--------- uh budget work session that we will be uh undertaking this morning. I will ask Mr. Robert Bradley from Bread of Life Christian Church to lead us in the invocation and if uh Commissioner Constine could lead us in the pledge, [Music]
please. Let us pray. Most gracious and everlasting father, we thank you for this day uh this opportunity and privilege you've given unto us just to live and exist, Lord God, on the earth in one of the greatest countries, Lord God, upon this earth. Father, we thank
you for today's sufficiency of grace and mercy. We thank you, Lord God, for the reason whereby we are here to put our hearts and our minds towards the betterment and the furtherance of this county. So God, we ask your blessings upon us today, upon this board, the
stewards of the citizens of this county, the stewards of the finances of this county. God, that as we come together, that our focus be on moving the county forward in a positive light. So God, we ask you for your divine wisdom and discretion that it be upon them and that the decisions that they make, Lord God,
be all for our good and for your glory. And we thank you for it all in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. As we begin Memorial Day week, let us always remember for those that gave
their most valuable possession, their life so that we can be free. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. And real quick, thank you, Commissioner. And thank you, Mr. Bradley. Real quick, uh, chairman and Mr. Bradley, before you leave, you know, he was just promoted, a lot of you know this, to our new division, uh, purchasing division manager. So, we appreciate Mr. Bradley.
Thank you, sir. Good work. Okay, if I could just ask everyone to please take a few moments, check your phones, silence any of your electronic devices so that everybody can hear what's happening in the proceedings this morning. We'd very much appreciate that. First items up is going to be our
consent agenda. I'm going to go to the county attorney, Miss Kate Lour, for rules of engagement by the public on the consent agenda items. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Florida law provides that members of the public shall be given an opport a reasonable
opportunity to be heard on propositions before the board of county commissioners except when the board is acting on emergency or ministerial matters or conducting a meeting exempt from the requirements of the sunshine law. Individuals shall be permitted three minutes each for public participation or
6 minutes when the individual is an official representative of a formal association or group. The chairman may modify the maximum time for public participation at his sole discretion when appropriate. Public participation on quasi judicial or other public hearing items will occur during the
board's consideration of those items this afternoon. Public participation on pending procurement matters or on non-aggenda items shall not be permitted at this time. Members of the public desiring to make public comment must fill out a speaker form and present the form to staff. Forms are available in
the lobby. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. And the clerk, which is here, Dominique will raise your hand. If you have a speaker's form, wish to speak or written comments, just drop them right up here at the front. We'd appreciate it. We will go to the county manager. Any changes or revisions in the consent
agenda, sir? Thank you. Uh, Mr. Chairman and Commissioner has no changes. Okay. Is there any commissioner desire to pull any of the items on today's consent agenda? Seeing none, I will look for public input. Any public comment? No, sir.
Seeing none, we'll close public input and move to board action. Chairman, please. Commissioner, I move to approve items num item number one through five on the consent agenda. Second. Motion to second. Any further discussion? All
those in favor? I oppose like sign. Seeing none, carries unanimously. Thank you very much. Next item up is item number six of our regular agenda. This is presentation and award of RFP 604918-25PCD. This will be put on by Mr.
Steven Counz, resource management deputy director. Mr. Coun, go ahead. And we're going to actually have uh Christian Swinson, our assistant county manager, make the presentation this morning. Great. You guys throw me curve balls a lot. Yeah. Sorry, Mr.
Swson, I can't get enough talking, so I figured I'd get up here and do some more. So, I'm I'm here with uh I'm here with Tim J, as you as you know, Tim, our budget director. You've seen us many times on Miger Transit. So, we're just kind of giving you the latest and greatest of where we are on that. So, um
this is our uh our standard agenda. We'll talk about the purpose, kind of the background of the RFP uh update, and then also the next steps and then a recommendation for your consideration. So starting with the purpose, the purpose of this presentation is to provide the board an update on the best
and final proposals that were submitted as um by the vendor. You'll see a timeline in a uh in a few minutes that that basically talks about, you know, bringing in the uh the feedback we got from the board at a previous direction and then providing that to the vendors
to then give us an updated proposal. What you won't see in this update is any discussion on fairs and that's that's by design. Um the fairs we're actually having fair structure. There was some provided by the vendor as a suggestion. We're having these all reviewed by an
outside vendor for not only title six compliant but also potential compliance with other federal guidelines. We don't want to run a foul of any potential grants in the future. So we're doing our due diligence to make that be make sure that's the case. What you will what will happen with these is when we go through
all that process and it's very we feel very ironclad we'll be bringing them back to you with a another agendaized item for discussion of fair and discounts this summer. So we just want to make sure we're fully vetted that and everything's okay. So all right with that I will start talking about kind of
the background and the progress. Many of these slides you'll have seen before. I apologize for the redundancy, but for the viewing public that that may not have seen this presentation, I thought it was important to include some of these slides in here. So, just a little background about what we're doing today with links. We have 11 fixed route
services through links. We have two parat two neighbor link zones and then links also provides paratransit and transportation disadvantage service. The current coverage of our links network for fixed route is basically on the main
state roads of the county and that's not a a cart launch and that's it. But just as a generality that's kind of where we have fixed route services through the through the county. I'm going to spend a little bit of time talking about paratransit. We've gotten some customer feedback from links
inquiring as to whether this is going to go away or not. It is it is not going away. We are not proposing to take um the service away from links or to do it ourselves. It will stay with links. That's both on the paratransit site and the transportation disadvantage site.
They provide both of these services. We planned um to be doing it. This slide just is some information that links provided to you in one of your presentations that just kind of provides an outline of the system and so forth and so on. Our service that we're talking about is meant to complement the
service to not replace it. Customers can certainly use the service as they choose. That would obviously be a good thing. I think it would be a cheaper service and perhaps a faster service for them. However, it is not designed to be a replacement. All right. This slide is another one you've seen before. It's kind of just a timeline of things that
have happened. You've seen it exactly basically the same as this except I added the very last line our last meeting on the 22nd where we got feedback um on both cost and service levels from the board. Um, so this is just kind of a a a chronology of what's
happened uh since last year. All right. So, at that 422 meeting, here are some of the areas that we got clarification from the board. We talked about service area. We talked about links, route changes. We talked about fair structures and discounts, zones, service hour, weight times, etc.,
etc. I apologize for the length of that work session. I know we spent a lot of time, you know, together talking about it, but we provided some very good information that we were able to provide back to the vendor and and really um allow us to be where we are today. The the next slide, just a refresher, these
were the links changes that we talked about. We talked about deleting all the fixed routes and the two neighbor link zones with the exception of these these routes here. So, basically, it's the 436 route will remain as it is entirety. The
1792 route coming out of Orange County will will end at the Fern Park Super Stop. The 434 route coming out of Orange County would end at McCulla Road. And then the 434 route coming out of Orange County would end at Seminal State. And then the uh the 106 route, which is a a
441 route, which just kind of cuts the corner clip of uh of the county, just barely touches it, and we have a stop there, that would remain in its entirety. Um we've had three meetings with links there. phone calls and meetings to talk about this. They have
some minor changes to to to uh to this. I I think the changes are suggested make a lot of sense. They've suggested perhaps that we run service to the UCF Supertop as opposed to the 434 McCulla Road route. They've talked about extending the seminal state route to 436
to make a loop. So, we're in those discussions now. I'm actually meeting with them again this week. This is just kind of gives you a flavor of what we're looking at. There could very well be some minor tweaks to it that we think think make senses for regional purpose as well as just overall transportation. Now talking about the
RFP and the solicitation. So as mentioned we got the feedback. We went back to the vendor with a work clarification of all the points that were put into uh that were provided by the board. We received proposals back from each of the three vendors. All the com proposals that we received were
compliant with the BCC direction that we received on on 422. We had a one-hour meeting with each vendor. From those meetings, we actually got feedback from the vendors on a on a couple potential changes outside of those suggestions. There was some changes they suggested on insurance
levels and then there was a couple inind services that were offered to us as well. I will talk in detail about both of those items here in a second, but those were things that were suggested to us as a a way to further reduce some costs. Um, and then they submitted revised pricing to us based upon those
suggestions for our consideration. So, let's talk about the first one, insurance level. So, as you'll recall, when we put this when we put this RFP out, we said, okay, let's keep the boundaries really broad. Let's put it out and see what the marketplace bears. So as as that was the case, it made it a
bit difficult for insurance levels. So our insurance our risk manager at the at the time thought $10 million worth of umbrella coverage would be a good a good safety net for this. So that was what was in the RFP. The vendors provided feedback that what they typically see in
the industry is 1 to2 million worth of coverage. We went back to our new risk manager with the scopes that we were talking now and more of a defined service and had that review redone and and it was decided that yes, $10 million seems seems high. $5 million or $2
million was the suggested level. 5 million was the preferred level. 2 million was an acceptable level based on cost but not maybe a comfort level. So we asked for pricing on that. The next item, the next item to talk about um
were the inind services. The vendors suggested to us that we could provide the parking location for them to park vehicles overnight, effectively kind of a storage lot for them to provide them. And then two of the three vendors were providing a fleet that contained electric vehicles. and they suggested
that if we provided the electricity, not the charging infrastructure, they would provide all the charging infrastructure and things for their cars, but the if we provided the electricity, they would be able to pass on their anticipated cost for that as well. So, this slide is one you saw in the last presentation. It's
just it's an outline of cost. As we talked before, we don't exactly know the savings until we provide the cost because there will be some changes in in the the fixed routes. It will go up a little bit from the ones we've had. But this was a slide that was provided that provided $9.8 million worth of cost cuts
from the the links routes and the services that we were suggesting. So, it's just kind of a refresher on that. So, now we're getting to the now we're getting to the uh the main topic is the proposals we received from the three vendors. So, we have a chart here that
shows them all. As you can see, we we had proposals range from 5.4 million to 9.2 million. The big difference you'll notice is vehicles and I'll talk I'll talk in length and show some what I'll call standardized numbers with that here in a minute. But basically the
difference in the the vehicles count where one vendor said hey let's or two vendors said let's start at 35 vehicles and we don't know we don't know what the initial what the initial need is going to be for that but we think 35 out of the gate is a good starting point. One vendor suggested we review that at 90
days and then out accordingly. The other vendor said, "Hey, you're going to need 55 vehicles for the service as it stands, a normalized service. This is what we think you'll need every day." They want to provide those vehicles up top. I asked that question to all three vendors. How many vehicles do you think
we'll ultimately need when this service is fully ramped up? We pretty much had a unanimous opinion or we did have unanimous opinion that 55 vehicles is the number. So the question is from day one of the service, you know, how many vehicles do we need to, you know, day whatever years. I mean, it could take 2 years potentially to get to 55. It could
take 3 years. It could take two months. We don't know that. There needs to be some fluidity based upon usage and people getting aware to it. As we mentioned in the last board presentation, there are some areas that will be servicing that that aren't lynx routes. Now, they're maybe not feasible
to walk that far to a links route that people will have coverage and as a result of that, there'll be usage. We don't know. So, that that's really the difference in those numbers. You can see if we look at the insurance change to the $5 million and and I'm only highlighting the five million here because there's about $160,000 worth of
difference between the 5 million and the 2 million after speaking with our risk manager. The extra coverage it was felt was worth the that that cost. So we're only showing the 5 million and that is our recommendated level. Um as you can see that the savings went from 400,000
to 15,000. I'm not really sure what the difference is on how their insurance works there, but it was a substantial change by two of them. The parking, that's about a $60,000 savings annually if we provide the parking. If you look at it, the numbers look fairly
standardized to me in that. If you look at the vehicles that are close to double, it's about double the savings. So, it's obviously a price per vehicle, but you get kind of an idea about that. And then two of the vendors were suggesting an electric fleet of some sort. I have that labeled there as a primary uh type of vehicle. And the
reason I say that is because at least one of the vendors is running hybrid vehicles for their wheelchair access vehicles, not electric vehicles. So, um the electricity savings, as you can see, is 55 to 100,000. I I question whether
we should have used the word savings. I put it on there because that's what it is. It's really just a a transference of cost. Um you'll see in our recommendation on the on the latter slide, we're not recommending this. That's kind of an unknown and it it isn't truly a savings. It's just a transference of cost. So you'll see as
you come down. So the prices went from 4.8 million to 9.1 million. You see from the chart, it's important to point out the last row. There is a setup cost to do this there. You know, there's obviously getting the getting all the work before the service start kicks up there. You know, it's 100,000 by two of
the vendors and then almost 650,000 by another one. So, this was our this was our recommended uh level that we see here. It shows the $5 million savings and it shows the the parking savings. And as you can see, it adjusts the cost ever so slightly. We're at 4.9 million
and obviously the 9.2 still stays there. So, all right. One thing I wanted to talk about was standardizing this pricing to what the service should ultimately look at based upon what everyone's guesses the you know what it will be the 55 vehicles. So, this is what we did. We took we took the
pricing, we adjusted it, we added the vehicles. There are some tiered pricing different differences from the more vehicles you add. Some of the some of the vendors, their pricing gets cheaper by the number of vehicles. So, we we normalize that as part of this effort. But, as you see here, it's basically 7.8
million to 9.1 million. I think what's especially important, and albeit it's not highlighted in this slide, is the last row. If you look at the price escalation on there, you'll see two of the vendors are locking in for two years with no price increase. One vendor is
locking in for one one year with no price increase, but all three of them had a 3% annual increase after the lock-in period. Um, and that's important. And the reason it's important is I I want to bring your attention to this next slide. This was a slide that you saw from links. This was provided as
part of their budget presentation um last year. And what's especially important about it for this conversation is this is the full partner contributions of the whole system. So it's not just semino county but what makes it uh applicable just to semino county as it is the same level of
applicableness to each one of the partners is the pink row. And if you look at what the annual escalation is on each one of these you'll see it there. It's 15.5 15.5 reducing down to 5.2. So I I just keep that in mind as we go to the next slide. my good friend uh Mr. J
who and we do so much of this together with was gracious enough to provide this slide. He created this slide. What I want to bring your attention to is this just focus on the $9.8 million worth of cuts. It's not what our cost is for for links that we pay now. This is just
looking at the costs we're talking about to standardize it with what the cost of this replacement service would be. So as you look at the as you look at the top category you see links you see the first year it starts at 9.8 A and that it ends out at about $20 million. As you go through each of those three vendors, and
you add the escalators that are by the proposals and obviously Lynx's estimator, which is by their own slide, as you can see, by the time you get to 2035, we're at about 50% of the cost. Instead of 20 million for this service, we're at approximately 10 million depending on which service. I I think
this is a very important slide. So, so now let's talk about the next steps. We um the folks in the county attorney's office spec, more specifically Bes has been doing a lot of work the last two weeks to try to get a
contract pulled together. I believe he emailed you a copy of where he is now. So you had a copy. The contract is not quite finalized. We're very close. There's been it's been going out to an outside vendor to make sure we're in full compliance with things from a federal perspective. It's also been conversations back and forth with the uh
the selected vendor. Um and we're very close. There's just some minor changes to be to be there, but they they'll be adjusted and then we we would like to get it to a point of execution through the county manager's office to execute the contract with the vendor and then begin the long process of service delivery. We've talked to the vendor.
We're still shooting for an October delivery uh uh service delivery uh starting um and then also obviously we'd look at the phase out from links with the overlap um at the at the end of the year. So our recommendation from staff based on the charts and everything that you saw before is here on the screen.
We're recommending to uh to to award to uh B Free LLC, which does business as freebie, and authorize the county manager to adjust the uh to ex to authorize the county manager to execute the agreement and adjust the service level. Sorry, I was trying to blend it
all together going forward um based upon user demand as we talked about. So, so with that, I would uh I would like to turn it back to you and then see if there's any questions or anything. Thank you, Mr. Swintson. Any inquiries by the board at this time? We'll start with Commissioner Her and work right on across to Commissioner Lockhart. First
of all, I appreciate all of the work that you all put into this to get this across this finish line. We're not quite there yet. Now, it's on us, but uh this is it's been considerable and and it's been appreciated every single time you came back to us. The facts were there.
It was laid out so clearly. It was a this I think is an easy decision. I do want to share some of the things that I shared during my briefing with the board with regard to the fairs when they come back. I did ask that we talk about the
highest fair available and still be eligible for funding through grants. So we have to know what the highest number is otherwise we're not going to manage supply and demand and this becomes the next links and I do worry about that.
The savings that we realize through this for through the future only works if we are disciplined about how we manage this. We don't want to become lynx junior. Um I just want to reiterate because we
are hearing about this paratransit this is in addition to the current service. So it may be available uh and something that's worthy but your current service is not going away. I do want to give a shout out to links. I appreciate them giving feedback on the routes that we've chosen. That seems to be a step in the
right direction in terms of the cooperation on this. I would like to know if they've given us a clear firm position with regard to the cost to exit. They did you want to take that? They um have not. We anticipate sending a letter
after this uh after this board meeting to give them the the official where we are. We do have a meeting Thursday where they're going to talk about budget. We they are presenting at the at the current trajectory. They were projecting a budget as it is a status quo, but I
believe they have the ability to pivot based upon the conversations we've been having with them. So, we're anticipating perhaps I'm getting the letter and then pivoting and then at that point we'll have an idea what the uh what the reductions will be. So, I realize the cost to exit is one time, but it needs to be taken into consideration as we're
trying to figure out where we're starting with all of this. With regard to the inind I did share that my position was I think unless we just have a piece of land that we want to share for a place to park play I don't want to be in this business and this is you all
the vendor needs to be doing all of this um the value of that is not worth the risk from my perspective 5 million is the right number it can't be lower than that as a starting point um from my perspective I think we have to start small and then scale starting large
would be a mistake. Uh I also would like to see in the contract you I think this is how the contract is written but this is not what was said on the record and the annual increases are up to 3% not a guaranteed 3% because infla inflation
may be going in a different direction. Yes, we'll we'll make sure that we'll make sure it's noted in that regard. And then I cannot stress enough two things. Number one, thank you. And now the work is ours to be disciplined about how we roll this out.
