Let's go ahead and get started. Everyone stand. Commissioner D, please pray for Father in heaven, we come again now thanking for life, health, and strength. We come blessing your name because your name is worthy to be blessed. Father, as we come try to make decision for this
county, this country, this state, and our people right now, we ask you to bless us. Father, we make the best decision. Thank you for what you're going to do. We thank you for what you've done in the past. And we bless your holy name for that. Father, I help
us as we go to try to do what is right. These blessings and all other blessings we ask in Jesus name I pray. Amen. 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. Like to welcome everyone to our meeting Wednesday, October 15th, 2025 at 12:00 p.m. Have a conference line set up.
number there is 1 19179001022 access code 32347 pound. This is not a toll-free number and you may be subject to long distance charges according to your long distance plan. When the chair opens the meeting for public comment, please follow the below instructions. If you wish to speak, please dial star
five. Moderator will unmute your line when it's your turn to speak and notify you by announcing the last 14 telephone number. Please announce your name and address. You'll be allowed to speak for three minutes. Any person wishing to address the board regarding an agenda item? We have three minutes for comment.
Comment speak one time for each agenda item. That said, we'll go on item three approval of the agenda. Commission. All in favor? I. All right. We'll move on to administrator item four. The board
discussed the submission of a board county commission response to insurance position of budget appeal. Our chairperson was provided yesterday with a copy of the sheriff's budget appeal to the administration commission
and per Florida state statute we have or the board has five business days to respond. So, I have given each one of you a copy of the appeal in the packet and we just need direction from the board on how you
would like to respond. I I will also say that according to the sheriff's letter, he is stating um he is stating that there is a total reduction of 1,600 $6,044
from the sheriff's requested budget. So basically that he is taking his certified budget and adding in the one cent sales tax funds to come to that total. I believe. Yeah, obviously. Kind of think that would be a false
number in a sense so to speak on how your state budget has reduced an amount that you don't even have. Yes, sir. So, uh, you know, but what is our direction on response? Is
that something for Mr. B. Well, I read this and uh also I talked with u Lwanda and of course uh you can do you don't have to respond but I would recommend that you respond to it. Uh of
course and uh that issue there that would probably be number one on on your on your letter of response that issue that you just talked about. Uh, Mr. Chairman, chairperson. Then secondly,
uh, of course, I think that uh, our county administrator and also our budget people would be able to, uh, respond to why in fact uh, the board requested that
the sheriff reduce his budget. Uh, number one, I made some suggestions to Miss Wanda over the phone earlier today. Um, and of course, I don't know whether these uh whether these issues that I'm
going to talk about are in fact like we probably think they may very well be. But what about the receipts for folks that
are supposed to pay their 2024 aorum taxes? Is there an increase in folks who haven't paid? You know, that'd be number one. Is is there a reduction of that? Number two, is there
a reduction on the gas tax receipts um for uh 2024, 2023, and how's it going in 2025? Uh also uh
uh then sales tax receipts uh are they lower than that than than they've been in the past. Those are the
other reasons why you would say that there's not money to um to to fund the budget. Also put in there that every constitutional officer that
came before you asked that they reduce their budgets and they all did as I understand it. Isn't that correct? I put that in in the uh in the response along other sir along with public works smart yeah all of that yeah that there's a
reduction you know just almost all across the board uh and then the last thing that um I think y'all are stewards of the funds of the board of c of the of the county it's
your responsibility ility to balance the budget and if you don't balance the budget then you haven't done your job. I mean you're required it's a mandate that you that you balance the budget and you also have to look to the future. If you
use all your reserves one year, then in the word there's not going to be a reserve later on. And praise the but Lord, we haven't had a hurricane yet this year. Uh we haven't
had a disaster, but we never know. And y'all as uh as stewards and also as the county's um officers have to uh rely on your
knowledge and also the knowledge of your constituents as to what very well may happen in the future. Uh and then of course it's patently obvious of the disasters that have uh occurred in our
county the past 14 months and mentioned those disasters. So that and if I'm saying anything incorrect, you know, let me know. But I think that's uh what y'all were considering when you were considering asking each of the
constitutional officers to uh reduce their budget. Yes. And and I'd like to say too that I agree with everything that you've just said, Conrad. And you know, our duty is to be prudent and to wisely spend
taxpayers dollars and more importantly is to look to the future because we are in a hurricane prone area. We've had devastating storms and there will be more. I don't know if it'll be. We don't
know when it'll be, if it'll be soon or 20 years later, but we know sooner or later we're going to have other destructive hurricanes. So, I think it's very prudent for us to make sure that our reserves are healthy and that we
don't start using reserves to pay for superolous and wasteful spending. That has to stop. So, um I'm I'm proud that this board stood firm and doing
what we are charged to do with our budget. Yeah, I'd agree. I think it's pretty evident why this board requested budgets across the county
uh budgets itself. I mean, we it was put in front of us by our property appraiser of the the deficit that we were facing at beginning of $1.9 million. You know, we did end up getting $900,000
stop grant money to that we could use for operations, but with the the two major me closures and hurricanes that you Mr. efficient that it did put us in a deficit in our budget and we did ask all constitutional
officers both parts and some uh funding that we put out there for different groups that was cut out as well for some different services that was cut out as well. So let the board demonstrate that no one was cherrypicked is a word that I heard in the past. No one was
cherrypicked and asked them to reduce their budget. So I think it'd be in the best interest of this board to maintain a position and keeping this budget exactly where it is. And and I want to make another point too. back when we decided to
take the the one cent sales tax and to try to help the hospital and to try to help the sheriff's office. There was nothing permanent about that arrangement that we made. We did that. Times were
different then. We had a mill that um occur things our economy was was more healthy then. So we thought, well, this is a good thing to help the sheriff and to help the hospital, but it was not ever
intended to be forever. And so I, you know, maybe there's a misunderstanding somewhere about that, but I was here and I remember exactly that that we did not guarantee that that would continue.
