're doing, we have two very complicated
spreadsheets. Uh one for station constructions, renovations, one for apparatus, uh which do predict that out into eternity. Got it. Okay. Thank you. All right. We will move to emergency management,
Mr. Allen Harris's group. Speaking of it, it is the season, hurricane season. So What's the dapper look today? Look at this. Yeah. Brought some friends with me.
Okay. Uh Alan Harris, director of emergency management. Uh good afternoon, chairman of commissioners, county management, uh county attorney. Uh I have a few friends I brought with me today. uh division
manager Steven Lerner, uh division manager for emergency management. Our newest team member, uh Chris Stanco, division manager for uh animal services. Um Miranda Kay, uh she is our assistant 911 coordinator. Uh Dena Walker, our
division manager for 911 and addressing is on vacation this week. I let her go on vacation, so Miranda came with me. And uh everyone knows Tommy Oliveres uh been with the county for many many years uh for emergency telecommunications.
So the emergency management's total budget for fiscal 26 is $13.8 million, 75% from the general fund and 25% from special revenue funds. That includes the county's E911 and animal services. The general fund covers emergency management, animal control, emergency
telecommunication programs, and the E911 fund covers um the E911 service. There's a full line item budget for emergency management, which can be found on page 101 of your supplemental package or page 557 of your work session book. Base budget variances are primarily
attributed to increases in personnel costs and operating increases in the E911 fund. Capital budgets at the bottom include 270,000 for HVAC replacements at three of the county's emergency radio towers and approximately $1 million in technology projects in the E911 fund.
If we focus on just the base budget of the general fund excluding E911, the emergency management's total base operating budget is being held flat at $3.3 million. Tim, if you could stay on that just for one second. I just want to thank my division managers and team. um
we were able to keep uh to the county manager's uh direction at 0% but that uh just like the chief mentioned a few moments ago that's uh regardless of the increases we've had by our vendors our
large vendors like AT&T Motorola they have increased costs as their increased costs come came here we were able to uh fine-tune u make some efficiencies across the board in our operating budget and we were able to come actually a
little bit under uh 0% uh which was amazing and I want to thank my team members uh for their hard work in doing that. As mentioned uh we have five operating budget divisions uh addressing we address for all unincorporated Simino
County as well as Lake Mary and Longwood excuse me Lake Mary and Longwood pay us uh to address for them. So we provide addressing services for those two cities. Uh we have just uh had a request from Winter Springs uh to take on
theirs. We have not approached that yet. That's still a discussion we have to have at the county management level. Uh but uh they have entertained uh or asked us to entertain uh addressing for them. So as those addresses come in, it goes really to our next budget division and that is E911. E91 uh does all of the
technology for uh the two communication centers. our primary communication center at the sheriff's office and then our uh secondary communication center at the fire at EMS department. Uh so we manage all the infrastructure for that. Once of course the call comes in and it's been relayed, it goes to the other
division which is telecommunication which handles the 800 megahertz system. We are fully interoperable meahertz 800 mehertz systems here in Simino County. Uh many years ago, not many a few years ago Stoman Douglas of course occurred down in Broward County. very uh tragic
event. Fire, law enforcement couldn't talk on the same radio channels. I'm very proud to say that we have a robust system here. No matter what city, what county uh you're working in in this central Florida area, we can communicate uh because of our robust radio technology.
Then of course, emergency management overseas large-scale disasters, preparing, responding, recovering, mitigating from those disasters and animal services. Uh once the call comes in, uh the call is relayed to our animal control officers, which of course go out and deal with all types of events 247.
Uh we have a few different seminal moments that I'm pretty proud of. Uh we all got together and thought of different ways that we could possibly save uh the county some money, create some efficiencies, and one of the uh biggest ones is a portable mo mobile
radio conversion project to cellular. What this means is anyone that is not a first response entity like law enforcement, fire rescue, code enforcement, or animal control, moving them from the portable radios, and a portable radio costs anywhere from about
10 to $16,000 now. And we're being told that that will increase potentially 10% more due to the tariffs. So that's a lot of money just for one portable radio that's on a firefighter, law enforcement, which it needs to be for those folks. but maybe
not necessarily for public works or parks or places like that. So, we're looking at that nonreer non-response type of first response types of organizations moving them to cellular technology much cheaper um and much more efficient and we are looking at a
potential savings over the next couple years of about three to four million uh when we when we look at that just that particular seminal moment. Uh the next one is a dog enrichment yard. You will notice some efficiencies in our operating uh related to animal services,
some decrease in shelter supplies and some decrease in other areas of animal services. And we are looking to make that up through this efficiency very similar to if you've been to a hockey game or a baseball game and you see the outfield and it has Stanley Steamer. And
I'm using Stanley Steamer on purpose because they already donate with us. So, uh, but you see Stanley Steamer, Stanley Steamer would have that at our animal control area dog playyard and it would be there all year, we would make funds off of that, which would help to fund
some of our programming. Uh, we're looking at doing bulk commodity u for pet food. Uh, this is now that we have a nice warehouse where we can keep it uh clean and away from all any other animals and things like that. Uh, purchasing in bulk, that will help us
reduce some cost. And then the last efficiency, the last seminal moment is an adoption of dog run areas. I thought this was a really cool idea one of our staff came up with and uh each dog run very similar to the children's fun years ago. You for just for a cup of coffee,
you would get a picture of a child. They would get a picture of the dog that they're adopting inside the shelter until it is adopted out to a family. and that fund those funds would help to pay for anything that we need inside of the shelter.
Some highlights uh we have uh cyber security is a major issue when it comes to 911 and emergency management and emergency telecommunications. Uh 911 systems have been hit. 800 megahertz have been sit hit by cyber security. Uh we have done enhanced cyber security uh
at our tower sites, at our 911 center to make sure that we aren't attacked, but we always have bad actors that are trying to attack us. Uh as well as in the budget uh looking at how we can improve the security systems at each one of our nine tower sites. So we're
looking at enhancing that. We're also very proud uh uh that it's in the current budget uh for the computer aided dispatch and medical records. This is an enhancement to our chameleon which is how we track every animal that comes into the shel shelter for medical records and things like that. We have
quite a few challenges. We are no different than any other animal shelter really across the United States. If you go to any place, you're seeing the same thing and that is there's a lot of issues with overcapacity and it's it's hitting our
shelter very very hard. Uh we since 2016 have been a no kill shelter by definition, not by statistic. I'm not going to talk about that organization that came that one time, but by definition, we have not euthanized animal due to breed, space, or length of
stay. And we're very, very proud of that. And we've done a lot of innovative things through partnerships with organizations to keep that. But we are still busting at the seams. Ventilation and air uh HVAC is an issue inside of our shelter as it gets hotter each and
every year. We're in heat uh advisories now more than we've ever been before. It seems like this is an issue. We're working very closely with facilities. We have a temporary solution this year. We had a temporary solution last year. Uh this is a challenge for us uh for a
long-term solution. Uh our Ovido tower, this is the only tower that we don't own. The 800 meghertz tower in Ovido is the only tower that we don't own. it is stretch stressed beyond capacity. We will eventually need to move off of that tower potentially purchasing another
tower uh in the long run. So in the next couple years looking at how we're going to go and do that as infrastructure continues to build in Simino County and more buildings are built, we're experiencing more interference. Uh so uh we're looking we
want to over the next couple years get an interference scanning system and what this will allow us to do is identify where that interference is occurring so we can go to those building owners uh to stop that. The challenge is when we have interference and we just did this about
a year ago less than a year ago we were having some interference in the Altoont Springs area and it was due to a building that had just been built and they had put some repeaters inside that building. The challenge was whenever the firefighters and police officers got near that building, they were having interference. They couldn't talk
efficiently to each other. That's very, very dangerous. So, with this system, this system would be able to triangulate where that issue is occurring so we can go out and immediately handle it. And that's something that we like to do in the next year or so. And then, uh, the last one that's on the list, but I will talk about one more, but the last one
that's on the list is eventually we have to change portable and mobile radios, right? So, we have a big purchase coming up pretty quick. uh in the next three years and that is all fire and law enforcement. I won't stress you stress you out about that one right now, but we also have another one and that is the
jail radios, the correction officers. Uh and we're working with the sheriff's office to figure out how we're going to do that. And then the last challenge is the one I didn't put on here because I really don't know what I don't know and that is what is FEMA going to look like? That's going to be a challenge. I don't know if they're coming this year. I
don't I've been assured they are. But at what level are we going to get 100% back? We don't know. Is it going to be a 75 25% match? That seems to be the the flavor of Washington right now. So, it's just a a challenge because we don't know
what we're about to go into. So, I just need to with full disclosure bring that forward to you. I think that's my last. Anything else? Nope. That concludes the presentation. Perfect. All right. We'll start with Commissioner Constantine and
go to Commissioner Lockheart and we'll start back here and work our way that way. Other than thank you for everything that you and your staff do, whether it be the animal shelter or emergency preparedness, I know you are have some challenges working with some of the cities on getting uh you know um all of
the everything worked out. Um Mr. County manager, but outside of that, thank you very much for keeping your budget in line. Thank you. Chair Lockhart. Um, ditto. Thank you. But, um, I will
add I will add that, um, I had a citizen recently ask me when we were going to, um, air condition the Sunrail stations so that people could stand waiting for their train in air conditioning. And I thought, wow, I know, right? I'll tell
you later who it was. You'll laugh. And Lee, really? I would ask for fans. I'm not a big air conditioner guy, but I immediately thought of our shelter and thought if there's AC going in anywhere around here, that's it's where it's going
first. So, um, listen, you've got a bunch of animal lovers on this board. Um, there's there are just so many needs and I and I know because a little birdie told me your list was much longer than that. and and none of the things that
you thought would be appropriate were wrong. They're all great things and all things that we should um think about being able to do um for our community. That includes our our pets. So, um it's it's tough when you have to say no to
the things that you think would still be great things to do. So, um thank you again for the work that you do. And this might be a question for Tommy, I don't know, but um what would somebody be have in a building or what would I heard Allan say something about repeaters for
for someone who's not a techie person? Explain to me what it is that would be happening in these buildings that would cause that interference. Good afternoon everyone. Good afternoon board manager. That would be a repeater that you just said. And um we have this
new fire code that requires inbuilding services for first responders. At the same time, there is also the same repeater type system for cellular devices. We have that in this building here. Both cellular amplifiers and also
first responder radio system amplifiers. folks. The uh the first responder program ran through the um building department is permitted with the cellular side. There is no capturing of that. So any
owner, all they need to do is get online, do a Google search, find a cellular repeater, and have it installed. And what that does is they do not have the speaker specific band band pass filters. I don't want to get too technical. filters to filter out certain
frequencies. It amplifies the whole spectrum. So it basically just getting barged with signal. Hence our radios when we go in, we'll see that degregation. Got it. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that.
That's all I have. Commissioner, so for the love of heavens, I can't find it on the fly in the 7,000 pieces of paper that I have up here. Not my comfort zone. How much was the HVAC? The H uh so we initially had put in
$400,000. Uh it was way over that uh when we did the assessment. Uh do you remember what that was, Chad, for the Come on down. We can wait. I'm here. I think it's I think it's good context. Come on, Chad. I'll And so let me tell
you why I'm asking the question because Proactive change can save money in the long run. And we are over capacity, repeatedly over capacity. Part of that is the market. Part of that is the tail effect of COVID and everybody having a dog in their house and a cat in their
house. Part of that is when you go to adopt in our shelter and you're walking through there, you're not staying longer than you want to. And it's really a shortened inter interaction. when you go into some of not that I've ever done this when you go into some of the
neighboring facilities and it's not you hang longer you fall in love like it's a different game so we may end up adding capacity when really what we need to do is add air conditioning and oh by the way we have staff out there so that's my
thought process behind the question and I can elaborate too but go ahead you can first. Good afternoon, chairman, commissioners, and everyone. The So, the temporary service we have right now um is most likely going to run us for the
hotter months, probably between $200 $300,000 um for that service. the the reason that we are engaging in HVAC systems in the kennel buildings and Allan can share more directly on this is there's an 85
degree u temperature range that we have to to meet it's a code of f federal regulations so that's the that's why for the uh the temporary unit now we have looked at putting in a permanent solution because the temporary you know that's not the long long-term um goal
here the buildings. The electrical systems in the building to handle the electrical would need to be upgraded. We also would need to do an upgrade to the transformer to the building because we need to go to a phase three electrical system for the kennel buildings. We're talking upwards between three quarter to
a million dollars worth of work just in electrical HVAC system, the equipment itself. So, it depends on how we want to approach this. If we just want to get units in there based on an upgraded electrical um conf configuration for the Kindle buildings, we're talking about a little over a million dollars in
equipment. Um eventually if we want to hook it connect it to our chill water system, it's more than that. Um as well, we've also looked at uh had a building envelope consultant come out, take a look at the building itself to see um
looking at the you know, you've been in the kennels, can we lower the ceiling? Is there additional insulation we can do? And yes, we can do these things, but it's not going to get us to the 85 degree um mark. So, that's kind of where
we're at at this point. And and the the other thing that as you know, this board made it very clear to me that when we had the renewal of the penny, the fourth gen that this was one on our other projects list that we had because we know that this is important. So, when u Mr. Wilski came to me and told me all
these quick band-aid fixes that we could do that would cost us, you know, close a million, you know, of of of doing that. We're like, you know, let's take the whole project to the board and and that is coming to, as you all know, um that will be coming to you this fall, too, with all the list of projects that we would like to move forward on. We showed
you a little bit of it in March at the retreat that we had with you. This is on the uh on that list as well. If we're going to do it again, we might as well do it right the first time. at the next meeting July 22nd. Um Alan Harris and I and Trisha actually have been working on
the state of animal services. So we have a complete presentation that we want to bring back to you. Um really not for this budget, but you're going to be adopting but so we can start planning for for the future so to get direction on how we move forward with that as well. Great. Great. Thank you. Thank
you. That's awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Chad. My pleasure. Thank you for everything you all do and looking so dapper today. Allan, I just Commissioner Delorei. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would echo what the
other commission have said. By the time you put the electrical service in, by the time you do the building envelope, by the time you put the all the other things in, it'd be just as cheap to build a new building and you'll have something that you can actually use for a number of years instead of just putting a band-aid on it. So, I'd be
inclined of looking at it holistically like the other commissioners just stated and I think that's the right thing to do. Uh, I'm just concerned about the summer that's coming. So, I know you need to do something to make sure we're in compliance. I get that. But I think
that we should be operating post haste so that we're not here again next year trying to figure out why we're spending another $250,000 on just doing some spot cooling. Uh, I just want to clarify, Commissioner Delari. I I wasn't advocating building a new building. I
was I was around putting air conditioning in. So, with I'm just I know I know you weren't advocating for new building, but all I was stating was that by the time you do all the things you have to do, it may be cheaper to build a new building. That's what I was advocating for.
