BCC Minutes 06/21/2001 B (Budget Workshop)June 21,2001
BUDGET MEETING OF JUNE 21,2001
OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County
Commissioners in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as
the Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing board(s) of such
special districts as have been created according to law and having
conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:05 a.m. in
BUDGET SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex,
East Naples, Florida, with the following members present:
CHAIRMAN:
VICE-CHAIRMAN:
ABSENT:
ALSO PRESENT:
James D. Carter, Ph.D.
Pamela S. Mac'Kie
Jim Coletta
Tom Henning
Donna Fiala
Tom Olliff, County Administrator
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COLLIER COUNTY GOVERNMENT
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
FY 2002 BUDGET WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
Thursday, June 21, 2001 - 9:00 a.m.
G,enex~ Overview
A~i Valorem Tax Implications
Debt Service Funds (200's)
Trust Funds (600%)
MSTD General Fund (111)
Special Revenue Funds (100%)
Enterprise Funds (400's)
Internal Service Funds (500's)
Gas Tax/Impact Fees Capital Funds (300's)
Friday, June 22, 2001.9:00 a.m.
General Fund (001) Overview
Ad Valorem Tax Implications
General Fund Ooerating Divisions'
State Attorney
Public Defender
BCC
County Attorney
Management Offices
Support Services
Emergency Services
Public Services
Commtmity DevelopmenffEnvironmental Services
Transporta~on
Airport Authority Operations
Courts & Related Agendes - 3:00 p.m. Requested
Review of General Fund Supported Capital Projects
Constitutional Officers:
· .-Property Appraiser ::
Supervisor of Elections
Clerk of Courts
Sheriff's Office
Monday, June 25, 2001 - 9:00 a.m.
Wrap-up
June 21,2001
CHAIRMAN CARTER: We are live, ladies and gentlemen.
Good morning. We're all happy. I can see that. They're all out here
like doom and gloom. Yes, it is budget time. Everybody smile.
Good morning, Commissioners. If you would please join me by
rising and pledge of allegiance, and we will begin the process.
(Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.)
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Good morning, Mr. Olliff. The last
time I read the United States Constitution, when you elect people it is
taxation by representation.
They said in front of you this morning, in case anyone out there does
not understand how the United States of America works. Thank you.
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, welcome.
Welcome back, I guess. About 12 hours ago you were here doing
Land Development Code amendments, so we appreciate you coming.
We also appreciate the board taking the time and setting aside time.
We know June is a very, very busy month for the board. We do
appreciate you dedicating the amount of time necessary to go through
this budget and to understand it.
To begin, I would also like to thank Mike Smykowski your office
of management and budget director and his staff. His staff is here in
the room with you, and I'll let Mike do the introductions, but as part
of this budget because there are three new commissioners, we are
treating this, in part, as an educational process to make sure that the
new commissioners understand how the budget is structured. And
just to help you understand a little bit about the overall budget and
what it takes to get to this moment in time, our estimate is that this
budget has taken about 10,000 hours of staff time at this point to
develop to bring to you, and it will take about another 1,000 hours
between now and September to finalize and edit any changes that are
made as a result of these workshops.
The other highlight, I would say, of this particular budget process
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in and of itself is that this is the first budget that you can point to as
being one that was completely developed electronically. This budget
was input in the field and by your operation staff directly into
computerized spreadsheets that were e-mailed to your office of
management and budget staff where those spreadsheets were
designed to automatically total up to the fund level, and we feel like
we probably saved anywhere from 10 to 15 percent of the staff time
that was required to put these same budgets together last year. So
this is a good opportunity for us to toot the horn a little bit and tell
you how we are taking advantage of the technology that you have
provided us in the past.
What we want to do is is provide you a little overview, first of the
fiscal year '01 budget, the year that we're in. And then we'll give you
some highlights of fiscal year '02 budget. And then we will go
through according to your schedule the budgets that are in your
workbook. Primarily those that are non-countywide general fund
budgets will be covered today and then tomorrow will be those that
are ad valorem '01 funded programs.
To begin with the review of'01 budget, we thought it would be
good to see at least a list of some of the projects that were completed,
and if we could work from the visualizer I'll show you this is a
picture of the EMS Station 17 that was in your budget this year.
That's a project that was located on 13th Street Southwest. It was
completed on April 4th and fortunately for us it was actually two
months ahead of schedule and completed under budget.
Most of you are familiar with the Domestic Animal Services
building that was also programmed in the fiscal year '01 budget for
completion. That project was completed in January of this year, and
it's -- it's up and running, and I think it's a very, very successful
capital project for you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Tom, as you do that, is it too much
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June 21, 2001
trouble to identify which fund areas those come out of?. It might help
the new commissioners understand how this is put together.
MR. OLLIFF: The Domestic Animal Services building was
actually one of your general fund capital supported projects. It's one
of the areas where those of you who've been here for any period of
time know that historically we have a large number unfunded general
fund capital projects, and it's probably the one area where we are
trying to make some progress and you'll see that as we go through
this budget.
For the first time in a number of years, I can point to some
successes on your beach renourishment program. Through your
tourist development tax program, we were able to successfully
complete two major beach renourishment projects. This is a picture
of the Park Shore Beach renourishment before it was actually
renourished, and then there is a picture of that same beach after we
were able to put down, roughly, forty to forty-five thousand cubic
yards of sand.
The second project that was completed this year was the
Hideaway Beach renourishment project. Again, that's a picture of
that beach before we actually did the renourishment. Then, here is a
picture of that same beach after we were able to truck in, again, about
50,000 cubic yards of sand onto that beach. So for the first time I
think you can -- you can be proud that you actually had a fairly
successful beach renourishment program this year, and we full well
expect to continue that -- that progress in the coming year.
Some of you are aware that there was a funding for a juvenile
detention center, and it's actually here in this complex, but I'll bet
most of you don't even know where it is. It is located on the north
end of this campus on the backside of the jail facility. That project
was completed. It's a 34,000 square foot facility. It's 54 beds. It's a
juvenile detention center here on this campus. And, actually, that
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was a grant-funded program. So that was no local tax monies used to
build that.
A couple of the noncapital project things that I wanted to point
out, that were in your budget problematically, that were very
successful. The parks department has finally figured out, I think, a
good formula for success on some of your community-wide concerts,
and while I don't expect most of you went to the reggae concert, this
is one of the two concerts that we had this year. One was a country
jam and the other was a reggae festival. Attendance at each averaged
more that 20,000 people. So I think it points to the fact that not only
have we figured out how to be successful with these concerts, but I
think it also shows that there is a large public demand for these kind
of outdoor events. And that's the picture of the crowd at the
Vineyards for the reggae festival.
Next picture is the Golden Gate government services building and
if you've driven down Golden Gate --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Sorry.
MR. OLLIFF: If you've driven down the parkway in what is
commonly known as Golden Gate City, this is the new Golden Gate
government services building. We are scheduled to cut a ribbon on
that building on July 9th of this year, and it is a continuing effort of
ours to try and provide satellite government facilities to get
government services out where the people actually are. If you've not
been through the building, I think you -- you'll be impressed if you
attend the ribbon cutting that it's going to be a real good public
service facility. It includes the tax collector, the property appraiser,
and the clerk of courts. We're also scheduled to build a new sheriff
substation on that same property shortly.
ProJects that got underway as part of your fiscal year '01 budget
that are not as yet complete but we wanted to give you a little
progress update. The picture on your visualizer now is the Max
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Hasse Community Center. It's coming along very, very well. It's at
the Max Hasse Community Park on Golden Gate Boulevard. It's a
9,500 square foot building, includes a fitness facility, and it's
scheduled to be open in September of this year, just about the time
school starts. It is adjacent to the Big Cypress Elementary School,
and we've got a partnership agreement with the school where they use
our public park facilities and we, in mm, get to have access to the
school lands and some of their athletic fields after school hours. So
it's a good joint partnership example for us.
Most of you can't help but drive by and see the North County
Regional Library Project, and that one's moving along very, very
well. It's on the comer of Airport and Orange Blossom. That project
is scheduled for completion in January of '02, right about peak-season
time. We think that's going to be a landmark-type facility for us. It's
-- it's really going to be the kind of facility in terms of public service
facilities that we think this community is looking for. It's not your
standard box facility. It's Spanish design and architecture, stand-alone
bell tower, solarium reading rooms, and just a more upscale type
library facility than we've constructed in the past.
Obviously, an issue of great importance, about six months ago
was our North County Waste Water Treatment Plant. This is a
picture of the 5-million-gallon per day expansion. I will tell you that
that project is well ahead of schedule at this point because of the
authorizations that you gave us to negotiate some overtime work with
the contractor and, in fact, I was out there two days ago with Mr.
Mudd, and that project according to our original schedule is about 30
days ahead of schedule at this point. We are scheduling completion
of that in December of'02. It should be well ahead of our DEP time
frames for that project.
Recently on a board agenda you authorized the county to
purchase a building on Horseshoe Drive, and it is at the far west end
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of the Horseshoe loop. It is what's commonly referred to as the Old
Barnett Bank Building. We were leasing that building for a number
of years to try and provide space for a number of the off-campus
sheriff functions. We were able to negotiate a purchase price for that
and negotiate a long-term purchase that allowed us to actually have
an annual payment for that building that equaled what our annual
lease payment was. So for the same amount of money that you were
paying in lease, you are now, at least, investing in a facility you will
own. We hope to close on that building next month.
The next series are ones that you are very familiar with, but we
wanted to continue to remind you that there is ongoing progress on a
number of your arterial roadways. Livingson Road -- and this is
actually an older picture from what the road currently looks like.
Most of you, I believe, snuck out there, taken a look at it, and some
of you have even snuck out and drove on it. There are some guilty
faces.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: They catch me every time.
MR. OLLIFF: Livingson Road from Radio Road to Golden
Gate Parkway is scheduled to be completed in August of this year.
We will have an unprecedented ribbon cutting for that road.
Immokalee Road from four-lane -- the four-lane portion of that being
constructed from 1-75 to Collier Boulevard, that continues to be on
schedule, and it's scheduled to be completed in the spring of'02. And
we know that there are a number of constituent issues up there in
regards to safety, and just for the board's general knowledge, we are
working on whatever interim measures we can provide for some of
those communities. In particular in terms of left-hand turns into
some of those communities against oncoming traffic.
Golden Gate Boulevard Project is a project going from a four lane
-- going from two to four lanes, scheduled, again, to be completed in
the fall of '02. That project continues to be on schedule, and if you've
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been out there recently, you'll begin to see and get a feel for how
much of a benefit that's going to be for that estates neighborhood.
Last two projects are Pine Ridge Road and Airport Road. This is
a picture of the Pine Ridge Road construction which has been
primarily to this point a lot of underground utility work, very
disruptive kind of work. Fortunately, a lot of that work has happened
both after hours and on weekends when it's not peak business traffic
time. Hopefully, a lot of that complete-lane-closure work is over
with, but that project is a very complicated project due to the number
of businesses and utilities along that roadway, but it continues to go
well.
Airport Road is the last roadway that we're going to show you
this morning. That's a six-laning project from Pine Ridge to
Vanderbilt Beach Road scheduled for completion in May of '02. And
that project, as well, is on schedule.
So for a community that hasn't built a road in about three fiscal
years, I think you can pat yourself on the back for getting a number
of these major road projects underway and, frankly, from a
community disruption standpoint, I think both your transportation
staff and the contractors have done a phenomenal job of keeping the
disruption to our community and the traffic flow to a minimum. I
think they've done a real good job of that. If you've been in other
communities with this many road projects going at the same time,
sometimes this can really be a formula for disaster, and I think this
has gone very, very well.
Some of our broad highlights for fiscal year '02 1 need to point
out for -- especially for some of the new commissioners -- to me
there is a general philosophical discussion I think that we ought to
have at some point just about a growing change in our community,
and I think historically county governments were never in a position
to provide what I would call municipal-type services. County
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governments were to provide basic infrastructure needs, and at some
point communities once the populations and the densities got to a
point incorporated and they began to provide what you consider more
municipal-type services through cities, but as Florida has grown, I
think you've begun to see a change in that in that counties are
beginning to be called upon to provide what used to be city-type
functions and a large number of this community begins to look to you
and to us to be able to provide municipal-type services. And to try
and understand what it takes to do that, I think we continue to get
compared to the City of Naples and wish that we could provide the
types of service and to the -- to the level, perhaps, sometimes that the
City of Naples does.
We've prepared a graph for you just to show you a comparison.
I'm not saying this -- I'm not showing you this graph in any way to be
disparaging towards the city at all, but just to give you a clear
understanding of where we are in terms of staffing to population and
what it requires to provide the kind of level of service that I think is
provided in the city.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Does -- does that include Glades
sheriff --
MR. OLLIFF: No. We have taken out all law enforcement, so
we're talking about general government employees to population.
And if look, it's almost a three-to-one ratio in terms of what the city
has in terms of employees to population versus what the county has,
and if you can look down -- maybe, Beth, I can get you to focus in on
that -- that bottom line -- if you look at what it would require in terms
of the county-wide population for the county to be able to provide the
same level of service from a staffing perspective, you would have to
actually add 2,300 employees to your payroll in order to have that
same staffing pattern that the city does. So I don't think that is a
realistic expectation, certainly not in this coming year's budget, but
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it's just one that I thought was worth pointing out that our ability to
be able to provide the kind of-- for instance, landscape-type
maintenance and park maintenance and that almost pound for pound
if you look at our parks, it's almost a three-to one staffing ratio when
you go from city's to county's.