Thank you, chairman. Thank you. Um my input, a couple things. Um one is contract related is sort of in the same vein as um commissioner her tying the 3% maybe we should be better looking at a CPI and what that looks like to before
we make those those moves. Uh the other contractual change I think should be added because we have come to find out that we don't always get the notice on this dis part of the notification process should go to the chairman of the county
commission in addition to the county manager to ensure that the elected get that notice uh when those changes are are coming forward uh under the contractual relationship. In addition, um I think and agree this is a great
first step. I think that um I I'll I'll voice it again because there has been a lot of chatter in the community that I've been out and been talking to on this regard. This is not a replacement for Uber. That's not the
intention that that we're undertaking. But there is chatter in the community that they believe this is an Uber service that everybody could take at a discounted rate um as compared to using Uber. It was never the intention to compete against the private sector. Uh
that's not our space. That's not our intent. That's not where we should be. And obviously with the vehicle count, we could never get there at this point. And I don't think even if you went 55, you couldn't get there. But just so the public knows, this is not a a government funded Uber replacement for your Uber
and your lift rides. Um, this is to connect the links uh absentee that we're going to do away with for the people that most need and of course anybody can ride it, but it's going to help connect to the sunreil and other areas which will be beneficial to the community
overall. So moving forward, I think we have to understand and there's going to be some hiccups. There's going to be some speed bumps as this unfolds and as it it gets acclimated and our community becomes engaged, but I haven't seen
anything and I know we spoke about it during my briefing the marketing and communication side of the transition over to our customers from the standpoint I know in my briefing what I suggested was whether it's valid or not
is that the existing bus stops for links we place a sign or some kind of signage to help inform the riders what is happening. That could be a uh a QR code that they could scan, uh a phone number that they can call for information, uh
because that's going to be key on how this ultimately unfolds, how they understand it unfolds and and not necessarily what they see on the news and not necessarily what they're maybe told by someone else. I think this is going to be a great model. I've heard chatter from some of our sister counties
who are waiting with baited breath to see how this unfolds um and are maybe happy that that one of us are venturing out to to look at some an alternative to what we're doing with links and the costs associated with it. But I I think
we will ultimately get to the the 55 and it may be more than that as things unfold. But I I would say we all have to have an understand there's going to be some speed bumps. We're going to get some complaints. There's going to be some concerns and how we handle that with our uh vendor is going to be
paramount on how we're able to shift correct those issues, fill those voids. So I just want everybody we should all be patient as this unfolds uh if if this is the route we're going to go. Um and then finally, uh I I have no interest
whatsoever in being in the management of this operation. Uh it's not our space. Um if we can be helpful with, you know, accommodating some requests, you know, access, those kinds of things, great. Uh, I think we should
be playing more of an oversight uh under the contractual uh agreement, but I I have no interest in in being in this business or managing it. Uh, from that standpoint, we'd be foolish to try to do that. And I think we just get in the way of productivity of our vendor quite
frankly. Um, that's pretty much my oversight. I would like us to see as this unfolds and I think we've touched on it a little bit that at some time down the road as this all starts to come to be is we look very
closely at paratransit and the options we may have there for additional cost savings but this will be a good first step. So thank you all very much. I know you all been living and breathing and eating this for for a few months. So thank you all very much. Commissioner Delari. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Uh,
first of all, I want to thank staff for all their hard work. Uh, I know there's a lot of time and efforts gone into this. Uh, we've all talked about links for a number of years and about how you see buses riding up and down the road where there's very few people, if any,
that are in the bus and uh you do get complaints from people that it doesn't go where it needs to go. uh it's hard to get uh you standing out in the rain where there's no shelter. Uh there's a lot of things that we could
criticize, but moving forward, I really believe this is the right way to go. Uh in looking at this and again, uh I asked for all the information that I could get and I was able to get that on late Thursday afternoon. So, thank you. I spent the weekend reading everything I
could. I have a lot more questions. Uh, I'll iterate some of the things that my other commissioner said. We shouldn't be in competition with Uber, even though I think this could potentially be that because even though we're not going to discuss rides and uh fairs in looking at
some of the examples, it's cheaper than Uber and I want to make sure that we're not uh in that space but still serving the underserved people that needed to get across town. Uh there are some people that can't afford what Uber needs and
needs to pay the $2 fee and I'd like to I've not yet seen that information but uh still need to see that. I did ask for additional information on uh the data and analysis about cutting back with the uh routes that we spoke about the last meeting. Still waiting for that
information. Uh uh I spent the weekend reading through this whole thing and uh I'd love to have an additional work session with the pre the company we're call what we're going to choose. I looking at everything I believe that freebie is the one to go with. Uh I
think that we since this is such a big issue and it's such a big turning point in transit in this region that we should have uh presentation with the company to answer some of the questions that are not being addressed at the dis. Uh you
know we did talk about uh storing the vehicles. I agree that we should not be allowing them to store on our property. Same thing with electric. I think it should be turnkey. I think we should be talking about vehicles, what type of vehicles we're talking about because at the last meeting we had Mr. O'Hanlin
talk about Teslas and about autonomous vehicles about when that would be happening and potentially happen within the next year. The vehicles that are being uh discussed in the presentations that I was able to read over the weekend says that they could go to Teslas, but
that's not what they're recommending at first. So, I want to make sure we're very clear with that that when they are allowed to use autonomous vehicles, what happens to the Volkswagens or the Toyotas that we now have? And I'd like to have that addressed. There's a lot
more questions since this is such a big issue that I really believe that we should have a work session with the company that we're chosen so that we can flush all these things out so that we know that however we move forward that
we're making the right decisions. The other question I have is with the savings that we've been talking about in the presentations that I read over the weekend, these companies are talking about reinvesting that into the system. It's clear that it says that. So, we're
not really saving any money. So, if we think we're saving money, I don't see that. I see the look on your face, but I'm reading in these presentations that you gave me on Thursday that it talks about reinvesting that money into the system. And so I like to have that
flushed out because our whole there's two reasons for us doing this. Better serviceability for the residents of this county and for cutting on the cost. Are we trying to do both? You're not going to do both. And I would like to understand the dollar figures because I
don't see this potentially savings is everything that you're saying because of what links still do in the paratransit. It's about somewhere around $5 million. We haven't yet gotten the fee yet what Lynx is going to be charging us for the remaining system. That's going to be at
least several more million. and about $7 million that we see here or $5 million that we see here. We're pretty close to where Lynx is today. So, I'd like to understand those numbers. Those are my comments.
Commissioner Constantine. Thank you. Um, some of the questions uh I'll know the answers to, but I want them for the record. Some of the questions I I truly want um some answers to.
In in all cases, for the record, we are still part of the links regional transportation system. Correct. That is correct. Okay. So, anybody that says that we're leaving
links, we are not. We have worked with them on this. In fact, from what I hear, they are looking at a similar model potentially as as someone I think it was Jay mentioned, Commissioner Simbower mentioned that they are also that other
counties are looking at this, but they are looking at something potentially similar to this. Um, we are still keeping certain routes going into Orange County and beyond. Correct. Th that is correct.
um on the request for the the lock in prices and the recommendation of freebie. You mentioned in one of the pages that there were two and I think some others com uh commented on this, but there were
two things that they said in addition to the insurance which we pretty much came up with a decision on that would um affect the prices, does these this price that they're asking reflect that we are doing
those two or not? So they provided pricing in all directions for us to pick which which savings we want. So we have the ability and it sounds like from I mean I can obviously count. So I've heard three comments that we're not interested in parking or electricity and I've heard three comments that we're
interested in the in the in the insurance rate. So as a result of that and this approval the the contract would reflect the costs that were shown without those okay without those. So, the 7,766,000 that is on there's no there's
no page number, but the future cost lock in pricing range. And by the way, it would be really nice if we had page numbers, but the the on the future cost lockin pricing ranges, the 7,000 or
7,766,000 and and from freebie that is without electricity and without that that number actually takes our recommendation as it. So what that includes is the $5 million insurance and the parking. So, if the parking's out, you would add
$63,000 to that to that price. Okay. So, 63,000 for parking. Um, do we have any idea what the savings would be or, you know, what the electricity would be? So, we we didn't take that because it's
truly just a pass through cost. So, it's not shown in this number and that was not a recommendation that we were comfortable taking. All right. So, I don't I didn't hear three, but if we could find a I don't want to be part of
their operation, but if there is a place that is available for parking, I don't have a problem with that if that's going to be savings for us. Um but of course that would be something that we would have to scrub down and make sure that
it's not going to be of any um liability or you know I'm sure there will be some liability but that it would be the value be worth it. I me I heard that you mentioned at one time uh
um someone another seminal state potentially um which would then you know give them some ability to go back and save some money with their uh transit um with their students. I'm just saying I'm not opposed to that. Okay. if that that
is something to look at. The um the just so we know the the the links charge is $2 one way today for everyone for fixed route. Yes, sir. For fixed
route $450 for an all day fair. Is that correct? I I believe I believe that's correct. Okay. We are not trying to compete with Uber. I think when asked the question from my home which is the furthest south here
to the chambers if I was going to take it you know as a regular citizen anyone take it from out it would be about $13. Is that correct from what you I know we're not talking price but I I think but we're talking but we're talking price because it's the secret sauce. It
is and I'm just saying that but that's that's something that that would be potentially that's what we're you know so so if I may the vendor provided all the vendors provided some suggested fairs these are the fairs I'm vetting
the the selected vendor provided an example which showed crossing zones and things like that and and if the board chose those fairs and the person and and those fairs were compliant with federal regulations and all that and those were passed back to the board and they were
accepted at those levels then yes sir the the fair in that case would be crossing multiple zones and would be that there's several steps to get to that to make sure I I don't think we want to we don't want to run a foul of any potential federal grants that we that could potentially help with the
system so and that that's the reason we want to to vet those fully and the last comment that I want to make then on on fairs because it I I I understand where you're coming from is that and I'm going to use a person someone like you know
Joanne that everybody at every meeting of links every meeting at MOO she is there asking for 24/7 365 the point is that she you know I want to make sure that folks that have
no other choice but links are going to be put in the same situation as lynx is today financially. That's that that was just the only comment I wanted to make on that. When it comes
to hours of operation, um we have not changed that. It's from 5:00 a.m. to 900 p.m. every day, Monday through Saturday. It's I'm going from I'm sorry, I'm going a little bit from memory here. So, it's 5 to 9 Monday
through Friday, 6 to 10 Saturday, 6 to 8 Sunday, and the pickup time, and I'm sorry, I'm going back in my memory bank from the from the last work session. I believe that's accurate. I think your question perhaps maybe based upon our our briefing has to do with its
comparative level compared to what the links service times are. Now, the routes that that Lynx provides systemwide operate at a variety of different times. We have some routes that start at 4 in the morning here in the county and finish up after 1:00 in the morning.
Many of the routes in the county and more specifically the ones that we're looking at replacing this service run a very commensurative time to what we're proposing at the 5 to 9 on the weekdays. There may be some minor adjustments starting 5 minutes later or 20 minutes later and lasting 20 minutes later or
earlier, vice versa. But for the most part, when we looked at those service hours and we talked about those, we tried to keep the service hours the same as what's applicable now on those days for the routes we're replacing. So, so are running Sundays and holidays and
Yes. What we talked about at the last board meeting was we talked about a 30 minute pickup for Monday through Monday through Saturday and an hour pickup on Sunday. The service times that were that were also presented and and accepted were the ones that I just mentioned and
they very much mirror the service times. They're not exact. They very much mirror though the service times of the route reductions which were also considered at that meeting. So getting back to then the cost the this and in looking at
the freebie of the lock in price that we are looking at for 26 and I'll use 26 um the 7.7 million does not include pair transit. So so this slide can you change the slide Tim to the comparative slide? So
this is a this is a a slide that focuses just on the it's a comparative between the cuts and the replacement service. This is not an allin on what we're paying links. So therefore it does not include the routes that are still remaining. It does not include the paratransit service. This slide is an
attempt to normalize the service that would be going away from links and to be replaced with in my opinion a more robust and a more over you know more available microtransit system. So, it's attempted to normalize that. Christian, I understand that. But what I'm trying
to get at the 5 million para transit that you have estimated you and Tim is the same 5 million we would be paying anyway. So, let me let me add to that. Am I okay to go? Okay, fair enough. Thank you. I didn't want to interrupt you. Sorry. Um trying to add
in the record. So, the 5 million we pay approximately 5.5 million to be a little closer. um that service we believe will likely reduce but we don't know by how much. We're not looking to replace the service but if you can go back to the paratransit slide I want to point just a
couple things out on the paratransit slide. So this is the slide that was provided by links. They will still be providing the service. Paratransit currently if if you if you qualify for this, you can go to doctor's appointments across county count counties and things like that. We're not
suggesting to replace that. But if you look at the last bullet point on this slide, and I think this is important, is that from Lynx's own data, they show 31% of paratransit riders in Semino County
begin and end in a neighbor link zone. So just to give some more information on that, we only have two neighbor link zones in Semino County. One in Sanford and one in Ovido. So they begin and end in these relatively small zones. Albeit we're not targeting that. We're not replacing it. I think and I think our
fair structure can help when we get there and have the discussion on that but even from a convenient structure even if it's the same thing I think based on the service that potentially you're looking to move forward with the 31% of the people using this would be better served potentially be more
convenient for them to take this service in lie of that I can't guarantee those prices it's a you know I I can't guarantee any not prices I can't guarantee those savings you this comes down to individual choice if someone is a a dedicated access links customer and
they want no changes no matter no matter how good anything else is we pick them up on a gold chariot or something they're not interested then so be it that would be their user choice but from an objective standpoint to say okay it's faster if you know and I think we would
be cheaper in that regard um that would be my recommendation due to the cost of this to provide the service I think it would make sense for a lot of those customers to look at our alternative of service model if you approve it but I can't guarantee any of those costs but to answer your question yes is that
links will be doing the parat transit yes that have options to go toward with us if they wanted and I said I was verbose in in the in in the lock in price range right now we know we don't know what links is going to come back
and and say the rest of the the the costs are happening so the the cost of the of the the fixed route we're keeping. That's correct. So in this case, this is would be if we kept the service as it is today. Yes, sir. That
is correct. Because that's all we can tell you is what we know the cost of them is are today. And that's why we're trying to show the data. I don't know. I I don't have any idea what they're going to revise. So this was the way the only data I could provide you. And in this
situation, and I'm asking this to Tim as well as you Christian, but Tim would be shorter. Um I'll defer to you. Is there any is there any fundings any possible that we missed both? You know, I mean that there could be costs that we're not
aware of right now. I mean, anything I mean I I know that's hard to to estimate, but could there be anything that we have missed in this? Any costs on the microransit side? Yes. Nothing that we're aware of now. I think we we feel confident in the lock-in pricing
that the contractor is providing. Um and we feel confident that we can uh control those costs more effectively through microtransit than the current system. Okay. Then obviously this is a potential very valuable alternative to
the last mile first mile that we've always argued is the biggest opportunity when it comes to Sunrail. Um I I'm excited about the innovation of this. I believe that Commissioner Delorei is correct that it
would be nice once we have the company you know and and that that we have a you know workshop with them so we could flush out questions that we might have with them. The concern I another concern that I have and it's always have is just
like when certain um cable vendors came through that we had no control over this year and started tearing up people's lawns is that we have someone that that is
assigned that people could go to in these companies because I'm you know I'm afraid that this 30 minute when it starts not happening I can I know every one of us is going to get a lot of phone calls in our offices and things of that nature. And so that's something. But the
marketing is also, as Commissioner um Zimbau pointed out, is extremely important as far as, you know, who should use it, how it should be used, why we're doing this, all of that. And then the the the obviously the last key
is is is the fairs, which I know we're not talking about, but I brought it up. I'm, you know, I'm not sorry about that, but I think that that is the secret sauce that will make or break this thing and that the people that have no other
alternative currently than lynx are not going to be um put in a financial situation that they cannot handle. So with that, Mr. I I just want to make sure for clarity, you're recommending to
memorialize the fair discussion, an additional workshop as we work through that, but you're working with a legal entity to ensure that the fair structures, yes, are proper to not impact any federal grants or other grant
money that could possibly come to us. Correct. Correct. That is completely after we move on beyond what we decide today. That is completely accurate. As well as the reality is whether it's links or one of these entities, we're subsidizing the fairs
anyway. We should understand that and it falls on us on how we're going to adjust that moving forward with that vendor that's ultimately picked. And and Mr. I know I have said this, but I think others have said this before and we want
to ensure that this this pro this great I think innovative project does not cost us any more than what it's costing links today. Sure. That that is a guideline I think that we've made. Commissioner Lockhart.
Um, a a lot of a lot of layers and a lot of questions remain that I'm excited to get the answers for and I and I think we will. I think all of the questions that are being asked are completely appropriate. Um, I'm a I'm a at a little bit of an advantage in this conversation
because I've I've been um steeped in it with our team um for for many months. And I do want to thank you so much. this has been, you know, these fellows have an actual job in this organization separate and apart from all of this. And
you've taken on a tremendous amount of of um personal interest, I think, in this project as we've moved forward. And I think they really see, we all see the tremendous advantage that this is going to bring to the community who is using
the services of links now and others who don't have the benefit of using links will now be able to utilize this service. Um, you know, thinking about someone like Joanne, who is actually one of my constituents. She lives just about a mile away from me. Um Joanne has my
cell phone number and we're friends on Facebook and I and I hear the message loud and clear very personally regularly and so I am continually reminded in these conversations that uh folks with special needs and folks who are
transportation disadvantaged that that is what this service is first supposed to be addressing their needs. The fact that we will be able to expand and serve more needs for less money um is just an
opportunity we cannot pass up. Couple of things that I want to address. Um we are talking about one side of the ledger. We have not even touched on the other side of the ledger which are partnerships, grants, um advertising. I think when we
do have the opportunity to have the work session with the selected vendor, you will you will be mind blown by the creative out ofthe-box way that this company in particular has um devised to bring in the private sector. This is
going to be an potentially an economic driver. So we're going we the mind shift the paradigm shift here is that we are going from a a money and time suck to to an actual beneficial service that is
going to be generating revenue and helping to create business in our community. So it it's a complete paradigm shift in talking about transportation. Um as far as times and people calling because it's been more than 30 minutes. Um I'm I'm sure you know people will
find things to complain about, but they're not going to be standing out for an hour at a bus stop in 100°ree weather waiting for a bus that may be um late. And so to be able to sit in their home or at their place of work and in the air conditioning and wait for a ride that
they called um you know, yes, call me. I'd love to chat with you about that. Um the communications plan I agree is absolutely critical. I think staff is already working on that and maybe when we're done, Mr. Gray, you can give us an update on where we are with
that. Absent accurate information, that vacuum will be filled with misinformation. So, I would hope that we would get out ASAP like yesterday with talking about what the plans are and what next steps are.
Um there are a lot of of um I'm getting some feedback that is is inaccurate and so we're doing the best that we can to follow up individually um as people reach out. Um several times the comment was made
about leaving links and what the payout is going to be and we don't have that number from them yet. Um I would I would ask us to not just look at this as a mathematical situation but a legal situation. We have a document. We have an agreement with Lynx that says that
what our rates are supposed to be um that's based on fixed route miles. So yes, that is just math, but some of the um impations that those numbers may somehow change and we can't we don't know yet
what those numbers are going to be. We have a contract that says what those numbers should be. So, if there is significant movement in that number, um that's I think when we get our legal team involved, um and I'd be happy to have anybody address that if the county
attorney or um county manager want to address that situation. Um I'm excited about this. I think this is truly um while other communities have done this, we are not the first. We are the first in this region and um I think it's great
to acknowledge that there will be bumps along the way. We are going to ask for a lot of grace from our community as we figure this out and get it right because we're not going to get it right right out of the gate. We cannot predict, you know, was Fisher Constantine asks, "Is there anything that we haven't found that you have identified?" Well, if
you've identified it, we haven't not found it. We've Right. So, if if we had that crystal ball, if we knew what we didn't know yet, we would we would know it. And so we're um hopeful that the community will work with us. This is something that we're wanting to do as a
benefit. Um and and I think it will be. So um Mr. Chairman, if if you are open to a motion, I would be happy. I got I'm going to go to the public in just a minute. Uh then but I'll be happy to come back to you for that. Um is there any other commissioner questions,
comments that need to be happening? Go ahead, Bo. Commissioner Her then Commissioner Delari. So, uh, just a a couple of points. I too was a little bit unnerved by the commentary around this that there isn't savings and
there is savings. There is a clear savings because we compared the fixed routes that we're going to stop using to what this will do to replace it. And there is a very clear savings not only right out of the gate full-blown, which we're not going right out of the gate
full-blown, but the trajectory over time is also more meaningful. I do think that the links contract is going to be tested and I do believe that we need to
make sure that they're held to that standard. We are not going to be a place that becomes the repository for them figuring out how to make up for ARPA funding. I will say on their defense that the trajectory at the 15% was
because they're making up for ARPA funding. They've been spending that money down. So that's not a fair representation, but the rest of it is a fair representation and the escalation over time is more than we can tolerate. And so I I do think that that's the next thing. If you asked what's the unknown
that we we know we don't know, it's we really need them to commit at this point. Um and we've been very open and talked about this from the very beginning with them in this room. So there should be no surprises. So this should be readily available at this point from my perspective.
Um there is for reference in the document an entire uh section that's applicable to managing fairs for the most vulnerable and making sure that they get tracked etc. So I have no concern that we'll be able to address um
the issues for folks that need it most. I do think from a planning perspective we are not going to take complaints from the folks that stand at bus stops right now. We are going to take complaints from the folks that think this is an replacement to Uber. That has to be
upfront that it is not and we are not here to serve them. We are here to serve people that need transportation. Uh and if if you can afford to go elsewhere for a higher service level, then that is your it is a free market. That's the beauty. God bless America. So we are not going to
try to change the trajectory of this to meet those needs. And that's going to mean that we have to stand up when those calls come into our office to say this is a replacement to links. Were you a user of links before? Is this better than links? Not is it better than Uber
or a taxi cab. I can tell you it's going to be better than a taxi cab because we don't have that. Um, and then the last piece that I did, I neglected to say this when I started, is that Commissioner Lockheart, I uh I applaud you for challenging the status quo
because had you not transitioned onto that board, uh, we would not have challenged the status quo. I had eyebrows raised for a year, but literally felt powerless to change anything, and you saw a different way
forward, and here we are. So, thank you for that. Commissioner Glory. Thank you. As Commissioner Lockard stated, we do have a contract with links. I would hope that staff would do a simultaneous calculation of what those routes would cost and what the savings would be. We
could do that so that we can compare the two cost. Jim, how much do we pay links? Right now, the seminal county funding obligation is 17 million. We pay links$ 14 million. Um, and that's reflective of what Commissioner Her mentioned that they
have uh county funds that they're holding that they use to subsidize our rate. We pay them $14 million. Yeah. The my my reason why I was saying because if you do paratransit plus what we're looking at the 55 vehicles uh add those two numbers together, we're right around 13 million right now. We don't know what
Lynx is going to charge us or what the uh discount that we would calculate would be. So I want to make sure that we stay below whatever those numbers are that we need to stay you know either what those two numbers again we are our our obligation is 17 million that's what we're paying to links because right now
if you add the two numbers together par transit and free we're at 13 so I'm hoping that we actually save some money with this but my main concern is how do we make sure that we're actually saving money as we move forward and I want to
make sure that those all those checks and balances are in place in this contract. So, and I would also like to see uh a work session with freebie so we can flush some of the stuff out so we can get a better understanding of it as well as the public. Send my comment, Mr.