Uh, Alan, can you talk about the E911 uh fees, please? Sure. uh where they're at and who regulates them and can they be petitioned to be increased. Oops.
So, we get Go ahead. Just Good afternoon, Miranda K. Um 911 system support coordinator. Our 911 fees are set by the Emergency Communications Board in Tallahassee. That board's comprised of four coordinators, a sheriff, several people from around the state. Currently, we're at 40 cents per
phone line. Now that's a phone line who lives here. So in Semino County, how many people do we have that have moved here and go to UCF who are still on their parents phone plan back in Chicago? Their fees don't come to us. We are much lower than
others around the country and that being raised comes from the emergency communications board and that's something that has been talked about between the 911 coordinators association, both Nenina and APCO. What city was that in again? No, Tallahassee.
Yeah, they're in Tallahassee. Tallahassee. Yeah, I just want to point that out. Yeah, it's the reason why I was bringing it up. Thank you for that. Thank you. Uh Allan, can you also talk about uh I like the idea of doing non-emergency uh radios instead of doing
the 911 radios, but have you looked at resetting the B different band uh frequencies on non-emergency radios uh and instead of just going to cell coverage? Yeah, we have. So, we uh actually have looked at and we're we've
worked with Motorola on other types of technology, lower level radios that don't have all the bells and whistles uh of a first response radio. They're still quite expensive compared. Uh so, I mean, I've not done any analysis, but I know
you can do that. Yes. And we have and and the the cellular when we were asked to do this back uh at our leadership meeting three months ago, something like that. I wanted to bring the biggest bang for the buck and I think I won an award
uh for the biggest bang of the buck. That's no offense, but it was because we had looked at other and we could have gone with this other radio, but if we' gone with this other radio, it wouldn't have been three to four million. It would probably a million dollars. And then the next thing is uh I don't see in
the budget uh I'd like to understand your warehouse use and your cost of your warehouse. Okay. Can you can you go over that? Uh sure. So uh we have um we rent uh multiple warehouses. Uh one for animal
services. Uh animal services warehouse uh includes food um litter all the all the stuff. uh you know, crates and I was just in it yesterday actually. Um and then emergency management, that's where we have all of our medical CS talking
about increases. Our medical cuts just went up from $200 now to $450 per medical cut. So to get replacements of medical cuts, that's what it is. So um uh and and all the other emergency supplies, uh the functional needs
support services and things like that. Uh emergency telecommunications has a warehouse that's where they keep all of the supplies for the tower sites. We get hit by lightning or a big piece of metal sticking up in the air. So whenever we get hit by uh uh you know lightning that
one of our techs goes out whoever's on call to figure out what's going on may have to do some repairs and all that's where all of our supplies are are kept at least a majority of the supplies are kept some are kept at the public safety building. And then uh we also rent for uh Joe's group uh information technology
and they keep some of their uh supplies out at at their square foot. What's the number of square footage that you actually lease? I'd have to get back with you on the exact square foot for each one. And can you get me the cost for each one, please? Sure. Of course. Okay. And then my question is Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, if I could just add into that. It's a good
question. And as if you remember back in March, what we talked about, we're working on an analysis now about all of our lease space, warehouse space, and that we can uh condense all of that on our fivepoint site. So that will that's in the plan to coming back to you as well. Thank you.
Well, in the interest of time, I'm not going to go into anything. Thank you very much. Good work. Keep up the great work and I hope we have an uneventful uh hurricane season. Thank you very much. That concludes our morning se session. Next up is going to be our development
services, Mr. Jose Gomez. All right, welcome Jose. Thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners. Jose Gomez development. Pull that mic up a little closer there. Jose, eat it. Jose, Jose Gomez, Development Services. And didn't sound right. Did not sound right.
And with me is Lorie Makes, our our financial manager. Um, and I'll let Tim get started with the presentation. The development services total FY26 budget is $10.98 million. 42% of that is in the general fund which covers growth
management, planning and uh development services. We have the building fund is 55% and 1.6% is related to our arbor violation fund. Full line item budget for the department is on page 114 of your supplemental
package or 573 of your work session book. Of the increase in personnel services showing $874,000, approximately 560,000 of that is related to the code enforcement program being transferred uh to Jose's department.
That's includes six FTEEs. The increase in operating shown here is primarily related to the arbor violation fund because uh the total base budget uh including building and general fund within the development services
department is um reducing by $138,000. Okay. So this is the structure of the department currently. We have building development review engineering and under growth management that really breaks out into uh planning and development um our business office and then um code enforcement that's being brought on
board. So if we move forward to our seminal moments, we actually looked uh at a couple of things to to help to streamline things. The first one I'm very excited about is uh to create a one-stop shop. Uh really right now our
our uh permit intake and our administrative services for planning and development and building are separate. Um one on the first floor, one on the second floor. Um we need to send uh customers up to the second floor to talk about variances and other things and then they get sent back to the first floor. From a customer service
standpoint, slam dunk makes sense, but it's also going to give us an opportunity to kind of consolidate those services, provide some uh some cross trainining for staff to be able to help our our residents. um and also uh be able with our Excella implementation,
which is our new permitting software that that we're working on right now. Uh as that comes on board, that'll help streamline some of those services as well. Um and the other thing that it does is that it'll allow us to reallocate some of the space on the second floor for some of the incoming
staff specifically for code enforcement and some other needs. We also looked uh inter interdep departmentally uh with uh specifically with our public works department on our engineering services really hard to recruit uh positions. Uh uh right now we
there are things where we can um partner on and also potentially look at how we distribute uh staff between these two departments and uh that'll allow us to you know stay nimble reallocate some FTEEs potentially and uh and streamline
our services across departments. So our significant budget highlights and challenges uh really the biggest challenge we have uh is decrease in development and building activity uh reduced revenue uh this chart shows the fiscal year 23 24 and 25 through May
21st 2025 you can see that there is a a decline there's a decrease uh both in our general fund uh with planning and development development review engineering uh revenue uh it's not dire but it is decreasing
and same thing with the building enterprise fund uh you could see fiscal year 23 24 there's been a decrease and then through uh May of of 2025 you can see what's been collected and with a projected uh we're we're looking at revenue shortfall of about $500,000 it
seems like which again not dire but definitely a decline. Um, so that pretty much concludes our presentation and open up for any questions. Great. We'll start with Commissioner Her. I have nothing. Thank you for everything
you do and thank you for letting our citizens not have to walk up and downstairs in the elevator and it's been that way for years and I don't get it. But so that's awesome. Commissioner Delori, thank you. Uh, Jose, I know that you're fairly new in
your position, so this may have to go to someone else. uh there's been a reserve in the development review and as the projects are not coming in that reserve is going down when is it projected because I don't see the projections of
it in future years and how do you plan to address that so in building uh currently our reserves are currently at 3.5 million approximately we anticipate that that's going to be decreasing to about 2.3 million
uh in the next year. Uh really at some point we're going to have to look at balancing our our fees potentially and to make sure that we're keeping up with uh with inflation. We haven't looked at our fees since 2019. That's one way to to to do that and then u just manage
that also. Um but normally like with DRC, you can actually see what's actually coming in. Sure. So if you don't see enough that's happening with either economic development or with the redevelopment, uh I don't know because I don't see it from your perspective
what's actually taking place in the marketplace. in the marketplace right now. We're definitely seeing a a decrease especially in in our in in Semino County of larger developments just because there isn't as much land and where people do want to u put
projects. It's generally in the more environmentally sensitive areas where uh we don't necessarily want them at the higher densities that are coming in. So, it is a challenge. It's not that we're not having pre-applications. We have lots of pre-applications coming in. A
lot of them are just the, you know, we're having to tell them because of our restrictions, because of our environmental regulations that there really isn't the right place or or at that at that density, it won't work. So, I wouldn't say that we have a that we
don't have that development has completely died off. It's just the ones that do come in, it's just difficult to find the the correct place for them. Thank you. Mr. Constain, thank you very much. Um,
but redevelopment, do we see an uptick in redevelopment? We've seen some. Um, again, one of the things that we may have to discuss in the future is that a lot of times when people come in for redevelopment, they they're coming in for something and it still needs a special exception or it
needs a reasonzoning, a PD amendment. Um, and it's very it's it can be cumbersome at times to to go through that re through go through those processes for redevelopment. Um, but that's something that we need to watch in the future and and make sure that uh
and possibly partner with economic development as well so that we can uh provide some incentives, not necessarily financial incentives, but just reducing the red tape and reducing the the steps that people have to go through in order to redevelop those properties. Streamlining. Yes. Correct. you know,
not not necessarily making it easier, just streamlining, making sure that people know where to go one step at a time uh in redevelopment because I think all of us have said and including yourself, including the county manager, that that that's that's where we're going. We're going to do because we
don't have the land any longer, because we're the third largest or smallest county in the state and the third most densely populated, we're going to have redevelopment. And quite frankly, that is a good thing. we're going to be able to improve what we um maybe 30 years ago
wish we hadn't approved, but now we're going to be able to approve good redevelopment. Um and in that light um I do believe like you said um we have talked about this before, we don't want to get behind in the fees. We don't want to get behind in the impact fees and I
think it's time that we you know uh as we're searching for revenues people paying for the services that we provide is in my opinion the first way first thing we should look at and and so since we've haven't looked at the fees since
2019 I think we should look at them um since we I think the impact fees last time we talked we always wanted to look at them every five years it was three three years huh it was It was three. It's time. Yep. It's time. So, I think that we need to start doing that and
looking at that. And quite frankly, I think we talked in the past about the the the building fees versus the general fund. Um, a number 6040 would be the best. Um I I I don't remember if or recall if that was during when all of us
were here but I do know that we wanted to have a um you know I not a hard and fast formula but at the current time I think building funds at 50 almost 56 general funds at 42 you know I mean it's it's getting closer but the 6040 was
something that I know that would be you know that we've discussed before so with that that's all I have to say congratulations on continuing to, you know, streamline and keep the budget down. Mr. Lockart, I'm going to ask Lori to help me
remember the customer resource center when it was down in the area that's now there was a gal that worked there who was the friendliest, most knowledgeable, fabulous person.
And we she was let go during the the elimination and the downturn in 2007. Yes. Help me. What was I'm Sum Kraken. Suma Kraken. Can we find her and tell her that we're so sorry. We made a
mistake and we need her to come back. Um she was phenomenal. We had a we had a great system working back then. And so I'm glad to see that we're getting back to that idea of having um a of a
one-stop shop down there that can help people get to where they need to go without having to go past a security guard. Um that's awesome. Thank you, Sue McCracken. Um, I want to talk a little bit about code enforcement because we talked about it earlier when the sheriff was up here and there were some
questions about um budgeting and funding and where um how we came up with the uh proposed budget for code enforcement and so I did get a chance to talk to Chief Spriggs um out on the porch on after the
meeting and um upon further conversation that 527,000 is not their all-in number for code enforcement. and they did not provide us the the all-in number. Um, so that she said she's going to send that I
believe maybe with some additional information that Mary Hope is going to help her pull together. But if you could just help walk us through what we included. I know we we have history. Um, but I just want
to make sure because if you only look at if the sheriff says he spent $527,000 a year on code enforcement and now we're rolling it in and it's a million, it looks like what what what are you doing county commission, but that 527 was not an all-in number. So, can you just walk us through that budget? That's correct.
And the one thing I want to point out is that we provided the support services for code enforcement. We provided the code clerk. We provided the special magistrate. All of those things are currently in the development services budget and all of those things are getting carried over and we're bringing
over the personnel. So, we've got the personnel, we've got the uh all of the operating budget in our budget for code enforcement. Uh the only thing we didn't put in there was uh like the capital outlay for the new vehicles because those are being transferred from the sheriff's office. But we've basically
got our all-in budget here for code enforcement with personnel and operating and it breaks down to 734,596. I'd like to add that the we we set up the six FTEEs within uh Jose's budget. We worked with our HR department to make sure they had the correct pay band and
then our office OM uh budgets all of the salaries and benefits um just based on our standard process. Uh Jose's team identified the operating budget, but we at this time do not have um those internal charges that you were talking about. We don't have charges for fleet in here or or it. So, we're still
building it. They have to go through our internal service departments to review, but those are the budgets that we have. Okay. And and also, I want to say I it's not that the sheriff's office was keeping those numbers from us. They just don't track them like we do. And but they have offered to pull them together for us so that we can have a better um
applesto apples comparison. And so I I didn't I realized as I was replaying that in my head, it sounded like I was implying that they had done some they were trying to hide something and that was not that was not the implication. Ladies, I'm so sorry. But thank you. I just when the public
looks at it, if the I hope the public would actually look at it, do you think they'll even they won't they're not even going to look at it, but um if someone were to ever want to look at that comparison, they may wonder why the number changed so drastically. So thank you for that explanation.