In addition to that, I think it's worth noting that not only do we
have this disparity in terms of our ability to provide service, but I
think if you look the county also provides, in addition to that, a
number of services that are not provided by cities. And if you look at
this list, not only do we have a lower employee-to-population ratio,
but on top of that we are providing this entire list of services that
cities do not. So on top of what municipal services are being
provided, you look at library services, domestic animal services,
medical examiners, bailiffs, and the whole list, there's a large
percentage of your employee base that is going to provide these
services that are not provided in the city. So I think it's just good as
we step into this budget process for you to understand some of the
distinctions between county government and the city and what,
frankly, you and your staff have been able to do with a much smaller
employee base and, frankly, I think a much smaller budget in terms
of comparison to population.
COMMISSIONER HENN1NG: Can we get a copy of that just
for our records, please?
MR. OLLIFF: Absolutely.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I would really like that, Tom, and
Commissioner Henning. I think I would like step it one level further.
I smell a real nice production for 54 that says this is your county at
work, services provided, and when people criticize and say, we are
bloated, we're inefficient, I think they ought to step back and ask --
ask yourself, if this is what you're getting for money spent compared
to other communities within your county externally and then come
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back to me and say we're not doing a good job. And I think this is
the kind of message that needs to be put out there so folks really
understand what you're getting, because I'm -- I'm amazed, and I
thank you for that.
MR. OLLIFF: That's the reason we wanted to show you this,
again, not to say anything about the cities because they do a fine job
and --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I'm not criticizing the city, whatever
they need to do, but I think we need to show what we're doing at the
county level.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I do feel a little prouder than I
did before I got here this morning. That's great. Thank you for that.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I'll use that anytime I can, believe me.
MR. OLLIFF: I'll step out of my teacher's role and move onto
the actual -- I have to move on to the fiscal year '02 budget for you a
little bit. The fiscal year '02 budget as presented actually has a .41
mill or an 11.9 percent increase over the millage rate that was levied
by this board for fiscal year '01. In general terms you can talk about
that in 4 tenths of a mill is generally what the increase is in this
budget. If approved, this would be the first millage increase since
1997 when the millage was increased by about .25 mills. You need
to keep in mind if this millage rate is approved at what is the
currently proposed rate, it would still be the lowest millage rate in the
State of Florida compared to all 67 counties, and that's with the
increase that's proposed in this budget. And if you can take a look at
this list, that's the list of all of the counties and all of the millages
within the State of Florida, and there is Collier County down at the
bottom at 67 with a 3.5028 millage rate currently. If you were to
approve this budget, it would go up to about 3.9 and, again, compared
to last year's millage rates, we would still be the lowest in the State of
Florida.
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Now, it's suggested sometimes that Collier's millage rate is at a
low level strictly because of the high taxable values in this county,
and while it's obvious that that is partly true, it's also only part of the
reason why I think Collier's tax rate is as low as it is. And last year
you need to note that there were eight counties that had a higher
taxable value than Collier County does, and if you'll look at the list
here, you will see that those eight had higher property tax rates than
did Collier County, and in some cases significantly higher property
tax rates than does Collier County. So while there is certainly some
truth in the fact that Collier's high property values help to keep our
millage rate low, I think there's also plenty of evidence to show that
both as a board and as a staff you've done a great job of trying to
maintain an efficient organization over the course of the history of
this government that's kept it low as well.
In addition, I think to try to give you some perspective about the
magnitude of the county budget within a typical tax bill, we've pulled
a graph for you to show that on a typical homeowner's tax bill, the
county portion of the taxes amount to less than one-quarter of the tax
bill that a property owner receives. So while --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Could you zoom in on the
graph?
MR. OLLIFF: Sure.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: There you go. Thanks.
MR. OLLIFF: So while there's an awful lot of interest and
attention in county government and county government's budget, it's
always good to know where we are in terms of the total tax bill, and
you only amount to about one-quarter or less of the average tax bill
that's provided every year. Of that quarter it's also good to know
where you as a county commission fall in terms of that total budget
as well, and this graph shows of the county budget how much of that
budget is attributable to the county manager's agency or the Board of
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County Commissioners agency versus all of the other people who are
-- are being funded out of your ad valorem tax rate. Again, I think
you'll see that the BCC portion of the total county budget is fairly
small.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Tom, are those transfers really
attributable to us? The 15.1 percent, that's transfers? MR. OLLIFF: Yes. In most cases.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So we could say we're 30
percent of the 25 percent.
MR. OLLIFF: About one-third of the 25 percent is actual
functions that you control, but I just want to make the point a great
deal of this budget are agencies and operations that are not under
your control.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Interesting.
MR. OLLIFF: The budget has proposed -- addresses issues that
we believe were directly raised by the public, by the board over the
course of the last six months, and by the public. And we're going to
take the opportunity to just go through a few of the highlights of the
things that are in this budget.
The first -- and I guess one that raised itself today was the
elimination of this thing. This is the actual voter punch card from the
last election, and Ms. Edwards, your Supervisor of Elections, is
working along with the elections agency of the State of Florida to try
and develop some options for you to consider. Right now I think we
are looking at a touch-screen type technology which is -- is the state
of the art. And, frankly, we have had to show that in this budget as
something that is a financed purchase. We are showing that as a
multi-year purchase, and when we get to that budget, we'll give you
the details of that, but that was one of the highlights, I think, of this
budget is new voter equipment.
Second item was one that's been front and foremost in
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everybody's mind is indigent health care, and I'll ask Leo if he will
just come up now and give you just a brief walk-through of what is
currently in the budget for indigent health care plan.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Before Leo starts just quickly, Tom,
do we have any idea what that voter reform -- I mean, I know what
the number is, but how that would affect the millage rate. I think -- I
just think people need to know that was out of our control. We don't
have anything to do with that.
MR. OLLIFF: Right now the supervisor of elections has
programmed a number of about $6 million. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right.
MR. OLLIFF: That is a worst-case number, and we we will
probably not have final numbers until midsummer, but we've also,
again, financed that number so that that $6 million is not a $6 million
annual impact in this year's budget, and you will only see that --
about probably about a tenth of that in this year's budget as a debt-
service payment.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you.
MR. OCHS: Good morning, Commissioners. The county-
commission-funded portion of the FY '02 Public Health Department
budget contains an expanded service request totalling $2,903,800
that's comprised of the five program areas that you see on the
visualizer. I'll work from the bottom to the top just in terms --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Can you sharpen that up, Leo? Maybe
it's me.
MR. OCHS: Okay.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you.
COURT REPORTER: Could I get your last name, please?
MR. OCHS: Yes, Ochs.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Thank you.
MR. OCHS: The bulk of that $2.9 million is intended to be
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expended on a new program initiative for primary medical care
services to the uninsured and underinsured population here in the
county. Also contained in this expanded program request is a
$200,000 appropriation to maintain the school nursing program, a
$150,000 appropriation to maintain the health department's prenatal
clinic for indigent pregnant women. There's also $125,000
appropriation recommended as the county's share of the local match
for the Healthy Kids insurance program, and then, finally, a $60,000
appropriation proposed to expand the existing health department
dental clinic services to expand that beyond services to children and
begin to service some of the adult population that can't otherwise get
those services.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The Healthy Kids and the
prenatal care, are those adequate to compensate for the Governor's
veto of our appropriations?
MR. OCHS: Commissioner, let's go to Healthy Kids item on the
visualizer, if you will. The $125,000 would -- would be one-third of
the required local match. The $250,000 that you see next to that in
fees and other revenue represent the other two-thirds of the local
match requirement that have historically come from the two hospitals
in the community. So we are assuming or hopeful that they will
continue to fund one-third of that local match.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Had they anticipated doing that
before -- I mean, would that be -- had the Governor not vetoed the
local appropriations, would they have been expecting to pay that two-
fifty or was that included in the appropriation amount?
MR. OCHS: No. They had not expected to do that.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So this is a request we're going
to be going to them with, appropriately.
MR. OCHS: Yes. And also on the prenatal care program
initiative you should also know that the $150,000 was intended to
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offset the loss of a -- of a $300,000 grant from the state that's
currently helping to fund that program. That's a program that's a
partnership between the county, the state health department, and
Naples Community Hospital right now, and through the Foundation
for Women's Health.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But we also had an
appropriation for Isabel Collier Reed that was vetoed that I think
included some money for pregnant women, and I just wonder if that
one-fifty covers -- it doesn't -- saying, no.
So we're still going to be looking for -- if we fund all of this,
we're still looking for Healthy Kids money from private industry, and
we're still looking for prenatal care money from somewhere.
MR. OCHS: Correct. Just to keep the current level of service in
those programs going.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So those two really -- I mean, I
see that they're on here as expanded services. They are expanded for
county budgets, but they're not new programs for Collier County.
MR. OLLIFF: Very true.
MR. OCHS: Healthy Kids, the prenatal program, and the school
nursing program are not new programs. They're showed as expanded
in this budget because this would be the first time that the board has
funded those programs with direct cash as opposed to incoming
contributions.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And we'll still be looking for
matching dollars in all those from other sources.
MR. OCHS: Absolutely. The 200,000 in the nursing program
was intended to offset the loss of a private donation in that same
amount that currently is part of the funding mix for the school nurse
program.
MR. OLLIFF: And, Mr. Chairman, I'm just going to remind you
that this is only provided as just a highlight for you. We will get to
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this budget, and you will have an opportunity to talk about the details,
but wanted to at least give you the preliminary information so that
you would have it to think about.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you, Commissioner. I just --
thank you for that because this is just an overview to give you an
idea, and we'll come --
MR. OCHS: We'll be back tomorrow to answer all your specific
questions.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. I'm sorry. I was just
worried about those vetoes.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you.
MR. OLLIFF: Also in this fiscal year '02 budget you have
enhanced planning assistance for your Immokalee initiative. And I
think it's a program that you're all familiar with, but one we also have
put high on our priority list in terms of addressing not just code
violations but housing issues there, and especially substandard
housing issues, and we need to have some planning assistance there,
so there's an additional planner in your budget for that. $100,000 is
set aside primarily for appraisal work to help identify properties that
might be good candidates for green space or passive recreation
purposes. And, again, the board wanted to see a separate-type
program for a green space acquisition program, again trying to
respond to the citizen survey where consistently we get about 85, 86
percent of the citizens saying that they wish the county was a little
more aggressive in terms of taking down properties primarily within
the urban areas, so we have $100,000 set aside in this budget for that.
There's a new financial management system which
we are purchasing in conjunction with the Clerk of Courts, Dwight
Brock. The clerk has actually put $500,000 of his own trust fund
monies towards that project, and we've created -- well, what we
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June 21,2001
would call an interagency team between the clerk and your Support
Services Division, and I've asked Joanne to just come and provide
you a brief summary of what that project is.
MS. LEMUR: Good morning, Commissioners. Joanne Lemur.
The current system is 13 years old. It's very antiquated. It's not user-
friendly. You have to use tab and return to move around the screens
compared to the point and click we're used to in our Windows
environment. It lacks the ability to interface with many of the other
county's other major business applications. It lacks the ability to
facilitate e-commerce and e-government. It requires duplicate entry
and extensive manhours. A great example of this is in human
resources. To process payroll the human resource staff has to input
data into two separate systems. This requires about 20 hours every
other week of extra manhours that -- that can be eliminated.
The new system that we're looking at -- I'll just highlight some of
the advantages of it -- will obviously save manhours, faster
turnaround on transactions, less effort to process requests, will reduce
the chance for lost documents by incorporating our document
imaging, reduce central support needed to process payroll, and
employee benefit by allowing employees a self-service approach. It
will provide us a foundation for enhancing existing and developing
future e-government applications. It will dramatically improve and
expand citizen, vendor, and employee access to services and
information. It will expediate transactions, reduce errors, increase
reporting capabilities. It's going to be much faster, more versatile,
more responsive, increase customer awareness, and staff
accountability. And I could go on and on, but it's -- it's really going
to re-engineer the way we do business.
The project is estimated to cost $2,750,000, which will include
software, implementation costs, and training. In addition to those
capital costs, we'd be looking for seven staff to be the implementation
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June 21,2001
team; four on the clerk's side, three on the board's side. Those staff
would look at work-flow analysis, re-engineering our work flow,
implementing the various components of the system, running the
parallel systems, and then the training of employees and the
institutional knowledge gained through the implementation phase.
The seven additional staff will cost approximately $399,000 in annual
cost. This has been pared down quite significantly from the
consultants recommendation of twelve staff, so we think we can do it
with seven.
We're looking to award a contract this summer. We actually have
an agenda item coming to you on Tuesday. Commencing the project
October 1 st and looking at an 18- to 24-month implementation, 24
months being very conservative and fully up and running.
MR. OLLIFF: Thank you, Joanne. The magnitude of software
programs these days is -- is really what I wanted you to see. It's a $2
1/2 million software program and inasmuch as two years in order to
implement, but I will tell you that your entire county functions on
these software programs now, and our ability to integrate between
finance and your clerk's office and your human resources and your
risk and your purchasing departments is very, very important to how
efficient we can be.
Also, in the fiscal year '02 budget, there are some enhanced
domestic animal services, budget requests primarily for staffing, and
for those of you in Districts 1, 3 and 5 in particular, I think you would
attest to the growing number of public calls and concerns about
animal-related issues, and I think you are well aware of our inability
to be able to respond well to that given the current staffing levels.
So, again, I think we are trying to find those areas where the public is
demanding more service and trying to respond to that in this budget
directly.