Chairman. Thank you, Commissioner and um Mr. County Manager. Just a couple couple comments. Um one, thank you, Commissioner Lockup, for bringing this up. Um, one thing that this board asked myself to do and Christian Swinson and
myself did it um, early on is that we went and visited our partners. We visited all three hospital systems, Orlando Health, Advent, HCA. We visited the college, Seminal State College. We visited the the school board in all seven cities. We got a and the airport
by the way. We uh, Sanford Orlando Sanford uh, airport. We got total enthusiasm from all of them. In fact, the private sector partners are willing to sit down and talk to us. He said, "It's a little too early because we don't know where we're going. I don't know where the board is going, but I
appreciate you bringing that up because we're looking and what we wanted to bring you to you was just the facts, what the cost is and what our savings is, but we do not know what the additional uh cost savings to us to be and the and the partners that we're getting. And I will tell you that we had
great conversations with our partners." So that is to be uh uh determined as well. Regarding uh the communication plan, our team, Chris Patton, our communication director's team is ready once we choose a vendor um to move forward with, we're ready to start
working with them on the communication plan, I'll be working with the whole with the board as well. So that's why we want if if we want to do this, we want to do it now so we can have enough time to start educating the public about what our new uh process is. And then lastly,
again, You're right. Commissioner Lockheart pushed the bar up to to us. We accepted that challenge, but those two individuals sitting at that table, blood, sweat, and tears. I got briefed weekly on this and I was like, "Oh, wow. This is this and it just started
snowballing." And I and I would be remiss if I did not thank Lynx. Uh their planning team is amazing. In fact, I'll just mention his name, James Bole, who is the director of their planning team, has experience with this
um and actually was very helpful with us determining on on how we move forward. So, um I did speak with Miss Hawkins last week. In fact, the chairman and I did. We were at an Orange County visioning session. Uh she was there. Um I told her once the decision was made by
the board, we would forward a letter uh to them, an official letter. And at that point then the next step of the process would be the what is our new links budget. Thank you. So so there there's no question in my mind lynx is going to
be uh working alongside of us. Uh there are benefits of what we're doing to links in the long run. I think everyone in the in the region, I think, recognizes that with maybe the exception of immediate downtown, densely populated
areas such as city of Orlando and portions of Orange County, the model is broken for mass transportation when it comes to buses. And this is going to give the opportunity to come to a modern-day solution uh that is not only a better service for the users but is
also going to be a a much cheaper and viable solution overall from time management whether you're making a doctor's appointment or or some other appointment you have to be at. But I think that that regionally our partners
are going to work with us uh in this space uh regardless of the contract that's there. I would say the biggest disconnect that that I continue to observe where I would argue uh there there is some disconnect is the actual
writership numbers for our county. Um and I' I've asked for that since the day I arrived here in 2018 and still can't get a straight answer. Uh and I think this will help answer that. Absolutely. That the proof will be in the the shift and and what ultimately happens. But I
have no no belief that somehow uh lynx is not going to be fair with us and and and we will work through that uh with our regional partners. We work on many other things as regional partners as well. So it's a win-win I think at the end of the
day for everybody. Yes. Is there some concern? It's it's it's the unknown. A lot of people are afraid of the unknown. What what's going to happen when semol pulls away in that funding? What's going to happen to the riders when we have some shift in what they're accustomed
to? And and and the bottom line is how do we come as anything changes? there's going to be some impacts and we have to be wise enough to understand that and respond to those in the most efficient corrective way and
then it'll all be okay. 6 months from now this won't even be a topic. Um but but the the further work sessions uh on funding or or the fair I think is a fair thing. But again I have no interest whatsoever make sure I'm clear of
running the microtransit or telling the vendor how to run the microtransit. Um I think it's pretty well outlined in the contract what our expectations are. uh they as a business model should be able to respond to those uh aspects that are in the contract or they can't. It's that
simple. But I also am very thankful uh when I ask that there is a bond mechanism that has been put into this which protects us um if something were to really go a foul. So um with that
said, if there's no other comments from the board, I'm going to go to public comment and come back to the board for action. Anyone here from the public to speak on this matter? No, sir. We will close public input and go to board action. Commissioner Lockhart, you are prepared to make a motion. I am. Thank you very much. Um, commissioners, I'd
like to make a motion to award RFP604918-25PCD term contract for Microtransit services to the top ranked firm Bree LLC doing business as freebie and authorize the county manager to execute the agreement and adjust service levels going forward based on demand.
Second motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? I oppose like sign. Seeing none, carries unanimous. Thank you very much. All right, we're going to take a a quick 7 to 10 minute break and let our team set
up for the budget work session. So, we will uh take a short break and be back here by uh 10:45. [Music]
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All right, we are back in session. We're going to move on to our um budget work session and I'm going to turn it over to County Manager Darren Gray for his messages. Then we'll move into the property appraiser supervisor elections
and then the general fund budget overview by Mr. Jax. Thank you uh Mr. Chairman and commissioners and guests that are here. This is the first of two summer budget work session meetings. Uh we are here to develop for our fisc year
2526 county budget. Today we we will hear presentations from our court agencies and some of our constitutional officers. We will have another work session, budget work session on June 17th to go over the county departments and hear from our sheriff um on on June
17th. We are still working on finalizing our proposed budget document that I will have delivered to your offices by the end of this month, end of May. So I know some of you um have heard about seinal moments. So let me explain
what seminal moments are is to you. I want to take a moment to talk about how we got here. Some of what we'll be discussing in depth at our next work session in June is the result of a few key turning points. What we've come to
call siminal moments and how we approach long range planning as an organization. This wasn't something we were forced into. County leadership took this on because we believe in being responsible, transparent, and
proactive. Instead of waiting for a Doge analysis to tell us what we needed fixing, we decided to get ahead of it. We brought our departments together early, had an honest conversation, and took a hard look on how we operate. We
came out of that process is more than just a new framework. It's a set of real efficiencies. changes that not only save money but also put us on a stronger path moving forward. These seminal moments show where Simol County is going and
they are proof that we're leading with intention and just not reacting to pressure. So you all remember um last month that I took all the directors out and we had an all day retreat. It was on April 11th. Um it was all day. It was we
rolled up our sleeves as you said. We came up that day with 42 efficiency ideas that the directors and I want to commend all of them that uh you know they we all had a piece in this. There were both short and long-term impacts. We focused on maintaining our service
levels while reducing our cost. And here just are probably one of the top four ones that we're going to be coming back to you on. Energy efficiency improvements with our buildings and lighting, fleet inventory, right sizing and management policies. And I will tell you, having Chad Wilsky, the head of
Fleet is the best thing I think I've ever done. Um, or I give credit to Christian a little bit. He he brought him on on with us, but he has a great story to tell, and we can't wait to come in June to to explain that to you. Another one that came up uh was
consolidation of our countywide services, our customer services, and accounting. We don't need all these offices all over the county. We can actually consolidate that. So, we're working on that. And then um Allan came up with a great one with this radio to seller conversion uh for our public safety radio. So those are just to name
a few but we are going to highlight those in June for you so you can see the impact of them. We didn't stop there. I already have a meeting set up with an efficiency group. Um actually I got a lead from OEP from Orlando Economic Partnership and met met through one of
the networking events there. So, we're meeting with them uh early June. And then uh and I have to give Commissioner her, we've been talking a lot about this lately. I got a graduate student that's actually coming. We're giving them the our operating budget and they are going
to be using AI tools to go through it to give us an indication of where we need to really focus on what comes out of that. So, that is already set up. That's the first week of June as well. So, we're excited about that. Um and then we're just setting the stage. So when we come in June with the department budgets
as well as the the sheriff that we'll be able to go over a lot of these efficiencies and what our recommendations are to move forward. So with that, Mr. Chairman. Great. My opening comments. Thanks. Very good. We will go to Mr. David Johnson, our property appraiser. Welcome, Mr.
Johnson. It's always a delight to have you in our chambers. You're so Thank you very much. It's always delightful to be here with you guys, too, especially when we're talking about money. So here we go. Um, obviously today we're here talking about uh our 2025 2026 budget
for the property appraisers office. We a few months ago had the great opportunity to work with you on giving you some revenue projections and some of the things that are out there uh in the ecosphere that we're going to be monitoring going forward. Uh but today we're we're going to concentrate on the
budget. And as all of you know um my budget and the tax collector's budget are in fact approved and monitored by the department of revenue on an annual basis. This is the timeline that the that is set out in statute 195.087
uh about managing our budget and the tax collector's budget. So June 1st which is great. It's May 20th. We need to submit the budget to the department of revenue and you get a simultaneous copy of that since you are the primary funding source for that. uh by July 15th, we get a
tentative budget approval from the Department of Revenue and back to us and to you with any changes or concerns they may have. And then finally, by August the 15th, we have final budget approval uh to our office. So, here are the assumptions
that went into building the 2526 budget. Again, this is a lot of interaction with your staff and trying to model what's going on with your organization so that we are not bifrocating one another and trying to be as cooperative and certainly serve the citizens as efficiently as possible. So, here are
the assumptions. Basically, we're seeing about a 4.5% increase in the budget from a dollar perspective. That's about $346,000 um in additional uh um re sorry expenses moving forward. That assumption
is based on this a 4% salary increase which again are those are conversations we've had with your staff and what you plan on doing for your folks. So we're trying to model that. Um also about an 8% increase in our insurance. Again as you know we are part of your insurance
plan uh health insurance plan. Uh we've worked very closely with Mr. JS about we had a number in there. We've readjusted that because of some things that are out there. So that's assumptions also in there. And of course um the legislature will set the uh F FRS rates as we know
they have not come in for a landing yet on their budget. We hope they will do this sooner rather than later but there are rates sitting out there. We use the most aggressive rates that are currently in the legislature. So we make sure that the funding is proper and then we have
maintained the full-time equivalent staffing of 48 folks for the office. One of the things that I wanted to kind of touch on which does not necessarily necessarily have anything directly to do with budget ultimately helps with revenue and moving forward.
Over the last three years we have taken an initiative of going through our entire homestead exemption file. There's about 105,000 homestead exemptions in the county. We get 8 to 9,000 new exemption a year. Some come off, people sell their
house, eight or nine,000 come on. But we're constantly monitoring those exemptions because what the news is, and you've heard a lot about property tax reform. We will hear more about that at Nauseium moving
forward. But the one trend line that we see through all these conversations, these hours and hours of conversation, which I've heard most of them, unfortunately, we'll never get that part of my life back. Um, the one trend line is we we want to do something, the legislature, we want to do something for
homestead property owners. Maybe some more stuff, but we need to make sure that our homestead property files are in great shape. We've seen this over the years because the actual homestead exemption savings in this county from the $50,000 homestead exemption to the
caps to portability is about $2500. So in other words, citizens of this county are not paying property taxes. They're saving about $2,500 on average than they would be if there was no caps or there was no homestead. That's a huge number. When
you start multiplying that times 105,000, that's billions of dollars. Okay? We need to make sure that people that are entitled to those exemptions are getting those exemptions and those that are not are not. We um have partnered with a third party vendor over a three-year period of time. They again
looked at every one of the 105,000 homesteads. Less than 1% of them were flagged as coming back as something that needed a additional investigation, which my staff did. and went through that due process, it was in the hundreds out of
105,000 that we have actually removed homesteads on, penalized, etc. Most of that, you're going to say, well, what were that? Most of that is rentals. Folks who in a lot of cases have adult children um and who are you know they're
not on title who are letting their adult children live there and they are living in Maine or North Carolina but the property is actually that particular person. So it was in the hundreds not thousands. We feel very confident about that and we certainly do continual monitoring of that to make sure that the
files are in fact in great shape moving forward and make sure again someone's not getting something they're not entitled to. So here are the budget allocations that our total budget. You will get three letters. The chairman will get three letters because you have three funds
basically that fund my office. You have a general fund which of course is the majority of that. That will take a hit of about 6.7 about $6.9 million. The fire fund is just over a million dollars and of course your transportation fund about $29,000. The St. John's Water Management
District does pay a very very small portion of our budget, but you guys are our our our funders for sure. So, we appreciate that. Uh this is the request that goes up to the do and in fact that's heading out this week. I want folks to also
understand um and we cover this every year also that we have a great amount of oversight by the department of revenue. These are the number of schedules that have to go with the budget much like happens with your departments to the department of revenue for them to make
sure that what what I'm asking for makes sense and is that um in comparison to my colleagues across the state and you'll see that slide in a second. We we're very um happy with all that. And again, one of the things that we do in my office is we do publish the budget uh on
the website um and so it's out there for the taxpayers to look at. there's no secrets and uh we obviously hope that they appreciate the job that we're doing and the efficiency that we're doing it. Uh this is the one of the schedules that goes up to the department. You will see
um what our our funding was in 22 23 I'm sorry 23 20 4 24 25 and then 25 26 and you can see the progression in each of the major categories how much those went up um in each category. This is the slide we're very
particularly happy about and we I'm proud of. Um and that's that um our cost per capita as far as uh per citizens of this county is about $15.61 uh to fund our budget on an annual basis. That puts us the sixth lowest out
of the 67 counties in the state of Florida. Um and we're the 13th largest. So you can see the range ranges from $10.111 per capita all the way up to $87 per capita. Obviously the 87 number
or smaller counties. Thank God for Dixie County and Washington and Jefferson and Madison and all those those counties that have presidential names. Um but here's how we uh compare to our neighbors around us. And again, we're very competitive. Lake
County of course is coming in at a little bit less than we are. Um I will tell you that will not always be that way. Um they have a new property appraiser as we all know and there's some things that probably need to be done in Lake County that um maybe haven't been done over the years that will be moving forward. So again, our
neighbor across the river is almost $30 per capita. So uh in Valia County. So, um, we're very proud of that number and I appreciate my team and all the hard effort that they they do every day to deliver this. Uh, this is organizational
chart. I know it's hard to read, but we do actually have an organization. We actually have people in seats and they are actually doing jobs. So, that's what that looks like. That's again something that has to be submitted to the Department of Revenue to make sure there are no ghost or phantom employees out
there. Of course, they're not. Um this is another slide that I'm particularly proud of. This show what we're measuring here is the percentage increase in the tax roles um since 2010 and our and uh our staffing level. Okay, we've actually lowered the number of staff over the
years. Um and that's due to efficiencies utilizing technology and again to deliver a higher level of service to the taxpayer and to do it more efficiently. So, we talked about this slide a couple
months ago uh about what we perceived as the growth going forward in the tax role and you can see from the county road and fire fund what that looks like. Uh we talked about 6% which was the number that we've got in there now. I will tell
you by the end of this week, again, another statutory requirement. We have to notify you all, all the taxing authorities, what we project to be uh a good faith estimate of what the tax rule will actually be. Um, we have six in
there right now. It's going to be north of six, not significantly north of six, probably about 6 and a half, 6.75. Um, it's not going to be eight, it's not going to be nine, it's not going to be 10, but it's going to be between six and 7%. Um but we will
notify you officially of that before the end of the week. That again that's due June 1st. Um and you can see that number has trended down. That percentage has trended down over the last couple of years. Again that's just a softening of the market. We have seen no declines in the market whatsoever. We have seen a
flattening of the market. There are certain segments of the market. Class A office space being one of those that we have seen some minor declines in values when we look at sales. But um it's more a function of um the market flattening
out. Uh no significant declines at this point. And with that, I am available for whatever questions you may have. Any questions from the board? Commissioner her. We'll start on her end and go this way. First of all, David, thank you for being here and
we're sorry you lost all that time in your life and listening. And so I just want to point out one mistake on your slides. If you'll go to page 11. Okay. This is where we have the assumptions. And which one are you looking? Okay. Okay.
Yeah. That one. Your arrow is not indicative of your ass. And so I think this was the case last year and I kept my mouth quiet. But we're coming in at six. You're coming in at 4.5. You've done that every year
since I've been here. Give yourself credit. Don't put in writing that your costs are going like this. We have others that are. Yours are not. Take it. Thank you very much. I was going to say I'm measuring the increase in the budget. But anyway, we appreciate you, David. Thank you very much. And your
team. Nothing here. Commissioner Dori. Thank you. Thank you, David. Uh, as always, it's very informative. Well done. You do a great job. Uh you talked about uh some of the class A office buildings and about them trying to get back to precoid
uh occupancy and numbers. Uh what have you seen around the state and has anyone doing anything around the state to assist them to get to that level? So we're hearing the same thing across the state. The only the only only carve out probably is South Florida, Miami, Dade,
Broward, Palm Beach because there's a certain dynamic going on between Central and South America that we don't see. And of course, that's kind of an epicenter and a lot of um the financial world has moved or has offices in South Florida now from New York. So we don't have that
dynamic but we are all struggling across the state the Tampa us of the world with this vacancy that's in class A office space as you know the problem is it's very hard to get any kind of financing. So if even if I'm an investor and I want
to buy class A office space unless I can I've got private equity or I can self finance it's it's a tough sell because of what's going on nationally. I the good news for us in Semol County um and actually across the state is very no new
construction has occurred over the last number of years. So what that means is the supply has stayed steady. Demand is a little bit down but I think overall this is still a growing area. Again as I've told you before I much rather be the property appraiser of Seminal
County, Florida than Toledo, Ohio. Okay. So that's problematic if you're in some of those rust belt cities uh that there. So I think we will see the stuff backfill over the years, but it it's going to take a minute. And the problem is like I said, investors are kind of
locked out from buying it because of the interest rates and some of the risk that's out there. So well, David, for the record, I and I'm sure my other commissioners would agree we appreciate you being a property appraiser here and not Toledo, Ohio. Well, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. But so you're
saying that they are coming back very gradually. Just very gradually, very very gradually. And again, what we're seeing is as space so the good news, the reason we've not seen as big of a decline in your class A office space, especially along the international uh parkway corridor, is because of those
were a lot of those were leases with trip with u class A companies. Okay? And they may be five or 10 year leases. whether you've got anybody in there or not, you still had to pay the lease payment on a monthly basis. So, as those
leases come up, which is what we're starting to see now past CO that I don't need 75,000 ft anymore. I need 45,000 ft. They've not abandoned it completely, but they are downsizing the amount they need. And that's got to get backfilled
by somebody moving forward. With them coming back, as you stated, what's the projection? How many years out do you think we would be? I would say another 5 years at least. And again, if if we could get the equity markets loosened up, in other words, if if interest rates decline um and more money is floating
around out there, I think you will see savvy investors come in and start buying up some of these facilities, probably doing some renovations, reconfiguring them. We see this with shopping centers all the time where we will take down a big box and redo it. But it's a matter
of needing capital to do that. And of course these buildings are, you know, two of $300 a square foot and 100,000 foot building that's 30 40 $50 million. So um it's real money at some point. Yeah. Thank you, David. You're
welcome. Anyone else? Just a good job, David. Thank you for keeping um your your budget in check every single year. I appreciate it. Well, I thank you for the partnership and again I've got a really good team and we try to deliver
as much efficiency as we can. So, thank you for your partnership also and your support. Yeah. Um, I echo all of the sentiments of of gratitude, not just for you what you do in your own organization and keeping your budget streamlined and the efficiencies, but the resource that you
are to us as we navigate our overall budget um is just so grateful because there's a there's a trust factor there that we have with you that um is just so incredibly critical for the work that we do. So, thank you. I I will ask you um
two things and I'm asking it of every uh office that comes before us with their budgets and so this is not special for you. Um although you are special, this is not special for you. Um I'm going to ask for your lapsed salary dollars. Um, and not just this last year, but maybe
give us a look back for the last few years of of what your lap salary dollars average. And then your line item budget uh to actual for this current year and your prior two years. So we can see for
everyone um what you've budgeted for the la current and prior two years and your actual at the line item level. Okay. Very good. Okay. Thank you. All right. Very good. Thank you. Anything else? Well, thank you very much, Dave, for being here and and also thank you, by
the way, for what you do for some of the charities in in our community. It doesn't go without notice, and I think that speaks volumes when our electeds uh give back to the community through the charitable uh work that you guys have done. So, thank you very much. We sincerely appreciate your support, too.
We appreciate you very much, too. You bet. Thanks again. Thank you very much. Have a great day. Enjoy your day. Thank you. Next up, we will have Supervisor of Elections, Miss Amy Pinoch. [Applause] Okay. Good morning.