That's all I have. You have something? Just one thing. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And to uh to answer Commissioner Constantine's question about fees, we actually started, if you remember last year during the budget work sessions, we're starting to look at the building fund. We knew a couple years out, Mr. Jackson and I have talked about it as
well that it is declining a little bit. But what you all don't see is not a lot of stuff doesn't come to the board during public hearings. A lot of their activity is just normal activity that c that comes through. And that is what we are looking to ensure um that the right fees are balanced with with that. So
that's something that we have on the list this year that Mr. Gomez, myself and Mr. Jex will be working on um to see if we are out of balance or not, but that that is on our list. Okay. Good. I'd also add that we did freeze positions in the building fund. We saw the challenge coming. So we're looking
to uh control costs on the expenditure side as well. Okay. Great. I have nothing. Thank you all very much. I hope our development services increase. Next up is community services, Miss Allison Thaw
and her team. Are you sure? [Music] Good afternoon, ladies. Good afternoon, commissioners. We had hoped to had you on right after lunch, but this is close enough. This
will work. Yeah, close enough. Did you want to introduce everyone? Um, welcome to my team. Um, I have with me my um my division managers for you'll see in a moment, my divisions. I have Carrie Longworth for with community assistance. I have Stacy Smithwick. She is my
financial manager. I have to Diaz over my uh community development of course. Kelly Welsh, community health. So the community services FY26 budget request is $21 million. At the time of the printing of this document, uh 73% is
from the general fund and 26% is from special revenue, which includes our opioid settlement money. Uh there are 53 FTEEs in the budget with no proposed changes going into FY26. Um what's missing from this budget is uh
is the FY25 budget included $10 million for federal and state grants. Um we typically get those grant agreements identified during the summer and we'll be back uh to include them in the budget as part of the um public hearing process. Uh the if you look on the base budget um
the grants and aids line is going from 15.3 million down to 11.9 million. That reduction is an accounting adjustment related to how we're tracking our opioid funding where we had fully budgeted the revenues in uh in expenditure lines in fiscal 25. But moving forward, we'll
only be budgeting the amounts we anticipate to spend during the fiscal year. The remaining amounts will be going into reserves. If you focus on just the general fund, the community services base budget is being reduced by $27,000
from 11.7 to 11.5 million in FY26. So, as we just mentioned, um this is community services. We do have our five areas, our three divisions plus our business office and of course our veteran service office. Um so with respect to seminal moments uh community
services has identified three seminal moments. Thank you Tim. Um that will directly impact um next fiscal year. First is actually the non-renewal of a longstanding agreement that the county has had with Central Florida Regional Hospital, otherwise known as HCA. This
agreement was originally put in place in 1980 to provide indigent care services to our residents. Over the past 40 years, countywide indigent care services have expanded immensely and continue to be supported by multiple providers and sources, including our health
department, True Health, our healthcare responsibility act program, and with our mandated Medicaid contributions. So, the cost savings that are associated with this action are about $362,412. Our second seminal moment is tied to our
annual contribution that we make to the Agency for Healthc Care Administration low-income pool. Central Florida Family Health Centers, again known as True Health, locally, benefits from this contribution to help offset their uncompensated care. We are realigning
our contribution to reflect Seol County's population, thus resulting in a cost savings of about $195,254. Our third seminal moment is more of an operational direct service efficiency. I am recommending that we return our
outsourced permanent supportive housing for the chronically homeless that is now being provided by Aspire Health Partners back into community services. Over the past 24 months, our current provider has decreased the level of service while increasing their operating costs. We're
currently spending just over $28,000 to outsource this program. By bringing it in house, we estimate that our staffing costs will be about $148,000. The street outreach portion will run about 60,000 in the efficiency, which includes a larger number of clients
served and a higher quality of service provided actually results in a budget neutral impact. So some of our significant highlights and challenges, we have three highlights and challenges. Our first, so as a result of the seed funding that we
received um in the amount of $2 million from our American Rescue Plan award, this was earmarked specifically to address um affordable housing. We implemented a revolving credit program that assisted developers in specializing in affordable housing construction. This
is proven to be very successful um as a total of over 20 affordable homes are have either been fully constructed or and or occupied or are currently under construction. Also, with the passage of the vacation rental
registration resolution, our our general housing trust fund is now collecting fees that are generated from this instrument. So, next, to help address the budget constraints, I am offering to return the community services assistance, our CSA
program, um, award each year our annual allocation back to our fiscal year 2324 rate of $842,233. Our current allocation this year was $1 million. So this roll back will result in a cost savings of $157,767.
[Music] And then lastly, to address the need for the enhanced support to our homeless homelessness funding, my recommendation is to adjust our current homelessness funding contribution from 33% of our CSA
budget allocation to 50% of our CSA budget allocation. Doing so would result in the homeless shelters receiving a 17% increase in funding and the nonprofit organizations would receive a 17% decrease in available funding. Our
funding formula for the shelter beds should remain the same, which of course is the percentage of beds per shelter. And that concludes my presentation. Great. We'll start with Commissioner Lockhart.
All good things. Um I appreciate um the recommendations that you made and I I think that they're um we're we're still going to be able to be nimble probably more nimble than we have been in some of those areas. Um the
one thing it's things seem keep coming back to you facilities a little bit but we've we had talked about trying to colllocate and get your team to a a different facility out of reflections.
What does what happens? Where are we with that? Yeah. Where are we? That's a Chad question or Chad and we have all those coming up in two more presenters. Yeah. I So, okay, we'll hold that for Chad. But I that is
something that has been on my my I drive by my traffic pattern goes in front of reflections regularly and I think about y'all and I wonder like where how how close we are to getting that done. So that'll be helpful not just for you but for your your
customers for sure. So um I love the idea of changing the allocation of the CSA dollars. I think um we're going to hear potentially if we go with that recommendation a little bit of um squealing from some folks, but I think it's it directs the dollars where they
need to be directed right now. So thank you, Commissioner Her. I have a few questions. Um, could you just explain how the Central Florida Regional Contract saves us money? What did the contract do
for the HCA HCA agreement? That was that was specifically for um count um county residents, city seminal county residents who were low-income who were qualified as indigent and they received they
received care at HCA. that was the only hospital that we had this program with and they we would receive applications um periodically. It wasn't heavily used. Um, but
the reason that we actually are recommending this is is primarily because a it's a 40-year-old agreement that addresses specifically Medicaid and we know HCA is receiving Medicaid reimbursement from many different areas
and it's the only hospital that we have this special agreement with. Let me make the question clearer. Sorry. How did the cash exchange hands? Where does the savings come from? we won't pay them anymore.
We represented that we're going to save 350 grand, right? Uh good afternoon, commissioners. So, once we uh qualified someone, the hospital would submit an application and they would submit us a bill. Excuse me, I'm just getting over being sick. Um and then we would actually cut the hospital a check. It
was based on the Medicaid formula on the I just wanted that on the record. Yes, this has to stop. There's just no two question no question about it. I do also appreciate the change in funding to keep heads in beds uh especially given the new legislation passed at the state
level. Um the 148,000 plus the 60,000 to move stuff inhouse. I'm going to ask Commissioner Lockhart's question in reverse to us. Is that fully allocated? I'm sure it is, Tim. It just sounds low.
Oh, the Yes, that's the full cost of two positions with overhead. two positions with all overhead and all the stuff. Okay. Yes. And I think amazing work on the cost reductions and really no service reduction. Correct. It's great work.
Commissioner Constine, just one question that and first of all I agree you're doing an incredible job. I'm I'm so proud of you and and Kelly with the opioids. I'm I'm you know just amazed at how well you all are doing. Um
when you're coming to the approval of the vacation rental registration resolution. Great. Allowing the fees to be collected and applied to the general housing trust fund what's happening now. I thought that's what we were doing. So explain you know.
Well we did not have the formal resolution until just recently. So, I believe his we have historically had some transfers into the trust fund from the vacation rental fees, but we we formalized it by way of the resolution.
And I I So, Tim, help me out here. I think that she's looking at you, too. I I can confirm every dollar that's received in uh that vacation rental account line gets transferred into the um housing trust fund. Okay. It's done um as a follow-up. We see what was
collected the prior year and then we move it over. I just was confused when you know when that was there when I thought that's what we were doing. That's what we're doing. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Glory. Allison, I think you and your group are doing a phenomenal job. Keep on doing what
you're doing. I have no comments. Thank you. Hello. Very good. Keep up the great work. Thank you very much. We appreciate your attention to detail in bringing this in at savings this year. Good work. Mr. Chairman, I do have one follow-up
question. Commissioner Lockart on the um Central Florida Regional um contract. Have we received a response from them and when we not notified them of that change? We did not. We we contacted them through certified mail and we received no feedback whatsoever. Okay.
my historical knowledge on that and it's um all hearsay and rumor. Uh there might be some folks that were here longer than I've been here that could remember, but my understanding was it had something to do in exchange for for this building. When we moved into this building, there was some consideration with that. Is
that part of that? Is that what you have learned or is that county attorney? My office did look at that issue and worked with what is now the real estate staff trying to evaluate because there was some talk of that being an issue and we did not find that
memorialized in writing anywhere. Okay. So, if it's out there, I would be happy to look at it, but we were not able to find that. Oh, I'm not sure it was necessarily in writing. It probably would have been some conversation at a late night county commission meeting that was, you know, before any of us
were here. Long reason. Correct. Well, it was not memorialized in writing, so it didn't prevent us from terminating that agreement. Got it. Wonderful. Okay. Thank you so much. Anything else on community services? See
none. Thank you all very much. Next up is Mr. Durr and Parks and Recreation. something fast. I didn't even see that happen. And you you're going to want to pull those microphones close so we'll be able
to everybody hear you. I think I think it's over. I think it's over. Good afternoon. Is this good? That's good. And good afternoon for the record, Rich Victor, director of parks and recreation department. With me to my right is Michael Worzing, the deputy director. And to my left, the person who can
basically runs the show, uh, Jacqueline Masselene, who I'm sure I butcher the pronunciation of your name every time I introduce you, so I apologize in advance. So, the parks and recreation total FY26 budget request is $30.1 million. 80%'s
in the general fund. It funds parks, natural lands, and libraries. The 8% sales tax figure is for um lighting efficiency improvements at some of the county parks. Then we have 9% for the Wakiva golf golf course fund which is budgeted to be self- sustaining in
fiscal 26 with no transfer from the general fund. The full line item of the parks and recreation department can be found on page 139 of your supplemental packet or 385 of your work session document. The total budget for the department is
reducing from 33.3 million to 30.1 million in fiscal 26, a reduction of 9.5%. If we focus just on the uh general fund and tourism fund excluding special revenues, the total base budget of the
department is remaining flat at $10.2 million. So on your screen is pretty much our functional working diagram. It includes our four divisions including parks, recreation, libraries and extension services and again our business office as well as our trail development which
is all inhouse in terms of the services we provide. Can we go to the next slide? So starting off with the seminal moments. This is something that we have been working on for some time and looking at. Um this is the effective replacement of our existing infrastructure in terms of our
sports lighting. If we look at where we spend or where we have our some of our highest overhead, if you will is the operation of the of these lights um at our sporting facilities. The um there's actually six facilities on the list. We're missing a bullet in the middle of uh on that list of the the facilities
that we've been looking at. But essentially, these light this lighting technology is about 30 plus years old. Um to the point where it is costing an exorbitant amount of money to keep that system running. What we're looking at is then changing out those uh that
infrastructure with the type of infrastructure that we have at the two booma complexes right now. So, we're not talking about redoing those. It's upgrading to uh LED sports lighting technology at some of our busiest facilities here in the county. So, we go to the next slide. That's an example of
what those look like at the two booma complexes. Uh earlier this year, we brought a contract uh forward to you with a competitively bid uh lighting package with Musco Lighting. Um, we worked out a way to be able to have this
technology improved and switched out as a capital improvement over the next two years without work with working around our tournament uh and seasonal structure so that we're not shutting anything down for any uh length of time and be able to work that out with Musco as well. The bottom line is is that not only will it
improve facility safety, it will keep us current with the rest of the market where we do have tournaments and economic impact tournaments at these at a lot of these facilities. Um, but really what it's going to do at a conservative level is start to reduce our utility costs at these uh facilities
by a minimum of about 35% as these things come online. Um, right now we're spending about $75,000 plus just in maintenance alone on this existing infrastructure. And again, this is outdated infrastructure. We've heard some uh anecdotal uh evidence of parts
that had to be found on online to try to be able to supplement some of the technology that we have out there. So, uh a lot of different um uh effects and positive effects towards our general fund. Primarily being we're basically going to reduce our overhead at these facilities as we continue to operate
them going forward. The second seminal moments was really looking at an existing fund that we have right now that is funded which is the seminal forever program. As we've talked about in the past, the uh natural lands bond fund that has sustained us for a very long time. The uh the dollars that were
remaining in that program are currently being used to match a grant to replace some structures out at uh Spring Hammock Preserve that's under construction as we speak. We have the ability to use some of that already budgeted dollars for needs that we have at some of our natural lands properties right now,
which is allowable underneath the ordinance. And part of that also includes taking an existing FTE for our program manager who works on our budget to you name it, uh, all of our leisure guides and so forth. Sort of our catchall. Right now, that individual is spending about half their time to
administer the first year of this program. So, we've got the the opportunity to potentially split fund her position as she continues to work on that and save at least uh the current um general fund some dollars in that general overhead.