Engineering and design monies are in this budget again for the
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June 21, 2001
North County Regional Park. It is a 212-acre both active and passive
park, soccer and baseball fields in addition to wooded walking trails.
The preliminary site plan is on your visualizer now. We hope to be
able to get down to a final design and permitting over the course of
this next year, and as you'll recall, this fronts Livingston Road.
Livingston Road will be the primary access to this park, so we have
to build this park in conjunction with the construction of Livingston
Road so that both of those projects are completed as nearly on time as
possible so that the public can get access to the park when it's -- it's
ready to be open. One of the other really neat features, I think, that
we continue to hear from the public that is a high recreational desire
there is, if you will, water play park. There is a fairly significant
water-themed park located there where your pen is pointed.
In addition, there is $8 million in this budget for the construction
of a new Immokalee Jail. It's design has been completed. In fact, the
design is sitting on the shelf, as we speak. It will provide a new 192-
bed facility replacing the current 39-year-old building. In addition to
that, I think, if you've ever had a chance to go out -- or not -- I
wouldn't call it an opportunity -- but if you've ever seen this facility,
you will know how badly we need that replacement, and if you talk to
the sheriff's department, you will know how badly they need to have
some attention provided to jails and jail space and jail beds. This
does not provide a large number of additional beds, but it does
provide at least replacement of beds that we would consider to be
substandard at this point.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Was it Nelson Faerber's father
who was the architect?
MR. OLLIFF: Architect in 1962.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Interesting.
MR. OLLIFF: As well in this budget is a new EMS station. It's
located at the Grey Oaks Project. It is directly in front of and the sign
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June 21, 2001
that you see on the visualizer there is the entrance to Poinciana
Elementary School. It is directly south of the new project being
constructed as part of Grey Oaks on the west side of Airport Road.
That project will be completed 11 months after we finally acquire the
property. It's slated for construction this coming year.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And that is a shared facility just
like we do with the school systems, so a bigger bang for the
taxpayers' buck.
MR. OLLIFF: While we've not finalized it yet, we are at least
planning. This is a picture of a vacant lot in front of the DaRuMa
Restaurant on Vanderbilt Beach Road -- on Vanderbilt Drive. I'm
sorry. We are trying to lease this property during the period of time
while we are constructing a new beach parking garage to provide the
public an opportunity which is almost directly as close to the beach as
is the current parking lot so that the public does not get
inconvenienced while we are in the middle of constructing a parking
garage. So there is money in the budget to try and negotiate a lease
for that lot.
Money is obvioiusly in the budget for expanded library services.
As the new regional library comes on line, there are additional costs
associated with staffing and programs. We annually have to throw up
a picture of John Jones just to let you know that he provides some
programs and a little color for our --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You mean Beauregard.
Where is Beauregard? He's here isn't he?
MR. OLLIFF: Beau stepped out.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay.
MR. OLLIFF: As well in this budget are enhanced PUD
monitoring and PUD environmental and landscape enforcement.
And I think this board has had several discussions over the course of
the past six months about our inability to be able to go out and
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June 21, 2001
monitor PUDs in terms of their commitments and their actual PUD
documents. We are providing additional staffing in order to be able
to go back out and check on already preapproved PUDs to make sure
that they're living up with the commitments and stipulations that you
provided for them.
We're also including commitments for development review
turnaround times. We have historically as part of the original
development services implementation developed a series of
turnaround times. In simple terms if you turn in a building permit,
we were committing on average to have building permits out of that
department within five working days when it was originally opened.
We are currently working with the DSAC, your advisory committee,
to develop turnaround times that we are going to commit to as your
staff to the development community for each and every permit that
they turn into us. We think that they are owed a level of service. If
they're going to pay for their permits, they ought to know what they
ought to get in return, and so we're trying to work with the
community, and before the budget's actually adopted in October, we
hope to have those in place.
Also in this budget, obviously, your largest priority -- and we've
certainly not saved the best for last, but we've included transportation
funding, and we wanted Mike to come and give you a brief on what
the assumptions in this budget are for transportation funding.
MR. MCNEES: Good morning. Mike McNees from your
county manager's office, and I will be brief. By the end of fiscal
2001 you will have more than $75 million committed to ongoing
capital projects. Your fiscal 2002 budget shows an additional $100
million in capital projects in your gas tax fund for what is the second
year of what you've been seeing as your five-year road plan. You see
another $18 million in your fiscal '02 budget for impact-fee-funded
capital projects. If you add all those numbers together, they come up
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June 21,2001
to $114 million more than you have. This budget is funded with a
$114 million bond issue from an unspecified repayment source. And
the way that works for this budget is were the half-penny-for-roads
referendum to succeed, the repayment source would be then
identified as that half a penny over the next 20 years. If that
referendum were not to succeed, the repayment source -- you would
have one of two options -- would either be pledging your existing gas
taxes, which are about 12 million a year, so you would have to
allocate approximately 9 million of that for the next 20 years to repay
that source.
You would have some options to look at perhaps some other sales
tax financing. Bottom line, then, would be your last option would be
to begin to cut projects which, again, we're into the whole currency
discussion which we're certainly not going to have this morning, but
just wanted you to understand how this budget is funded. It does
fund your next -- your next year of your capital improvement plan for
roads, but it does require $114 million worth of new money.
MR. OLLIFF: Thank you, Mike. In addition to, this budget
includes architectural funding for an estimated $20 million jail
expansion project. That's a picture of your current jail, but as well as
an addition to that jail, we also have included repairs and renovations
to that existing jail which was built in 1985. If you've ever had a
discussion with Don Hunter and/or Skip Camp about the state of that
-- that facility, we continue to do duct work and tape and patch and
things to try and keep it from leaking. It needs some significant roof
repairs, and it's a project which we've talked about but have never
really tried to tackle, and we have got money in the budget for
architects and design and in anticipation of actually funding a jail
project in fiscal year '03.
There's also architectural funding for the administrative building
to house the constitutional officers and court-related agencies and to
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June 21, 2001
build the new public parking garage on this deck. That is the first
phase of your master plan. On the screen is a campus master plan
that's a part of that, and it shows where the parking garage is to the
top of the screen, and it shows where the new what they call
courthouse annex building will be, which is connected to your
courthouse building primarily because it is -- is almost fully a court-
related-agency-type building. That's -- that's a straightforward
construction project, but between the two it's anticipated to be in the
neighborhood of $30 million. We've got the architectural design
monies in this coming budget and, again, the board is going to have
to make some decisions about going more towards debt service and
borrowing for some of these larger projects in future years. Our
ability to pay for these out of pocket on any given fiscal year is
simply not doable, so in order for us to actually address some of these
capital needs, you are going to have to borrow money in order to be
able to accomplish it.
Design and construction funds for a North County Government
Services Center, if you'll look on the board behind Beth here you will
see the floor plan that we have worked out with all of the
constitutional officers. Our continuing effort, again, to provide
service where the people are as opposed to making them drive down
to Airport and 41. That floor plan, as colorful as it is, actually
functions as well. It provides space for every constitutional officer as
well as the Board of County Commissioners, and we expect to
provide every single government service that we can possibly
remotely provide from that location including Guy Carlton's ever
popular driver's license program that he's been delegated from the
State of Florida to provide. And ! think that's going to be an
immensely popular site. It is directly west of your new regional
library, has a shared parking lot with that facility, and we expect to
construct that facility in fiscal year '02.
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June 21, 2001
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Tom, I just really want to take
the chance to commend you for these ideas, for this facility in
particular. I really think this is going to be the beginning of your
legacy really in this county. This is a very important step we're
taking, and I just really want to commend you for it. MR. OLLIFF: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I'll say ditto to that.
MR. OLLIFF: The one other thing of note just for those of you,
especially the commissioner of the district, to point out, is the little
round pod at the bottom right-hand side of that screen is actually a
public meeting room as well. So we have provided a small meeting
room in there for the public to be able to access that, and you can
actually hold meetings in this building as it's designed without the
balance of the building being open. So there's restroom access and
public meeting room access while the rest of the building is shut
down.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Tom, do you have any idea what the
capacity of that will be?
MR. OLLIFF: It's only about 40 at this point, but for most
group meetings that we have, we figure we can probably
accommodate 80 to 90 percent of the meetings that we have at any
given time.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's good. Thank you.
MR. OLLIFF: Allocations of TDC funds are in this budget, and
you know of this project because you recently approved of it. This is
a site plan for the Naples Botanical Gardens. So that's part of the
TDC budget. There is construction monies and design monies for
that project, but just so the board doesn't think that it's a fiscal year
'02 project, it is a fairly major project, and they are programming
opening that facility in fiscal year 2003. But you should start seeing
construction on that project in fiscal year '02 with the help of the
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June 21,2001
Board of County Commissioners.
We're almost done here, Mr. Chairman. The last project that we
want to highlight as part of this budget is GIS, and especially for new
board members who may not be familiar with GIS is we have
appointed a multi-agency team, again, to deal with that project. Jim
Mudd is running that team on our side of the house, and I've asked
Jim to give you a brief of what GIS is and where we are with it.
MR. MUDD: Jim Mudd, Public Utilities Administrator, for the
record. What GIS is -- it's not a gizmo; it's not geographical
information from Mudd's operation. Okay. That's not what it is. It's
a graphical information system that touches every -- every office in
the county. It's a combination of maps and spatial reference data
integrated using computers and software. Any information that
includes a spatial component such as addresses or coordinate
locations can be referenced through a GIS to a map allowing
relationships among data sets to be displayed queried and analyzed.
What's that mean? For instance, if you go over to Ed Kant's
operation, he has a room about half this size that's full of blueprints,
and he's got 'em in waste -- steel wastepaper baskets. Okay. If you
go over to my collections and distribution staff in water, they've got a
room about the same size with different maps and blueprints. And
when somebody makes a change to one of those blueprints, it doesn't
get passed. It's made to that set of blueprints, and you might have five
different copies in that process. Lots of different changes are being
made all over the county, and it isn't being coordinated with all the
different changes because they're done in the process.
What GIS gives you the capability to do is give everybody a
common reference to get those blueprints in one place where they can
be shared by everyone else. A GIS is much more than a computer-
aided drafting or CAD that you hear about all the time or automated
mapping systems. GIS combines information from land maps,
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June 21, 2001
engineering drawings, and tabular databases into a uniform
geographic and textural database. GIS is an effective and efficient
tool for managing spatial information. The integration of these
diverse data sets into a GIS allows access to multiple users to
consistent information. GIS is more than pretty pictures. It helps us
answer three crucial questions: What it is; where it is; and how it
relates. These answers provide the basis for more informed and
intelligent decision making.
For instance, Palm River, three -- excuse me, five broken water
mains in the last two and a half weeks. Bad locates. Why wasn't it
where it was supposed to be? Might have been documented seven
years ago by Al, but A1 doesn't work for us anymore, and Pete's out
there. Pete can't remember where A1 put the piece, and he doesn't
know where he put the map or he put the blueprint. It happens every
day in Collier County.
GIS, how long have we been working on it? GIS -- we've been
trying to get GIS in the county for over 15 years. It's had three failed
attempts. We decided this time to come with the task force with
everybody with a constitutional officer included, with all your staff to
come together. We started the first quarter of this FY, and we did a
needs assessment. I gave you a copy of this needs assessment. You
should have it on your desk. And I also provided you a tutorial
method with CD-ROM in the back which you just bring on and it
takes over your -- takes over your computer, and it gives you a rather
quick tutorial so you don't have to go through this process.
Abe Skinner has been instrumental in this. Abe has put forth
about $4 million into the process to develop the photography and to
do a complete photo run of the entire county and at the same time
bring his appraisal piece over to it. He's also put in about 260,000 for
planametrics. And planametrics, you start saying, what are you
talking about? Well, where are the fire hydrants? Where is the edges
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June 21,2001
of the road? Where are the streetlights, and you get those from the
maps so those have grid coordinates. We're putting a grid over GIS
to give us better than a half foot specificity as far as what we need to
have as far as where the underground utilities are, the road center
lines, and things like that.
Not only does it give your county staff the process, but if you take
a look at the Land Development Code there's been a change that says,
"Hey, if you're a developer, you'll give us GIS of your plans so that
we can incorporate that into this database." So it's a shared process
between the community and the county staff.
Tom, if you could show those real quick, give you kind of an idea
what you'll get as far as your different levels. There's 55 levels now
of data that you put on. You can flip the slide. This is a golf course,
Tom; it's Naples Lakes Golf Course. You basically lay your
planametrics is what he just put on where the roads are, where the
streets are and data process. Next slide. Starts putting on what the
subdivision looks like and what the different -- what the different
plots are for each one of the homesites.
Next slide. Another layer would give you where the water
distribution process is on the slide. It would overlay on top, and what
I've tried to do is give you about six of those levels. There's a total of
55 that are planned in this -- in this -- in this report that we gave you
that's been integrated. Next slide. And last but not least, how the
water lays on it. So not only do you get your manholes for sewer, but
you also get where your pump locations and your distribution system
gets laid on it. So you don't lose the data as you go through it, but it
gives you the capability to see where it is in relation to everything
else.
And everybody says, well, I just showed you pretty pictures. This
is the key to GIS when you pluck on that street, okay, you get the
addresses for the people that live there, okay, then you get the
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June 21,2001
background, the hookups, what their -- what their connections are in
that process. This is a three-year effort. It started this year. We've
got about a half million dollars in this budget, $2.5 million is
scheduled for next year, and the in 2003, the final stage, you have
$1.5 million.