Thank you everyone for having me here this morning. I feel my chair is really low. So, um, first just wanted to, uh, take the opportunity to thank each of you for, uh, taking the time to meet with my team and I for our one-on ones. It
really helped get us prepared, fine-tune our budget presentation, and make sure that we were delivering what you needed to make your decisions when it came uh, come time to approving, reviewing, and approving our budget. I do want to acknowledge I have a couple of staff with me. uh my assistant supervisor
Jason Teeman and my director of operations Kimberly Walker uh have been a really integral part in helping pres uh prepared for this budget. And so um um I do want to as a precursor
provide you uh I gave your uh Commissioner Lockheart some updated reports. Um I would like to take a few minutes and present to you uh my internal transition audit. report that will help me um give you
some insight as to where the office was when we came into it, some of the decisions that we've had to make that have impacted this year's financials and how it's going to impact the budget that has been presented to you. Uh as a result of some of this and uh some
additional conversations with your county county manager, there was an additional change to the budget. So, I've given you an updated budget document that decreased by about $198,000. So, there's a revised uh kind
of summary review and then the detailed financial report. So, please stop me if you have any questions, but what I'm going to do is just give you a very very high level uh some of the I think the important pieces
that impacted me um kind of as a as a forensic accountant. Some of the things that surprised me coming into this office, this is my internal review process. This is not the financial audit that you guys helped uh approve that is
going on with our partners with um Forvis Mazars that is still ongoing. Um we've we've uh just dove into the accounting and or the payroll side of the accounting processes. And so, uh,
I'm hoping in the next 30 to 45 days that will be released. Uh, we will present that to your office as well. Miss Penock, if you could move that microphone a little closer to you. Sure. I see people struggling to hear. Maybe. Is that better? That's better. Thank you. Okay. Um, one of the things I do
want to put on the record is it's important to note that I had zero transition prior to me coming into this office January 7th. Um, I came in, I was sworn in, and that was my actual first day of having any interaction with staff, any documentation, any records,
uh, was not handed off anything, was not introduced to the process. So, I walked in day one with, um, fresh eyes at looking at everything and, uh, digging right in. Uh, some of the again highle things
that we discovered as going through the office is we were not in records retention compliance. We had missing or no employee HR files. We had missing contracts. We had missing emails. Uh since then, we have put some things in process in place including software to
make sure that we are in compliance with recordkeeping. Um from a a legal perspective, we can't verify that uh E-Verify, we cannot validate that E-Verify was done on all poll workers. Uh every election year we hire between
seven and 800 pole workers and uh federal government requires federal federal regulation requires that you do e-verify on every new employee. Uh we can't validate that that was done. We had many many vendor and payroll issues
discovered high level again um we actually had to do 92 W2 corrections on pole workers because of inaccurate processing. Um, we also had many late vendor payments. Fortunately, very few crossed
the financial time frame of one fiscal year to another, but just enough. Uh, and it has resulted in us having to take extra time in rebuilding vendor relationships because they lost the trust in our office ability to process timely payments.
Um there was just overall neglect in the office administration um including lack of organization, incomplete or no filing systems. Um I think one of the biggest surprises there was no follow-up on a
voter request for an administrative hearing. The office received a request in August to provide a hearing to a felon who wanted to get his votes voting rights restored. Uh and there was no
office response to this gentleman. Uh therefore, he didn't get to go through the process, nor did he get to partake in the ability or not to vote in the primary or the general election of this past year. Miss Panaka, was that a veteran?
fel a felon. A felon. Okay. By by law, we're required to have administrative hearings, right, for felons who want to regain their voting rights. Uh this person requested this hearing in early August and there was no response from the office. And wasn't that an
initiative the previous SOE had undertaken? Uh that's a state law. No, understood. But but I believe my understanding was uh the previous S so SOE was out making rounds advocating for such hearings to occur to renew those voting rights and
you're telling me a request was made and never granted. Correct. I'm not aware of what he was out advocating for or against. uh but but yes he did not provide or the office did not resp provide a response or provide uh access
to this administrative hearing and in a timely manner. Uh by law we have 30 days to respond and to schedule that hearing and then uh 45 days thereafter to provide the response to the voter on
their ability to or not gain their rights back and that process did not happen. Has your office since picked that up to Yes, it's been great. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Uh, we found misuse of SOE email accounts. Um, we had
numerous issues with incorrect establishment of candidate financial records. A couple of which have resulted in fines having to be levied to candidates because or or packs because they were not um I I can't I can't even provide an
assumption as to why it just didn't didn't happen. Um the the final just high level is uh as we are here talking about budget and you guys went through an extensive review of the budget for the 2425 year.
Uh this office has incurred over $161,000 in legal fees uh that did not have a budget line in the 2425 year. So that is uh going to be an anticipated uh budget transfer that we will be coming
to you uh in the near future to make sure that we have allocated we are reallocating other resources that were budgeted to cover legal fees that have been incurred in this office. You have a four-page report in
front of you. I'm happy to answer any questions. you you've seen the report um but I provided it again today. Uh happy to answer any questions before we go into the budget. Any questions from any of the board members on the document before mentioned?
Okay, please proceed. Miss Bennett. Thank you. Okay. Um as again um coming into the office um I Mr. Jensen, thank you so much for providing all the backup documentation for how we got to this
year's budget that we're currently in. I provided you a pro projection for 2425, uh, which is is going to land us about $4.62 million on a budget of $4.628 million. Some of the major projects that
we've had to do coming into the office that didn't have to but did and have to do uh is we purchased a program called clear ballot. This will allow us to increase our audit of every election from the required
one precinct one race to 100% of all ballots all races every election. uh due to Apple uh discontinuing their service of a certain level on iPads, we
had to do a 100% refresh on all our iPads which are used for voter check-in. That was about um $120,000. Again, we purchased software for uh to make sure that we are in records uh retention compliance. We've
spent a lot of time working on uh small and large office upgrades to really rebuild the culture in the office, provide a very safe, clean, positive workspace with adequate working space for our employees. Um we are heading into the
required list maintenance right now. Within the next 30 days, each and every registered voter in Simol County will be getting a letter from our office to validate their voter registration information, every piece of it. Uh this will
uh affect two ways. One, one to remind them should they like to vote by mail to renew their vote by mail since that expires every year after the general election. Uh it will also just it will validate if they are currently in Simol
County a registered voter at the correct address in the correct party. If we do not get a response to them that is considered a legal document that we can remove them from the voter roles. So uh you will see some numbers change
probably significantly over the next 6 months as we go through this process. Uh we will definitely keep you posted. We've also had to do some election equipment refresh and as you see in your capital budget that we presented in front of you, we have some
additional election equipment refresh. Uh one of the things that did not happen at the end of last year was all requests for purchases of capital and and other significant purchases within the office were
declined. And had that been reviewed and approved, one of our vendors who provides the tabulation machines, the DS200's, discontinued the making of the DS200's at the end of last year. When
the request was made in August, uh the request was for seven new machines. The DS200s are no longer being made and now we have to purchase 15 machines to make sure we have adequate coverage to
use those at all of our early voting sites. So that's an additional um cost. Each machine is 17 $7,000. Uh part of the challenges as we came into the
office. Um I I love that uh David provided your his cost by uh population. Um we dive we uh our auditors actually created this spreadsheet and I know you'll some of you laughed some of you laughed in our individual meetings. Um
we are actually comparing our costs to registered voters. Uh and we compared it to our regional counties. Uh, Simol County has the highest percentage of registered voters to population of Simol County,
which is great. However, when you go over and look at expenditures by registered voter, we are the lowest spend in our region. And while two previous S so SOE like to brag about his cost savings areas, uh I think
that this speaks to the fact that maybe we don't necessarily provide voter services the great services uh that Simol County has the best standard for just in every service that's provided. So if you look at the very bottom line in our budget request, we are actually
trying to increase uh it's a little bit it's not much but we are working on um not being at the bottom. I don't think in this case bottom is good. I think in other cases it is. Uh but when we have been short staffed, when we have
the lack of equipment, uh it doesn't allow for a great voter service experience. So um some of the 202526 impacts uh we anticipate expenses related to
1.75 elections due to the timing of the budget cycle versus election dates. We have two elections next year uh the primary and the general. The general happens in November. Budget cycle starts in October. We will have vote by mails out in the current in the in the next
budget cycle, but the general election will happen in the 2627 budget cycle. So that's why it's 1.75. Uh in the 2024 election, uh I just want to make this point again. It would reiterate that we're not necessarily
providing the great services. Simol County underperformed state turnout in more than 24 years at 73% voter turnout compared to state turnout of 78%. To me, that's given us insight that we need to get more boots on the ground,
more marketing, more information out to the public to encourage them to vote, uh to make sure that they're aware of when to vote and how to vote and and getting them access. Salary, wages, and benefits. We have a net increase of 1.5 FTE will be
about 24.5 FTEES. We have really retoled and reallocated a lot of the leadership positions that were in the office prior and created more voter services clerks. So you will see more people that are sitting at the front really working to make sure all of the voters uh are are
getting the information that they need on a timely basis doing everything uh additionally that we are required to do. I'm not sure that you uh have followed, but uh the governor signed into law a new petition process uh a constitutional
amendment process that is going to affect our office and and some of the information that we have to get back and forth to the state is going to create a little bit more work. And so we're absorbing all of that into this year's budget as well. Um we are additionally uh bringing
accounting and payroll into house. So you will see a small additional expense in both of those areas to to bring in a software. Um not comfortable with staying on JD Edwards. I think that program is too robust and costly for us. So we are looking to move towards
QuickBooks uh and a payroll company similar to what the property appraiser uses which is compliant with FRS and everything else that the state uses. Um we uh additionally um the department
one of the programs that the department of homeland security used to absorb costs for us with some cyber security uh training investigation and safety measures and through the Doge program that program was eliminated. So we are having to absorb some of those costs and
bring those in house. Um one of the things uh that the county manager and I um Mr. Jensen and I have have talked as well is um there have been costs I think that the county has absorbed that haven't been reflected on
our budget or on our financials and this budget reflects every penny of those costs to show what the actual cost of our office is. uh those inter department or or inter agency transfers will happen if we use your print shop, if we use the
postage um and any other if we um have to use attorney fee, you know, fees, those will all be allocated over. But this budget reflects every single penny of those costs. And then uh one of the big things
that we've had to do uh this year uh and and into next year is really replenish and replace all of the exhausted supplies from inventory uh from the the previous uh SOE's office. We are working in the future to
create a capital refresh, a five-year plan, a capital five-year plan so that you can uh not be surprised as we walk in or give you a budget. You'll get a budget every year of uh we have 140 DS200s that we are going to have to
start replenishing because even though they stopped making them last year, doesn't mean they're not going to service them. However, at one point they will stop servicing and we will have to replace replace those. Um our DS 950s that are the big tabulators for our vote
by mail. Uh we currently have four. We're in the process of procuring one or two over the next two years because in the last election, two of them went down during the election. Um, a very un um uneasy feeling when something like that happens in mid-election and that's
something that we need to avoid at all costs. So, the next slide is our budget trend. Um, and um, Commissioner her, I hope this answers your question of of leveling and understanding why the budget swings.
Um, one of one of the the questions that she asked was, "We're going to have to train retrain you uh on the budget for the SOE's office." I think as much as I'm having to retrain myself on this, learn this budget uh has been a a big
challenge. Um the swing from one year to the next primarily is because elections and we do have to hire between seven and 800 people during those election times. Um and that's that's really the big swing of what you see up here. Our
budget is coming in under the primary under the presidential election for two years last year. Uh we tend to compare election year to election year. So you do you will see we are coming in less because we do have one less election in this next year. We don't have the
presidential preference primary and so you see our uh salary wage and benefits costs coming in just a little bit lower as well as our total budget coming in lower. Um our request for this budget this next year is 5.2 million
5.295. It's an increase of and I'm sorry that this number landed this way. It just is what it is. So I will say the whole number 6 $166,41 uh is 12.59%. However, when you look at the detail of that, that 12.59% really isn't
um it's skewed by the increase in capital that we need to repurch to purchase the elections equipment. The operational increase is 8.35% or $429,000. And so that is our budget
presentation. Great. Any questions from the board, comments, questions? We'll start with Comm Mer Lockhart and work our way this direction. Um, thank you for your diligence and um, true transparency as you go through this process and as you learn more um, your
willingness to share not just with us but with the public um, so that we can get level set I think is really important. Um, reaffirming and reestablishing trust with the community and their election process is just so critical. So, thank you for your
commitment to that. Um, I I had a couple questions earlier for Mr. Johnson. I don't know if you heard them, but I'll repeat them just for the sake of the record. So, that um so we're I'm looking for average of lap salary dollars for the last few years and a line item
budget to actual for this current year and the prior two years. And I know that's going to be really hard because frankly, I'm not sure there were there were line item budgets in prior years. So, I'm putting an asterisk next to that because I don't know what you're going to find, but Sure. Um, if in the budget
books that I gave you in the one-on- ones, we provided two different documents that was a budget trend, uh, which was the actual budget that came from the budget that was input into JD Edwards. So, I know that that's that was the actual approved budget. And then there was a second document that were
the actual numbers uh, minus any inter agency transfers. So those don't reflect some of the print shop uses. Um I will go through and make sure that it's updated. Uh and those were for the last 10 years. So I will go through and
update this current year projection on there so that you can see uh and then I'll create a variance report on that and and get that to you in the next week. Uh not I'm sorry, not this week. It's my daughter's graduation week. So I'm I'm off celebrating. Uh so I'll get
those to you early next week. Thank you. Really appreciate that. Thank you. Mr. Constine, anything? Yeah. Um, supervisors, this is not a question for you. It's a question for Tim. Um, prior to some of the members on
this board and not the last supervisor, but the previous one. And by the way, supervisor, I'm very happy that you didn't say and we are the lowest per voter. And you know, we've heard that so
many times. Um, so Tim, there there was a midyear request by Mr. Eert for voting machines. And I believe that that was for
$800,000 with the suggestion that we would never have to buy voting machines for a long, long time. Um it's now a long long time. It's a long long time. Three years, four years, five years, six years. Count co it's a long time ago. Yeah. You know, I mean,
you know, what happened to that? Do you have any idea? I can answer that question. You can answer. Good. Absolutely. They're electronic voting machines. They're electronic tabulators, not voting machines. They take the votes off of the paper and they tabulate the numbers, but they are electronic. And
electronics usually have a a lifespan of when you're looking at a computer four years to seven years or if you're looking at something more robust it's 7 to 10 years and we are in that 7 to 10 year cycle right now. So some of the equipment is starting to show its wear
and tear. uh some of the equipment the vendors are saying I think that you need to replace them because uh we we could get into a technical challenge in an election and that's certainly not something that any of us want to see happen and so it's purely from the lifespan cycle
of I'm not sure how that promise was ever made because it's electronic. Thank you. I don't like the answer but but thank you for giving me the answer Mr. Glory. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Supervisor Pennock. Well done. I really appreciate our 101 briefing that you gave me in my office. Very well done and very transparent. And I do realize that uh you know, we've been told whatever time it was that uh we wouldn't have to
replace the voting machines for a long long time. And now it's that long long time as you've clearly stated. and uh the fact that you're up to speed on all these little issues proves the fact that not only you're the right person for the job, but you're into the details. Well
done. Thank you. Thank you. My comments are um not to reiterate what's already been said, but in our our briefing in my office, I'm delighted uh that you're willing to continue the
transparency of allowing seminal government TV uh to come in and and observe what's going on in the building as well as what the canvasing board's work is is being done and what's taking place. And I think that's going to go a
long way um in in u allowing the public to see what really goes on behind the scenes and transparency and uh I'm glad you've done this and I think it was very wise business decision to do a drill down uh on this office before you took
the reigns uh permanently financially to understand what had previously been done or not done um because I have a belief had you not done that you would own the whole thing. Uh so I I sincerely appreciate that you were wise enough
from a business perspective to uh drill down through that and understand what you were walking into and so forth. And I suspect based on on that business decision that you will continue to do the people's work for the most efficient way proc possibly. So I thank you for
that very much. Can if I could add one more piece to that. I am going to make you work a little harder on the canvasing board. Uh we are actually going to add a component of of the canvasing board doing a piece of the of the signature verification live so that
the voters can see that that it is done. Uh it will be televised. We'll have to figure out how to wait to not show the signatures. But, uh, we will be, uh, engaging the canvasing board in doing live voter signature verification, a sampling of all of the the vote by mail
pieces that come in while you're sitting in the canvasing board. I'll trade you that for the equipment to duplicate the ballots. Thank you very much, Commissioner Her. So, uh, a few comments. Um, first I'll
start out by saying I love the truth in spending approach to this that if it's your expense, you're moving it off of the county's roster and onto yours. So, so I what we call that truth and ledger. And so that's in here. That's part of it. Um, that is a big deal from my
perspective. I would love to see I I think the representation of the spend per voter is important. You you shared, but I would like to see it after the roles are cleaned. M absolutely I just given all given the pages of document
that you just gave me I'm thinking that that may change considerably I could be wrong and then the last thing I do just want to get on the record given all that you've shared for our citizens is the fact that the supervisor of elections is
a constitutional officer and this board has no governance over constitutional officers but I will give our current chairman and our past chairman full credit for doing every single thing they could possibly do, including our county attorney staff and
our county manager to make sure that you weren't in this situation. It could have been worse. So, I thank them for doing everything that they did and I appreciate you for being here. The voters got it right. Thank you. Great. Anything else, Commissioner Lockhart?
So, Wikipedia says that Mike Ortell was the supervisor of elections in Semino County from February 2005 to January 2019. So, time flies when you're having fun. Nice. Six years, right? Yeah. Okay.
Thank you, Miss Penog. We're also going to shift gears because we're getting late in our our proceedings today. We're going to hold Mr. J for this afternoon. But at this time, the regular meeting of the board of county commissioners will go into recess and the board will convene a
closed attorney client session requested by the county attorney. The purpose of the closed session is to discuss strategy related to litigation expenditures in the pending River Cross Land Company LLC versus Semino County case. The closed session will be conducted in room
3024 of the county services building and is estimated to last approximately 1 hour. Attendance to close session is strictly limited to county commissioners Bob Delari, Jay Zambau, Lee Constantine, Amy Lockheart, Andrea Herurr, County
Manager Mr. Darren Gray, County Attorney Kate Lour, Assistant County Attorney Cassidy Purdue, and outside legal counsel Todd Norman of the Nelson Mullins Law Firm. The close session is being conducted pursuant to section 286.0118
0118 Florida statutes. All discussions will be held strictly limited to the strategy related to litigation expenditures. At the conclusion of the closed session, the meeting shall be relocated back to the BCC chambers and reopened with the following announcement to be made when we return. We shall be
in recess. Thank you all very much. [Applause]
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[Music] Approximately 12:30 and we are back in session at the board of county commission. ition meeting. The closed attorney client session has concluded. The board will now be in recess until 100
p.m. at 1:00 p.m. instead of 1:30 because that's J7. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause]
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If folks could begin to find your seats, we're still waiting for a couple commissioners, but we'll get started without them if we need to be. It's now 1:00. the budget work session for the Semino County Board of County
Commission. We appreciate everybody's patience today as we get through this as efficiently as we can. I appreciate you all being here. Our next up is going to be uh the 18th Judicial Circuit Court, the Honorable Chief Judge Melanie Chase.
Miss Chase, welcome. Thank you. Thanks for having us. May I have the floor for a moment? you I want to be I'm never going to argue with a judge. You can have the floor as long as you'd like. I I doubt that. Mr. Chair Point of I believe that you've argue
with many a judges time, just not here in this county meeting. I want to thank you all. I know that you normally reconvene at 1:30 and I and I have asked you to accommodate me and I'm very grateful, but I want to tell you that I'm in the middle of a jury trial. So, you are accommodating not only me, but
you are accommodating a jury full of people. You've got the sheriff's office and the clerk's office. So, we're very we're very grateful for that. And that means you'll be very efficient with us today. We'll be a few words. I assure you. Thank you. Go ahead. The judicial
budget totals $1.4 million. Um you can see on the slide uh above what the uh breakdown of the funding is that supports the budget. 33% from the general fund, 39% from the article 5 fund, and then an additional approximately 28% from grant funds and agency funds.
This slide shows their general fund impact. This is the general fund and the article 5 fund totaling $1 million. Uh it's a 5.7% increase. And the entirety of this increase is related to existing personnel costs. They're requesting no
new FTEEs and they do have um one highlighted item uh 44,000 for the first year of a three-year uh laptop replacement program that the judge is going to talk about. So, we got a letter in January from Darren Gray that said, "Flat budget.