Other budget highlights that we're looking at right now and part of this is also looking at efficiencies. We've been working with um public works and facilities at a centralized way at which we can both manage projects going forward and a more efficient way of
doing so as well as how we um manage our assets across the county. So, you name it, everything that we currently own that's in the ground and above and above our heads, uh an ability to go ahead and proactively and efficiently program in everything from uh proactive maintenance
and to basically be able to to um manage that system a more effective way and take and give our u u our staff additional tools and current tools to be able to do so and do so using a platform that's similar across the board with other departments. So, we've been
working with it on those about over the last year. Um, our lightning prediction and warning system that we have at a number of our parks throughout the county has aged out and we're looking at needing a replacement of that to bring that current. Thankfully, that
technology has also improved. So, we be improving public safety. Um, we've got some uh public some scoreboards out at the softball complex that continue to uh basically run to the end of their life uh where they literally just stop working. They are 30 plus years old uh
and we're slowly replacing those. And then we've got the the uh a proposal from our consultant to do the phase 2 design of Deer Run Park that I know everyone will be looking for. We've got a master plan in place. We now have a um a cost on what that would cost to do the
engineering for the rest of the particular project. That's waiting in the wings and we'll be bringing something back on that back to you at a future date. Some of our budget highlights and challenges for this particular year is just the cost of doing business and you've heard the consistent themes throughout the course of the day. Um
just the increases of our utility our utility bills at our various locations throughout the county alone over the last 5 years has gone up more than 25%. uh land landscape maintenance contracts which we have a number of them when we had outsourced all of that work um
continues to work well for us however is that once those contracts expire and we need to competitively bid them for a new contract they never go down so they in get increased and they usually get increased at the worst possible time which is right in the middle of a fiscal year um that one particular contract had
gone up and it's been approved and is now in operation um that increased about $130,000 dollars. We found a way to absorb that within our current operating budget to offset that increase. Um we've got various end of life replacements and while we talk about facilities and
buildings, a lot of the things that we have inside those buildings are also aging out. So if you look at the um just the furniture in our libraries alone, we've been trying to find ways to replace that over time. We found ways to work with the friends of libraries to replace shelving and so forth. Um but we
do have we are in the need of doing a full-blown refresh of that system. some of these things which are 40 plus years old. The state aid to libraries program which a lot of communities depend on and we are one of them as well. Um that's not an insignificant amount of money.
There is some concern that we may see that program start to either cycle down or yield less results back to the individual community. So we're going to continue to monitor that and what the pressure that could do on future budgets. Our existing programs thankfully are in high demand and
continue to be in high demand. When we when we now advertise for our summer camps, for example, for our eco camp, we now sell out about 20 minutes and we do that in February. So well in advance. Um we are looking at ways to go ahead and increase the capacity of those and do so
hopefully as a revenue neutral kind of a kind of a situation including the use of other facilities throughout the county which may not be county owned. and with some creative thinking to be able to have agreements with other entities to be able to use those facilities. And
last but not least is um a term that's that's used frequently is the shiny new things that anytime that we plan for either a brand new facility or something being redeveloped or coming online, we've got to make sure that we bring those operational dollars back to you.
Now, the good news part on the rolling hills and the Deer Run uh portions of that is we're already maintaining those properties at the level we would a park. So, those are already in our budget. However, if we were then to open up the Deer Run building, for example, and staff that, that's obviously an
increase. So, we need to make sure that we've got a handle on what those costs are. We have funding models for what those look like. It's just a question of when. Um lastly with the conversations about the indoor complex as we were back before you last month um that obviously is we're bringing together a refined
building program and capital budget that we're also refining what our staffing model and what our operational expenses are expected to be for those facilities. So again anything new that we're bringing back before you again we need to make sure that we're accounting for the required maintenance and upkeep of those facilities as well as they will
impact our general fund. That concludes our presentation. Thank you very much. We'll start with Commissioner Delari. Thank you, Rick. I'm glad that you're uh updating the uh lightning protection and warning
systems. I was amazed to learn from other counties that not every county has them. I was surprised to hear that. I thought that was a regulation that was required. So, kudos to you all. Uh definitely want to say thank you to your entire staff. Uh they do a phenomenal
job. Uh not just as we see it, but as the citizens see it and maintaining their facilities. I think that uh on so many levels, they do a great job. And uh not every time they hear it because they're definitely in the weeds in the
weeds dealing with it. So, uh, you talked about a couple contracts that are coming up mid mid year. Is there any way to normalize them to come up, uh, in our own budget cycle so that we could be prepared? Is that possible?
I I'm sure it probably is, but we we know when these contracts come up, and I'm sure what what Rick was mentioning that we probably did put a an increase in there. We just didn't know how big the increase was going to be. All I was saying is if it's possible to normalize them. So they're in our own schedule. If that's possible, that's great. If not,
leave it as is. Sure. But, uh, kudos to you all. You're all doing a great job. Thank you. No other comment. Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Her, I'll offer up a a thought on that normalizing stuff to the fiscal year because this happens in the in the
benefits space relative. the clients that I have that have their benefits year off of their fiscal year only have a half of an impact of that increase in that fiscal year. So having it off cycle as long as we're good planners actually smooths out the rough years. Um when we
say Waka is self- sustaining is that due to deferrals of any sort and are we fully allocating all of our cost? So is a portion of Rick's salary allocated into that expense etc. I said the FY26
budget was budgeted as self-sustaining. Um, it it is operational. I heard that. That's why I'm asking the question. It doesn't include any capital maintenance or improvements in the FY26. So, it's really not correct. It's we're just holding steady for a year.
Our our contract that we have with our provider, that's what we watch like a hawk and make sure that we are self-sustaining at least that contract since we have outsourced that management piece. So, yes, but There's screens fees. Correct. Right. Very good. This is
a cash generating operation. That's correct. And so if we're pretending that it's self sustaining when it's not self- sustaining and we're not raising the rates every year for people to play on a course that's probably got minimum tea times available, then we're missing out.
And I would rather do it slowly over time. It's better for the residents than do our normal let's wait for 10 years and then whack them upside the head. So I think the accounting on it ought to be truthful and not not that it's not
truthful but fully transparent, fully allocated, fully loaded so we really know what's going on with these. Understood. So that that's just not a that's not a sustainable model. I do love what you've done with seminal forever plan. I actually think it
secures the sustainability of that program to start looking at how we self contain the cost there. Um so so I'm fully supportive of that. Great work as always. I always feel bad for the libraries. Um but we're just going to
have to continue feeling bad for the libraries. Thank you. Okay. Well, I mean, Commissioner Lockheart, I think there might be some sales tax money to help them out with some things. That would be fabulous. I think Yeah,
I'm exc I'm looking forward to those conversations. And real quick, we've already, and this is another Chad issue, we have really worked hard on our libraries this this past two years with HVAC and the roof replacements at a lot of our libraries. Yeah.
Yeah. Um, ditto on the golf course conversation. the golf course company that we are contracting with now. Have we had conversations with them about um our
expectations with uh how do I say this? Yeah, I'm trying to figure it's late in the day so I'm just going to say it. They had that D violation pumping water into the lakes in in Sanford. Did we tell them don't try that stuff over in
the Waka? Yes. So they've been put on notice. Don't screw it up. But I think even before it came before the board, we had had that conversation with them. Yes, that's the 3:35 in the afternoon version of that question. The scary part is I understood exactly what you were saying. Yeah. Okay. I appreciate that.
That's great. Um, great job as always. I I do think so. I do I do feel a little guilty sometimes when I talk about parks and recreation because I still feel an attachment for that year and a half that I was based out of that I was thrown out
to parks and wreck. Get out of here. Go over there. Um and and I just I I grew to have such an affinity for the work that is done and the way that that team um accomplishes so much and and the it's it's just a different quality of
life service that's being provided for our citizens that no other department in this county has the opportunity to participate in. And so I I do feel a a little attachment there. I think that there is an opportunity maybe philosophically to have a conversation
not today but down the road about giving a dedicated millillage to parks and libraries because they always do get left out and so when the increases occur they are always the gum on the bottom of the shoe and it's just it just
I just think it's just sucks. It's also the 3:35 in the afternoon as well. So for for for another conversation another day, that might be something we need to talk about. Good. I think I should be good. You
should you sure you don't want to go further? Oh, come on, Commissioner Lockard. I know. It's so much fun. twister across the theme. To say it another way, your department is what makes people the easiest way to make people
see the quality of life in Semino County and and that's so important to all of us. I mean whether it's the trails, whether it's the libraries, I hear it all the time. Whether it's, you know, going to have the softball tournament, uh, that, you know, tourism is putting together and you all are doing it and,
you know, it's just the whole thing. So, um, now the seminar forever also just just, you know, what I hear is is is so it makes the people feel like they're connected to their county.
So, in talking about that, I I do know that we are starting to talk about showing off finally after getting all the roads together, potentially Rolling Hills. Um, I can't tell you how many times and
not in Rolling Hills, but outside of Rolling Hills, people continue to come up and say, "Hey, when's that going to start? When's that going to start?" And I know that we're looking at it and I think that that can be a showcase for everything else that's coming if we can start providing that visual that true
visual. So I'm excited about that. So I'm I'm really looking forward to that happening. I also but I want to go back to Wakiva also because um you know it is yeah you know the I remember the the auditor saying it's really not making
you know it's not breaking even like you all keep saying and I get it because we're not putting true costs in there. Um, but I do know that we're that we're every time we get a few dollars, we're putting in improvements here, putting we've talked about some of the things that we need to do. But one of the
things that I haven't heard in a long time is when you first you first took me on on a tour of that. We went upstairs and you said, "Man, I could really use this for for meetings and and opportunities." And I still hear some
some folks that use it from time to time for whatever bridge or whatever the case may um saying, you know, when are we going to get that improved? So I don't want to start spending money on something till making, but when where where is that in the in the big picture?
So that will be presented along with some of the other facilities uh items that we've been working with Chad and his team on. Um, not to kick that one down. Yeah. To the next presenter, but um, really at this particular point, uh, facilities was able to go through there last summer, do some at least some
cosmetic improvements, some changing out or some refresh of that room. Um, the thing that that our primary barrier at this particular point is literally a barrier in the fact that there is no elevator to the second floor. That's what I was going to say. So, so at this point, we've looked at a number of different options with what we've what
we could possibly do with the existing building and where that could be located. So we have quotes from everything from a chairlift to an actual elevator that would be put on potentially located on the outside of that building, the outside of the room to allow for the delivery of service
both up down upstairs and downstairs. So that's really what we're waiting on next. Um the the good news part of that is even with the refresh that was done upstairs as well as work that was done on the HVAC system last summer up there, we are seeing increased use just because
of from a comfort standpoint of the folks that are at at the golf course and our uh management company able to feel more confident about the ability to rent that space out. So, yeah, we've seen an uptick in in use and even though we're in Florida, am I wrong to remember a
beautiful um fireplace and everything in there? It's there. I mean, it's just gorgeous. Yes. Yes, that is correct. Thank you. Anything else? I'm done. Hi. Hi. So, uh, I don't have
to have this right now, but the discussion with with the golf course at Wakiva, I don't disagree with, but I would like to know, um, and I'm not advocating so that everybody gets this clear, I'm not advocating that we close this golf course, but if it were to be closed, what is the direct cost to this
county to maintain it if it were closed? I think that's an important aspect that we should know u as we consider whatever fee change or or schedule do whatever improvements are there. And then uh the clubhouse over at Deer Run. Mhm.
That is another example of a revenue generator that could be utilized uh as a wedding venue and a uh any other venue that people would use that for. Uh very much like the steel lake Mary. not advocating it's as nice as say like
Mary's complex, but we've had a lot of people reach out advocating saying, "Hey, we could use a place like this for wedding venues or family reunions or other functions that the taxpayers could get a return on." And then finally,
Cheddar Point. We promised the taxpayers of this county that it would be sold as part of the funding for Rolling Hills. The last time I checked in with staff, it's been
seven, eight, nine months ago. And the answer I got was any day now. We're waiting on the last signature to come out of Tallahassee. So, any idea where we're at now with that? So, I I'll I'll bore I won't bore you with the details on the fact that
our staff continues to bother D staff on a weekly basis at this particular point. Um, up until the point last week where we received confirmation from DP that it is definitely in legal review, the final legal review. Finally, we came up on the
queue that they promised us back in February, I believe it was, and yes, it is definitely in review. We'll continue to to honestly pester them on a weekly basis until we finally get confirmation that yes, they finished their legal review. What I don't understand the
legal review process, this has been going on for not a year, not two years, not four years, Uhhuh. five years and now we're just having a legal review. That is correct. Tallahassee. Well, it's a a substantial
piece of property that belonged to the taxpayers of this county. So, I I I would ask for support to ask the county attorney to just review all that past and let's try to figure out what what's happening. And if there's
anything at all we can do to move that along, especially in light of discussions we're having, we'll do that. And my office has been involved. Okay. since I came on board. Do do the electeds in this county need to call somebody up there? Yeah, I already have. Yeah, me too. How'd that go? Yeah, I
think you know the answer, Mr. Chairman. It's probably easier if the attorney called the attorneys. So, it's it's still in purgatory. Okay, got it. Um, good work. Um, as somebody has already stated, this is one of the the quality of life aspects that the
citizens of this county can be proud of and rely upon. And that was no more clear than during the pandemic, unfortunately, to to remind everybody of that where everybody was able to get outdoors, get on the trails, go out and enjoy the parks. Even uh a lot of folks
from around the state that didn't have that in their own county came here. So, keep up the good work. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Next up is fleet and facilities that everybody's been waiting for with all the all the big questions.