The reason I'm giving you an overview is the budget is
decentralized in every division's budget. So you'll see pieces of GIS
in the process through everybody's process, but it's $2.5 million. It's
laid out in the back of this plan for you so that you've got that process
and you get the whole picture.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: So in three years we'll have it online,
Mr. Mudd?
MR. MUDD: 2003 you'll have a fully functioning system. It
will be online in stages starting next year, sir.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. I have been here my third
year listening to this, watch people pick it apart, and I can't tell you
how frustrating it is with that need out there. We must get it done if
we're going to be in the 21 st century, so I just say put the pedal to the
metal. Let's get it done. It's the best money we could ever spend.
MR. OLLIFF: In summary, Mr. Chairman, I think this is a good
budget. If I didn't think it was a good budget, I wouldn't submit it to
you. I could have submitted to you a budget that stayed within the
millage rate from last year and, frankly, I don't think we would have
been able to address things that were nagging needs of this
community. I do not think we would have been able to address a lot
of the issues that the public continues to tell you we needed to do a
better job on, continues to call us and complain about each and every
day. I will tell you this budget doesn't get it all done, but it certainly
moves us in the right direction.
Just an overview about what we're doing over the next couple of
days. I think the O and B staff along with the division of department
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June 21, 2001
directors will provide you in the next two days a total look at the full
county budget. We have dedicated a wrap-up day on Monday. That
is only necessary if you have questions that we need to come back to
you with or decisions that haven't been made over Thursday and
Friday.
What results at the end of this workshop process is that you will
develop what is called the tentative millage rate. That tentative
millage rate is then published and provided to the property owners.
From that point, practically speaking, that millage rate is easy to
bring back down to lower from the point that you've published it. It
is not impossible, but it is very difficult to increase the millage rate
from that point. So we just wanted you to understand what the
process was, what the expected outcome of the process is. And
unless you have any further questions of me or the administrative
staff, I'm ready to turn this over to Mr. Smykowski, and let's get
down to the details.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Mr. Olliff, I, again, commend you for
dealing with reality. First time that -- well, it started to evolve but
now we're doing what we need to do. You start with the issues. You
start with what you need to do and work your budget, instead of
picking a number and saying, "We have to be at this number." That is
ass backwards. That is inefficient management. That is not strategic
planning. That is not what good organizations do.
You are to be commended for the reality. I thank you, and I
appreciate what you said about you start with higher number. It is
much easier to reduce that. You operate with that framework instead
of trying to raise the price on somebody after you negotiated the
contract. Same process. Thank you. MR. OLLIFF: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: How do you really feel though,
Jim?
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June 21, 2001
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Oh, I didn't even really get started.
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Smykowski, it's all yours.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Thank you. For the record, Michael
Smykowski. I'm the county's budget director. Before we get started, I
would like to introduce the budget staff who has worked long and
hard, and I would like to thank them and commend them for that.
Over the last three months they've put in tons of overtime, probably
to the detriment of their personal and family lives, and I appreciate
the efforts that they've gone and the time they've put in to bring you
this product today. Chris Dublis, Susan Usher, who joined us this
year from utilities who worked on the capital budgets this year, Tony
Gambino, Winona Stone, Randy Greenwald.
And last but not least, Pat Lehnhard's hiding in the back. Pat is
the one who puts these booklets together, and every time we say,
"Oh, we have one slight change to make" and everyone thinks it's
readily -- very easy to make, and we just have to change out a few
pages, it's Pat's the one who's doing all that for us. I would like to
commend her, certainly, for her efforts in bringing you a fine product
today.
With that I'd like to discuss briefly the schedule for today. Today
we're going to focus on the Non-General Fund departments. We're
going to start with debt service funds, work into our trust funds. We'll
talk about the unincorporated area General Fund which is ad valorem
supported. We'll talk then on the special revenue funds. Many of
those are MSTUs with citizen advisory committees who've elected to
tax themselves for enhansed services in a whole number of areas. I
will then focus on our enterprise funds which include our water and
sewer utilities, our solid waste operations. The internal service funds,
such as fleet management and our self-insurance funds, and finally
our gas tax and impact fee capital funds, the 300 series.
Tomorrow we will look from start to finish at the General Fund
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June 21, 2001
and all of the departments, divisions, and/or capital projects that
receive funding from the General Fund inclusive of the constitutional
officers and then, again, as Mr. Olliff indicated on Monday, wrap-up
if -- if necessary.
With that I'd like you to please turn -- there's a debt service tab.
We'll start there.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: G-1.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: There really aren't policy decisions to
make for the board here. This is just a summary on G- 1 of the
outstanding debt which is principal and interest. Think of it in terms
of the outstanding mortgage payments due on previously funded
capital projects. If anything is worth noting, at the upper left-hand
column, you look at the final maturities on most of these outstanding
bond issues, and you'll notice that most of them are relatively short
with a number of them coming -- reaching final maturity in 2003,
2004. Relatively few of them going out beyond the next three to four
years.
On the -- on the revenue side, there is one thing of note here that
we'll actually talk about tomorrow. You see in the middle of the page,
"transfer from General Fund," there's six point -- about $6.9 million
for debt service. Mr. Olliff in his opening remarks indicated that
we're having to finance a number of big-ticket projects. In a given
year, the county manager is faced with 50 to 60 million dollars' worth
of requests, approximately 10 to 12 million dollars of available
funding, so he has to play Solomon every year and -- and make
decisions that are in the best interests of the county. Obviously, with
10 to 12 million dollars to work with, when you have elections -- new
elections equipment that's going to cost 6 million, if you fund that,
you don't have a whole lot left to do anything else with, and there are
a whole host of capital needs. The infrastructure of the county is
aging. One of the recommended projects is a new roof on the jail.
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June 21, 2001
That's very expensive, but we're to that stage where repair and
maintenance becomes a greater issue.
Tomorrow we will discuss those projects. The reason for the
increase there on the General Fund side is financing for things like
the Immokalee Jail. That's approximately $8 million. Well, again,
between those two, elections equipment and the Immokalee Jail, that
would eat up more than the total available funding that you had. So
we'll -- we'll explore that in great detail tomorrow as part of our
General Fund, but I just felt that was one of the noteworthy things to
point out on this -- on this schedule.
With that, again, there are no policy decisions. These are the
outstanding mortgage payments, so to speak, on existing debt, and
with that I would like you to mm, please, to the grant and trust fund
section beginning on page D-1. On D-2 there is a description
provided of the various grant funds and what the source is and what
they're typically used for. It is worth noting to the board, again, these
areas we're discussing up front, the board really has limited -- there is
no policy decision to make here. It's a function of the available grant
dollars that we anticipate to receive in the upcoming year. On D-4
there are some expanded service requests principally associated with
the new CDBG block grants. Obviously, the board has talked about
that already via an executive summary, a separate presentation,
approximately $2.1 million and, obviously, there is an allotment for
administration of those existing -- of those new grant funds that
Collier County will be receiving. So there's recommended three
housing and urban manager positions and one planning technician to
administer that CBDG grant. There's also a request on the MPO side
for a new position to assist with bike pedestrian and ride share
programs.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Mike, are these matching
grants, some of them?
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June 21,2001
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Some of them the sheriffs -- the sheriffs
grants are; MPO to a small degree; the natural resources is not; the
housing is not; RSVP is not; EMS, no; parks and rec for the summer
food grant program, that is not; services for seniors we match with a
small piece from General Fund. We'll talk about that tomorrow. The
largest one with a matching component are the sheriffs grants, and
they typically match -- provide the match through their confiscated
property trust fund proceeds. In other words, when they -- if they
make a drug arrest and seize cash, they're able to keep that cash, and
they're using those funds as match proceeds.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: So we do have it. We can
make a decision on the match grants whether to fund that or not; is
that true?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Upon application.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You know, that's -- we get that
question put to us often, "Do you want to provide the match?"
Unless it's something, like, the sheriff has control over his
confiscated trust fund, he can use that to match without our approval.
But if it requires a property tax match, we get the say-so.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Right. And those grants that would
require match from property taxes in any way, shape, or form we'll
discuss tomorrow.
There's the Services for Seniors is $110,000 annual allotment that
has not increased for as long as I can remember, and that leverage is
probably eight or ten to one in additional grant funding for services
that actually saves the county money by keeping people out of
nursing homes where it would actually cost more to provide that
specialized care, keeping -- the goal of Services for Seniors program
is to keep people in their houses as long as that is a viable reality.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Grants allow you the opportunity to
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June 21,2001
leverage dollars to provide a service is the way I've always looked at
it and that's -- and, of course, they run out, but it gives you that
opportunity to do what you need to do without putting the whole
burden on your own taxing process, meaning your own ad valorem
tax process.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: We will then move to our -- to our trust
funds which are on page -- MR. OLLIFF: D-6.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: -- D-5 and D-6. In these cases these funds
-- the trust funds, the board's acting in a trustee capacity. Typical
funding is from varied sources such as donations and bequests.
Funds are restricted for a given purpose. For example, the library
trust fund, people in many instances make donations or bequests in
their wills to donate funding for a library funding. In the case here,
the library trust fund's been the beneficiary over the last few years of
funding a literacy program in Collier County. That is one of--
actually, one of the noteworthy points on page D-6. There was
funding for a literacy program coordinator for a two-year period. To
begin that process, the recommendation of the staff is to continue that
program. The initial upfront funds received to initiate that program
have been exhausted, but the staff recommendation is to continue
that, and that is shown -- will be shown and discussed tomorrow in
the expanded request in the library budget.
There is a description on page D-5 of, you know, the various
sources, confiscated property trust, GAC land trust. Again, the
dollars vary widely from year to year in terms of-- you know,
confiscated property. It's anyone's guess, you know, the dollar of
monetary value associated with any property that's confiscated,
library trust fund in terms of, you know, how much donations might
be received in a good year -- in a given year. Excuse me. And if
there are no questions there we'll move to Unincorporated Area
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June 21,2001
General Fund.
MSTD General Fund 111, that begins on page B- 1 and there is a
summary. Again, before we discuss this, what I'll try to do at the
beginning of each new section is to -- for the benefit of the
commission and the public at large is to focus on the nature of the
funding, where it comes from. In this case, county steps in and
provides municipal-type services in the unincorporated area of the
county. Due to the lack of city government, the county defacto
becomes a principal service provider. This would exclude residents
of the City of Naples, the City of Marco Island, and Everglades City
as they are paying into their respective city general fund for services
provided in this area.
Overall there is a tax decrease within this fund. Last year's
millage rate was .8425 or $84.25 per $100,000 of taxable value. The
proposed millage rate with the budget before you is .8103 or $81.03
per $100,000 of taxable value resulting in a decrease of $3.22 for --
per $100,000 of taxable value.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Mike, can you show me what
graphics and tech MST is?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes. There's -- there's a department in the
community development fund that does mapping, a lot of zoning
maps, street addressing functions, et cetera associated. It's ancillary
to the development process. As the county continues to grow, that's a
continuous ongoing effort.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And that's funding in what kind
of manner?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Other permit phase.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: It's through the community
development it's funded; right?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: It's funded in the unincorporated area
general fund, so it is funded through taxes with a portion of that
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June 21,2001
budget being funded through a transfer from the community
development fund. You'll note on page B-3 under "other sources" it
says transfer 113, proposed --
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. I'm there.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: FY '02 is $1,530,300. There are pieces of
the community development budgets that are in the unincorporated
area general fund that through a -- what was called a rational nexus
analysis that was done by staff and the board approved about three or
four budget years ago that a certain segment of each of the programs
provided these departments had some direct bearing and were related
to the development process and as such should be borne by the -- by
the permits supported community development fund.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I think it was a couple of budget
cycles ago we went through this really carefully because we
significantly increased the amount of these budgets, the percentage
that was covered by permit fees as opposed to general taxes, and
unless something drastic would have changed -- and I can't see how -
- we really were as aggressive as we could be. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Good.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: That is correct. And just to give you the
magnitude of this, total ad valorem proposed in the current year's
budget is about $16.3 million. You see the transfer from 113 is a
million six fifty-six.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's what they're paying.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: If that did not take place, the ad valorem
would be one million six fifty-six higher as a result of that decision,
so that has offset ad valorem taxes to the general population as a
result of those decisions and that study that was undertaken.
With that there are -- there are expanded services proposed on
pages B-4 and B-5. I'll let the analyst and/or Mr. Kant's representing
initially on B-4 transportation.
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June 21, 2001
MR. KANT: Good morning, Commissioners. We've asked for
additional landscaping crew. We currently have 36 miles of
landscape medians. This year alone we will be adding five. Over the
next two years, we'll be adding five more each year for a total of
about 50 miles -- a little over 50 miles. What we did in looking at
this request was we costed out at our current bid prices for our
contracted work what this maintenance would cost. And that would
come up with about 535,000. The cost of this crew is considerably
less. Of course, the equipment is amortized over a longer period of
time, uses better control and allows us to provide a safer work
environment and safer motorist environment.
We've also looked at an additional paving request. Currently, if
you remember back to the workshop, we pointed out that at our
current rate of funding it would take us about 37 or 38 years to go
through a full cycle of paving or repaving or upgrading the 1,564
miles of road that we have. Unfortunately, the expected life span of
most of these roads is typically in the range of 12 to 15 years. By
increasing the amount of funding and allowing us to get more -- not
only more roads, but a better work -- smoother work program -- we
believe we can bring this back down into the 15- to 18-year life cycle
which is much more acceptable.