Message received. Flat budget." Um, I wanted to tell you just a couple of things that we're doing to try to save you money. First, I hope when you talk to your management folks, I hope that they tell you that judicial is um we try to be good stewards of the money. We ask for not just on budget things, but we
try to not cost you money on the little things, especially the civil courthouse since you are making this expenditure for us to combine the courouses. We're very grateful for that and we try to not cost you money on things like facilities maintenance for the older courthouse um if we don't have to. So, I hope that
you're hearing that back. In addition to that, um we have this is Brandy Jenkins. um is our budget brilliant, wonderful employee that handles all of it. And she's good at looking for ways to move something um from a county item to a state item and
she's been able to find some software and some um equipment things that also fit with the state. So, she's been able to work on that. Uh and so we've made some headway with that. The one thing that we are asking that you consider, if you would consider, uh, we are asking
for $44,000 for laptop improvements. Um, the judges don't have, we don't have paper folders anymore like we used to, you know, used to go get the file from the clerk's office and go to the courtroom. We don't have it anymore. We're all on laptops. Um, which is great. It makes it us more efficient. I
hope that, you know, we can sign warrants, you know, whenever they need to be signed and um we're more accessible. It also makes us kind of live or die by the laptops. So, so Ivan Giannis, the um trial court administrator, explained to me that
software gets out of date and licenses get out of date, which I was not as aware of, but so that is that is becoming an issue. So, the $44,000 that we're asking you to consider would uh help us with one-third of the computers. So, we're not coming to you and asking for everybody to get a brand new shiny.
Um, but it would just update things. So, we thought that it was a reasonable ask. Um, but that is the only item that we're asking you to consider, okay, granting us. Great. And one final slide. Um, these the judicial has $400,000 of
non-general funded budgets. Um, these are budgets in agency funds. They were not included in the FY25 adopted. So the slide shows them as increases, but um these are not true increases. They have a total of 400,000 for adult drug court and the court program drug lab. And that
concludes our presentation. Okay. Any questions for the judiciary? Mr. Chairman, the only suggestion that I would have would be to the county manager. Uh, I think the request that the judge is making is very direct, very straightforward, and I'd like to see if there's a way to include it, and if you
can report back to us later, I'd greatly appreciate it. Okay, Commissioner Lockhart, and we'll come on right on down the line. My apologies for not being here when you first started. Um, where are we with the courtroom requests that were made in the um new in
the reorganization of the new criminal courthouse? Um, we had originally talked about budgeting for one additional courtroom. Are we still looking at that or have there been changes to that request? So, I haven't been able to talk to Mr. Gray. Yeah, I can unless you want
to answer it. You I can tell you that we are this this this administration is looking to reduce what we had asked for before because I think we can without it hurting the citizens in any way. And the judges will still be will still be okay. Okay. I've
talked to your administration about how much money we can save, if we can even reduce by by even a courtroom. So, but we're still early in the process, right? Okay. But we're open. So, we have been meeting with uh Judge Chase, gosh, for about probably about 3 to four months now and her staff to get them up to
speed on the renovations um over there. Um Chad Wilsky is communicating with um Judge Chase probably weekly or every other week about other not only that, but other courtroom improvements. uh to the ex existing stuff. We are getting
ready to hold a um one to update you all where we are on on that and then hold a user group meeting to update everyone on where we are in the process. We just finished the negotiation of the Semar. So you're going to see that coming the GMP coming up pretty soon. Okay, great. Thank you so much. Thank you for your
work. Thanks for accommodating me at 1:00. I wanted you to hear that because I I have a jury and so I appreciate it. I didn't want you to miss the Thank you for working. Oh my Commissioner Constantine. Nothing. It's good to see you. It's good to see you. I I have nothing other than
just a question. Is the FTE that we afforded you last year, is that working out well? Yes. I got some so well. I won't bore you with statistics, but I I brought them in. It's going really really well. Hearing a bunch of cases, very little push back. I I had thought we might get a little bit just because
it was a new system. It's great. We're I mean it's really some of the best money that you all give us really. So we're grateful. Well, I I would tell you from my experience, you know, I wish the state would do some additional funding. I think a lot of us do. But it it's
imperative in in the judicial system, not only for the judges, but the attorneys, the the uh jurors to make things as efficient as possible. And they're not always that way. and and then trying to to bring all those things together and get people in and out and
get your dockets cleared as quick as possible sometimes can be a struggle. So I I hope and I will continue to advocate at Tallahassee for additional state funding on so many fronts, not only for the judiciary, but I think the clerk's got some issues. There's state attorneys
got some some issues that should be funded through the state as well. So thank you for doing the best you can with what you have. Uh we sincerely appreciate it very much. you, Commissioner Her. Uh, first of all, I I do every now and then get calls from
some renters over there in our old courthouse, and I just ignore them. So, you know, and I get to do that. Uh, I would say yes on the $44,000 for the computer, certainly you're now beholden to them in a way that you never were before. I
would also say that at some point does not need to happen now, but figure out what the life cycle is and get it into the budget every year so that this is you're never in a position where you're bagging. That that would be the goal. Um and that includes the software and the hardware because we're just it is what
it is. And that's we've learned the hard way that that's the process for doing that really really well and we do appreciate all of you and everything you do. That's it. Anything further? Seeing none. Thank you your honor. sincerely. So good to see all of you. Thanks so much. Thank you. Enjoy your day. I'm
headed back to trial. Well, good luck. All right. Next up is going to be the clerk of the circuit court comproller, Mr. Grant Malloy. [Applause] Good afternoon, commissioners. Um, pleasure to be here. I'm with my
comproller director, Jenny Spencer, uh, who works very closely with all of you and, uh, the county staff. So, uh, we have a very short presentation. There's really nothing majorly changing in it. Uh, I've talked to all of you. I'm sorry I missed the meeting with you,
Commissioner Her. I had a issue I had to attend to, but um didn't really hear a lot of objections. We can go through it fairly quickly. It's basically the same thing we're doing last year. Uh we are looking forward to reduce one FTE and and it's basically the same surfaces and
I'll let Jenny Spencer go into the detail of the presentation. Thank you. And Miss Spencer, if you could pull that microphone as close as you can. I know you speak very softly. Okay. Good afternoon, Commissioner. She carries a big stick.
Good afternoon, commissioners. Um, we had an opportunity to meet with each of you to go over our requests. Um, overall in Well, before I go into the overall increase, let me just um explain our last our current year budget that was approved is $5.7
million. If you compare that to the proposed budget of 6,137861, it's approximately $352,000 increase or 6.1%. You may recall in October we presented a budget amendment for
$86,000 which brought our overall budget uh for a net increase of 4.5% from my request for fiscal year 26. And that is broken down by 4.5% is personnel and related benefits, 1.5 is operating, and
34,000 related to capital expenditures. Like most organizations, approximately 74% of that budget request is uh related to personnel costs and the others are operating. One of the items
that we highlighted during our briefing is the lease at the record center which will expire in May 2027 and that's approximately $390,000 for that um facility. And this budget comparison just really shows um the current fiscal
year 25 with the proposed fiscal year by department. And as I mentioned uh earlier the 6,137861 in comparison with the adopted budget of 5,786163 is a net increase of 352,000
approximately or 6.1%. When you factor in the budget amendment that was approved in October, it brings our current fiscal year, fiscal year 25, uh, approve an amended budget of 5,872 that compared to the request is approximately
$266,000 more or 4.5%. Um, the next slide just really shows our proposed FTE, which is approximately 37.39. Now you may wonder why 39 because there's some FTEEs that are allocated um and the compared to the current fiscal
year of 38.25 showing a net reduction of approximately 86 and this concludes our presentation. Thank you very much. We like efficient presentations. I will start at the far end with Commissioner Lockhart and we'll come back across for any questions or
comments. Please. Um, I'll just ask you the same questions that I asked our prior to constitutional officers. Um, and I'm asking this of everyone. Um, looking for your lapsed salary dollars for the last uh, several years average would be great. Um, and then your budget
to actuals at the line item for this year and for the prior two years and that's for all funds. So, as Willie, that's fine. We can provide you the information. Commissioner, you may recall you requested our budget to actual. I did. And and we provided that and it shows
actually for fiscal year 24, which is the most recently audited fiscal year, there was a dollar variance of 51,823 in comparison with what the board transfer, there was a shortage of 51,823 that was funded by fees, which means
there were no lapsed dollars. Okay. So I So I'm asking for lapsed salary dollars. So lap salary dollars is one question, one bucket and then the other question is line item budget to actual for all
funds for the for two prior years and this fiscal year. And so if you provided that to me, I I have not seen that. I apologize. What I provided which I thought your request was you wanted to see what the board funded by a department and that's what we provided.
We showed which staff could the the budget amount that was approved. That's something staff could trace to the general ledger and we provided how it was spent. But what we can provide you is a detail by line item as you requested for we have we have what we call a county fund which is how the dollars that are transferred to the
clerk. We can provide the detail that will match what we provided the schedules before for each of the funds. You said you wanted we have three funds. We have the and the general fund is comprised of the court fund, fee fund and the county fund. And then we have
also the two trust funds which are special revenue funds. Right? So I asked the same question the same way of everyone and I'm not sure if I need clarification and my question is unclear. If I can ask the commissioner I think what the commissioner is asking
for I I think what I heard was you supplied department level information. I think what the commissioner is asking for is line item detail which would be under the department and every line item under that department. For the entire organization for the entire organization. I think that's is that is
that correct? Yes. I would I apologize. I was interpreting that to be the county fund that you were requesting. So we're providing for the organization. You asked me for that clarification when we were in my office and I said all all of your funds. Okay. Now bear in mind on the court of clerk of court operations
corporation that's all state controlled and uh I would like all of the funds. Thank you. We can provide that. Appreciate that. Okay. Commissioner Constine, anything? Nothing. Commissioner Deli? No, sir. I have nothing. Commissioner her I do I I
do know during briefing Jenny could uh walk me through the fact that there were a lot of things that were moved into information services which is generating the 29% increase but I do not I did not capture what that was and where were
they moved from. Um so we I also provided it was actually addressed to Commissioner Constantine the detail of what makes up the expenditures related to it. um a lot of the information subscription contracts for the controllers's office were moved into the
IT budget. So we provided a detail of um communication costs, professional services and repairs and maintenance and we provided the breakdown of which department they were related to. So if they were information services and some were come to his office and we indicated whether or not they were recurring or
one-time expenditures and and the reason for that shift was uh the new Gatsby standards on accounting makes this a more accurate picture of where the cost should be charged to. I will point out too that we love
working with the staff. Uh I've mentioned all of you we keep uh shrinking our footprint uh dedicating more space over in the uh record center to the sheriff's office and when you take a look at the reduction because of going paperless we've reduced our
footprint uh throughout the county of about 19,000 square foot. So we keep um trying to look at efficiencies. We have the most efficient comproller office compared to similar size counties. So we uh very proud of that and continue to
work towards that uh goal of efficiency. Okay. Commissioner, I just want to make sure I address a question. Um you wanted to understand which contracts were moved under the IT budget. Was that your question? I guess I'm trying to understand the entire fiscal impact. So
if you moved them from the departments into there, does it move it from one fund to another fund? It's it's all in the general fund for the clerk's general fund under the county fund. So they would just move from department from one department. We have a department called controller and we have one called information services.
So they would move from the controllers's budget to information services. And as as the clerk mentioned is really to help when we're assessing which IT subscription should be evaluated for GASB96. It allows us to go one department and assess all the contracts in that department. that note
I had in my notes, just so you know, Jenny, I was listening. I got that part of it, but then the question came of, well, I think it's easy from an administrative perspective, but you wouldn't be out of compliance leaving it the way it was. It it would not. Actually, we've done something similarly
on the county side. We've created an object account specifically for IT subscriptions to enable us to just pull that account similar to how we do with rental and leases when we assessing which leases that may be impacted by Gazby 87. We go to that object account
and evaluate each of the transactions in those accounts. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Anything else? All right. Thank you all very much for being here. We sincerely appreciate it. Thank you, Chairman. Commissioner, we'll get you the information. I'm sorry if it wasn't clear before.
Next up is going to be the honorable William Shiner from the state's attorney's office. Welcome this afternoon. And we I think this is your first budget hearing before us, is it not? Yes, sir. It is. It's Congratulations. We're for
the most part harmless. Get ready for the hazing. Uh I've been warned. Thank you all for having me here and I really appreciate what you guys have done. Um I love that building. I know that you were thanked last year for it, but I'll continue to thank you every time I appear before you because it's
beautiful. Um, and I'd also like to thank you guys for meeting with me earlier this year uh to go over some of my requests. So, the state attorney's budget is $735,000 requested for fiscal 26. It's 100% funded through the article 5 fund.
It is a $254,000 increase over the FY25 adopted budget. Uh that includes the request for an upgrade to their case management system as well as a cola for a employee that we currently reimburse. That I'll turn it over.
Uh so I I spoke to each of you all about the the case management system and what that entails. It's uh it's a nec necessary function for what we do every day in the prosecution. Uh this particular slide will illustrate um what we're currently using is stack 2.0.
We're staying with the same vendor that my office has been contracting with for over 20 years. Um, we looked at alternatives. That's that bottom right hand corner. Um, as you can see, those costs are cost prohibitive. Uh, 1.3, 2.3, and 1.2 uh million dollars each. In
order for us to do that, um, we've elected for the what appears to be a very efficient program, but is also the cheapest program that can be offered to us. um that the cost of that particular object two uh stack 3.0 is being divided across both counties for seminal county
and for Bard County. So we have an additional equal ask out of Bard County as well. Um so that represents that significant increase that's why it's such a large jump. Um as it relates to the the cola the increase for the FTE um that request is
um a hopeful request. And I say it's a hopeful request because we were anticipating that that it will mirror what the state gives all the other state employees to keep the one that you all fund in line with where the rest of our employees are at as far as raises go because that's if we get raises this year that's where I expect them to be is
through cola. So that's our budget. Great. Thank you very much. Any inquiries or questions? Commissioner Lockheart. Thank you. And and thank you for taking the time to explain those additional needs and and why it it's different this
year. For sure. Um I if if I could have a little latitude in talking about the medical examiner um topic because it's very integral into what future budgets may look like. Sure.
Um for of course we're looking at a much larger picture than what necessarily involves the state attorney's office but the um the funding of what may be next for us as seminal county if we are standing up our own facility or if we
are partnering with others or what that may look like remains to be seen. We know that we have said we're not staying where we are. Um, and so in conversations with stakeholders and and I know you've you're just coming in new to that process, any insights that you
can share with us from a from a cost perspective or how we can share some of those costs at the state level or any access to any funds that you may be aware of that are related to um your prosecutions perhaps. um if if if you
can I'm not asking you to answer them now, but just know that I will be asking and thinking and I'm sure our whole whole board will be wanting to learn as much as possible what financial resources there may be available coming from the state for some of your cases to
help stand up that Emmy facility. Uh fair question and Commissioner Zower actually asked me that question previously. Kind of put that on my radar. Um I have a meeting with Dr. Wolf either tomorrow, tomorrow, Wednesday, or next Wednesday. I'm not sure which one.
I want to talk to her about that. Um I may be going through an ME search in Bvard County as well in the very near future. Um so all these questions are going to have to be looked at in that same vein. Um the one thing I can say is that I completely agree with with all of you and the idea that we need to get out
of our curtain situation that we're in because that's cost prohibitive. um we're paying more than our fair share and far more than the other counties are paying as it relates to those services that Dr. Wolf was providing us. Um but I don't I don't have an answer to that and I don't have an answer where those funds
come. Um I can tell you that on the the budget that I anticipate getting from the state as it relates to us, there's not a lot of additional funding and in fact we may very well be losing all of our due process funding that could potentially have been used for that. So,
um I I I don't I don't have an answer for you, and I think that that's something that we're going to have to sit down and figure out together. Um honestly, so um five five months in, I'm I'm mastering a $36 million budget. So, but you know, I appreciate you putting
that on my radar. It's definitely there and and Miss Wood, my executive director, she's very much aware of it and so is our fiscal director. So, um it's all things that we're trying to figure out and navigate and I'd be happy to do that together. Okay. Something that you mentioned which is is striking to me is that you are a state attorney
who oversees multiple counties, Seminal and Bvard, correct? Yes, ma'am. And you have two different medical examiners and two different facilities that you work with on your cases. Yes. One of the items that has
been presented repeatedly to me and to the entire medical examiner committee for district 5 and district 24 is that um the the other state attorney that is a part of that other district uh feels that it would
be impossible or um I don't know that impossible is the right word. it it is not preferred to have more than one medical examiner facility for him to be able to uh work with and you're doing it now. So, um is
that just a a difference of of opinion or a level of uh comfort between your state attorney uh operations and another state attorney's operations? I can't really I I know that state attorney and I've spoken to him a little
bit about the ME situation. Um, we're very unique here in the 18th circuit that we we take up we are one of the few circuits as if not the only circuit across the state that has two counties that are their own district medical examiner's offices. There's one district ME designated for Semino County and
there's one designated for Bvard County. All the other memes are designated across their circuits the way they're assigned. Um, and I I think that that's why when um the the state attorney up there indicates that he's always had just one for all of his circuit because
that's the way they were assigned by the ME commission. Um, it's the only way I've known to do it in the 16 years I've done it is there was one in Bvard and one in Seminal. Seinal has always been, as far as I can remember, a contract. We contracted with Valuchia County for a
while to do it. Um, and now we're up there with um, Lake and Leon and all of them. um or Marion, I'm sorry. Um so, you know, you you do what you have to do to get by. I I think that it's just a scenario
where we that's what we were given and so that's what we worked with. Um, you know, that may be something if we end up in a a deep ME search in Bvard County, that may be something the county commissions want to talk about across the river there. Um, um, with the ME
commission to see if that's something that we could do that Semino and Bvard could could unite in that regard. I don't that's I'm not saying that's above me, but that's that's well down the road, I would suggest. Um so well I certainly appreciate your additional insight because it is it is far more
than a a functional situation. It is a significant financial um decision. So we'll we'll be talking in great detail I'm sure as as the years go on. Thank you. Appreciate your cander. Thank you very much. Anything further? Nope. Uh I
I agree and and we appreciate your willingness to dig into some of this uh due process funding. Um and and as you and I spoke, the unintended consequences of decisions that are made in Tallahassee that impact the taxpayers here locally. And I and I do think there
is up in the panhandle of Florida. I do think there are at least one other medical district that does have what we have here similar between Bard and and uh Semino County. But we appreciate your willingness to have that dialogue and
and do what we think is the best thing for the citizens and taxpayers of this county, which is why we're all here at the end of the day. regardless of whether somebody in another county believes it's the right thing or not, it we're beholden to our taxpayers, not theirs. And uh I would argue that we
are supplementing their taxpayers and at least uh three other counties uh in this scenario. So we appreciate y'all very much. Um the final question I have is related to your your IT technology and
this this ask which I'm fine with. Moving forward, are we going to try to budget an annual uh cost associated with that so we don't get caught with this scenario? Yes, sir. So th this particular budget ask is over a course
of a three-year contract that we would sign if this was approved. So, this would be a three-year budget ask and it would be that way going forward and we would attempt to negotiate the similar similar rates going forward. Um, so and in out years, you'll continue to not
knowing what technology may change and so on so forth. We're going to attempt as best we can to put it on your radar early and often. So, appreciate it very much. Well, good luck in your you made it through your first budget hearing. Thank you. Thank you very much for your
willingness to collaborate. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Have a great day. Good to see you guys. Excuse me. Next up, we have our guard line, which is Amber Hedrickk. Good to see you again. You as well, sir.
Thank you all of you. When you're ready. So, the guardian adm budget is $165,000. uh the request for fiscal 26 and it's 100% funded through our general fund. The total increase is 8,000 or
5.1%. Uh this amount is entirely generated through an increase for existing staff to health insurance and salary adjustments. There's no increase to the operating budget. The total FTEES are two in the uh department. I apologize for the typo. It's two FTEEs regarding adum and they're requesting no
new positions. That concludes the presentation. Thank you, sir. Um, first I wanted to say thank you for always supporting us and and hearing me out. Um, I don't think there's been a time that an email has gone unanswered or a meeting request has
gone unanswered. Um, currently, just to give a little bit of an imp um, let you know the impact that we're making in the community. We um have 412 children uh, sheltered from their parents' care in Simol County alone. um which we
represent through our uh multi-disiplinary team model. Our multi-disiplinary multi-disiplinary team model includes a child welfare professional, a um guardian alum attorney representing all the children um using a best interest standard. With that being said, the Florida Guardian
office uses volunteers resources from the community so we don't have to utilize the government resources as much um to help enhance this representation. Um we currently have 128 lay person mentors or proono attorney volunteers to
represent these children um who uh representing about 266 of the children in Simino County. So we still have this great need of of recruitment and retention in our office and your support um continues to help us with
that allows us to continue with that. Um we work diligently um in the community for this recruitment. um so that all children have that enhancement um so they can hit their milestones um within care and and achieve permanency and normaly while in care. The collaboration
with community partners um is is intense. We uh are very active with the children's uh cabinet within Simol County, with the children's alliance within Simol County um as we continue to collaborate with community partners to
improve the county systems um within Simol County. And and again, uh I wanted to remind you all that I continue to be a resource for you if anyone um any of the con constituents um have questions
or welfare um needs in the community. So um and again, I just wanted to say thank you for your continued support. Thank you. Any comments or inquiries? Thank you for doing what you do. Really, Mr. I
would say that uh the the $165,000 is well spent for the return that we get for this community and for the taxpayers. And I will tell you that it's uh it's God's work that what you all do and we're very thankful for that.