Now, we know where to put them on. That's right. He's coming to the table with getting close to the finale in his hand already. Look at he's bringing about a lot of backup here. [Music] Chair Grisk. Good afternoon. Good
afternoon again, chairman, commissioners. uh don't often have a great chance probably meet the people behind the scenes actually getting the work done and we have some new faces um with us too. So um Raven Kelly to my right actually has been with the county u for
a few years now but he is our program manager over our fleet um services for the county and you pro may never even met him. Um Anthony Maddox is our facilities division manager and he is new to the county I think going on six
months oh eight months now. Okay. And then Nicholas Bro who you know um actually Nick is the old-timer in this group right um and Nick is our uh development services um manager for
project development. Thank you Chad. Yep. The fleet and facilities total FY26 budget request is $36.4 million. 84% of that is centralized in the general fund for fleet management, facilities maintenance, and countywide fuel. 13% of
the funding is included uh sales tax projects that are included in our fourth gen referendum. And the other small percentages are for one-time projects in the fire fund and water and sewer fund. The department currently has 79 FTEES. We're proposing to eliminate one for a total of 78 FTEES.
full line item budget for the facilities department is on page 202 of your supplemental document and 587 of your work session book. The total bottom line um increase for the for the department is going from 33.1 to 36.3 million an
increase of $3.2 million. Uh I did want to provide this alternate slide uh that shows um where FY26 budget remains the same but the FY25 budget has been updated to reflect $1.2 million which has been moved from other departments
primarily public works into the centralized utilities fund. This is related to our seminal moment to help identify inefficient buildings and reduce utility costs. This is not a net increase to our general fund. However, we do full cost allocations of the fleet and facilities department. Um
approximately 62% of the work performed by this department are for departments outside of the general fund including the fire fund, water, sewer and solid waste funds. Um so while we are increasing their operating budget, we are not increasing the total amount uh to the general fund.
If we focus um just on their base operating budget in the general fund, we're remaining flat at 18.9 million, which is effectively a $1 million reduction after transferring budgets into the department. All right. Thank you, Tim. And then for
the fleet facilities department, as I mentioned, we have the uh fleet management um group. And then under under facilities, we have facilities maintenance and then the facilities development. And for those who may and in the public do not know what facilities development is, it's our
construction construction project team for new construction and renovation projects. All right. So for siminal moments and you know going through the budget um you know this year we were very very aggressive um obviously uh some
shortfalls and and really needed to kind of looked at everything possible that we could do and um so one thing that we identified was on our on fleet side is the utilization of car allowances. So and this is kind of a first step. So,
I'm looking at our division managers and our deputy directors right now. Again, these are individuals who don't carry tools on a truck. They're not, you know, they're they're driving throughout the county. Um, and as directors, most of us use have a car allowance. So, a car
allowance $2,700 a year. A new vehicle, let's say $40,000 a year, you know, on on our our cheapest vehicle. You extend that out 10 years. And right now our replacement, you know, cycle for a vehicle is 12 years. I'm just using 10
years as a easy example. But you add in the cost of the vehicle, and I'm just using the the cheapest vehicle that we purchase. Add in the fuel, add in insurance, add in maintenance and repairs. Again, far exceeds what a car allowance um would do. Again, as leaders
in the organization, it's our responsibility to make sure our teams have the tools, resources to do their job. That's that's imperative. um from that standpoint. So um from this we I've said previously it's making sure I look at the a vehicle it's a tool and it's
making sure that tool is correctly paired um with the position um and what needs to be done. So for FY26, at the minimum, we're looking at a um $400,000 savings um to the general fund where we can now reallocate these vehicles to um
positions that would require um a new vehicle for the 26 year. Also, um I'd shared previously too uh about looking at utilization um within the county. So with on our fleet side, we we looked at um low utilization and I
would tell you there wasn't a whole lot of science behind the low utilization uh kind of looking at the overall of all the mileage per year of the vehicles and we came up with and again it's a start of looking at and it may not seem a lot but like 50 miles a week unless it's low
utilization so 10 miles a day. uh identified uh those vehicles and again looking at how can working with our teams of looking at utilizing more of a pool vehicle um between a group program or division instead of assigning
vehicles to each individual in each position um as well. Also want to um share too this isn't I would say vehicles that we would call mission critical. You know there's there's pieces of equipment and vehicles that you don't need it till you need it. And
when you need it, you need it. And so we we know that. So this isn't addressing those. But this is just your everyday light duty white fleet vehicle that um we see parked and parked and parked and parked. And that's a $50,000 potentially $60,000 vehicle that's not
being utilized as a tool it needs to be utilized for from that perspective. All right. Then we go to the facility side and looking at energy and water efficiency uh or water efficiency improvements. And this is obviously this is a siminal
moment but it's also something that as a facilities team um we have already started to begin looking at and reviewing and looking at things that we can do to implement now um but that we are going to continue moving forward. So we're talking about building automation um our HVAC system. So I apologize for
the issues we were having earlier this morning again. Um now it's hot. I know uh now that I'm on here I'm hot. uh the uh you know our our our system wasn't responding you know and here I am texting texting away and I'm like okay
if I can get in that door I can get on the roof I just turn the darn thing off and that's what we did and then we reset it and and everything else. So again looking at how we utilize building automation to co control our systems. Um we are looking at currently five
buildings I will say more office buildings within the county that systems run they just run there's no schedule. Um now we are engaged with uh looking at uh scheduling scheduling systems to come in these systems to come on at the right
time. also working the team has been developing they've actually within days have developed a pro a process uh that we can share with our our staff so that way if there's after hours events beyond normal hours or on the weekends they can
request AC um instead of us just run run um um as well uh lighting same thing um lighting on controls but we you know we don't have to be high-tech on lighting we can put occupancy sensors in um so that way someone's in the room, the light goes off. So, these are simple
things that we just uh uh that are working on and that we're going to continue to implement and refine. LED LED lighting. When I arrived in the county, we are still replacing fluorescent lights with fluorescent lights bulbs. Amazed. Uh so, uh we we've
come a long ways in a very short period of time. And um so we were able to secure uh our team um here was able to secure a grant and at Central Branch Library. We're going to be um converting um that building over to LED and then
any additional funds um from that we can roll into another library system, but also as we go um as we go to replace light bulbs, we I don't believe there's a fluorescent light bulb left or there was cases and cases and cases when I arrived. They've been banned. We've
banned the cases. So, uh we're replacing with le LED. Um from there we've also been partnering with our environmental services um team on the Florida water star looking at uh water conservation and looking at buildings where again
lowflow fixtures waterer on faucets and those again simple things that can have um huge impact um as as well the um and that's what I have for my similar
moments. All right. All right. Budget highlight. So we have been active in uh working with consultants performing condition facility condition assessments especially around HVAC systems. So the buildings we focused on for uh our
priority has been the public safety building, fire stations um and the libraries. So that is almost completed in the sense the evaluations have been done but the consultant is also uh working to put together as a
prioritization help prioritize when things need to be replaced and also um cost for this replacement so we can start uh planning and budgeting and in that system as I put in here it's looking at our large HVAC components
air handlers pumps and condensing units um picture of uh far picture on the left just an example that's a air hand air handler unit on the county services building above Mr. grays or actually
office or near his office uh that is 44 years old. Yeah, it's uh it's life expectancy under good conditions 15 to 20 years and that's with proper maintenance under good conditions. Since I've been here, we've had uh yes, on water, third floor,
second floor and other issues and so forth. So, elevators, we know I uh again the issues that we've had throughout the county with our elevators. Um, and again, it's to take a more proactive approach than a reactive as well. So, I
appreciate everyone's patience as we've been kind of working um through this as we're gathering this data. This data then we will be utilized to um create maintenance and replacement programs. And one thing uh and I know there's been
a a great deal said about uh you know AI utilization of AI throughout the county and uh you know facilities we don't want to be left out. So we've actually been working on for for several months now just kind of researching and demoing demoing uh software that again will
allow us a kind of a predict predictive to predict you know the items that again from life expectancy gathering data from our our work order system. When should it be replaced? If we only have a certain amount of dollars this year like that never happens. We only have a
certain amount of dollars and budgets are are are tight. if we only had this pot of money, where's the best place to put it to get the best return on our investment? So, we're looking at all these things to make sure we have I call um smarter budgets as we move forward um
as well. Challenges. I'm not going to read through all the challenges. We've heard them, my colleagues. Inflation uh continues to be a concern. Um it's a shell game for us on our side. We do, you know, as I say,
we're we're digging out of a hole. Uh the goal is to be proactive, not reactive. But the reality of reality is a lot of what we do is um reactive in that nature. And our team has done a great job in um responding with that. We make it work and that's that's what
we're going to do. That concludes our presentation. Very well. We will go to Commissioner Lockhart to begin. Sure. Um, we've said for years that we are holding this building together with duct tape and bubble gum and um I don't I at some
point in time you're just spending too much money on duct tape and bubble gum and and the environment's just not conducive to good work. So, um I congratulate you for the work that you are doing and thank you to the team that um helps to hold it all together. Um,
shout out to Dave who this building is his baby. It's been his baby for years and um it's we've got we've got some tough decisions to make moving forward, but every single time we talk we not we this
board but prior boards have talked about what do we do with this building and how do we get out? It was supposed to be a temporary place for this organization to operate out of in 1980 something. Um, and that temporary plan didn't work
out so well because it we historically have been an incredibly fiscally conservative organization that has said we'll make do. We'll figure it out. We won't spend the money. And now we are just we are hemorrhaging cash trying to not spend money.
Um, so that's it is crazy. Um, the study the company that we hired years ago to do the energy efficiency audits and all of that. Um,
yes, engineering. Um, or maybe Hansen. Hansen. Hanser. So, is that the consultant that you're working with that's helping to give you suggestions of ways to walk me through that for the for the HVAC? They are the consultant we're using for the um assessment. Yes,
ma'am. Okay. And so, are you utilizing other organizations to help with other We we are we're we're spreading the work. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Uh, and is it have you been able to identify yet where
the break even point is of what's worth investing those dollars in in in a building where we may be we may be vacating? Do like where where is that point and will you let us know where that point is before we make those decisions? So, intentionally I I I did
not have them, you know, assess this building. Um, so and even though you again we didn't have them look at all our buildings, I it was I I felt with the priority of our our public safety um the buildings our men and women live out
of 24/7 and um and then our libraries that you know directly serve our community as well. So those that's where the focus is. I know again just time limit of time and dollars. Um and I know there obviously there's an abundant of a need uh but we have to you know kind of
choose where we start because I I was shocked we had nothing um to start with. So Got it. All right. Thank you very much. Commissioner Constantine. I'm just going to say, Chad, the confidence level that I have in this department has has
has just grown immensely since you and your your staff has been together. And I mean, little things like I I remember when we started talking about LED lights and first person said, "Well, we have too many other lights, so we're not going to, you know, we're not going to change." I mean, that was 10 years ago.
And so, you know, thank you. That's all I'm going to say. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Commissioner Delari. Thank you. Thank you, Chad. Thank you team for all their hard work. Uh the conversation that you and I had in my office was about the fleet chargeback and you were
telling me that the uh fleet that is programmed to a general fund doesn't have any chargeback. Can you can someone explain to me why I'm going to talk to Tim? Sure. I I I think that was a misunderstanding. You know, we do a full cost allocation of
the fleet department because I asked that several different ways and what came back to me in my office was that we weren't charging back to the general funds. That's not correct. When we first began the chargeback process, we did not charge the general fund. We we just left those costs. His costs start in the
general fund and we just left them there. Um over the years, we've evolved where we do its program allocations. Um so whether you're in the general fund or in the solid that's what that's what I thought and that's why I wanted to ask you again. Apologize for that misunderstanding. Sorry. I apologize as well. Uh with the HVAC and the energy
efficiency, is it based on uh electricity or is it based on other factors? the it's right now we're just looking at the equipment utilization and um we're we've
um from the building automation side uh making sure again chillers when are they you know if they're going off when are they coming on when is that demand rate when are we pulling asking for that demand so we have the best rate um as well and that we're not pulling all our demand at one time as well because we're
being charged for more of that uh are we do we have pumps that are functioning? Do we have other pieces large pieces of equipment that are are So like when Hansen normally does a system like that they normally they allocate x amount of BTUs per square foot per either yeah
right now they're just they're just looking at equipment standalone equipment. Okay. And from that perspective do you know how much uh the existing system we put in the with the uh chilla plant? Do you know what the delta t is across that? I do not. Okay.
into my questions. Thank you, Commissioner Her. Um, it is late and the So, let me pull myself together here because I suddenly have the giggles. Okay, first of all, car allowances
versus buying a new car. The private sector started doing this like 40 years ago. So, that's awesome. That's just awesome. I know we have a small number of car allowances now, but I would tell you that the accounting for that needs to be
current generation and that otherwise the employees end up getting taxed. So, I'm sure you guys know this, but let's make sure that we don't have anybody getting an unfavorable tax situation and a surprise because we didn't do the accounting right for it. Um, and I know this because I struggle
to meet that deadline every stinking year and I have a person in accounting that keeps me square. Um, scheduling HVAC. I I it's thank you. Just thank you. We
are so glad you're here. It's crazy how far we've come in the very short time that you've been here. I do have a giant question related to Commissioner Lockheart's pointing out that the money going to HCA was maybe relative to this building. Do they want it back?