MR. OLLIFF: This is going to be something we're going to
have to trend towards, repaving more and more of our roadways
annually, because if you'll remember Norman was talking to you
about life-cycle costing on some of these roads and we've, frankly,
just been heading in the wrong direction paving more roads and then
having almost a static amount of money in there for repaving, so
we're going to have to -- you will see us aggressively begin to
increase our repaving amount annually.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Am I correct, Tom, that this paving is
generally paid for out of the gasoline tax. Is that or is that --
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June 21,2001
MR. KANT: No. This is resurfacing and -- this is considered a
maintenance program as opposed to new-construction program.
There is -- there is a quasi new-construction aspect of it only in that
as we convert some of the lime rock roads to paved roads, but
because those are active roads and they're all part of platted permitted
roadway network, we consider that part of the maintenance program
because when we go to pave it, it's all done with the same material.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: There's two 5-cent gas taxes; is
that correct?
MR. KANT: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And both of them are dedicated
towards building new roads; no portion of it is for repair? MR. KANT: As I understand it, yes, sir.
MR. OLLIFF: If there's no further questions, we can move on
to public services.
MS. STONE: Donna Stone. The Immokalee Parks and
Recreation Department has requested a number $69,000 in expanded
request. That includes one position of a maintenance worker, fitness
equipment for the athletic center, and also part-time expenses for
personnel to expand special camps, and that's offset by about $27,000
in revenue that would be generated in those additional special camps.
MR. GAMBINO: Tony Gambino, budget analyst. The
community development facility franchise regulation is asking for
$70,000 for base rate and implementation of the additional network
also called I-net. And we're also in graphics and tech asking for
$65,500 for a senior GIS analyst position for Collier County GIS
program.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Could you tell us what I-net is,
please.
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Wallace is heading towards the microphone.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Good.
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June 21,2001
MR. WALLACE: Thank you. Bleu Wallace, Director of CDS
Operations. The institutional network is something that we're
looking at to utilize the fiberoptic cable that belongs to the cable
systems. In order to use the fiber to relay and connect governmental
offices, constitutional offices, everything wherever that fiber is we
can utilize that with our e-government and with our network that we
have here especially to connect school board satellite activities in
Immokalee once we get fiber out there and all over the county. And
if the -- if the railway is there, we can utilize it, and if it's there and
placed there by the cable providers, then we can utilize that as two-
way communication.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We can use it for what?
MR. WALLACE: For communications.
MR. OLLIFF: Communication, data transfer. For example,
remote park sites, for example, are currently dial-in operations for
computers. If I want the ability to have somebody to be able to go to
a park site and register for classes and directly input that information
to the home computer, I need a hard connection in order to be able to
have reliable service for that.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: A phone line.
MR. OLLIFF: A phone line, a fiberoptics line.
As long as the cable company has the main line out on the roadway, I
can connect to that as long as they have capacity in that line so --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's not very much.
They don't have much. I mean, they drive me nuts with not having
enough capacity.
MR. OLLIFF: We're talking cable companies, not UTS.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm sorry. I was thinking --
okay.
MR. WALLACE: This is cable, and it's the new fiberoptic
system that they have upgraded -- both Time Warner and Comcast
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June 21,2001
has upgraded recently. The whole county has been upgraded to
fiberoptic.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The whole county. I thought it
was just limited areas that had the fiberoptic.
MR. WALLACE: No. Fiberoptic is all over the county with the
exception of a fiber link to Immokalee. We're working on that.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Mr. Wallace, I want to thank
you personally for everything you've done for Everglades City and
Immokalee to move this forward.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Bleu, what kind of interlinks do
we have here on campus? Are we using digital or analog.
MR. WALLACE: I think IT has already -- has some dedicated
T-1 lines from Sprint to the Horseshoe location. They may have
some other lines. But right now it's a dial-up situation from your
remote sites, and that's what we're trying to do is get a hard
connection so we can have two-way communication county-wide.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: So you're saying that we don't
have optic on -- on the campus here for our communications. We're
using a dial-up in between the clerk's office and here?
MR. OLLIFF: On campus we have interconnected fiberoptics.
We also have interconnected fiberoptics from here to Horseshoe
Drive. That's pretty much the limit of your system. Beyond that, if
you think about how many remote sites this county has, everything
else is dial-up.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thanks.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Thank you very much,
Mr. Wallace. Thank you, Commissioner. Do you want to continue,
please.
MR. GAMBINO: Also in community development and code
enforcement is requesting two additional positions, environment
Specialist I, a supervisor position. Michelle Arnold will tell you
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June 21,2001
more about that.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I have my usual question about,
why not more?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: The manager funded the flow request
made by the department in this case.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's the answer I get every
year. I just want you to hire more and do more.
MS. ARNOLD: For the record, Michelle Arnold, Code
Enforcement Director. The two positions that I'm asking for, the
supervisory position is to address some more neighborhood specific
interests and the focusing on what the different priorities are. We've
already kind of started that program. I'm requesting an administrative
position to help with broadening that program so we can better
identify what special needs are required for each area within our
county.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Michelle, are you going to be
coordinated with the sheriffs office and community leaders? Is that
what this program is all about?
MS. ARNOLD: Yeah. We -- we are with the COP deputies
currently working with the sheriff's office, and this person would help
to heighten that coordination effort. We have joint programs that we
currently work on, and this person would be more of a coordinator to
kind of strengthen the programs that we've already started.
The environmental planner is to do things like our PUD
monitoring and address some of the other environmental-related
monitoring programs that we currently are working with the planning
department on and kind of do some redirection on our focus with
respect to environmental enforcement. You-all were given
information regarding the Martin County comparison and other
county comparisons, and we're going to be trying to redirect our --
our enforcement efforts with respect to environmental planning and
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trying to focus on the big-picture-type thing, and this person would
help in that particular effort.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Michelle, does this budget
include the stepped-up inspection in Immokalee?
MS. ARNOLD: The stepped-up effort in Immokalee is going to
be addressed by the Immokalee Initiative Program, and that's outside
of my budget.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And I think that program that,
Tom, you set up as far as employees going to other counties and
seeing how they do it is a great program, and I found it very
interesting. What our staff has -- has brought back and what they see
in other counties has done and it works and what they can implement
here in Collier.
MS. ARNOLD: And I think that from -- I can only speak from
the code enforcement -- from the code enforcement side, we are
looked at by other communities as a model. They want to know what
we're doing and incorporate some of the efforts that we're doing.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I trust you, Michelle, as a policy
director. You tell me this is what you need, it will be up to this
gentleman over here to deliver it through your division to make it
happen. So going once, going twice. I think it's very good. Thank
you.
MR. OLLIFF: Just to follow up on what Commissioner
Henning was saying, the -- the request here is actually a direct result
of that Ideas team that we sent to Martin County, and they brought
back some recommendations about some of the programs that Martin
County does that they are sort of famous for around the state in terms
of environmental codes and programs, and your Ideas program will
actually be making a presentation to you on the 26th to give you an
update from their perspective, directly from their mouths to you, to
let you know what it is they saw, what they found. And I think we
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June 21,2001
can do a little better, and this budget request is a direct result of
having sent that team to Martin County to spend two days looking at
them. Michelle, thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you.
MS. ARNOLD: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Let me ask our recorder. How are you
doing? Can we finish this section, or do you need a break?
COURT REPORTER: I'm fine.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Actually, you just need to get
really close to it.
MR. OLLIFF: Make sure the switch is ...
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE:
CHAIRMAN CARTER: No.
MS. STONE: Now?
No.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yes, ma'am. It's a high-tech mike.
You jiggle the wire back there. You got it.
MS. STONE: The Naples Park unincorporated areas request for
expanded services is $384,000. That includes 5 1/2 positions as well
as temporary staffing, some of which are for expanded services, a
Latin Concert. Mr. Olliff showed you earlier the results. I've been to
some of the programs that they've put on -- have been quite, quite
enjoyable.
They also want to expand the County Jam and Snowfest. There's
funding in there for that. In addition, there is some machinery and
equipment, fitness equipment, that's requested. There's also funds
requested for doing background checks on volunteers that work with
children. There any questions? Marla Ramsey's here to --
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I -- I think just kind of a
statement, and I don't know where the board wants to go with it.
Should we be doing things that the private sector provides? I see one
in here like kickboxing. Of course, that's only -- it's a small amount,
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June 21,2001
but I don't know how anybody else feels. I -- I just feel that we
should, myself, feeling that we should not be stepping on the private
sector's enterprise.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But you know, respectfully, if
we adopt that as our position, then we can't compete with the YMCA
and -- and just about everything we do they do.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, that's a not-for-profit,
YMCA.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. Then every Powerhouse
Gym or whatever it is we also provide, you know, workout machines
and aerobics classes and -- I personally don't have that same --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I'm going to put it in this
perspective, $5,200 against a total budget against what it would
translate for household on an ad valorem tax, I probably can't even
calculate it. What, three or four cents a household? I mean, to me it
says if that's $5,200 to give children an opportunity to participate in a
sport which they couldn't afford to do through a "Y" or private
service, it says let them have it. Let them try it, because I believe
reaching children through any mechanism -- $5,200, I don't believe is
MR. SMYKOWSKI: And you are using a contractor for these
services. They are -- they are the principal provider and it's
registration as-needed.
MS. RAMSEY: For a clarification on that, it -- usually what
happens in a program that comes through a community park, it's
brought by the public. For example, the kickboxer or the Jazzercise,
it's done on a contractual basis where it's, like, a 65/35 split.
So there is no cost to the county other than the usage of the room. In
essence, they provided -- we still receive revenue based upon that.
This is the additional cost on the -- on the contractor because pay it
first and then get reimbursed later.
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June 21,2001
COMMISSIONER HENNING: So what you're saying --
MS. RAMSEY: Marla Ramsey.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: So what you're saying it is
private industry, and we're just providing essentially a place for
them?
MR. OLLIFF: Actually the space.
MS. RAMSEY: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: So everybody wins.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's good.
MR. OLLIFF: Just so the board's aware, a couple years ago, in
fact, two years ago -- two budget years ago we made the
philosophical change to move all of your parks into the
unincorporated 111 fund, so all of the entire parks department's
expanded service request -- the entire operations are now funded out
of the 111 fund, so this is it. This is the total expansion for our parks
and recreation that you see here.
If there's no questions, we can move on to community
development and the natural resources department.
MR. GAMBINO: Community development and natural
resources is requesting an environmental Specialist I position and
also $30,000 to develop, print, and distribute 40,000 copies of the
Collier County boater's guide. And then there's $3,500 requested for
purchase of a global-positioning satellite unit.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And that $30,000 for 40,000
copies of the boater's guide, that was a grant, if I'm not mistaken.
MR. GAMBINO: That money is supposed to come from the
boaters' improvement program.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So is this our match, because
this is a property tax page?
MR. LORENZ: The revenue source --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Name for the record, sir.
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June 21,2001
MR. LORENZ: Bill Lorenz, Natural Resources Director. The
revenue source will be coming from the boaters' registration fees.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I see.
MR. LORENZ: We have applied for grants, and we would like
to be able to offset that amount of money for as much as we can with
the grants, but the revenue source, if we don't get any grants, will
come from the boaters fees.
MR. OLLIFF: And it's actually called the Boater Improvement
Trust Fund, and it's back on one of your trust fund projects, and it's
money that goes to Tallahassee, comes back here, and we are
obligated to spend it on boater-related improvements. So in a lot of
cases we use it for boat ramp improvements and, in this case, we're
going to use it for a boaters guide through natural resources.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And this is just another tool to
educate the community, the boaters of protecting the manatee, watch
out for manatees.
MR. LORENZ: That's one objective. I think, quite frankly,
safety as well in terms of where the channels are, what to avoid, plus
information that's important for boaters to know where to get around
in Collier County.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Lorenz. This
might be a good point for us to take a break. We'll take 15, and we'll
be right back.
(Recess taken.)
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Ready to go, folks. We are live.
Welcome back. Everybody will have their seats, please. You've all
have been fine today. You don't have your cell phones on. Thank
you for that.
We're now moving to the next item which, I believe, is special
revenue funds, Mr. --
Page 47
June 21,2001
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Actually, Commissioner, we have on page
B-9 and 10 there are some capital projects that are funded through the
unincorporated area General Fund taxes. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: As Mr. Olliff indicated, we had shifted
the majority of the parks budget from the General Fund to the
unincorporated area General Fund. As a result of that the capital
project requirements are also, then, correspondingly funded by the
unincorporated area General Fund taxes in accordance with that shift
in funding.
Susan Usher, the budget analyst for capital projects, will walk
you through with B-9 the assistance of Marla Ramsey. The first
project on that page, Golden Gate Community Center, we'll talk
about tomorrow because that is actually funded by the General Fund.
On B-9, you see the totals beginning with the neighborhood park for
$350,000.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just a question before you go.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Why is the Golden Gate
Community Center in the General Fund? Because all the parks has
been shifted to the MSTD.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: That is actually funding for WIC Office.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Not a park.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Correct. The proposed location is within
that Golden Gate Community Center improvement project but seems
to be of a county-wide benefit rather than an individual park, and
we'll have ample time to talk about that tomorrow.
MR. OLLIFF: And before Susan starts, just to answer questions
before they come up and provide new commissioners with some
information, the capital that you see here in front of you are those
projects that are nonimpact-fee eligible capital. Everything that is is
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June 21,2001
an impact-fee eligible capital you will see as we go through the
impact fee funds. But in anything that is a replacement project or
sometimes you'll see exotics removal, restriping, repaving of parking
lots, as your system begins to age, all of that capital improvement is
going to have to come from a source other than impact fees. So that's
-- that's this capital list that we'll cover right now.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Because it shifts to maintenance.