Um because you're making a little bit of money go a long way that impacts a lot of lives that otherwise we would be very expensive for this county. So thank you very much. Mr. Dari, thank you. Uh Amber, you talked about the 412 uh children that
you serve. First of all, the chairman's right. The dollars that we uh use in our general fund to help you goes a long way and each child uh you can't put a dollar figure on it. But what I'm curious about
is the trend. Is the trend uh level? Is it going up or down? Or can you talk a little bit about the trend, please? Yes, sir. Um the trend of shelters coming into care. Uh when I say shelters, they're being sheltered away from their parents into um safe care. Um they have
actually been trending down. I will say the dependency system within Simino County has strengthened not only in achieving permanency within um within accurate time frames for these kiddos, but um in achieving normaly for these
kiddos um while in care. With that being said, um the prevention side of things has really stepped up our diversion programs. Um I'm sure you understand we have a new community-based care. That transition in my opinion was as seamless
as we we could have made it. Um the collaboration and the partnerships that we have within Semino County dependency system are strong and um the support that we experience are strong. So um and that doesn't that that does um absolutely 100% include the
commissioners as well. Um in fact sir you are on you're the um chair of our children's alliance. You're there every month um talking about this this very topic but the trend is um down. Thank you very much Amber. Yes sir. Anyone
else? Seeing none. Thank you again. We appreciate you being here and again all the work you're doing. Next up is going to be our public defender, the Honorable Bla1 Treatis, who's an old hat at this process. Welcome, sir. Thank you. I've done it
many years now. The public defenders budget request is $267,500, which is 100% funded through our article 5 fund. They have zero increase uh between fiscal year 25 and fiscal year 26.
Good afternoon, Chairman Zenbower and board of county commissioners. I am Bla1 Treddus, the elected Republican public defender for Semol and Bvard counties. I am pleased to um ask for a budget that is what it was eight years ago. This is
my one prepared slide and the tan bar is the actual budget of the public defenders office. The blue bar represents a 1.5% increase in the technology budget which reflects a uh Florida statute 29.08 O8 which says
there shall be at a 1.5% increase per year and there's some enforcement mechanisms in that but I want to include uh both of those bars to show that the public defender budget has uh never increased more than 1.5% took a big drop
about 25% in 23 24 and today is um what it was 8 years ago. So I've run my office effectively cost effectively efficiently. I uh aim to continue to do that and I thank you for your support of
the office. I'd also personally like to thank Tim J's budget director and Wende Ailles financial administrator for the great work that they've done working with our office. They they do an excellent job and we have a great working relationship and I appreciate that very much. Um with that said that
would conclude my budget presentation. Very good. Thank you sir. Any inquiries to the public defender? Thank you. Seeing none, keep up the good work, sir. Thank you, sir. Thank you, kind of. Next item up is going to be a Florida Department of Health, Dr. Ethan
Johnson. Welcome, doctor. Good afternoon. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to present. I will uh in the interest of being as thorough and brief as the folks that came before me, I will probably skip quite a few of the slides that I have. Uh but I will be thorough um just because uh with the
contributions that you all give, especially the contribution to direct services, uh it goes a really long way uh with all the uh things that we do at the Department of Health. Uh so this is just our um detailing our 2425 budget year uh ending
in June 30. Uh we projected to end about where we ended last year. Not much of a change there. However, going into this new fiscal year, we do expect um a slight decrease there, about a 5% decrease in our overall operating budget projected for this next uh fiscal year.
That's about $670,000. Uh we're experiencing uh most of our budget reductions in the form of state and categorical GR funds, federal funds, and environmental health fees with the septic program transferring to uh D. uh hopefully in the beginning of
2026. Um specifically that includes outside of EH that includes programs like uh TB control, STD surveillance, uh the refugee health program, um and some of family planning. Um this is a three-year um
budget trend. Um all that I'll uh note here is just um we're already preparing for that shortfall. You guys approved us uh ending the lease at reflections a little bit early uh because we're no longer using that space. Uh again, we're planning for the end of the septic program. We have done some workforce
reductions for staff who are in positions that are no longer funded in STD surveillance or through COVID dollars. Um and then we're also uh have been able to reallocate some of our administrative staff's time uh to doing uh healthy start screening data entry
for both Orange and Simol County. Uh what that allows is uh for us to use some of our general revenue uh or continue to use our general revenue for direct service provision here in Simol uh and offset the cost of those uh staff salaries. Uh so that's been uh
helpful. Um so this is just a breakdown of uh Simol County government's contribution to the health department. As I mentioned, the largest part is direct services. So that's kind of spread across all the direct services that we uh provide. And I'll kind of I'll go through those quickly. And then uh these other programs are programs
that you all fund directly. I I put this slide here just because I received just a few questions about the uh the sites that the health department uh is located out of. Of course, everyone's familiar with Airport Boulevard. That's where all of our services are. Um environmental health is right outside Wick Castleberry. I wanted
to point out because we do see about 3,500 unduplicated clients there uh every month and that represents about half of our Wick population. Um, we see the other 3,500 at Airport Road. Um, and something I'll note here too that I was I guess I can note here with WIC, uh, we
had a 17% increase in pregnant moms that are, uh, utilizing WIC, uh, which is going to have a great impact on our mothers and babies here. We also have since 2022, we've had a 41% increase in the WIC eligible clients actually taking advantage of uh, those WIC benefits here
in Simino County. doctor, for the public, yes, that may be watching us, can you? The acronym WIC stands for Yes. Sorry. Women, infants, and children. That's a federal supplemental nutrition program uh for women, infant, children, and families. Um and Simol County is one
of the highest performing uh wick offices in this uh part of Florida. Great. Thank you. Yes, sir. Oh, so uh one of our core functions as uh everyone's well aware of is communicable disease. that encompasses all things reportable disease related.
Uh this uh your contribution goes to supporting this work. Um we've had a 10 and a half% increase in communicable disease investigations and a 17% increase in uh confirmed or probable cases. Uh just a few trends that are noteworthy. Uh rabies or uh rabbit
animals usually have like two or three confirmed a year. We've already had three in the first three months of uh this calendar year. Uh so we do see that going up. Uh there's also been a significant increase in pertasus cases. Uh we've 2021 I think we had maybe one
pertusus case. Uh we've had 27 cases in the last year. Um but we are doing things to kind of address that through um partnership with the school district. We've did a TDAP clinic with the middle schools and a few other initiatives uh like that. Um and then another trend that everyone's seeing across the state
of Florida is uh mosquitoborn illnesses. So we're we're working on that. We have uh over the prior three fiscal years we had zero denay cases and then last year we had like seven. Uh we also had our first locally acquired uh West Nile um virus which locally acquired just means hasn't traveled outside the state of
Florida. Um so those are things that we're working on and uh and of course the countyy's great partners with uh mosquito control emergency management and so forth. Um, a few things to note. I already mentioned and we've been saying and looking for the transition of septic, but it still is at the health department
right now. Uh, this current year we issued 200 new permits. Um, 582 repair permits uh, and septic. And that's in addition to the 2100 or so inspections that we've done related to public swimming pools, school cafeterias, uh, tattoo body art, mobile home parks. Um,
so a a lot of things are going uh going on there in environmental health. Um, I won't mention everything and I really loaded this slide up before I knew I only had 15 minutes. Uh, but this is the stuff that's exciting to me. Uh, this is um just a lot of different partnerships throughout the community. Um, we we had
an event recently, well a few months back now with the American Muslim Center. We were able to do 39 papsmears using the um medical unit uh that you all support and fund. Um, so we're trying to do more events like that also with Teen Challenge. Um, and of course we're out four times a week with the mobile unit. Um
uh we've uh with our Ryan White programs, HIV federal HIV prevention program, uh we see currently we um are helping 350 patients with uh outpatient medical care, um prescription drugs, case management. Um and that represents
about a quarter of persons in Semino County living with HIV. Um and just a lot of other exciting things going on there. Um we do still have the partnership with the Seminal County Sheriff's Office for the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner. Um unfortunately we did um serve 36 victims uh this
year. Uh preparedness of course there was a storm this year uh during Hurricane Milton. We uh did um respond. We through our special needs shelters. We cared for 95 Simolino County residents in the special needs shelters. Um, and something unique that our staff did this year after the storm, we've
contacted all 95 of those residents, uh, to talk about their experience in the shelter, but also address some of the needs we saw there in terms of their, um, uh, some of them were a little beyond the care of a special needs shelter. Some of them didn't have caregivers, and some of them just had a lot of other issues. So, our staff helped address things all the way from
uh, stolen wheelchairs to folks who are vision impaired and no longer couldn't read their mail. Um, so, a lot more coming out of that. Um, so moving on just to the programs that you all directly fund, our diabetes and prevention education program. Um, since October, we've had five cohorts of that.
We teach the diabetes empowerment education program. It's a acronym is deep. Um, we also uh do community presentations. Since October, we've uh presented to about 166 residents. We're working with um clinicians and private practices to get referrals for people
that are at risk to attend the program. And then also through this program um we provide screenings um for uh basic medical screenings, glucose tests and uh referrals. Um and I should and we're requesting um for the same funding uh
this year for that program. Uh same for the community nutrition program. Um through that program we taught 526 uh seminal county students um this year. And then we also uh used the 10 tips for adults curriculum and taught 127 adults.
Um that's been a pretty impactful um program in the community and uh we'd also like to request uh the same funding uh for that program. The mobile health services uh program I've already touched on. Um the we're doing basic screenings four times a week and we're out in the
community. Um when we actually take the whole clinic out there, we usually try to um schedule that a little advance because we have to put one of our nurse practitioner or our medical director on there and we do everything from um adult screenings to papmears uh to blood draws and everything else out there in the
field. Uh so we would like to request the same funding for the mobile health services program as well. Um the school-based dental program uh is is doing really great. Um last year we were only able to um go to eight of the 12 title one schools, but now we have the
15 schools and we were able to go to all 15 this school year. Um we served um 703 students and provided 3,93 services which include uh dental screenings, prophylaxics, fluoride varnish, uh and seal uh sealants. Um and the the picture
to the left is actually in one of the schools. That's our hygienist uh working with a student. But the picture on the right is actually our fixed dental clinic. I think uh some people uh so I heard didn't realize we had the dental clinic in the health department. Um and I want to point out that the dental clinic is actually part of what allows
us to sustain the schoolbased program um under the leadership of Dr. Koig. He's our uh dentist. Um the revenue generated there is how we're really able to be in the schools. But uh given some of the uh budget cuts and constraints that I mentioned earlier, we are requesting um
an additional 30,000 to support the school-based program. um because the general revenue that we're using to support the clinic will be uh shifted around. So it's not um what the extra revenue would allow us to do is to continue the services that we do in the schoolbased program, but it would also
allow us to enhance the followup uh that we already do there um and to improve some of the instructional materials that we provide. Right now we uh don't really provide much of that um in the followup. Um, and then I'll end here with just some of the special projects.
At the end of last year, uh, or this time last year when I presented, I mentioned the ESOL and health literacy class. I did want to say we still do that. We're in our sixth cohort. We have 31 people in it. Uh, and it was actually just recognized by the National Association of City and County Health Officials as a promising practice. It'll
be recognized in Anaheim, uh, California this summer. Um, and a a few other, um, special projects, I guess, that I won't um, go too much into detail for the sake of time. Although the last thing I'll mention, it's not up there. We do have plans this year to establish ourselves as an official milk bank drop off
location, which will be the only one in Simino County. Uh so we're looking forward to that. Um and I apologize for sprinting through all of that. Uh but just trying to be respectful of time. No, all good. Thank you very much. Start with Commissioner Lockhart and we'll
come across. Um thank you. Uh it's been such a pleasure to get to work with you um over these last couple of years. even though you're not new anymore, it it's it's just wonderful to have your fresh perspective and what you've brought from other counties to to Seol. Um, of course, you still have a fabulous team.
Team's great. Love your team. Um, talking about the dental program, of course, that's been a highlight of discussion lately, and you've been incredibly helpful with bringing me some data that I hope we'll be able to get in into a format that we can share with all of um the board members about the the
title one schools and comparing that data. Um, in talking about the fluoride discussion, of course, um, Dr. Johnson has tried valiantly to help gather data that will be applicable and useful and com and and able to be
used comparatively. And it's it's a little bit harder than we thought it might be. Um but with what we have, I I think um I think it it's really good and I want to make sure that we share it in a way that is is comprehensive and understandable and and
um and and and good. That being said, um I think your request for additional funding is is completely reasonable from my perspective for that program. Um I was actually surprised it wasn't a little bit more. Um but I'm hoping that
you'll be able to maybe start collecting some data so that maybe five or 10 years from now when we're not sitting in these seats anymore and a and a county commission says, "Well, whatever happened with that? Do we have do we know if that had
an impact? They will have had the benefit of us collecting this data so that they can do a look back. Um do you do you foresee including any type of data collection or study through this work? So we do collect uh quite a bit of data now through the school-based
sealant program as well as our school health program. Uh so we can look at trends overall for the students that we see um and oral health outcomes. Um the the only problem is it isn't as consistent like we don't see every student every year so it's difficult to
follow the student like some type of longitudinal study but what we can it's it is a way to kind of monitor what way oral hygiene is trending for that population of children from year to year. Okay. All right. Well, I'm looking forward to continuing to work on that project because I I think it's although
we made a decision and a decision was made for us regardless, um I think it'll be really important for our county to stay on top of that data and make sure that we're doing the very best for our children. Mr. Consting and and to just add on to what
Commissioner Lockhart said, first of all, thank you Dr. Johnson. It's always good to work with you. Um but I think that it would be um important that we when notice goes out that we are stopping that program that we also give
potential alternatives to folks especially those that u can't afford uh the health care that some others can and uh so if you could help our staff with that I would greatly appreciate it. What are we stopping? Absolutely. What program are we stopping? What program is
the health department? Right. I mean, we already had that up. We already have that up and Okay. So, thank you, Commissioner Delari. No comments, but thank you, Dr. Johnson. Thank you very much, Commissioner Her. So,
I I am struggling with the community nutrition program. Okay. And so I may be misunderstanding the numbers, but it looks like we've touched 526 people plus 127. And if I divide that into the 70,
it's roughly 100 bucks per touch. So the it isn't I don't have the the number of courses in front of me. Those are the students that participated, but it isn't one touch. Uh so all right. So I'm going to rephrase that. the number of people that were impacted is about $100 per
person. And if I flip that to your dental program, it's about $5. And so I I just I'm not going to say no no to it. Although I really do want to tell you to reduce the spend on the
community nutrition and increase the spend on the dental. I think the community nutrition program is going to have to evolve over time because there's changes at the federal government level and quite honestly I don't know that teaching an elementary school student how to read a
label when they're not the ones that buy the food is going to be helpful. Right. So the the there's lots of evidence about that. Right. Right. So the the curriculum for the elementary school students is different from the one with the adults. I'm not sure that the the label reading is necessarily a part of
the that curriculum with the children, but understood. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, they eat what's in the house. They eat what we give out in the student lunches. They We're not really impacting health with these types of programs. We need to do this holistically at the
adult level to change that dynamic. So, my feedback is that don't love that one, love the dental program. I would swap the funds. Thank you, Dr. Johnson. Uh my question is have we refused or been unable to
provide any dental services to someone that's come into the health department for those services? Uh are we running shortfall or if they're adults? So we only see children. Understood. Um so but we haven't uh refused service. Most of the the students that we students most
of the children we see are on Medicaid though. Sure. Okay. And have you asked the school for any funding? Um, at this time I don't believe so. Okay. Just general question. Well, thank you very much. Keep up the good work. Um, again doing good
community work. Just one question, Mr. Chairman. Looks like he has a question. Yes. So, uh, Mr. Johnson, Dr. Johnson, excuse me, we, uh, meet on a regular basis and he's been keeping me up to speed on the septic tank permitting. I'm sure all of you have been briefed on that. I didn't know if you had any other
information on, but as you know, it's transitioning from the Department of Health to D and I think we're in next Yeah, we're supposed to be in the next phase. It's supposed to be March 2026. Uh, but the latest is July 26 uh for the 2019 Clean Water Act. So, unless
something happens in the spring next year. Yeah. And I'll just So, we meet regularly. So, I'll be keeping the board updated on that, right? Health wants to get rid of that as fast as they can. Yes. You know, just some direction. That's answer. That's right. Well, thank you
very much, sir. We appreciate you being here today. Thank you for your time. Have a great evening. Thank you. Next up is going to be Mr. Chris Ham from the Rescue Outreach Mission. Good afternoon, Mr. Ham. And we will have we've got a couple
public comment forms just so those are being patient. Soon as we wrap this up, we'll go to public input. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Commission. Uh with me is Christine Schaefer, who's our director of shelter services. Uh we
appreciate again the opportunity to come back before you. We were just here a couple of months ago. Um we want to address some of your questions and where we're thinking about. A quick thing I want to reemphasize that we talked about last time. Um we continue to remain and I believe that we're the most
costeffective way of addressing those experiencing homelessness in our community. Our shelter costs are about $35 per night. When we compare that to a hotel of about 110 or our jail is 106. Um our goal is to continue to expand our
services and care for those in our need. As a reminder, we continue to serve the entire county. Um I want to talk about some of the increase in our services and I'm going to turn it over to Christine to share some of these numbers for you. Thank you. So, as you can see, a lot of
those numbers we presented last time, um, we went ahead and added in our first quarter numbers, uh, to that slide, and you can see a 4 to8% increase. Depending on the economy, we are anticipating an increase in that percentage over the course of the next year. Um, please keep in mind also that these numbers do not
reflect the hundreds of guests that come through our emergency cop program and or andor do not receive um, services from us because they're seeking shelter and a bed is not available at that time. Um to combat combat some of these increases, we have increased our staffing in our case management and intake and diversion
departments. Um and we are also working with other community partners and other organizations in the homeless sector just to make sure that we're able to connect the clients with services that we're unable to provide. Um some of the questions that were presented in the
last meeting were um the clients that were coming to us where are they coming from? Um just based on that data in the last year or so about 50% are coming from the city of Sanford. Um and 31% of the people coming
to us are reporting that they slept on the street the night before. That does not include individuals that slept in their car. This is physically intense or outside on the street. the number of revisits that we're seeing. So, in 2024, we had 733
enrollments into our program and that served 695 guests. So, we're seeing about a 5% revisit rate. Um, so not terrible at all. And then as far as alcohol and substance use questions that were presented, so how are we serving
those clients? Our lead case manager is a uh certified addictions counselor and we also partner with Recovery Connections. It's a um outpatient um recovery program. They're on site with us two days a week. Uh they come out and
see our clients and provide counseling uh resources. And then we also do referrals for Teen Challenge and Recovery House. We work very closely with them. Um, our data from 2024 showed about 4% of individuals coming into our program reported alcohol use um and
seven I'm sorry, alcohol abuse and 7.6% for uh drug use. Uh, as far as mental health is concerned, general mental health conditions, we are in line with the rest of the population at about one in four. Um, but as far as the severe mental health conditions, we're
actually at about 3%. Um, so those are your schizophrenia. um severe mental health conditions that are going to prevent the ability to work, work a case plan um and and live independently. Um this is actually much lower than what we're seeing for physical disabilities and chronic health
conditions. Physical disabilities is about 16% and chronic health conditions is about 18. Talk a little bit about some of our fundraising increases. Um, and to re-emphasize, these numbers do not include the county funding, the CSA
dollars. This is strictly through our grants through corporations, faith-based individuals, and companies. Um, and we're well on pace, as you can see, as a reminder. Um, we do have had a pretty significant increase in our general
fundraising since we really relaunched in 2022. Um we've had a 362% increase from then um which is pretty impressive and we are on track. Um we are prepared and we are going to be tapping into some of the reserves that we've saved um in
our current budget. That's only going to leave us as we head into our fiscal year which is January 1st 2026 about 3 months um of reserves. Uh we think we should be a little bit higher. We prefer to be closer to six months and we're working
hard to stay at that level. Uh but we are working through some of that. Um our budget um in 2026 is still a projected. We're not expected to see a large increase anywhere. Um but that really will leave us with very little in reserves um with this year. Um and we're
only 5 months into our own fiscal year. Um we are using our 2025 budget revenues instead of actuals. Um we do think we'll have another 20% increase in fundraising. So we really think we'll hit over a million dollars next year. Um, we think our expenses will be around 1.5. A big part is we're very cautious,
as we all know, with the economy, with the rise in increases in insurance and food costs and also the increase in salaries due to the um increase of the minimum wage. We're having to kind of keep up with that. Um, and we're also
curious and cautious about um what's happening with some of our partner agencies. Um, we're still not sure. Um, we do have a tenative agreement um with United Way for some federal HUD dollars from the emergency food and shelter program, but that is on hold. We do not
know how much that is. Um, we know that a total of about 170 or $180,000 is coming to Smol County, but we don't know what we're going to get, if we're going to get anything because that's on hold. Um, sometimes we'll get 20 to 60 to 70.