Our problems. Um I love the starting point of looking at where we have people living and looking at where we're serving the public. That's perfect. That's spoton. And then I would just point out that that smarter budget process that you alluded to
earlier is just ripe for a dashboard. Just what a dashboard does. So I offer that. Thank you for everything you've done. We used to have a car pool program here years ago. That's car pool or car
allowance? Car pool. a pool of cars pool of cars that anybody certain divisions could use because they only use them once every month or whatever. It's not as big as your car poolool, personal car pool. Yeah. Well, that's a whole different that's a whole different
discussion. Um you've you've got challenges ahead of you. You've already met a lot of those challenges. Um so I'm going to ask you a very difficult question. because you've been here long enough to see all the buildings, feet on the
ground, eyes to see everything. Is there anything that you cut out of your budget that you believe should not be cut out? Well, don't look at Darren. Yeah. No, I'm going look because and be honly honest. Oh, yeah. No, no. in end of the
day, just like my colleagues, we had to make tough choices and I will say it's it's this way every budget year and knowing that there's not enough all the time to do the things we need. I will say again, you know, part of my decision to come here was that I watched your
budget meeting um that summer beforehand uh and I saw from the commission, you know, that the dedication, the commitment to, you know, into the facilities, there was a need and you were committed to meeting that need. So,
the reality of it is there's going to be a larger bigger need. There's a larger need than we have resources. That's for most companies, public and private. it doesn't really change, right? Okay. So, the key is that we we've got to be on the same page uh of the priorities and
then how do we again plan and make that work. So, as we're digging out in a hole, and this is in my mind, this is taking longer than I would prefer uh and and you know, to have this planned out, strategized out, but as we're digging, we're working on a plan strategy. So,
then we can share that to make sure then our priorities are aligned and that we systematically work to correct these things. So, yes, we have HVAC issues throughout the county. We've had HVAC issues. Uh we, you know, our team has
been very resilient. We're responding um as we need to. Yes, we're making band-aid repairs on some things, but it's it's what we're prepared to do and what we're doing. We've also made some just I would say we've gotten we've accomplished some really good work on
the last two years. And um so am I going to you know, am I going to turn down money from uh Mr. Jackson? And uh Mr. Grant, heck no. Uh we'll put it to good use. Uh but end of the day, uh you know, it's a challenging budget
year. We I understand and we're going to make it work within that and we'll make the right decisions and and you know, we we're dealing with a 44 year old air handler. I mean, when when is that going to poop out, right? That's not the only one. Yeah. Fair answer and everything
else. So we so so we will pivot as we need to pivot um and work within that. So but I appreciate the question. Sure. Fair answer and I think most of us if not all of us understand you're digging out of a hole for a lot
of years a lot of years of oh just patch it oh it'll get better next year well sooner or later that rooster comes home to roost and I believe if the citizens of this county
took a walk on the first and second floor of this building and observed the carpet conditions, the office conditions that some of our employees are asked to work in, they'd be appalled. Now, there's certainly some that think they ought to work out on the front lawn, but
that's a whole different matter. But the reality is we have utilized this building until I mean, it's insanity. every you know when I get off the the elevator on the
third floor and smell the mustustininess that's in the air um it tells us a lot about the age of the building and and what has occurred you know through the many many decades. So that is a very fair answer and I and
I sincerely appreciate and you have done good work and and identifying areas of savings in certain buildings and I and I think we're going to look forward to more of those savings but also the benefits of
having those improvements that return to the taxpayer uh money that they've already invested in infrastructure that is not wise to keep throwing band-aids at for decades because it costs more to do that than it does just to replace it.
Uh and that's that's on us up here. It's on our staff to clearly identify the good, the bad, and the ugly so we have that truthfulness and that full transparency to make those tough decisions that quite frankly we were elected to do. Uh so I want to make sure
that we do get all the direct information we need to make those hard tough decisions. So thanks again for everything you guys are doing. Welcome. Long overdue to have somebody like you and your team looking after these things. So we appreciate it very much.
And if I could I just say two words quick and I want to thank uh Chad at Wilky and the team over there. If you remember when I first came on board facilities and fleet was shoved into a different department that really uh just lacked some direction on it. No offense
against our public works team, but that's not their expertise. Um, and when Christian Swinson and Trisha Johnson and I was like, "Okay, we need a top-notch facility person to come and one, you all had told me the priorities, uh, when I came on board here and facilities was a
big priority." We had a deferred maintenance list that still right that we had no we had no maintenance plan on a lot of our buildings. U, it was just, you know, it was it was tough. And so what when we found Chad and Chad joined
us um that's the first thing when I thing he told me he said I saw your commitment to bringing your facilities back up to date and that's what I wanted to join your team for. So him and his team has done a phenomenal job. He does have a good budget. So don't get me wrong, he does know if he needs
something because we you'll notice in our budget submitt there is a deferred list of a lot of things. That is not that we're never going to do those, but as we need them, I will bring those back to the board. Or if you see something on there that you need to be included, please let me know as well. So, um, I
appreciate you, Chad, and your team by, uh, bringing us to the to the modern level. We're not there yet, but we'll get there. Well, good stuff. Thank you very much. Next up
is going to be our information technology group who's been very very active here in the past several days getting things websites up and all those kinds of
things. It's good stuff. Mr. Joe Aala. Joe, welcome. Thank you. Yes, you're you're right. Uh both Chris's team and our team has been uh very uh very busy getting the the new website up and uh and running and and operational. So the
team's done a a y's job over the weekend, especially Father's Day weekend as well. So thank you. Good work. The uh information technology department's total FY26 budget request is $15.2 million. They have 68 FTEES. They're proposing to eliminate one for 67 FTEES
moving into next year. Their entire budget is centralized through the general fund. However, approximately 42% of the services are related to other departments and other funds. Uh so those are charged back to those appropriate funds.
The FY26 uh F budget of 15.2 million is a decrease of $1 million from FY25. The reduction in personnel is primarily related to an internal reorganization. If you look at just the base operating
budget in the general fund, they are relatively fat flat at $4.7 million. Thank you, Tim. So, what we've presented here is um basically how we are organized today. The biggest change that you'll notice on this slide compared to
previously is the security uh component that has been reallocated or relocated I should say to report directly to me. I felt it was very important to provide um visibility and support to that area obviously in light of the cyber
challenges that uh all of us are are facing across the country. So for the siminal moments I I I can just essentially wrap this up into one word and that's automation. um both from a process perspective and that is really looking at uh some of the human
processes that we have interaction in and looking at finding ways and identifying mains and methods to automate those to reduce potential cler clear error um and speed the delivery um and execution of those services and and uh processes associated with that. We've
heard Chad talk a lot about building automation. Um, one of the things that obviously from my side of the house is ensuring that as these buildings come online, the underlying network that those HVAC systems, lighting systems, and everything are connected to are
ready and prepared to be able to support um us moving in that general direction and um and making sure that uh they're done in a secure manner more importantly than anything when it comes to moving the needle. You know, I spent the first 90 days asking a lot of questions and having a lot of uh
conversations with my peers and and each of you as well. Uh several things came out of those conversations, but more importantly, we've been able to establish or I've been able to establish uh some initial data points that I can now measure myself against going forward as to, you know, where are we where have
we where have we come from and where are we going and and are we measuring uh successfully or and unsuccessfully. I think the other aspect of that is is again back to the realignment. I mentioned to you about security earlier. Um one other aspect that we've changed is project management uh has been
reallocated and moved to the business office. That individual uh reports directly to me and has really given me an opportunity to work with our project management office to look at our project portfolio, all the work that we are
doing and looking at it from a strategic aspect to ensure that we're working on the right projects at the right time. And speaking of projects, these are our major projects that we are currently working on with uh our partners here across the county. these these major
projects, we're terming them as transformational, meaning they they are changing how we operate and how we um operate as a business and and as we operate as a county. Um as you heard Jose talk about the Asella the project u with relation to the building department
and how permitting in the future of what that looks like. There's a few major projects proposed for for next uh fiscal year that we've talked about. Um most importantly one is the bottom one the enduser computing technology refresh. Essentially that's that's getting us prepared for Windows
11 um and the upcoming security requirements associated with it. And finally here's a road map. We've talked a lot about projects but this kind of gives you a sense of when projects are starting when they're ending based on color coding and the number of projects and kind of uh you
know how they are in relation to one another. Looks like candy. And finally, uh the budget challenges. You know, we've uh the department this this calendar year, we've had a a lot of you heard a lot from from the other other directors as
well. The cost of doing business is going up. We've seen that across um many of the contracts that we we manage. Uh we've had some go anywhere from 50 to 200% increase just this current fiscal year. So, uh, trying to prepare for that, um, has obviously been a challenge
and absorbing those cost increases has has been a challenge as well. So, I buzzed through that quite frankly rather quickly because I know we're all here really to to see Tim and hear from Tim. So, I'm the last gentleman standing between you and him. So, any questions that you may have, we'll start with
Commissioner Delari. Thank you, Joe. Welcome. Thank you. I know uh sometimes it's not easy being thrown into the deep end, but you're doing it quite well. Well, thank you, sir. And I know that you have a lot of great people behind you and also beside you. Uh
the slide that I'm concerned about is the last slide you showed us, which is a significant ch budget challenges and the challenges on the second bullet point that I'm concerned about is removing security and network initiatives. Can you go into deep deeper
detail with that? Because what I'm concerned about is the way things have been changing technology-wise. It's always changing and I'm always concerned about either cyber security or someone doing something with a web page or the list can go on and on. I'm sure
you could do a better job describing it than I can. And since that's on the page, I'd like for you to go deeper into that, please. Yeah, certainly. So we looked at all of the current initiatives that we had either in place or were
considering for the coming 12 18 36 months. You know as a result of u the current budget aspect u we were asked to to look and identify ways to keep our budgets flat. And really what was
removed as far as initiatives were what I would characterize as a bridge too far at this point in time. there were underlying processes and procedures that needed to be in place really to support those initiatives that had not yet been fully developed or implemented. So there
was no sense in my mind I didn't want it to become shelfware buying it having it sit on the shelf while we got to it type of situation. So you're not talking about uh security and network on our existing systems then on our existing systems. No in other
words. Yeah. What was that? No sir. Okay. Yeah, because that's the way I read that. Okay. Sorry. And I just wanted to make sure from clarity standpoint that that's not the case. That we're not opening ourselves or exposing ourselves to an issue that we may regret. Oh yes. No sir. 6 months a
year from now. That's my concern. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Commissioner Constein. It's first of all um it's glad I'm glad to have you. Thank you very much. I see that, you know, the whole staff has kind
of like picked up the ball and really, you know, moving in the right direction together and I just appreciate that and thank you for a, you know, a welldeveloped budget. Thank you, Commissioner Her.