But my understanding and and this coming up this budget now we might not be so affected right now about revenues coming in but next year we don't have if something haven't happened we could be
in a dire need that that that's my only and we being stewards of the county and and the people that we serve they are expecting us to make some decision and those will be hard decision and everybody would understand Uh
you know those people that was out there in Buck Island was making 75 and $80,000 a year. You call them they say we're making 25 or 30 maybe even 40 but it's not 75 or 80. Some had to leave 10. So
we made that decision. I don't know whether we necessarily agree with all those cuts we made but as a board collectively we made a decision to stand by what we thought that everybody can live and went that day and said hey I'm
ready for that was to plead to the governor and his cabinet and let him make a decision and if he says or they say we need to do better man they a little conversation you know we I go along with that you and David
you come and see us a little bit we get so with that being said I I don't have a problem I don't feel bad it it's nothing that he we can't live with so I I know law enforcement is expensive
and and I'm one of the first to say it but everything is expensive my food going up 20% they only say five but I know 20 And you know, if you if and if you look at surrounding counties, sheriff's
office departments and compare their budgets to this budget here in Taylor County, I think you'll see a vast difference. Yeah. I'm just going to say that. I mean, I understand everyone there's a a channel for everything and this appeal.
And I do want to say I will be highly disappointed in our state partners if they go along and disappear. I will be highly disappointed in that group that it's not right to just raise taxes and put it on the taxpayers facts for no
good reason. I agree with you. And you know, we've all heard our governor, you know, he from what he said, uh, he he's he's talked about cutting budgets all over the state
and he's made his conservative views very public. So, we'll see. We'll see. I I'm sure he's going to do the right thing and he's going to reject this appeal. I uh feel like I told him straight out
that night that we voted that if they got in a bind and needed some extra money, we would always come up with it for the people because it's not our money, it's the people's money. And if they needed more services, we could we could give it to them.
It just seems like he uh had his mind made up do what he done and may go have to live with it. And I'm I'm with y'all on it. We doing all we can do. We looking out for our constituents. We're looking out for the people that count the money that's been
put here. All us pay taxes and all we do, too. And that's just we're going we're going to bear with it. So, Mr. Chair, I I would make a suggestion then that we ask um our county administrator
to uh respond with a letter as soon as possible and for sure no later than Tuesdays. We don't want to miss that deadline. as soon as we can and include all the things that our attorney has suggested and anything else that you see
that um would be um appropriate. I'll make that a motion. I'll second it. You want You got something to say? Well, and I can work with our clerk and our county attorney on this letter. Do
you want to plan on another meeting maybe Monday after the legislative delegation meeting since most commissioners may be here? What for? Just to review the letter and before it's sent
as far as I'm concerned. You can email it to me, but I I can be here too. So, I mean, you know, either one, but you can email it to me. I'm fine. I can respond it. I'm fine with it. Fine with it. and we trust your opinion.
Well, then I can add it to the agenda after that to ratify the chairperson's signature. So, it's part of the record. Okay. All right. So, we got a motion by Commissioner Fel, seconded by Commissioner.
And that we got a roll call. All right. Commissioner English. Yes. Commissioner Moody. Yes. Commissioner Faggel. Yes. And Commissioner Debs. Yes. Thank you. All right, we'll go to our next item. Comments and
concerns from the public for non agenda items. Do we have anyone from the public? Anyone on the line? All right. Boardformational items. Mr. Boardformational item. Do you have
anything? No. Yes. Mr. All right. Nothing else. a motion to motion motion by commission by question.