Um, I've asked because my righteous indignation will go up the more that they offer me. Um, if we're up to 70 or 80, I'll get a lot more angrier and be on the phone. Uh, versus 20,000. That's the federal the HUD dollars that we might be getting. Oh, I'm not confused by what you're saying. I'm confused by
how you're saying it. Sorry. Yeah. I just if it's 10 or $20,000, I may not be as sort of pushing to get that through as if it was 80 or 90,000. So, um, we are still going to be asking for
about $400,000 in CSA or or county funds. Um, questions you guys had last time that we wanted to make sure we addressed. Um, I was asked about quantifying the sheriff's office support. Um, the sheriff's office had sent over one of their managers. You may
or not remember, Bernard John's. Um, he went back to the sheriff's office in 22. Um, we still regularly communicate. We still regularly collaborate. Um, in fact, I recently went and spoke with the sergeants. Um, we continue, another
question, uh, we continue to meet with Mr. Gray and Miss Johnston on a regular basis. Um, we were asked about the buses that they're looking at in the Orlando area. They are still under construction. They haven't mobilized them yet. And uh
the last time I spoke with the folks down there, they are still not sure where they're going to park those buses um or how those are going to fully be operational. Those were converted Greyhound bus type buses that will house
about 20 people per bus just for the night. So inquiries start with Commissioner Her, work our way across. I think I probably should go last since I'm the board member on the Okay. Any inquiries?
Yes. Commissioner Chris, I asked you last time for a couple of the uh uh two years worth of budgets. I've not received that yet. Okay. If you can get that to me, I greatly appreciate it. Commissioner Lockhart. So, I didn't have
the benefit of of being here for that last meeting and so I went back and watched the video and um so I could kind of get up to speed on on some of the different items. And in the meantime, um I took the opportunity to reach out to um a couple of other uh homelessness
providers in the region just to talk about to better understand from my perspective [Music] um typical um budget reserves, expenses, budgeting, how you know
what tell me what the norm is so that I'm looking at it from a more holistic perspective and not just in the the tunnel of of this particular topic. And so I learned quite a bit through those conversations. Um and and I'm going to
ask you for the same thing that um I asked the other constitutionals. It is it is noteworthy. Just I mean I know it's a it's a mount it's a timing issue, but it is I don't want anyone watching this to think that we are obligated funding ROM
like we are with the clerk of the court and the public defender. like this is just an a oneoff that you happen to be here today. So, I would just want to put that on the record for sure. Um but so I would love to see the budget to actuals um line item for your organization. I
think it it is um this is the first time in my recollection that any nonprofit has come to us asking for um if needed maybe possible type funds.
[Music] um I'll use as an example, we got an email from Meals on Wheels um a couple of weeks ago because they're having some funding concerns with uh federal dollars going away and and so
they they sent an email to us like here's here's our concerns. This is what might be happening. This is our plan. We want to keep you apprised. [Music] Um it was and I understand you are a an
emergency shelter. We do and we do have other emergency shelters. Uh safe house is an emergency shelter. Um, and I know you refer clients back and forth to one another, but this is this is very uncharted territory for me to have a CEO of any of
our nonprofits be asking for budget dollars because we might need it without a specific outcomebased request. we need
$100,000 for a case worker to do whatever we need. You know, it it's just it's odd. And so, I'm not saying that you don't do good work. I'm not saying that the county shouldn't increase our overall homelessness allocations, but
having one entity come and ask for a general amount of money to go into a almost like a line of credit type scenario. You know, we may need up to $400,000. It it's just it's the first
time this has ever happened. And so I'm trying I'm struggling with how to approach it because I'm I see the need, but I'm not sure that we're necessarily the ones to be asked to be filling it. So I'm I'm struggling and I'm just being
very candid because I don't want anyone to say that I said one thing and did another at the end of the day. And if you could please, you know, we don't need to be lobbied. I don't need to be lobbied. I please make the phone calls stop. Okay, Mr. costing
Chris last time you um you know you mentioned the homeless bus and this is not this was just something that I wanted us to keep an eye out for because I thought there was opportunity there but you made the comment um that or on your screen that it was $74 or something
like that and you were $32 a night and then um you came back to me almost the next day and I also had checked out with Eric Gray that it was more like $30 and you said you were going to get reach out to the others and and confirm that or or
to change that because you had said it was 74 and I just want to make sure that that that happened and that it is you know that 74 is what was reported in the Orlando Sentinel, right? And what Eric and I had spoken about is he said that also includes additional case management
and some rehousing dollars. And so happened and he's like we're not even sure yet how to operate this. In fact, they're probably going to come visit you, Chris, cuz I've never operated a shelter before. He's like, we're going to come up and visit to see, you know, and they don't know how the cleaning is going to go. So, he's just not 100%
certain what that's going to look like. Is it a long period of time? Is it oneoffs? He's not even sure yet. last time Eric and I spoke and it's always good to see all these organizations cooperating and that's all I would try to get to.
I already get my comments. Commissioner her as the board member who sits on that board has requested to go last. There may be some additional comments or inquiries once that happens. My input is based on a couple things.
You're 50% of your population is coming from the city of Sanford. How much have you asked the city of Sanford for? Uh, we have been in conversations with them about additional funding. Um, they are still awaiting their HUD CDBG
dollars. They haven't been announced yet what they are. Um, we have received a grant from them um for public facilities. Um, we received about $100,000 and it helped us upgrade um hurricane windows, hurricane doors,
other facility upgrades. Um, and when people say they're from the city of Sanford, it's sometimes a little challenging because they think city of Sanford, they're not sure where the county, the city lines overlap um from
city of Sanford, Lake Mary, you know, it's all for a lot of folks, you know, or where they were in their car last night when they're walking because they're in Sanford. Sure. So, so I heard clearly what your anticipation is
getting into the reserves and what your first quarter of next year looks like. What I didn't hear, however, was fundraising plans. Do you have a calendar of upcoming fundraisers and any new
fundraisers? In essence, what what is ROM doing that they have not been doing for the past two to three years in carrying that up a notch for additional fundraisers or sources of income other than the county?
Yeah. So, kind of look back there, you could see the the increase, which uh to be honest with you is uh if you may or may not know, when I walked in the door, my donor development fundraising was a
piece of paper with four names and I came from an agency with about 21,000 names in their database. So, we have grown that significantly. We have a uh dinner on August 6th at Talk of the Town at Fishbounds. We'd love to have you
come join us. It's $125 a person. Uh we're also hosting a fundraising lunchon. Chairman Zenbower, we'd love to have you be a table captain to invite your friends. It'll be in October. Tell me you want me to write a check. It's much I'm headed that way. Yeah. So, we
are continuing to not sugar coat it. Yeah. I'm not sugar coating it. You you giving you those dates. So, we're continuing to increase those. Um we're trying to increase all of our buckets. We really believe it's a four-fold. We do think that uh government should have a piece. This is important as citizens.
Um these individuals that are sleeping on the streets um are citizens we need to care for. We do think that the government should have a piece of it. We would love to get some assistance with the cities. Um we do think that individuals and corporations and our faith communities need to continue to
continue those work that they're doing as you know we're reaching out to them. Sure. So, we have a community needs assessment review that our folks do here at the county. And for
me, I it's about the needs assessment and which and how many of these um charitable organizations are doing the most work for the least amount of dollars uh and making the biggest impact in the community. And I think that's the
reason our community needs assessment uh was put into place several years ago. And again, I argue it doesn't make sense to give a lion share of dollars to one no more than it makes to give a pit
pittance, if you will, to eight different organizations. We need to be focused on those organizations that are doing the best work in the community most efficiently impacting the most people. And I think
for me it's about allowing our community services people to do those analysis and report to us what that efficiency is and the best work that each of these are doing through the community and present us with a scorecard of we believe this
organization or that organization makes a significant impact and we suggest you fund those. Um, so I'll be looking forward to our community services input, you know, on on these kind of matters as I always do because I value their input. They're the folks that deal with the
dollars coming in. They're the folks that deal with the individuals that have needs many times, but they're also in close interface with the charitable organizations that are doing the people's work out there. So that's that's what I'm in in need of. So,
Commissioner Her. So, the reason I asked to go last is because I I was um a little bit worried that this was going to happen. First of all, I I want to explain why Chris is in this environment. It was certainly not his idea. I'm sure it wasn't Christine's
idea. We asked them to do this. This came through the county manager's meetings. County manager and Trisha Johnson have been meeting with Chris ongoing. And that was in response to this board saying, "Do not surprise us
with an imminent potential shutdown or turning away of potential people that could be on the streets in light of this new camping gig. So that's why it's here. He's here. That's I think this is a little bit different because it is the
only open shelter. There are other shelters, but you have to meet a narrow qualification. There are other services I see Michelle Smith here that help with diversion and impact and all of that good stuff, but they're not heads and beds. And so that that was the request.
So the other piece of this is that the reason why the request is open-ended is because we don't we're the goal is not to have a request, but we wanted to know in advance what the potential number could be in line with the budget cycle, and that's why they're here. And so I
think Commissioner Zimbau, your your response is a good one in that we need to be looking to community service for guidance, etc. Um, and I will also point out that at the point I think it was Commissioner Lockheart was on the board, then Commissioner Zimbau was on the
board, and then I was on the board, and the place was close to shutting down. I think you all made a decision before me getting here that you didn't want to shut it down. I think there was debate as to whether the county should take it over. That happened under the former
county manager and the cost will not be that cost structure if we take it over. It probably doubles and so we need it to be viable. That's why we're here. So, so to address some of that, just so
we're clear, I was sent there by the then chairman, Commissioner Kerry, um, just before CO when it was it was off the rails. Oh, yeah. We off the rails. Totally off the rails.
Um, and Commissioner Kerry, well, you're a businessman. You we're going to put you on there and go figure it out. Well, that was a real interesting journey uh in figuring out the books, the finances, and the things that were going on and and a whole lot of other things. Um and
then we've slowly stood it back up during the major funding uh request that the county did. The county was doing everything during CO and postco to try to stand it up. And the whole indication, the whole premise
of that, stand it up so it can stand on its own. So I think the real question for this board is how long are we going to continue to fund it till it stands on its own. This is now going into well the budget year will be in the seventh year.
And if it hasn't been able to stand up by itself right now, then maybe there needs to be some very raw honest conversation. Maybe there ought to be another nonprofit that should be coming in and looking at this and running it or
assisting in running it because obviously government is not the right entity for so many reasons and it was always stated even when I was sent there by Commissioner Kerry was we wanted to
respect Mother Weaver's true intent and did not want the county to come in and change all that up to lose that original mission or upset the faith-based group of mother Weaver's folks that somehow this was a
county takeover. We did through contractual arrangements make sure our taxpayers were protected by putting things in process that if something were to fall off the rails, the taxpayers would have the ability to have those properties to
do something with. either liquidate or bring somebody else in to run it. Um, so it was always the intent and the intent I was always given that we our goal was to help them stand up and do their thing. But again, here we are 7 years
later. So I think really the question is what what is it we want to continue to do? We want to continue to help it stand up uh on its own or will it ever be able to stand up on its own? I think might be the real question. So, I think the answer to the question is yes, it will be able to stand up on its own. This the
an but that and I think we've accomplished all of those things. We've honored Mother Weaver's original mission. We've stayed in good relationship with the faith-based organizations, which by the way give very little money and have
historically given very little money. They have very little money to give those faith faith-based organizations. We've branched out into others. There was also a request, and this can't be ignored, and I think this came from you, Commissioner Delari, around do not
surprise us. I've always said that, which was a legitimate request, and that's why we've always said that about everything we do up here, right? And we've all said that, we don't like we don't like surprises. We don't like surprises. particularly we're not going to feel good about
ourselves if this slips and and commissioner that's the reason why I've been asking for the budgets and yet we're surprised on a daily basis not not necessarily this but anything commissioner lockard yeah and I I think
there's been some hesitancy to share some of the detail of the budgets um budget um but and I think maybe some some resistance and maybe maybe even some offense has been taken at the request of the budgets being requested. But um
we're not being if if another nonprofit came and asked for this amount of open well it's not open-ended it's up to 400,000 for something um I would be asking the same of them because if you're in that type of a financial
situation that is that imperiled that you are using the county as your backs stop then I I'd like to see the the details of of money [Music] Um, I know we don't want to live in the
past, but I think it is important to point out when I was on the board of ROM, we lost a very longtime donor, significant donor, because the county government had stepped in and was giving more money. And they said, "Well, if
you've got government funding, you don't need my money." and they left and they took their money and gave it to another organization in in this county which by the way is ask is also asking for more government money but that's that's
um but um I think we need to to commissioner Zenau's point talk about what this board wants to allocate toward the homelessness crisis in this county and
look at that dollar amount out and see what that is based on the input input from our professional staff and give those resources if as we can and and not not start cherrypicking individual
organizations and I think that was why that um CSA process and the community needs analysis was created was exactly for that purpose so that there was a metric. There was a
um and you know there there is no doubt that this government and and Chris I will take exception because the implication was that somehow local government is not contributing to the needs of homelessness or we don't have um I think you kept saying government
needs to participate or you have a role. I think we know we have a role and I think we do participate um significantly um and I kind of feel like that's not being recognized much for some reason. I don't know that maybe it's just my impression but
um we need we need a bigger broader plan because the needs the needs are not going away and um we're not going to solve it today for sure. Agreed. Commissioner Delore, you had your hand up. Yes, I did. and
Commissioner Lockhart was correct. And I can't really tell you the date. have to think about it, but it was a number of years ago that all the nonprofits would line up during the budget hearings and they would do the request and the ask and it
would all be how much and the board would start discussing different needs and it got to be who knew who and who had the biggest voice and I know that some of us were here at that And then we made the big decision at
that point. And I can't tell you the year, but I'm sure staff could. Tim may be able to. 2023. No, it was before then. It was way before then. I was a staff member. No, it was it was way before. It was way before then. I was there. I know you weren't, but that's what I was saying. It was way before
then, man. Uh we actually put a process into place where we set the criteria. We put together a total dollar figure. staff did the uh needs assessment and they made recommendations and there was an actual process and that's what we've been doing for many many years and
there's been times that the overall number went up and there sometimes an overall number went down and what we discussed up here was the overall number. We never discussed individual 501c3s or tribal organizations. We never did that after that date whatever that
was. Uh, and I know we've asked staff to look at that and they have and I know at the last go around that we've actually done ear earmark dollars for uh, shelter beds and there's three organizations that actually get direct money from the
CSA and then the rest of it gets divvied up. We all work with nonprofits. There is so much need out there depending upon what you're looking at. It has to do with adults. It has to do with elderly. It has to do with homelessness. Has to do with children. And you you pick the
topic, animals, the need is out there. You pick the topic in the organization. I can tell you the state and whoever organization they report to is cutting funding. And I can tell you every which way possible every year there's less and less money out
there that people looking for more and more money. And it's just a facts. Uh, you know, you all know that I sit on the kids house board and it's, you know, how much money we losing this year. And it's not that we're losing because we're misspending it. It's miss we're losing it because we're not
receiving it or what is the issue now is that the state hasn't approved their budget yet. We don't know what's happening in the state. And so it's there's a lot of missing pieces to this and a lot of pieces that we're very fortunate that we have a phenomenal
group of our county staff with Allison Thal and her people and they're they actually get really into the weeds on a day-to-day basis to help us make those decisions. Whatever we decide up here, it needs to be factual. It needs to be based on
need. It needs to be professional. And I really think that we need to be asking our staff to take not just the leadership of it. We can give the the policy direction, but they need to be able to tell us where the real need is and how we should spend the precious
dollars that we have because even in this economy, general fund dollars are getting harder and harder to get as we're going to be discussing in the next couple of weeks. And yes, would I love to fund you, Chris? If I had the money, I'd write you the blank check today. But
I don't I'm sure all five of all five of us or seven of us would do that. I'm including Darren and uh Katherine. But I mean uh it's it's all based on need. It's all based on what we have. And I'm not saying we're not going to do something.
All I'm saying is that we need to look at holistically and we need to go through our budget process to see where we're getting our money from and how we're setting our budget. Because as we all know, as we move forward to that
magical trim notice and that magical budget approval in September, there's going to be some hard discussions that we're going to have about where the dollars are coming from and what are we spending them on. And that is the end of
my discussion. Commissioner Lockhart. Um Mr. Dr. Gray, could you and your staff look at that formula that we use to distribute based on beds or whatever it is? And maybe it's the it's maybe it's the base allocation to that overall
formula that needs to be increased rather than I don't I don't know what the answer is. Um but maybe that's a possibility. I don't know. Yes. Yeah. Can I elaborate on it if I may? Because there's three different organizations. Are we getting the right bang for the
buck from those three organizations? You know, there's three different organizations we give. I think staff should be able to help us answer now. That's my point. Yeah. There's three organizations shelter beds, too. Oh, yes. Yes. Okay. I was I was trying to I was like, "No, there's a lot more than three." You're talking about three. Just
shelter, right? Well, and well, I will say we are our own shelter bed organization in the sense that we give we pay for a lot of hotel nights. So, so I'm just saying like the shelter beds aren't the only beds that house homelessness with county funding. We spend a lot of county funding putting
heads and beds in hotels. Yes. Okay. Seeing nothing else, thank you all very much for being here. We appreciate it. Thank you. Right now, we're going to move to Mr. J, who had his earlier presentation pushed and rearranged. Give me one moment to get the slides from this morning.
Sure. While we're waiting on that, do y'all want to take We got couple public comment folks. Do you want to take any public comment? Let's um let's bring down we got two individuals that want to speak this afternoon's meeting. If you'll come down
in the order that I call them. Uh Miss Michelle Smith and Mr. Jose Boscan I think. Is there anyone else here that has to desires to speak on today's items? Seeing none.
Well, good afternoon all. I appreciate being here today. I I am struck by these conversations today and I'd like to leave with that because all of these discussions relate to budgets and funds available and how it relates to
organizations like mine, a 501c3. I come to you here today. I'm my name is Michelle Smith. I'm the board chairman for the sharing center. And so I I would like to I would like to um make voters
aware that amid these funding discussions, you guys have really done a good job of resisting raising taxes for the last seven or eight years, if my math is correct, but I believe it is. You resisted during COVID and then again since to help Semino County thrive. Here
at the sharing center, we recognize that and we appreciate that. Serving the most vulnerable and homeless neighbors with dignity and compassion. The sharing center is semol county large semol's largest provider of comprehensive social
services. We have five life-changing programs. Our free pantry food pantry and emergency financial assistance keeping people in their homes. Project Rise delivering showers and laundrying services. I'm sorry, the Oasis providing
showers and laundry services and more to the homeless. Project Rise delivering life skills, education, and employment preparation. Everyone that we have that we that we access has everyone that we serve has access to free mental health
services as well with licensed mental health counselors. And now we are actively developing a firstofits-kind workforce affordable attainable housing initiative to address our region's housing crisis. breaking ground fourth quarter this
year. It has been at the sharing center leadership's intention to be a good partner serving semol county as a good steward of our responsibility. So I'm here today as an ambassador and an advocate for the sharing center. We have tried to be good stewards making sure
that we can financially support ourselves and to continue providing services for those facing those life catastrophic experiences. We've done that for almost 40 years. The sharing center has a track
record of requesting funds only as a vessel for state and federal sponsored projects so that the citizens don't pay for this. In fact, we have not we have not requested money from your general funds. So your your investment I'm here
to say that as one of the the county's partners helping those in in uh catastrophic situations we've been good partners and your investment in ROI in the citizens for the citizens is one that you can take pride in for the
community. My concern is this the hard truths. You have some very difficult decisions coming and I know that with the cost of living and everything else in our lives increasing exponentially, you will continue receiving fund requests from all sorts of
organizations, some smaller and you will be tempted to help everyone, but you can't. In fact, some monies may only serve, for example, in a smaller organization to make someone's payroll as opposed to
organizations that put food on the table for a month that keep someone in their home from being from being homeless and for someone receiving free mental health care. My request is this. Please take this into consideration in the budgeting
process for you all. I've brought also an impact report from our last our most recent uh fiscal year and uh am happy to answer any questions that you have. But again, I'm here as an advocate and an ambassador for the sharing center to let
you know that we are trying to be responsible and uh just a good good partner in solving problems here in Semino County. So, we appreciate your support. Any questions, inquiries, comments? Well, we certainly appreciate
you being here and sharing your perspective. Um, thank you. And I know that I've watched you and Mr. Boss can't sit back there for extended period of time today. We're we're truly sorry, but we've we've done it pretty efficient, but we appreciate your patience and being here. Absolutely. Happy to do it.