MR. OLLIFF: Exactly.
MS. USHER: Good morning. As stated earlier on page B-9, the
majority of these projects have to deal with repair, replacement, and
maintenance of the various parks. There are three that are out of that
category, and that's the neighborhood park where we would like to
purchase some land. The 951 Boat Ramp Expansion is to expand
that in that particular park and then to buy -- purchase some land in
Copeland. Marla can perhaps give us more detail on each one of
these capital projects.
MS. RAMSEY: The number one listed up there is the
Caxambas fuel spill clean-up. It is a item that was -- happened, I
guess, about 1995 or '93, and it's a DEP-required project. The second
one is Immokalee Pool. It's ready for a resurface of the main surface
of the pool with the pebble surface. We've redone all the
neighborhood parks since '97 except for Palm Springs. That is the
one place we have left to do some playground equipment rechanging
-- changing it out.
We have -- the Vineyards Park is a lake recharge. Currently, we
get our recharge from the Vineyards itself, and we're looking to hook
directly up to effluent line that runs by the park and do our recharge
directly. The next one is Golden Gate Aquatic Center which is to
replace two pool filters at the Golden Gate Pool. The next one is the
Copeland land. The church is looking to assess a lease fee to us for
the use of their property, and given the property values in Copeland,
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June 21,2001
it seems to be more cost effective to just purchase the property and
put it there permanently.
The next one is the rental of that lot up at Vanderbilt Beach
across from the parking lot that we have currently for the parking
garage if we can make that happen. The next is the East Naples
Community Park to resod the soccer field at that location. We have
exotic removal listed next which is getting rid of all the Australian
Pines and Brazilian Pepper and all the other exotic vegetation from
our parks, as well as to keep up with the follow-up maintenance that
goes along with that.
In the neighborhood park -- excuse me, we have a -- the parks and
recreation advisory board has approved a neighborhood park at Isle
of Capri, and so we're looking for a lot at that particular location as
well as to develop that park and one in Willoughby Acres which the
county already owns the land for. Golden Gate Community Park is
to restripe the parking lot at that location, and you will see over the
next few years that we will be redoing all the parking lots at all of the
community parks one by one or two by two as we need to. Next is
the East Naples skate park to repair the maintenance of that facility.
951 boat ramp expansion, we're working with the Rookery Bay for an
overflow parking area as well as Florida Department of
Transportation to extend the 951 Boat Ramp 180 feet in each
direction as it is currently located and trying to come up and use the
Isle of Capri light -- traffic light in order to have access and egress
and ingress from that particular site.
At Bayview we're looking to change out the docks and the fishing
tables at that location; and, lastly, is to make some improvements to
Aaron Lutz Neighborhood Park and bring that up to their standard.
The very last one on the list was a project that was requested but not
recommended was the purchase of 20 acres from the Botanical
Garden which is located next to Sugden Park.
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June 21, 2001
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is that TAC funds for the
botanical garden?
MS. RAMSEY: No. This particular one was -- was not. This
was -- that's a different project that was for development of their
existing facility, and this one here is actually trying to sell the land
that they had before which is located next to Sugden Park.
MR. OLLIFF: This is actually land adjacent to Sugden Park that
was owned by the Botanical Gardens at one of the original sites.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. I remember the site.
MR. OLLIFF: The staff had requested to purchase a couple of
the lots that were actually abutting your Sugden Regional Park. And
while it's a great idea and we would love to have the property for
some overflow parking and just some access to that park from
Bayshore Drive, just in terms of priorities, I'm not recommending
that for funding.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What was the amount of that
request?
MS. RAMSEY: $500,000.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And -- and as I understood it,
this would have been for a lot more than just overflow parking. I
mean, this would have allowed access -- an additional access point to
Sugden Park off of Bayshore Drive, and I'm just, you know, really
disappointed to see it didn't make the cut. Is it something -- do we
know if this land is going to be sold? Are we going to lose the
opportunity?
MS. RAMSEY: The recommendation that I would have -- I
don't know if we'll lose the opportunity. We did send a letter to them
letting them know that it was requested but not recommended, and I
did mention that with The Conservancy who's putting together a list
of urban lands for purchase, if they go forward with that ad valorem
bond, was suggesting that they include these parcels on that list.
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June 21, 2001
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Who makes the determination
for projects like this that doesn't fit the impact fee?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah.
MR. OLLIFF: Generally, the impact fee ordinances are fairly
clear in what is allowable and what's not. Your staff usually does a
pretty good job of that, but if anything's in question, we usually run to
the County Attorney's Office and get an interpretation on whether or
not it is an eligible project for impact fees or not.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Who does the ordinance? Who
drafts the ordinance?
MR. OLLIFF: County Attorney's -- County Attorney's Office
approved by the board.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Subject to whatever they tell us
are the legal limitations. But you raise a good point, because why
couldn't -- why couldn't -- you know, this is a significant enough
piece of property, why couldn't this be used to -- used for impact fees
to acquire this property? I can't understand why not.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: It's an expanded -- it's an
expanded service, and you're doing it because of growth, you know,
adding another facility, more parking.
MR. OLLIFF: You may be able to. This may be an impact-fee-
eligible project, but I'll also tell you that in light of the other demands
on your park impact fees, you're going to have to actually take down
long-term notes against future impact fees just to fund the regional
park project that you've got. And you've also got on your agenda for
Tuesday the purchase of some additional property out in the estates
for another park site, and the demands on your impact fee funds are
greater than your revenue stream at this point. So we're looking at
actually this coming year looking at a review of that impact fee as
well and having the board look at the level-of-service standard that
was established for that to see if it continues to be an appropriate
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June 21, 2001
impact fee, which may provide some opportunity for additional
revenue.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: And Botanical Gardens owns it. I
don't believe there is a sense of urgency for them to sell it and, after
all, we just funded them for a half million dollars out of tourist
development taxes. I think they would work in a cooperative spirit
with us if we can find another mechanism to work with that, take
some time to do that. I'm not ready to push a panic button here, and I
want to look at all opportunities and work with them on this issue. I
don't want to lose the land on the other side of it. I think what I'm
hearing is possibly, Ms. Ramsey, some other opportunities.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So if we are going to leave this
on the cut list, which is a shame, what I wish we would do is instruct
staff to investigate whether or not any portion of this could be paid
for with tourist -- I'm sorry -- with impact fee dollars and just give us
a report on that at wrap-up, but also failing that, that we instruct staff
to continue to work with the Botanical Gardens to try to work some
kind of a deal that allows us to acquire this property. If we could get
this piece of property or some portion of it, we could connect our
parks. We could connect Sugden Park to Bayshore Drive.
You know, all of a sudden, the backside of that park wouldn't be
the backside anymore. This could be a tremendous benefit to that
section of the county, and I wish Commissioner Fiala were here for
this because she would point out to you how underserved these
people in East Naples are for parks. The parks that they have are not
as good as some of the others, and here's our very best park, and the
real way that we could allow some additional access to it if we could
make a deal with Botanical Gardens.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I -- you know -- wait a minute.
There are two major parks in East Naples now.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Check out the facilities.
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June 21,2001
COMMISSIONER HENNING: We have an amphitheatre going
in East Naples also. I don't want East Naples being slighted in our
parks.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I don't want to lose the land, either,
but I think we have some opportunity to work here and -- I mean, I
don't disagree. If we get trained odds, let's pursue it and do it at
wrap-up. I don't have a problem with that, but I'm cautious.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I would like to see it happen at
the wrap-up when Donna Fiala is here to speak her mind, when we
get to September, October.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: So what we're asking for is take
a hard look at it and see what kind of funding sources you can come
up with besides ad valorem, impact fees, talk to the Botanical
Garden, show them what kind of benefit it is to their operation, how
willing this board is to working with the Botanical Garden.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Try to keep it alive.
MR. OLLIFF: And bring back a report for budget public
hearings in September.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. I'm all right with that. I hear --
I hear three nods.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You can hear nods? Good.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Thank you. Any other
questions by the board?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: No.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: All right.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: We'll now move to the special revenue tab
on page C-2 and C-3.
MR. DUBLIS: Chris Dublis, for the record. The Support
Services Special Revenue consist of the 800 Megahertz Fund and the
ADA Improvements Fund.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Could you get a little closer to
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June 21, 2001
that mike.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yes, sir. We need to kick it up a
notch.
MR. DUBLIS: The 800 Megahertz Fund is for maintenance of
the intergovernmental radio communications program. Revenues are
based on moving-violation fines. The other fund, the ADA
Improvements Fund, is for handicap access improvements and
special-needs equipment. Revenues for this fund are based on
parking fines -- handicap parking fines, in particular, and concession
fees. The expanded for the 800 Megahertz Fund is on C-3 which
includes upgrades to the 800 Megahertz system and a new vehicle.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Can't -- isn't there -- don't we
have vehicles laying around here? Couldn't it be a shared thing? I
mean, I don't know how much those vehicles are going to be used, I
mean, expect the miles to be put on it in a year's time.
MR. OLLIFF: We actually have a minimum mileage --
MR. DALY: John Daly --
MR. OLLIFF: -- must be used, or it doesn't remain a vehicle in
our county stock, and John has -- has convinced me that with some of
the outlying requirements that he has for inspection of tower sites and
in our mobile command system, mobile radio system, that he's been
putting mileage on his own personal vehicle and getting reimbursed
on a regular basis, to the point where I felt a little uncomfortable with
him on a regular basis being in his personal car, especially at some of
the remote sites where we've got them. John, you want to add to
that?
MR. DALY: John Daly, radio communications manager. I'm
out in the field probably almost every day. We do have some sites
that are very remote. We've got one site that's almost 80 miles from
Naples. I estimate the mileage to be about 600 miles a month. You
know, we have right now a surplus vehicle that fleet management
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June 21,2001
made available to us. However, they want to get that out of the fleet
due to the age and mileage on that vehicle.
MR. OLLIFF: One of the commitments that I had to make early
on was to dedicate some additional attention to our 800 Megahertz
System, especially on the public safety side, and had a number of-- I
won't say they were the most friendly meetings between fire
departments and the sheriffs department about our ability to be able
to maintain that 800 system. And I will tell you that in years past I'm
not sure we did as good a job in terms of keeping that system up and
giving it the attention that we need to.
And John and his staff are committed to make sure
that we're providing the level of service that public safety in
particular needs out in the field from communications. And it's just
one of the support things that I felt was important to do that.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: How long do we keep a car in the fleet
on that basis for you?
MR. OLLIFF: It depends on mileage. On average I think it's
six to seven years, but it depends on the mileage of the vehicle and it
also depends on the maintenance records of the vehicle. There's
actually a formula that they use, and at the point when we think that
maintaining the vehicle is more expensive than purchasing a new
vehicle, that's the time that we trade them out.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. All right, Commissioner
Henning?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yes.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you, Mr. Daly.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: That moves us to pages C-6 and C-7 in
public utilities, special revenue. There are two funds associated with
pollution control and prevention department. Mr. Greenwald will
give you a quick overview.
MR. GREENWALD: Randy Greenwald, for the record. In Fund
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June 21,2001
114 the pollution control fund millage rate is decreasing from .0445
mills to .0434 mills, which is a decrease of 11 cents per $100,000 of
taxable value. A big part of the reason for that was the hazardous
waste program is being transferred to solid waste out of there. The
expanded requests are on page C-7. We're going to request a sinking
fund for an atomic absorption analyzer. It's an expensive piece of
laboratory equipment that costs approximately $100,000 to replace,
which is a lot of money for a budget this size to do in one year. So
we thought we could put that sinking fund in place for the next two
years. And it is ten years old right now, so the life of it is expected to
be gone by the time the sinking fund is finished.
MR. OLLIFF: And, again, just so the board's aware, this was a
voter-approved special tax of not to exceed one tenth of a mill strictly
related to efforts to protect ground water, and we do delegate a
responsibility for some underground fuel tank storage inspections as
well as monitoring and testing and laboratory work. It's -- it's a fairly
cut-and-dry fund. Unless the board's got any questions with this, I
suggest we just go on to the next.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I guess the only question I have
is if you're moving hazardous waste to public -- wherever you're
moving it.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Solid waste.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Solid waste. Is it still going to
be funded with this money, with the transfer? MR. GREENWALD: No.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: No. It was previously funded with solid
waste dollars to an interdepartmental payment, but we're just putting
it directly with the direct provider of that service.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's -- and these monies are
not -- every year I wonder about -- you know, this is a voter-approved
special tax that we basically don't assess because we don't find very
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June 21,2001
many -- I mean, we assess very, very little of what --
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Less than half of the allowable millage.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And the question I always have
is, we know for sure that this is something the public is willing to pay
for because they voted they were willing to pay for this in perpetuity.
Are there -- are there functions that county government could or
should perform that would be eligible to be paid for by this money in
the environmental area?
MR. OLLIFF: We go through that exercise and, in fact, that's
why you'll see even this fund picking up pro rata share of GIS
implementations.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I see that.
MR. OLLIFF: We're trying to find fair-share contributions for
pollution control. Anything that we are doing that we think we can
make a rational argument is a groundwater protection issue we will
put in this fund.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: That's correct. You will see the last item
there for 25,000 was a request for that NPDES, the pollution
discharge elimination system application to the EPA. Originally that
was going to be paid in the General Fund through stormwater
management, but the decision was made to use this available
resource.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And that's the sort of new
program that they finally gotten to us that now we have to do beach
water monitoring, and that earlier was just the big cities. It's finally
gotten down to us that John Bolt told us was coming. I see him
nodding yes. Okay. Thanks.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: All right. No questions,
Commissioners. We'll move on, Mr. Smykowski.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: We move to the Community
Development Fund 113, the summary of which is on C-10 and C-11
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June 21, 2001
and expanded service requests on C-12 and C-13. I'll turn it over to
Mr. Gambino.