So, I think it's fantastic news on the direct reports of project management and security. that's going to change the speed with which we do everything in both of those areas and that's a fabulous thing. I love the direction on automation. We're behind. We know we're
not we're not a little bit behind. We are a lot behind as I go around to my clients that are other government entities, some of which some people know really well. They're way beyond where we are. Um and and that's for two reasons
from my perspective. One is we haven't invested in technology to the degree that we should and two is we have a lot of shelfware. So that move is fabulous too to delay those things until we have policies, procedures, processes and actually a
commitment to them. That's that's a big deal. I didn't hear anywhere referenced is the use of AI. I'm sure that's in your mind. probably not in this budget, but we need to start thinking about it or we're going to be behind there. I realize we have a big catchup to do, but
there's a lot of things that I think are happening in that field that actually would would bring major efficiencies here. Um, if I go back to slide 88 and look at that major project
list, I do question and maybe maybe this could be a yes or no answer. Just so you know, when we go through all of those, do those actually feed into we're implementing new programs in every
single one of those areas. We've already approved them. Are they going to feed into for example the budget or into other departments that need to know that data? Is there an interconnectivity? Because from my perspective, one of the things that we were always challenged
with is each department had their silo and they didn't speak. And I know Tim has a request that got denied for $150,000 budget software that I actually pulled out and said, "If this thing connects us to all the other areas, that's magic. We need to do it." So my
question is, does this connect to anything else? Do these connect to anything else? So you're spot on. And and during this current or this most this most recent uh tech request uh process, Tim and I talked a lot about
that regarding what I would characterize as seeing a lot of similarities. People asking for a lot of the same things and looking at that holistically and going, "Wait a minute. If we've got three departments asking for a in this case, let's I say project management software, right? Yeah. Let's take let's take a
step back and look at that holistically and find out is there a solution out there that works for everybody. Now, it might not be the perfect solution for each one individually, but is there an opportunities for economies of scale aspect um and and we did have a couple of conversations around that um to this
aspect. Uh, I'd have to get back to you on that, but I don't believe each of these are very discreet and unique to themselves in this case. But to your point about AI, um, obviously when we're getting stepping
into that arena, we want to make sure we're following proper procedures and and practices, if you will. So, the team is currently developing an AI policy associated with that. Um, we do have the training team. One of the things I've asked about the training team is
potentially looking at creating AI fluency training. If you've, you know, if you've been around the the what I'll characterize as the digital assistance, the Alexexas in the series, if you were an early adopter, you had to get the syntax just right in order to maximize
the value that those those uh tools provided to you. It's no different with AI. You've got to ask the questions in the right manner in order to get that real maximum value out of it. So, I see that as being an area of opportunity as we begin to exploring these AI tools uh to uh help educate our our workforce
really how to interact and how to ask those proper questions. Can I add on something real quick just because someone joined us in this in our meeting this afternoon and I want to recognize him and that's Alexander De Laportia. He is our graduate student
that is helping us with our AI expert AI man. He is the tip of the the iceberg. His next uh he's been working with us for a couple weeks now and his next uh uh workload is actually working with it. So, we're getting ready to get that all set up. So, that is just a a tip. Also,
this uh this week we met with another um group that actually will look at our AI processes as well, which we're going to include the whole team there too. So, we're uh it's cutting edge stuff and a lot of us don't know about it and don't understand it. And so, that's why we're bringing in I don't want to say the
younger folks, but the younger folks to actually help us help us with that and educate us a little bit. For the record, I use it, not younger. I just want to point that out. You You'rethful. Don't start. Oh my gosh. Don't make me
come over there. Anything else, Commissioner? No. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Lockart. Um along with the conversations about AI, I hope that you'll be able to look to maybe other local governments who have developed policies around its use
because um as with any technology, we went through this when social media became a thing like I wanted to create a seminal county Facebook page for the centennial and you would have thought that I I mean it was you want to do what? No, we don't have a policy for that. How are we going to retain it? how
are we get I mean it was it was it was a very very dicey situation. So, um, who who to think, right? So, now here we are years later and we're talking about using something that's very new and un
in the government space, right? Um, and so policy is probably going to be really important to wrap around that. Um, I've had so many personal instances of AI gone wrong. um where you think you're asking the question it relating to
Sunreil and and links and somebody was at the airport and they they asked how do I get to Lake Mary from the airport and AI something chat GPT whatever it was picked up articles where we were talking about in the future connecting
the airport right and and it it couldn't determine that it was an aspirational topic versus current and so this poor person I met them at the link central station just haphazardly they were like I don't know how I got here. I was got on a bus and the phone keeps telling me where to go and what to do and they were
completely and totally lost. So, you know, it's it's a great tool when it gives you the information that's accurate and correct. And so I I can see citizens potentially trying to utilize something that we create and getting the wrong information and then
then what? Right. So that's my that's my c my tale of of caution and woe on AI. Um I think you're doing a remarkable job and with the short bit of time that you've had to to drink from the fire hydrant here. Um we we have as an
organization delayed sp expenditures on on technology for decades. It's just been another one of the things that we feel like well that's you know well the phones still work don't they? I mean, can you still
dial them? Yeah. Yeah. Well, all right. Can you still buy parts on eBay? Well, yeah. Okay. We'll keep doing that. I mean, that's literally been the attitude of this organization for decades. So, rotary phones work fine. Rotary phones work fine. They work fine. So, so you
you are definitely coming into to a backlog and um and I I think one bite at a time is how you're going to wind up eating this elephant. So, so congratulations, I think. Thank you. And um and thank you
for the work that you're planning to do and already doing. Thank you. Thank you for getting us to the 19th century. I look forward to the 21st. I I will uh we'll make sure there's a dashboard in there somewhere for you. How's that sound? uh program management would be a great
thing, you know, for any of us to just from our desks or remotely be able to look and see who is got their fingers on something now that we can call and go we have a constituent issue or or just look it up and find out, hey, it's illegal
right now or, you know, it's been assigned, whatever the case might be. Um, but good work and and hopefully you'll continue to uncover and and update us and get us, like I said, into the 21st century at least, then we can go from there. So, good work. Thank you
very much. All right. Thank you. All right. Now, we have Mr. J. Does anybody need a break before we get Mr. J for any reason? We got 30 minutes. Let's get it done.
Do you have a hard stop, Bob? I need to leave a little after 5. Okay. Okay. I'll get started, please. Sure. First to quickly reference the budget software that was deferred um wasn't denied that
was that was deferred by the department director uh before it got to the county manager. And it is an example of a common process here. You know, the directors identify budgets early in the process and things ultimately um can't all be funded. The FY26 total budget uh as proposed is
one 1 bill228,78,463. When you uh look closely, the general funds at the bottom which match our um act for general funds are $459 million. Uh special revenue or legally restricted funds and our sales tax fund, fire, MSTU, and tourism. $249 million for
enterprise funds including water and sewer and solid waste. Uh we have our debt service funds at $18 million, $900,000 in capital funds, and then $67 million for our health insurance fund, liability, and workers compensation funds. The next bunch of slides are going to
reference our general fund forecast, which is on page $229 of your supplemental packet. So the major revenues in the general fund include our advalorum, which is based on this figure is based on the current 4.8751 mills. Um, and this is where you see the
growth uh of 6.7% or $16.6 million going into fiscal year 26. But do note that since fiscal year 23, the growth rate has been decreasing. Next, we have our half cent sales tax. This goes into our general fund as well, separate from the county's infrastructure penny tax. Uh, this
revenue um has actually been declining some since fiscal 23, and we are forecasting $30 million in fiscal 26. Next is state shared revenues. These are also generated from sales taxes collected by the state and then generated and distributed to the
counties. For fiscal 26, we're forecasting $13 million. Next, we have our general fund utility tax. Uh this is separate from our water and sewer utility. This is a very steady revenue. Uh fiscal 26, we're forecasting
$9.6 million based on the current 4% collection. And finally, the final major revenue we have is our communication service tax. This is a 5% tax on internet streaming and mobile services. It has been falling since fiscal 22 and we're projecting
$4.9 million in fiscal 26. So total revenues, including all major revenues, the smaller revenues and one-time revenues, we're projecting a total of $345.6 million, which is an increase of 10.6%.
Moving on to expenditures. Uh this shows our expenditures by service area in the general fund where you see we're projecting $380.5 million or an increase of 26 million. Built into those budgets include some
inflationary costs that we've experienced. These are actual cost increases experienced by the county over the last 5 years. We have a 49% increase in energy cost. We have a 67% increase in the cost of a light duty work truck. 87% for mass transit, 48% for road
materials, 78% increase in the cost of medical health insurance claims, and a 54% increase in salaries uh related to public safety service, including uh retirement and insurance. This is compared to a 37% overall increase that
we've seen in revenues. some of the reductions that we've made. Uh so we have $1 million uh proposed for the reduction in FTEES that are in the current FY25 budget. An additional $3 million reduction in seminal moments and then other base budget reductions of 1
million. Uh the the total $5 million reductions that you see um are separate and apart from any reductions that were made by the constitutional officers before their requests were submitted to the board. So that 5 million is coming out of the green on the bottom the 63 million in personnel cost and the 15
million in base operating. This is a snapshot of the structural balance. Uh so for fiscal 26 you see the 345 million in revenues and the 380 million in expenditures. This slide shows a little more detail. This is the slide we went over this
morning. Um this shows the uh excuse me in the afternoon. This shows the growth of uh $30 million in revenues since fiscal 24. Um the increase in transfers to the constitutional officers over that time. Uh and then the um all other
non-constitutional transfer budgets including personnel mandates, operating and projects growing from 145 to 154 over the last two years and the total um structural balance deficit at the bottom.
This is a slide that shows since 2021. Um you see the total increase in revenues at 37.1% uh and the total expenditure growth at around 55%. So looking at some revenue opportunities uh in the general that would affect the general fund. The county currently
levies 10 cents uh in gas taxes. um we haven't the opportunity to levy an additional 5 cent uh gas tax which would generate approximately $1.1 million per penny or $5.5 million total. Uh the FY26
proposed budget does include a this revenue being increased at $5.5 million. Um and that shows up as a reduction and a transfer to our mass transit fund and the general fund. This is just a snapshot of the surrounding agencies and you can see
there's not a whole lot of correlation between those that levy the additional 5 cents and the average price of gas. The chart in the middle on the bottom uh shows when the gas tax was initially introduced uh allowed by the state in 1985. It was the gas was 75 cents a gallon. So
the 5 cents represented about a 6.7% increase or tax. the uh in 2025 at $3.14 a gallon, it represents about a 1.6% tax. And uh the the chart the pie chart on the right is intended to show that of
the counties um in this the 67 counties in the state of Florida, 33 levy the full 5 cents, 30 levy 0 cents, and four levy between two and four cents. Moving on to our general fund utility tax, which is a tax on electric, water,
gas, and propane. Uh the county currently levies 4%. Uh we are allowed to levy up to 10 and the FY26 budget includes $31.1 million assuming that increase to 10%.
Surrounding counties um all surrounding counties levy the full 10% except for Oyola which levies 8%. And within Semino County all six of our cities levby 10% and the city of Alultimont levies 8%. The final major revenue we'll go over is
our general fund millillage where we currently levy 4.8751 mills. The FY26 estimated revenue is 54.4 uh million per 1 mill. Uh the FY26 budget includes a proposed increase of
half a mill which would generate about 27.2 million. This chart uh attempts to normalize the surrounding county mill. Um our millillage is very simple. We have three uh millage rates that cover the general fire and road services not including the
school board or water management at the bottom. Um other agencies have a they break out their millillage more. U if you go to the bottom the total BCC advalorum uh functions covered by our millillage is 7.75. Um if you exclude fire we are at 4.985
mills which is much lower than um any of the surrounding counties. This is just one example um of a property tax bill in Semino County. If you have a home with a $550,000 just or market value uh and the average save our
homes cap uh which caps the taxable value growth at 3% or CPI, the average currently per the property appraiser, the average savings uh is 200,000. That would lead to a $350,000 assessed value. we have an additional $50,000 in homestead exemptions which would get you
to a $300,000 taxable value on that $550,000 home. If you apply the formula of our current mill 4.8751, um you take the $300,000 divided by a,000 multiply it by the millillage and we assume the 96% discount for
prepayment. Uh that gives them the current bill at about $1,400. If we do increase the millillage by 0.5 and apply the same formula, that would cost that homeowner $144 per year or about $12 per month.
And this is a slide that shows the Semino County general fund millage history. Going back to 1991, we levied 5.4 mills. That dropped down uh to to 1990 or excuse me, 1999 2000 where we um
we got it to 4.99 mills. It remained there until 2007 when the state introduced property tax reform and the millillage dropped to 4.35. Uh 2009 property values fell. So we had a roll forward of the millage rate to 4.51.
In 2010 the millillage was increased to 4.9 which was below where it was before the reform. Uh and then they dropped the board dropped the millillage to 4.8751 mills in 2011 where it remains today. That concludes my presentation.
And again, Mr. Chairman and commissioners, this was just you've seen this back in March at our retreat. You've seen it in May that we just had it. I wanted Mr. J to share that again. Again, no decisions have to be made today, but just to keep it in front in front of you all. Our next meeting is in
July, July 22nd, where we'll finish the u other operating departments as well. We will talk about the uh the millage rate to set to send for the trim notices. Sure. Okay. We'll go to public comment. Do we have anybody here from the public
to comment? If so, please read their names aloud and ask them to come up. And if there is any that are written comments, if you would circulate that to the board, it' be great. First up, we have Bill Hyde. Mr. Hyde.
Let me guess, Mr. Horvath. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Bill Hyde. I live at 2379 Oddly Street in Ovido. Uh, first of all, um, I apologize to the staff for taking up three more minutes of your time this afternoon. I know it's been a terribly
long day. Um, but it's been very enlightening to me. Um, I I can't do the accolades like you guys can because I only get three minutes to speak. So, um, well, if you're talking nice, we might give you a few more. Keep going. Oh, I won't be talking I won't be talking nice
for long. Darn it. Yeah. The I I can't give enough accolades to some of the staff that I've worked with in the in the last six months to a year. um some of whom we haven't always gotten along with, but you know, things have
gotten done and and I appreciate it. So, today um I I heard some good and I heard some bad. I heard something that brought u tw tinkled my ear and that was I heard give back. Allison, thank you very much for using the word give back. Uh
taxpayers love to hear that. I heard something really bad. Um, and that was the 24 and 72-hour shifts for the firefighters. That if if you thought the sheriff's uh if you thought the sheriff's ask was
going to be tough, you wait till that comes forward. And we're all we're all going to be talking about that one. That one's going to be very difficult. Um, I I I do want to thank the sheriff for giving me 10 minutes um to vent my spleen without locking me up in his
correctional facility. Uh, that was interesting. Uh, I do have to say though that the the state legislature has failed our seniors again this year. Um, they had an opportunity to give us a little bit of a break, a thousand break. It came it was on the table early. Um,
they brushed they brushed it aside and they gave a lot of tax breaks, but none of it ended up helping your senior homeowners. It went to tourists, it went to casinos, it went to business taxes. What happened? Um, did our legislators
forgive us? Believe me, my two legislators have already heard from me on the news I got last night. So, our property values increase, but you know what? Uh, doesn't help me at all. I'm a senior. I'm stuck here. I I got to pay the taxes. Um where does the money come
from? Okay, it's you you might hear it's only $144 a year, but when you're a senior on fixed income, folks, that that that means something to us. So, I hope before July the 22nd, um y'all can work
a little bit harder on it. I know some of the some of the words I heard were very, you know, uh I'm I'm not budging, but that's your job um to work with that. So, I want to thank you for your time. Uh I think I may have just saved you three minutes on July the 28th
because I've said what I need to say. Thanks. Thank you. Next, please. John Horvath. Mr. Horvath. And is there one more? It's just written. Yes, sir. If you could hand that to Commissioner Lockhart, and I'll
ask her to read that uh when Mr. Horvath is completed, Mr. Horvath. Welcome, Mr. Chairman. Commissioners, John Horvath,4 Bradford Drive, Winter Park, Florida. As I tell everybody that's a seminal county
residence, but a Winter Park mail and address. Uh, I was born and raised here. My dad was in the grow business. So, I remember what this county looked like in 1950 when there's only 25,000 people within the entire county. Now, we're hitting a half a million people. And
that's a lot of goods and services that need to be provided. And I've been attending these budget hearings long before many of you were sitting up there. So I remember when the budget hit a half a billion dollars back I don't know how many years ago and people were
having a connection fit but everything's gone up in cost. I was at a meeting mentioned the cost of a firetruck at $600,000 and commissioner Delari was very kind said John they're at a million dollars now for a firetruck and we had that graphic in there showing the 600,000 to
the nearly million dollars. Everything's gone up and uh what do you do? You got to live with it. And I'm surprised you've had so much deferred stuff here. A 44 year old chiller upstairs. I'm surprised it's still working. Hasn't
blown up or burned the building down cuz if it pass it lifetime, how much can you correct it? I mean, I'm around equipment. I know this equipment, specialized equipment, fire trucks. I had grove work stuff and it nothing was
cheap back then. I've been out of it since 81 because of the freeze and you got to live with it. This you have to provide the services. I've watched the Mr. Dur with Parks and Wreck talking about the the lights that are on the
field how on the ball fields that are 30 years old. Be glad you lasted this long. don't get them replaced with LEDs cuz my grandson goes to Winter Springs High School and they have le he plays in the band and I attend his football games to
watch him and they've got those LED lights up there and they really do a lot of flashy dancing up there. So, uh you know, right on you got to keep and I've told this board before in prior boards, you've got to maintain the
infrastructure. And I'm not just talking about the fire department. Your roads, your water, sewer, libraries, the purchasing, and all these other stuff. It's all tied in. And the fire department's made 50 years. Finally got
a class one recognition ISO. And I'm sure the report said in the next time we reevaluate, these are things you need to do. These are fire stations you need to build or equipment you need to buy. They're not do do it. If you want to maintain the ISO1, you need to do that
and keep it up. And she mentioned that I worked out at 23 back. I'm 79 years old. I was in my 20s when it we had the seminal golden rod stage fire department. I gave you the history on that if you wanted me to, but later on. And people were mad because of we split
from Orange County at the time because we covered that covered it that way. But I remember telling people this is the best thing to do because taxpayers will pay it whether they moved here 10 years ago or whatever. So keep the budget tight, but you need to keep going to
cover your expenses. Thank you, chairman. Thank you, Mr. Horvath. We appreciate you being here. Appreciate all your service to the county through all the years. I think John had a credit had a rating of 10 when he was working there instead of one. Right.