I've brought for each one of you our impact report. I'll leave it here so that you can refer to it in your free time. So, thank you all. Thank you very much. Mr. Boscan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, commissioners. I'm Jose Bosan, manager of government
relations for WM Waste Management. And your address, please? I'm at 3510 uh Rio Vista Avenue, Orlando, Florida 32805. Uh that's my office address. Um, I wanted to share with you about uh we made an investment of $18 million to our
Bvard MURF and that may impact positively the county's budget because we are now processing more of your material. Uh, additionally 300 to 500 tons of your recycling material on an annual basis. That's about we do about
21,000 is your estimated tonnage and that increase keeps that from going to your landfill. And it it it just shows how great our relationship is with uh Seino County and your staff and your residents. Continued great job and uh
doing the best. We really have you really have the best material uh recycling material in in Central Florida. We have great trash. You have great trash. And and that's why the bears always came to us first. That's right. That's right. So, you know, I wanted to just uh share that with you.
is is going to probably see a future impact in budgets. We're also going to invest uh probably in another facility in Central Florida. We're looking at that which also could be a beneficial to the county once we do that. Um and I'll come back and share more information about that in the future. But I just
wanted to share that with you and uh thank you for your time and thank you for your indulgence, Miss Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Boscan. We appreciate it very much. Be well. Okay. No other speakers. Then we'll close any public
comment. Mr. J, are you good? Yep, I'm ready. It's all yours, sir. Thank you, chairman, commissioners. For the record, I'm Timothy Jex and uh when I'm not working on microtransit, my day job is the director of the office of management and budget. Jim, pull that mic again.
It's Yes, I'll write up to you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. Before Mr. gets going and I think we've all we've all, you know, had preliminary discussions with this and and and the county manager, as you all know, I have to
leave in a few minutes and I just wanted to say I'm looking forward to the continued discussions um of this and uh but I have been as all of you have been briefed and I just want to say I know the tough decisions we're
going to have to make in the near future and Um, and I do want to thank uh Tim for such a, you know, yman's effort in getting us to this point and look forward to all the opportunities for what investments and
and revenues we can find to balance this general fund budget that we have. But, uh, I'll I'll stay for a few more minutes. I just didn't want anybody to think that I was so disgusted with the numbers that I just had to walk out.
All right. Thank you, Commissioner. Mr. JS, please proceed. Today, we're doing a brief update uh overview on the general fund. We're still working to finalize the county manager's proposed budget for all funds. We're planning to deliver that to the board at the end of the month. Tim, if you could bring the
microphone a little closer. Sure. You almost have to like gota be on top of it over there. Thank you. So today's presentation will be going over uh base revenues in the general fund, constitutional officer budget requests that we've already received,
the current status of the BCC budget development process, one-time revenues, reserves, and uh a millage history slide. These are the base revenues that make up um uh the the top five lines show the revenues that make up 94% of the
revenues in the general fund. You see 77% of them are advalor and property taxes, 9% halfcent sales tax, 4% state shared and 3% utility tax um and 1% communication service taxes. These are revenues that we're able to project over
time and we have a good amount of confidence as to what the revenues will be for fiscal year 26. So the first is our largest revenue in the general fund. It's advorum property taxes. This uh revenue we updated this morning based on the property appraisers estimate of 6.5%
growth and that will generate an additional $16.2 million going into fiscal 26. Half cent sales taxes is our second biggest revenue in the general fund. You can see they peaked in fiscal year 23 around $ 31.6 million and have declined
slightly since then. Um we are projecting a small increase in fiscal year 26 and a revenue of approximately $30 million. State shared revenues. This is another sales tax generated revenue. Um it it peaked at $15.5 million and we are
projecting $13.4 million in fiscal 26. util utility taxes is the most steady revenue in the general fund. We had an increase in fiscal 23 uh of 9.4% otherwise we typically see 2 to 3% growth and we have 9.6 uh million
projected for fiscal 26 based on the county's current 4% levy. Next we have communication service taxes. This is a revenue that has been falling um since fiscal year 19 and we're projecting about $5 million in
fiscal 26. So this slide shows the total base revenues not including onetime revenues for the general fund uh totaling $347.2 million for fiscal 26. An important thing to note, when you look
at the FY25 total budgets, which include a one-time revenue of $4 million, which will not be received in fiscal year 26, um we'll have about 12.7 million of new revenues to work with going into next year, and that's a
3.8% increase in general fund revenues. Moving to expenditures, we have received uh as of May 1st requests from all of our constitutional officers. Uh so we'll be going over the sheriff's budget in June. Um but they they are requesting a 9%
increase 16.2 million. And if you go down the line, total budget requests that would be allocated to the constitutional officers are growing by $18.8 million. Um the 230 million fiscal year 26 request is approximately uh 66%
of the total general fund revenues. 66%. And this slide shows the growth since fiscal year 19. Up to the $230 million. So as I mentioned, we're still under the
process of developing the BCC department budgets. Um we received the uh requests from all of our departments in March and then we worked through uh March and April with the departments. We had lots of meetings uh to to to minimize the increases as much as possible. And uh
this slide shows the groupings how we um how we kind of review and go over the budget. So we have mandates, obligations, and current commitments. Uh this includes unfunded mandates. Uh the total the total amount of this group is about $70 million. uh
unfunded mandates. Just this section here, it's about $9.7 million. And when we present this budget to you, you'll see that there's really not much of an increase at all going into fiscal 26. These include um costs that are mandated for the county to perform but did not receive revenues to
offset. Next, we have obligations. This uh budget, as it stands uh today, still being developed, is around $39.5 million. This includes debt service contributions for CRAAS, our Sunrail obligation, uh, and then
the, um, service required to maintain the countywide public safety 800 megahertz radio system, uh, property liability insurance for county government buildings, and then power and water utilities um, that we we pay to keep county operations
running. This slide shows our current commitments. Um these are seminal forever CSAs which we have budgeted at around $850,000. Uh contribution to attainable housing links and microransit services and finally judicial
support. Next we have our BCCbased operations. This includes personnel and operating budgets to support the 10 departments that you see here that are within our general fund. as well. We have a transfer to our transportation trust which supports our public works
department. There's currently 629 FTEEs in the general fund. Um we're not proposing any new positions. In fact, we're proposing to eliminate 10 FTEEs for positions that are retiring that we're not planning to refill. Uh the personnel budget for BCC operations is
62 million and the um operating budgets around $10 million. This totals 21% of our general fund. Next, we're showing project budgets. Um, this is the uh section of the budget that's most under development. That's that's that needs
more time to to finalize before we put together the proposed budget. Um, we broke it off into two categories. On the left, we have annual project needs. These are capital uh expenditures, but these are required to maintain um like our fleet, our facilities. We have
library books and IT equipment like network equipment. On the right hand side, you have um costs that are more inconsistent that expenditures that have to be made every 5 to 15 years. Um there's not a whole lot of capital in our general fund. You know, we have our sales tax fund that pays for
transportation costs. These are the uh capital expenditures that uh our general fund is responsible for. our CAD dispatch system, um our public safety radio towers, our portable radios of which the county maintains an inventory of around 5,500, and then uh equipment
at our tower sites. I wanted to show this slide um to make just to indicate how important it is to maintain the annual fleet replacement. This is a budget that when when revenues get short, this is a budget that's easier to um to defer. The
top two rows, the general fund and the transportation trust fund have impact on your general fund revenues. Uh we have about $52 million worth of equipment uh in those two in those two funds. And it includes heavy equipment, light fleet, work trucks, generators, trailers, and
emergency vehicles. And that $1.5 million annually is is a fairly minimum amount of replacement. Next, we have facilities. The county facilities department maintains 341 buildings uh totaling 2 million square
feet of interior space. Approximately 82% of those square feet are dedicated towards general fund activities. Um we have 800,000 square feet of roofs. 1,000 HVACs, air handlers, boilers, and chillers. And we spending a minimum of
around $2 million in maintenance projects to maintain these buildings. We wanted to show quickly a chart on one-time revenues. The county um total over the last uh seven or eight years has received $82 million. But if you looked
from fiscal year 22 to fiscal year 25, we received approximately $80 million in one-time revenues. The FY25 beginning fund balance that was uh amended at the recent midyear B is 102 million. So you can see about 82 million
of that did affect the uh the beginning fund balance that we have in our general fund and in fiscal 26 we aren't budgeting any new onetime revenues. This slide just shows statistically uh we don't we're not we haven't finalized our our general fund
budget so we don't have the current reserve amounts but if we wanted to maintain a 20% reserve for fiscal 26 based on the current revenues we'd be around $69 million and the two-month reserve which is the GFA recommended best practice would be around $55 million in
reserves and finally I wanted to go over an important slide uh around discussion on the general fund millillage so my records go back to fiscal year 91 where the general fund millage was 5.4146. Over the next 10 years it reduced down to
4.9989 mills where it remained until fiscal year 07. And then in fiscal year '08 there was the property tax reform where the millillage was required to be reduced and went to 4.35 mills.
In fiscal year '09 there was a roll forward uh where property values decreased and the millillage uh rolled forward to 4.5 mills. In fiscal year 10 the board did increase the millillage to 4.90 mills which was below where it was
prior to the reduction. And then in fiscal year 11 the board set the millillage at 4.8751 mills where it remains today. So today is May 20th. It's our second budget work session. As we mentioned, we're planning to publish the county
manager's proposed budget on May 30th. We'll have briefings with the board uh prior to the June 17th work session where we'll go over county departments and uh a few of the other agencies that couldn't present today. On July 22nd, that's the regular board meeting where
we would set the trim. Uh and then July 29th, we do have a work session scheduled. It's an as needed work session and then we have our first and second public hearings in September. And that concludes my presentation. And Mr. Chairman, yes. Thank you. Um and so I
just wanted uh Mr. J just to give the overview. We showed you this back in March, you know, at your retreat. I wanted you to see it here when our we discussed our constitutionals. We're going to be meeting with you all the all five of your commissioners over the next
couple weeks to the next month before this June 17th probably a couple times. I am going to be submitting to your recommended budget by the end of the month. However, there will be certain scenarios that I would like to discuss with all five of you individually and so that when we come here in in June 17th
that you know we've talked about it for the last 6 months and that we've seen we you you know the picture it's it's the same. Um the only thing that's changed from March to now is that we have some updated numbers from this from the state, but they're the same projections that or around the same projections that
we thought. So I just wanted to give this picture to you one one more time as we start working through it. I really want to thank those departments. Um we have done amazing work I believe over the last couple months. Not only once did they submit it. We sent it back to them two or three times. Mr. J has
really been working with with them as well as Trisha Johnson in my office and Christian Swinson on their departments and um you're going to see the departments that are coming through that are going to have flat budgets. We're not request re requesting from the board
any new positions in the general fund. Um we've actually found um areas that we can combine as you have saw the seminal moments piece. You're going to see that come come through. um the microtransit that you saw, we are going to have employee uh we're we're going to be
recruiting two positions to help with that, but we're using existing resources. We're not asking to increase the budget, the general fund budget for that. We're using existing funds, not even the savings uh from that partic that we we possibly will get. So, we are uncovering and looking at everything in
the in the general fund. I want when you become at the June 17th and you have the recommended you'll have that recommended budget for at least a good three weeks to three and a half weeks before that June 17th meeting we're available to meet anytime all through that next over
the next month to discuss with you because I want to make sure you have all the information materials uh thoughts other research that you want us to do prior to that. Fair enough. I think that's probably going to be a a good thing because based on what we're
hearing and what we've seen now for several months and as um Commissioner Delari indicated earlier, I think we've got a lot of tough decisions to make on behalf of our taxpayers. Um and so it's going to be important we understand what
that fixed hard overhead is um and what that leaves for any additional services. president and for me it's going to be about if you have to cut where you going to cut any further than what your own doge or mini doge efforts have already
undertaken uh I think it's going to be valuable um I will start questions for Mr. objects. Commissioner Lockhart. Yes. And Tim, I don't know if this is me misreading this or if this is just amazing um uh happen stance and I and
the general fund advalorum slide that is um after the base rebbit. There you go. Yes sir. Okay. So the projected increase over last
year's revenue is 16.2 million. That's correct. Is that right? Am I reading that right? Yes. Okay. And then when I flip to the constitutional officer budgets, the sheriff's adopted variance is exactly 6.2 million. Is that a a
coincidence? It's a coincidence that it's the exact same. It's not a typo. We didn't accidentally copy and paste the one number or one cell into another. No, it's not a typo. Okay. So, that is significant to me because that is every
dollar of the increase in revenue right now the sheriff is requesting in his increased budget. That's correct. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay, Tim, we can't It's hard to hear you from over there. I don't It's also scary to say yes, that's
correct. Can Can you pull that mic any closer or is that mic just not I'll speak right into it. Oh, there you go. That to me is a huge elephant in this room. It's not sustainable. And I'm I'm saying this to you as if it's your number, right? He's not sitting here.
We'll get to talk to him um next. But I I think that while he while we didn't get to address his budget today, it is remarkable that that is the situation we're finding
ourselves in right now. And with all of the rhetoric and narrative of local governments wild spending, um none of that requested $6.2 2 million is for the
county's general fund services that we are responsible for for providing. I don't know how to fix that. I don't know how to address that. I don't know what to do about that. But if we if we do
that, there is no money for anybody or anything else unless we're willing to increase some revenue somewhere to be able to afford that request. And so I'm putting that out there now publicly
because we have a lot of work to do between now and then in this community to decide how we address that gap. Are we addressing it by cut by cutting every other service, which I don't know that
we could I don't think we can cut $16 million, or are we going to swallow the hard pill of talking about increasing revenues? And and I think that I know we are not prepared to have that conversation today, but I'm willing to fall on my sword and say it out loud
because I think it's it's just so gobstoppping to me that that's that that is where we are. Well, I think there's a second half to that discussion and that is is because the question was are we willing to cut? We can't cut away enough to get to that.
Correct. It's it's are we willing to cut in public safety in order to bring it down. We that discussion is not for us for here to today, right? But that's got to that's where we are and and we've been ramping up to this since I've been
here. The writing has been on the wall. The writing's been on the wall. We've been ramping up to this. I mean, these are just tough discussions every year and it's not going away. Some are within our control. Some are not within our control. Uh but
this there's no way we can cut out of the county budget enough to sustain this. It's not going to happen unless we stop picking up trash. I mean like those are the discussions even that doesn't go in the general that's not even the general fund but I mean like like let's use examples of this re reality. We
can't get there. Commissioner, go ahead. No, I'm done. We've we do have anything today, but it's it's it's that is the elephant in the room. We we get excited sometimes up here.
Um there is no question this this is basic business. Um you know, you you have a fixed overhead that you have to pay and you have x amount of income. You have to either generate additional
income or you got to cut overhead. We've been cutting overhead since we arrived here. When I arrived here, for goodness sakes, we weren't even replacing pickup trucks for uh you know, public works to go around and pick
up or do any work. I mean, they were like 10, 15, 20 years old with 300 some thousand miles on. we're paying more to fix them than we would ultimately replace them. Um, but at the end of the day, I mean, I think some of the telling number was
66% of the revenue goes to the constitutionals. We continue to fund everything in this county on the backs of the BCC employees and staff. That's the bottom line. I mean, that that's really what's what's
continues to happen. We delay projects. We put projects off. We we we don't fund things. I mean, for goodness sakes, look at the building we're in here. I mean, just just take a walk around. Look at the carpet. Look at some of the paint on the wall. Uh, you
know, our employees are working in an environment that arguably is is is not the best for getting the best product out of our employees and our staff. It's it's not a it's not a beautiful work environment. Um, I'll go even further if you don't
mind. It's not just about the beautifification. It's about health. You walk through the building department right now, the air conditioning is not working, right? So, it this is this isn't this is not a healthy environment for employees to be working in. It's it it is ugly.
Well, I mean, unhealthy. I'm just sorry. I'd venture to say if you did some air quality tests in this building, you might be surprised. I mean, I could smell it getting off the elevator on our floor, the second floor, um different areas around the county services building.
Um, but that that's ultimately what has happened uh and continues to happen and we're going to have to have some tough conversations and I think in these briefings as you give us your
recommended budget um you've done what this commission asked you to do at the retreat was go back look at all efficiencies look at all things that you can cut look at all things that don't impact public safety.
uh cut all things that provide the services that we need to provide to our public and we still are not going to get there for the ask that we've heard today. Um a and not not to mention every little
bit whittleles away when there's decisions in Tallahassee that are made and and and often they don't even realize the unintended consequences like the medical examiner situation. Um, and it's every one of those small things
that takes 200,000, a million, a million, five. Every year that continues. Um, you either got to cut services way back and and and you know,
we we went from mowing at one time in this county like every quarter to to then mowing once a year back to citizens complaints of mowing twice a year to now three times a year just to just try to
keep up. But that's how deep our staff has looked at making cuts. When you're talking about how many times you mow the mid the rightways in this county, I mean, arguably that's a public safety issue as well for the roadways and the
drainage and you know the things that you know consequence of not maintaining your rightways. There's some tough discussions and I think those discussions include our constitutionals to be part of that discussion. Um, you know, law enforcement, public
safety. Look, the state of Florida has 100 positions on the state highway patrol. They've not been able to fill for now at least three years. but they're going to do increases on their law enforcement
salaries and they're doing law law enforcement increasements at salaries in this county at some of the city levels and our surrounding sister counties. So what happens is we will end up slowly chipping away and losing our
law enforcement officers to others which then the whole cost of the turnover and training new people and all that you know comes to bear upon that. So, it it it it's tough conversation, but we've got to have it. I mean, we we exist for public safety first and foremost, which
is our fire and our police and and some of the other things we do. Um, so I think we all need to be honest with ourselves that we're going to have to have some very tough discussions and some of those discussions are going to include millage
increases. As much as I hate to say it, I think you know, Commissioner Lockhart is basically what you're saying. Uh, and I think most of us understand that we're smart enough to get that. And so for me, it's about what can be deferred and what
can't be deferred. You know, in my briefings, there may be things that we've planned to do or committed to do and we may have to get down to rating those or determining because what I'm seeing right now, you're already into reserves and you're going to continue to go into reserves for the next year or
two. Then there's no there going to be any reserves at all. And I'm probably the most vocal on keeping too many reserves. But you got to have some reserves. So, anyone else? Mr. Chairman, if I may, uh Tim, can you also list when
you give us the briefings the unfunded mandates that are coming down from the state over the years? Absolutely. And if you could give us a progression of how they've increased over the years, because I know at one point a number of years ago, uh the unfunded mandates, if my memory strikes
me correct, it was like a 27 28 million. I don't know where it is today. I'd just like to know what those are. Sure. We'll pull that together. And I bet you I shouldn't say it that way, but I would imagine that over the years it's gone a lot higher than what that number
used to be. But I'd like to for you to verify that. We will. Sure. Because we could talk to our state representatives about that. Great. Okay. Okay. Uh, no other questions or comments
for Mr. JS or the county manager? No. Since this is your budget until we till I submit it and then it's ours. Well, it could be ours for a little bit, but eventually if we adopt it, then it's ours.
Um, all right. Uh, next steps. You already told us right there. Right there. Yes. So, our yeah, our next meeting will be on June 17th with the well, we'll have a board meeting before that, but June 17th is our next budget work session where we'll hear from the sheriff as well as we'll do an updated
presentation on this and then the departments as well. Very good. Make sure there's no one here to speak public comment that snuck in. Seeing none, anything else for the good of the order?
Seeing none, we shall be was there. I didn't know if you wanted to mention the medical. Oh, yeah. You got to be
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