MR. GAMBINO: The Community Development Fund 113 is a
self-supporting fund which collects most of its revenue through the
permitting fees. Overall the fund's showing a 26 percent decrease,
but that's because last year there was 9.5 million budgeted for
building expansion. If you take that out of the mix, you really have a
16.5 percent increase overall, and to fund the expanded we need to
increase permitting fees by 8 percent. If you look on C-12 and C-13,
there is a list of the expanded requests.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: On a preliminary basis, Mr. Dunnuck has
the DSAC, Development Services Advisory Committee, has reacted
positively to the proposed services and back there in some instances
were the ones who were initiating the requests and agreeing to pay
more for those additional services, but at this point there is a
subcommittee -- an ad hoc subcommittee voted specifically to the
budget that they have not made a final recommendation on the
proposed budget as of this moment, but there was preliminary
endorsement from the general overall committee.
MR. GAMBINO: Is there any questions about the expanded
services? Would you like me to go through them?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I have a question about the
Immokalee Project, just I'm glad to see it's here. I was worried that --
that it might have sort of fallen off the radar screen with Vince
Cautero having left that this was sort of a child of his creation. I
appreciate that it's -- it's not lost and my question is, once we add this
senior planner, does this mean we will have two of the five, 'cause we
already have one person there; right?
MR. MIHALIC: Good morning, Commissioners. I'm Greg
Mihalic, Housing and Urban Improvement. Last year we had
planned to add that planning position into this area, but it was really
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June 21,2001
pulled back, so this will be the only planner as signed to the
Immokalee initiative.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And it's an absolute necessity.
The people in Immokalee have to travel all the way down here to the
government service building to governmental services to be able to
move forward on their permits, and it's an inconvenience for a
population that exceeds the City of Naples. I think they deserve
better.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I think they deserve better, too,
and I think, frankly, I'm disappointed we didn't get it going this last
year. The good news is we're at least going to get going with one
person this year. It's kind of like how I am with code enforcement.
Should we have more and -- and -- and when are we -- let me just say
-- this will be the shortest way to do this. When are we going to be
getting that update we asked for on this program and its progress?
We talked about that in the development services workshop,
whatever -- whenever that was. We asked for an update on the --
how many of the trailer parks have come in with their site
improvement plans, how many were processed. I happen to know the
answers to these questions, but I think the board needs to know them,
and I wish they knew it before a final vote on this budget because I
think they might feel that we should be doing more in Immokalee on
that housing issue than staff-- sending one staffperson out there.
Because it's a great program but hasn't been terribly successful.
I think there's been one or two that have come in and been
completed and that's because the -- we haven't had the outreach that
we've needed. And when one or two people have come in with their
trailer park plans, you know, to come in under this SIP, they've been
sent through the regular review process instead of just the few health-
and-safety issues that we said we wanted them to be reviewed.
MR. GREENWALD: Well, Commissioner, this is really a
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June 21,2001
seven-person area. You know, we're not talking about one person.
We're talking about seven people. While it's true we will have a
planner now assigned to this particular project, that will be helpful,
but there's also some procedural issues that need to be worked out
internally in the county to be sure that we are facilitating these
processes as much as possible. The plan was to really update you in
the Immokalee workshop, which was sort of scheduled for, you
know, November, the November or December area, but -- but there's
more than staffing issues that need to be worked on. This -- this
whole procedure, this whole project, this whole initiative needs to
work it's way out, and we have not really shaken it down to that level
yet.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: See, the reason I hate to wait
that long is because there seems to me to be some real simple
solutions, like -- you know, we had the fast-track permit for
economic development projects. We just need a special application
form for these SIPs so they don't go through the standard review.
They only go to this couple of agencies or couple of departments that
they need to go to, because otherwise, Commissioner Coletta, the one
person out there who's tried to go through this process doesn't have a
real good report to give back to his fellow landlords out there about
how easy it was to move through this process. It needs to be much,
much easier.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No. It isn't -- it is not an easy
process, and the reason it isn't is because there's been so many
violations have taken place over the years. Overcapacity for the
number of trailers to fit in there, roads aren't there. There are some
places where electric wires lay on top of the trailers. And I'll tell you
right now, they're moving forward at a very good pace. We're now
starting to get the rest of the community through the civic association
out there involved. In fact, last Saturday I spent the day going around
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June 21,2001
to the Hispanic community doing a survey, and a number of them
would like to see this effort continued. I want to bring them in and
make it part of their own initiative too.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Excellent.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: So I'm very happy with the
pace that we're going with.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I guess my only question is always
just throw more people at the situation, is that going to speed up the
process? I see John Dunnuck shaking his head no, so I'm with you,
and hearing Commissioner Coletta, you know, we all want it to
happen, but if we have to go through a process where more people
are not going to get us there faster, then I don't want to keep --
MR. GREENWALD: I'm glad to agree with my boss, but I
think we don't need -- but we do need the plan, but we don't need
more people. We have to look at our processes. But remember we're
trying to look at health-and safety violations where people are
coming in a cooperative spirit, and we have the fire department that
wants fire hydrants installed, and everybody else wants other things
installed. We need to pare that back to health and safety, and that's a
procedural issue that we need to work on.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And I wasn't suggesting you
need to hire more people. I did want to use this opportunity -- if I'm
going to have to wait until November to get the update on the SIP
program, I'm not going to miss this chance to say, guys, streamline
that process. The application process is wrong. It doesn't need to be
that hard. Please work on the process. That's all I got.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I just have one question. Is this
person going to be bilingual?
MR. GREENWALD: We are inspiring all these positions to
hire bilingual people or trilingual if possible.
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June 21,2001
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: They don't have to speak English,
Commissioner. As long as they can speak other languages, we're
going to be all right.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Creole would be good.
MR. OLLIFF: But don't think that finding a trilingual planner is
an easy thing.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Wow, what an opportunity for
someone.
MR. GAMBINO: Is there any other questions about the
expanded Fund 1137 We'll be adding 11 positions in that fund.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: No questions from me.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I don't hear any. No questions, sir.
MR. OLLIFF: If there's no questions, then we're on page C-16
of your book, transportation.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: That's correct. These are a whole host of
municipal service taxing districts. Again, these are governed by --
typically by citizen advisory committees where they're making
advisory recommendations to the board. As a general rule, the board
has typically honored the requests as -- of these advisory committees
as these are representatives of the citizens who have elected to tax
themselves for various improvements specifically in the areas of
beautification, stormwater drainage, and streetlighting. The millage
implications for the various MSTUs or MSTDs are at the bottom of
C-16.
The biggest thing of note is Bayshore MSTU moving from a
capital projects mode where it was -- where we were doing the actual
construction phase at three mills, moving back to a maintenance
mode in that project, going to approximately two mills for the
upcoming year. That is the biggest change.
Many of the MSTUs levy the maximum millage allowed. They
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June 21, 2001
are governed by their various enabling ordinances, Immokalee
Beautification at one mill. The other thing of note, Lely Golf Estates
Beautification from 152 showing an impact per hundred thousand of
$50. That was a result of the recent decision and board action where
the citizenry there requested an increase in millage cap from 1.5 mills
to 2 mills. So we're just, again, following the lead from that citizen
advisory group.
MR. OLLIFF: If there's no questions here, the only thing I
would like to point out is -- is you just need to recognize what a
customizing government we have been up to this point. If you look,
there are 24 different taxing districts where we, at most of these
instances, are responding to neighborhoods' request for a specialized
or higher level of service from this government.
This is unusual. A lot of county governments do not do this kind
of work. We are trying to simplify in the coming year the MSTU
process. We're in the process of creating a brochure that in cartoon,
in simplified format, can tell the public how to create an MSTU in
your particular neighborhood or community, because I think we're
going to see more and more and more of these kinds of requests as
we move forward.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: It follows with the whole guidelines of
our community character in terms of it incentifies program.
Communities want to accelerate or do things, they have that
opportunity to do it, and it's taxation by representation at the lowest
local level that you could ever get to call the neighborhoods. These
folks control what it is they want to do. They have the power to do
that, and we approve it because they are asking us to do what they
want done, and they're taxing themselves. It's a beautiful system, and
we're -- we are -- I am proud in this county that we have it, because it
gives people the ultimate input on what they want.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: With that, Mr. Chairman, we're on to page
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June 21,2001
C-20, Emergency Services Special Revenue funds. These are the
dependent fire districts. Mr. Dublis can address those.
MR. DUBLIS: Yes. The emergency service revenue funds
consist of the Isle of Capri Fire Department and the Ochopee Fire
Department funds. They, as Mr. Smykowski just said, are dependent
fire districts. The other two funds here on this page are the Collier
County Fire Control Fund and the Goodland Horse Island fire control
fund. Both of these funds are basically a mechanism to take in
revenue from areas outside the established fire districts and pay for
fire services rendered from those fire departments.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Questions, Commissioners?
Thank you very much, sir.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: That moves us to C-22, tourist
development. These budgets reflect last week's policy decisions by
the board in terms of changing the funding allocations. There are two
expanded requests for reimbursement to the county attorney's office
for legal services.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Excellent idea to capture that.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Right. This has involved a lot of
technical work on their part, and they're seeking reimbursement.
That is a revenue to your General Fund offsetting a portion of the
cost of the county attorney's office.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Questions by the board?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes, please.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Commissioner Coletta.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: On the museum allocation, are
we sure that we have enough to build or cover the restoration of
Roberts Ranch in there, the repair to the roof over here in the -- the
cottage over here at the county complex? Able to do the necessary
repairs over at Everglades City as far as painting?
MR. OLLIFF: Museum staff says yes. I think it's obviously on
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June 21, 2001
a project like Roberts Ranch we will continue to pursue state grant
funds and historical funds for that, but I think their committment is --
and I'm going on record here, Mr. Jamro here, he's committed to me
at the break that the Roberts Ranch Project would actually be open to
the public in December. So with this --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE:
nodded. That's excellent.
MR. OLLIFF: Yes, he nodded.
December of this year? Yes, he
So you need to recognize that
while it's going to be open, there's still a lot of restoration work that
needs to be done there, and it will be in part an open historic site and
a construction site at the same time.
public cry to be able to get access to
think this is an adequate budget and,
on behalf of the museum for creating
your county museums in the future.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA:
But we think there is just a
and see that facility, so we do
frankly, we need to thank you
a dedicated funding source for
I have one more question,
economic disaster 196. Explain that, please.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: That's simply funding that's in place in the
event of a natural disaster, such as a hurricane, a whole series of ads
saying that Collier County is alive and well or whatever stage we're
in. You recall during the last hurricane I believe it was Dan Rather
was on 7, and he said, you know, "Fort Myers and Northern Collier
County was essentially wiped out by a hurricane," and the
cancellation buttons started -- started -- phones started ringing in each
of the hotels and there was actually the hurricane itself had skirted --
skirted us and we had --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Same brain that brought us the
election results; right? Don't take me there.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: That's why we have $6 million.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's why we $6 million, you know
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June 21,2001
MR. SMYKOWSKI: It's an emergency ad campaign ready to
roll to announce what state the county is in following any natural
disaster.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Speaking of national -- national
disaster, the beach renourishment fund reserve, is there enough to
cover just one event or two events? I don't see that listed here.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Here comes Mr. Mudd.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: How do we reserve?
MR. MUDD: Sir, there's -- Jim Mudd, for the record. There's
about $2 million in the reserves that they've kind of got highlighted
for that, and as the years progress in the ten-year plan, that starts to
get eaten away. So we've dedicated a special account, and we're
going to put a half million dollars into that account for the next ten
years to build to a $5 million fund, and then we'll use the interest to
go back in, but that will give you enough so that you can do bonding
issues off of those dollars in order to take care of that process.
So -~ so -- so today we have enough reserve money in case we
had one -~ knock on wood -- this summer to take care of it, but in the
future we're going to dedicate those dollars so it is in a mix-and-
match kind of thing.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: You all right?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I'm fine.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you, sir.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: With that we'll move to page C-26.
There's a series of one, two, three, four -- six miscellaneous special
revenue funds. The museum, obviously, receiving funding from
TDC. There is an expanded service request on C-27 for an assistant
manager position that would open the Roberts Ranch facility to
public visitation.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: On that will there be any consideration
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June 21,2001
-- I know that you go through a profile to look for a person there -- I
hope they would be very knowledgeable about Immokalee, perhaps
the ranch. A person well -- if you can get collective agreement in
that community -- a person that everybody would be happy with,
because that's -- you know, it's a key position. It's a big opportunity
for Immokalee, so whatever you can do in that area I think would be
appreciated by the community, and I know Commissioner Coletta has
worked so hard on that area.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You've been very instrumental
in bringing this forward, too, and I appreciate that. If we could
possibly get a native of Immokalee that's been there for a couple
generations, that woud be a big, big plus.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Now you're talking.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Questions by the board?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Just one comment. If
everybody would look at the revenues on the green sheet, it says
GGCC be in charge Golden Gate Community. Center, just let you
know when Max Hasse was commissioner, he put me on the advisory
board of the Golden Gate Community Center, and at that time our
revenue was approximately $11,000. We brought John Dunnuck into
the community center, and he raised it to a quarter of a million, and
with the great staff that we have there now it just continues to not
only provide a good service but a user fee.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Excellent.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Excellent. You can be applauded for
that, Commissioner. I really love to see those things happen.