Uh, Commissioner Lockard, we have a written comment. Are you willing to read that into the record? Sure. It's it's legible handwriting, so I'm happy to do it. I was a little worried when you said, "Would you read it?" I'm like, "I don't know. We'll see." Um, so this comment is from Leslie Grubel, um, 1841
Misty Mour Place, Longwood, and she says, um, she has quite a few topics she covers. An amazingly thorough presentation by Sheriff Lima. I wanted to ask about any actions to encourage safe storage of weapons in our county, policing, education, and activities. I
wanted to compliment the force on their action and protection of our neighborhood after the recent tornado. Also, their attendance at Sanford Speaks that is having difficulty with the public sharing to the police about the gang members and others involved in crime in Sanford. I appreciate Andrea
her visiting our neighborhood after the tornado. Also, thank you Bob Delari for allowing the full presentation. That is her comment. Very good. Wonderful. Any other individuals from the public here to speak?
All right. Seeing none, we'll go for any further board comments. We'll start at far end with Commissioner Lockhart. I think I'm going to reserve any comments or discussion about next steps for our next discussion. Lot to process. Sure.
Commissioner Constantine. Um I concur with what uh Commissioner Lockhart said. However, I would just However, in addition, How's that? Is that better? In addition though, I think it's important to ask our staff who have done
a fine job giving us alternatives and presentation that they continue to work with the constitutionals and of course our own staff to see as we go continue through this process if there's anything else that they can find that we can um
I'm not asking delay. I'm asking to you know as far as you know more efficiencies and effectiveness the one thing I think everybody understands is when we and if we go back to the citizens and tell them we have to increase revenues we have to put we have
to look them in the eye and tell them we have done everything we possibly can to put this budget in um you know in in in balance and I say that to the constitutionals and everybody else. You're in this together. We're a team.
And I use the word or the phrase shared sacrifice. And I mean it. I think we all need We're not asking people to cut their budgets. We're asking people to reduce the increase that they have brought forward to us uh in this year's
budget. The only other thing I'll say is in in in this is just an anecdotal. I went across in five different locations the orange and the seinal and the orange and the lake and the orange
and the Valuchia County line just to see the difference between the first gas station I see in Semino County versus the first gas station I see in Orange County or Lake County or Valuchia County. And I will tell you that we were
the highest price in all three. Although we had the lowest taxes. So if anybody says that that gas tax mean makes a difference in the price of it, I you know I have not seen that.
That's all I'm going to say. Commissioner, there's no additional comments. I think it all been said and I think all the additional comments have been said as well. Mr. her. I have two things. I would personally like to see us have at least four more binders for
the next meeting. Really, I've now nailed these. This this that was not enough of a challenge. Um, and I did just pass a note to uh, County Manager Gray to see if we at the county level,
please don't rush to an answer because I know sometimes when I ask questions, you guys all feel compelled to answer. if we at the county level have any ability to give seniors a break. I realize the state didn't do it, but if we do, we should explore that.
Are you talking about Yeah, just that's my question to be returned to reported later. Yeah, absolutely. All right. So, a similar comment to Commissioner Her. Uh, I do appreciate the electronic versions. Uh,
I don't particularly care for all these books that are surrounding me. We've cut down half the Ocala National Forest just for this the hearing. U, but I do appreciate uh the electronic version has two numbers on the the slides, but I
could use a third to match up with some of the other documents that we've got. So, very helpful. Uh that that goes a long way. I as you all know I prefer my electronic but I'm forced to take the
hard copies because for fear what happens is one of my fellow members or staff will say page 935. Well that's not 935 electronics. Now I got to dig through the book and in this case I've got three booklets to have to refer to. But I I get it. So but thank
you very much. Um, I concur with with some of the statements that have been made already that we do want our staff to look at efficiencies and we do want them to um, you know, not stop looking as well as our constitutionals.
But if there's one thing I took away from this whole process that that and I and I've tracked it pretty close since the day I arrived here, it is the digging out, the catching up, the ongoing trying to get the status
quo. Um it's hard. It's easy to from the outside looking in to say this was your budget last year. this is your budget this year. Go back and work on that and cut it back a little bit further. The real answer,
which which I'm going to ask staff to give me a full report on, is I want to I want an analysis of the entire deferred capital improvements and deferred maintenance in its entirety. So, I clearly understand
what that looks like and why it has occurred. Because one thing that we are not good stewards of often is when the taxpayer pays for a capital improvement or pays for something to be done that we
then now five or six years later decide you know what there's not money in the budget to maintain that. So now we're going to let it go another five years to the point where there's no maintaining it. it's got to be replaced completely, which if we'd have maintained it, um,
you know, it would have been less costly on the taxpayers. Um, I concur with what Mr. Hyde has said and and you know, although I'm not quite a senior citizen, but I guess it depends where
ARP or ARPA or whoever whoever they are ARP uh, defines it. And but I will tell you, even at my age, as I look and have discussion with my family and what I ultimately will do when I get to the point where I decide I'm no longer going
to work, they're going to be some tough questions whether I live here or not. And that's because of the cost of the taxes, the cost of the insurance. Um, one hand, that's good. I've seen my investment grow uh you know from from my
property purchases. But on the downside as you get into a retirement situation, you always worry about outliving your money. And so you have to carefully plan for that. So whether you decide you can afford to live here and I think that's a
great deal of questions as I talk to some of the older people in our community. That's one of their major concerns. Can they continue to afford to live here? They love it here. Their family is here. They did they were they they did business here or own businesses
here. Um and now they have that tough decision to move away from their family, move away from everything they've ever known, maybe a county or two or three over or even outside of the state. Um so it's important that that we we understand that and be sensitive to
that. I think we all are. Um, but at the end of the day, as we ask our staff to continue to cut the budget that they've already worked on, which we asked them to do at our original meeting this year at our retreat, and thank you for the hard work
and thank you to the county manager for making sure that got done. We're still digging out. We're still still kind of trying to catch up. So, keep that in mind. So, um, thank you all very much. We sincerely appreciate I know it's been a long day. I appreciate
the public's patience with us. Um if there's nothing else for the good of the Commissioner Lockhart, Commissioner Deli, um two questions. Can we look at Can you bring back maybe just individually um what a CPI
increase would look like for raises and find out what the state is doing for their employees. Um, I think social security cola adjustment they're predicting for 2026 is going to be in like the two and a half percent range. Um, I think when you when you hear a
senior talking about a fixed income, um, you know, standing in solidarity perhaps with seniors is one of the best things we could do. I'm not sure that we can give them any more. I don't know what I don't know what we could do, but um, the recurring costs of salaries and benefits
is going to hurt this organiza. not hurt, that's not the right word. It it is going to have greater financial repercussions moving forward than the um one-time capital improvements that need to be done. So, while we're talking
about you know trying to you know perhaps restrain or restrict um [Music] de you know delayed projects um that really is not where we are spending the most of our money. And so if if I would
I would love to pay our staff and give everyone the absolute highest increases that we could possibly give. Um I would ask that the const whatever we do um that the constitutionals not necessarily the badged or the ones that are uh you
know certainly under union um contracts that that anyone who is would be considered a um what what's the class of employee? Well, you're you're not a you're not you're not not a special risk class, but that
that that all of the entities across this or across this county um work together to have the same raise because um we're all working from the same pool and I think that's kind of something we've worked on doing in the past um
with our constitutionals and I I'd like to see maybe if some of those conversations could be had. So I I lied. I said I wasn't going to, but that that popped into my head while we were talking. Mr. Delari, thank you, Commissioner. Mr. Chairman, uh, when you
talked about the elderly, aging in place is extremely important. We all know that. We all have either parents or friends and family members. Uh, you know, they've invested in this community just like everyone else. And it's
important that we help them to uh allow them to continue the age in place. Uh I like the comment that Commissioner Herd said, is there anything that we can do? I think that's extremely important. Uh but you know if we could make sure and I
think that commissioner uh not Lock but Constine talked about with the going across the different counties in the gas tax you know there is something there that's true but at the other aspect of it I say that because we really need to take a hard look at you know raising the
millage rate so that you know the people that are on fixed incomes uh not picking on Bill high but you know Bill made a good point you uh it's very difficult and uh even though we keep the millillage flat you know what are those things you know can we look at services
and you know maybe the things that we've been assuming all these years from the cities we need to be charging people the fair rate these are the things that we need to be looking at to keep that millage rate as low as possible and you know I can see some point and some
validity to what uh commissioner Constine talked about but at the same token I think we need to really make a conscious effort to make sure that we're allowing our aging population or less our vulnerable population, whoever they are, to uh
remain here and not force them out. And uh raising the millage rate is extremely difficult and uh I don't take that lightly. And uh I think that we need to really be looking at that. Mr. Her, I was uh I I guess I'm just
going to follow the pack today. If we're going to look at salaries, we need to look at benefits just because that's the second line item up there. And the increase in that has been significant. And we haven't touched the benefit package in years. And Darren just sighed really loud. He
did a Commissioner Lockhart sigh. I felt it from over here when I used to sit next to her. Um, and I can tell you that the the benefit plans are changing around the state fairly rapidly. I think ours was rich 25
years ago, it's still extremely rich. Now, I'm also going to telegraph this to the employees. If you decide that because I said that you're going to run out and get every single thing done to you that's been suggested by any doctor, that's only going to make it worse. So, don't do that. Um, because there would
be nothing drastic that had to happen. But but that area should be tended to every year and uh and I just throw that out there. Y anything I've just what they and I I appreciate all the comments and I and I have told you all this individually and
our staff as a manager I never want to bring this anything like this this to you all. So this is something as you all know that we've been digging out uh the county for uh a decade or more. Um, and it's just come to a point where we can't kick it down the road anymore. And so I
appreciate the comment commissioner lock as you made too that if we're going to do any type of reductions with staff is that we do it across the board with all the constitutionals because doing it on the backs of the departments and we've done it for years and you've seen the
highest costs in what our expenses are in our general fund are facilities and parks and recreation and I it you see where we're the weakest in this county is in facilities and uh our IT area and because we have taken the brunt I say we and I would, you know, I've only been
here two years, but I've seen the past. We've taken the brunt on the backs of a lot a lot here. So, I appreciate that. And definitely all I could work with all the constitutionals and see what we can come up with and bring back to the I also think you should be working with the seven cities, too.
No, we're talking about the budget. I understand that, but there are things that they should be charged. But I think we've we've all alluded to it at some point or another. It it's it's akin to being the parent. You want to make sure all the family
members are clothed, have good shoes, everything is good to go. We're the last ones to put do clothes on or buy new shoes uh here at the county services building and under the BCC. And that's that's been as I watch it and look out
there, that's that's been the custom. Um not saying that's good, bad, or indifferent. It's just the fact. and our house gets dilapitated while the other houses have come very nice and pretty. That's right. But but again, we you know, we are team players with our constitutionals and then working
together uh including our seven cities and uh uh I I suspect we'll find the path. you know, good people working together with good intentions. Um, and being sensitive to our our residents and our taxpayers, um, who at the end of the
day demand and quite frankly deserve the quality of life that they've been provided and continue to be provided and it's our job to make sure they continue to get that level of service uh, in the best fashion that we can for the best price we can. So, anyway, is there anything else good for the good of the
order? Seeing none, we shall be ajourned. Thank you all very much.
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