MR. OLLIFF: I'm not sure there's a community center that
actually functions any more like a community center than does your
Golden Gate Community Center. I mean, it's really the focus of most
of the community activity that occurs there.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's true.
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June 21,2001
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Smykowski.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. Moving on.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: That'll move us to enterprise funds at this
point which begin on page F, as in Frank, 2. There are -- there are
five active funds at this point, three self-insurance funds for property
and casualty group health and life and workers' compensation. You
have a fleet management fund and a motor pool capital recovery
fund. There are expanded service requests outlined on page F-3.
Again, these -- these funds serve -- providing services to other county
departments in the areas of insurance and fleet management.
MR. OLLIFF: Did we skip enterprise funds?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: One question.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: On the capital improvement
fleet management motor pool capital recovery fund, expansion of a
building. Where's that going to take place?
MR. OLLIFF: At the county barn facility on County Barn
Road.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Aren't we looking to
move out of that facility?
MR. OLLIFF: We may and we may not. I keep -- we have a
group of employees -- Dan Croft is involved along with Skip and
some others who are looking at other options. Last year, as you
know, we were looking at surplus landfill as a possibility, but to be
honest, that property is tied up as part of the rural fringe area, and
without some dispensation from the governor's office we can't do
anything on that property. We expect that's probably going to be
another year before we could see some activity there.
In the meantime, we're looking at moving the parks and
recreation department that's currently at County Barn out to some of
the other park facilities for some of their material storage, which will
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June 21, 2001
provide an opportunity for us to expand the fleet management by a
single bay, which they desperately need currently at that site. There's
also some opportunities we're looking at -- a lot of that property --
that is valuable property, and a lot of it is currently eaten up by guide
wires for a communication tower in the back comer, and we're
looking at whether or not there's an opportunity for us to do a much
better job in terms of buffering from the community that surrounds us
there. And maybe that is not a bad site to make an investment and
actually improve some of the facilities that we have.
If we can eliminate the guide wires from that tower and also
eliminate some of the road-and-bridge material storage on that site
that's currently eating up property that's in excess of $50,000 an acre
in worth and move some of that storage off site some place, we may
be able to free up enough property to actually do something there on-
site. But we're weighing that against other property options around
the county as well. And to be honest, at this point, we don't have a
real good firm decision on what we want to do there, but whatever
that decision is we'll bring it back to the board.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: So do I hear you say, you
know, even if we're going to be moving this facility, the fleet
management department, we're going to be use -- the county's going
to have that and be utilizing it for something else in the future?
MR. OLLIFF: Even if-- if the county operation were out of
there, some of the long-range options were to move the sheriffs
facility on to that property which is currently in leased space in the
industrial park behind the Ford dealership on Arnold Avenue. Again,
in our effort to try and eliminate leased spaces and get onto as much
county-owned property as possible, the sheriff has requested if we do
move that that would be an ideal location for him to relocate to. So I
think, regardless, there's going to be a county fleet-type operation
there, whether it be the county government or whether it be the
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~une 21,2001
sheriffs department.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. I appreciate that, and good
question, Commissioner Henning, and I think it answers it for me
also that you got to do what you have to do while you're there, but it's
not going to be a lost cause.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Any other questions from the
commissioners? Moving on, Mr. Smykowski.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, I did skip --
skip over the enterprise fund. No slight intended. Those begin on
page E-2 and 3, the county water/sewer district. We'll turn it over to
Mr. Greenwald and Jim Mudd, the public utilities administrator.
MR. GREENWALD: Fund 408, county water and sewer
operations is made up of administration, billing, engineering, water
and wastewater. They're all primarily funded from user-fee funds.
On page E-9 you will see that utilities engineering is requesting seven
positions. Financial operations is on E-4. They are requesting three
positions, one in financial operations and two in utilities billing.
MR. OLLIFF: Actually E-4 and 5.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: E-4 and 5, I think, is where you want -
MR. GREENWALD: Right. Water operations is requesting
two positions, and wastewater operations is requesting four positions.
The detail for all of these positions and some additional operating
capital outlay expanded requests are all summarized on pages E-4
through E-6.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Mr. Mudd --
MR. MUDD: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- you can tell us whether the
user fee is -- or the ad valorem is not supplementing what should be a
user fee for these requests? Do you understand?
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June 21,2001
MR. MUDD: The ad valorem doesn't touch any of this. This is
all done by your rates that you have from water and sewer in the
process. Now, if you want to talk impact fees versus user fees, then
you've got a blending that we're going to try to separate -- separate
this summer as we're doing our impact fee study to get you the
information so we know what the proper impact fees should be.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I just didn't want the general
taxpayer or the property taxes come out of something that should be
for user fees.
MR. OLLIFF: No. And that's a good point, and 100 percent of
these expenses are supported from water and wastewater billings.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I have no further questions.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I have a question of you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Commissioner Coletta.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. Is this increase that
we're going to have, how's that going to affect the user fees?
MR. MUDD: The -- we're doing a user-fee study. We've
determined that the impact fees -- we've been using user fees. If you
take a look, get into debt service, as you take a look at this year, we
used user fees in total to pay the debt off our amortized annualized
rate. We're in the process of breaking that down right now to -- to
make sure we have a good delineation between what was user-fee
debt versus what was impact-fee debt to make sure that impact fees
are covering that debt service. In the past, they haven't been. So, in
essence, the user fees have supplemented that debt.
In utilities right now it's 110 million. If you take a look at these
sheets, you'll notice that by next year I'll be at $201 million in debt,
and we got to make sure that the impact fees are laying the process
out. That's why impact fee -- the impact fee is so critical for us this
summer.
What we're going to try to do with rates, as we pull some of that
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June 21,2001
user fee out of the impact fee debt payment, that will give us the
opportunity to hold the user rates pretty well constant. What you
don't want to get yourself into is a process where everybody's
conserving water, but you had to raise your rates because the
overhead keeps climbing. That doesn't make a lot of sense, and it
doesn't go over too well with the public. All you have to do is go
look at Hillsborough in the early '90s; they'll tell you.
What we're also going to do based on our water workshop is we
talked about inverted rates at the higher-end users, to make those a
little bit stiffer. Right now it's only one and a half times what the
normal rate is going to be. We're taking a look at that process to
make it a little stiffer. The more you use past the norm, it'll cost you
more to pay for that quantity of water that you need. So that will help
a little bit. Get the impact fees paying the impact fee debt. That'll
free up user free -- user-fee dollars so that we don't have to raise
rates. Long story to get to a pretty short answer, I think.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you, Mr. Mudd.
MR. MUDD: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Any other questions by the board?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: We are going to turn to focus on the
utility water and sewer impact fee and operational supported capital
projects. As Mr. Olliff noted in his opening remarks, obviously,
that's -- we have a number of aggressive projects underway. I'll turn
it to Ms. Usher.
MS. USHER: On pages E-8 -- I'm sorry. On pages E-8 through
E-11 are all your capital projects for water and wastewater. There's
two primary funding sources. We have user fees and we also have
impact fees. Each page, like, for example, on E-8 is water impact
fees, and these are all the projects that will be funded by water impact
fees. We need to borrow money next year to fulfill all the projects
that people would like to build. I don't know if Jim wants to --
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June 21,2001
MR. MUDD: We'll talk a little bit about -- let's focus on E-8,
and we'll talk about the new projects, okay, instead of going down the
whole list, or we'll spend the whole week through this process. If you
look at the third line down on E-8, you have the south county water
expansion for 1.485 million. That starts in October whereby we're
expanding the south water plant and putting in reverse osmosis.
We've reached each individual commissioner. When you went out
there and looked at the plant here in the winter and fall, we showed
you where the site was going to be.
We're going to put the facility in, the infrastructure in for 20
million gallons which is final buildout for reverse osmosis, but we're
going to bring the first 8 million gallon reverse osmosis on line by
2003. We start construction in October.
If you turn to page E-9, first line is the auto meter read system
installation. We brought that before the board earlier this year.
We're basically putting auto reads for meters in. It's $2.199 million
on the first line. And then I want you to go down where you see
TBD, to be determined, by number, on the left column. It says
"supplemental special assessment software." Our special assessment
section has got a piece of software in there that probably came in
with the caveman. It doesn't tie in with community development's or
any of the other financial tools that we have in the county. What
we're basically doing is trying to bring that on board in '02.
And we've brought before the board here, during this year, as we
looked for the contractors -- the service contractors that would
provide that software as we start to pick that process out. Not only
do you see it here in water, but you also see that special assessment
software on E-11 down under TBD and wastewater because both of
them are affected by the special assessment for water and wastewater,
so it's pretty much an equal share in between the two. And that pretty
much finishes the water new impact fee and water use funds.
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June 21,2001
If you turn to E-10 under wastewater capital, fourth line down,
reclaim water ASR. I don't think I have to brief you much on that,
but it's $2.455 million, and that's basically the Pelican Bay well fields
where we moved it this year from the north wastewater plant over to
that at the bequest of the City of Naples.
Sir?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I just wanted to check back
with you on that. We were talking about bringing the reused water
up to a price to help offset this cost. Have we done anything on that?
MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. We're in a process of doing a rate study
on that this summer too. We're doing rate studies on water,
wastewater, reuse water, and we're also doing all our impact fees, and
we're also doing solid waste collections and the landfill issue. So I'm
taking a look at the entire rate structure in public utilities this
summer. So, yes, sir, we're doing that, and as soon as I get my first
inkling on the draft, I'm bringing the customers back together that do
reclaim water and advising them of same so that they can adjust their
budgets for this coming year too.
If you go down to 73925, that's a master pump station. It's 104.
It's for $180,000. It's a -- it's a new project for next year under
impact fees. We need to get it up -- up and running in order to do
that process. Two lines below that is the north area master pump
station for $100,000. Again, we need to get that process up and
running too. If you turn to E-11.
MR. OLLIFF: Jim.
MR. MUDD: Sir?
MR. OLLIFF: Let me slow you down a little bit. Let me get you
to point out 73076 right in the middle. It's a -- primarily a forecast
project, but I do want you to make sure that the board is aware that's
in this budget.
MR. MUDD: Sir, if you want to give me that number one more
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June 21, 2001
time?
MR. OLLIFF: 73076.
MR. MUDD: It's the north/south sewer interconnect. We've got
-- we were doing our process to make sure that we've got it -- got our
temporary hooked in with our north/south plant. We'll finish that
process up the early part of this fall so that we stay within the consent
order of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, but
that's in full swing right now. We've almost finished the -- the plans.
It looks like we're going to put an 8-inch line right there about Grey
Oaks and tie it into a pump station. That'll give us the ability to move
a million gallons between our north and south plant, or south and
north plant in the next couple of years until we get the permanent
north/south interconnect, a bigger pipe, in when we do the Santa
Barbara Expansion. So that process is taking place.
MR. OLLIFF: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you.
MR. MUDD: As we go to E-11, the new -- the new pieces on
E-11 are the second line down, sludge stabilization management. We
are going through a study process right now for $50,000 with -- and
it's not -- this is a study and implementation. Starting on 1 July we're
going to start moving wastewater sludge to Okeechobee until we can
get a stabilization process in, because that organic matter has a large -
- has an enlarged result of the odor issues we have. We need to get it
out of the landfill. We're -- we're going to get it so we take it from
AA to A, which means that you can land apply it. We're going to do
just like -- as soon as we're done with this, we're going to take our
sludge out to Immokalee in -- in the compost site that they're taking
all our yard waste right now. That's 70,000 tons worth that's moving
right now and actually being composted. I was out there last week on
Friday. Absolutely super. I need to take you out. They've got a 20-
acre test site plus they've got a 147-acre actual production site, and
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June 21,2001
it's got a beautiful humus that comes out that can be land applied.
They're taking the City of Naples sludge, 'cause it's Grade A sludge,
they've treated it to get a lot of the ammonia out of it. We need to do
the same so that we can use that product. If I can take the yard waste
out and our sludge out of our Naples Landfill, you're talking about
100,000 tons a year. That's -- that's 20 percent of what goes into the
landfill we can start using in a compost operation and land apply it
and make good use of that resource for our farmers.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I'm glad to hear we got high-class
sludge coming out of Naples. That makes my day. MR. OLLIFF: It still stinks, sir.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: No. No. No, it doesn't.
MR. MUDD: The -- ifI can -- ifI can take you down about --
about 40 percent of the way down the page to an item 73078,
Henderson Creek Sewer Improvements, a project that's been -- long
been overdue. We're in the study process right now where we'll get it
fixed in the '02 arena. Then we go down about six items to 74021,
which is surface water, and you kind of go, what's Mudd doing with
$100,000 for surface water? We're going out there looking at
potential sites for surface water ASRs, so as the -- as the Everglades
Project works through and they get the process and the protocols
done, then we can have an idea of where those sites are, and maybe
we can even purchase a couple of them so that in the future we have
that ability so that we can supplement our irrigation water supply
using that technology. Sir?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Are you saying you're going to
be storing water in the subsurface, or are you going to be extracting
water?
MR. MUDD: These particular areas what you do is you get
them close where it's got -- for Golden Gate Canal or another --
another drainage canal that's out there, and if there's a parcel that's
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June 21, 2001
vacant, we go out there and start talking a little bit to the landowner
and find out who the landowner is. And, yes, it would be an
extraction from the surface with a small amount of treatment and put
into an ASR well at a future -- at a future time. This is discovery
dollars. This has nothing to do with actual -- actually developing or
building that particular site, but if you don't start working on it now
when -- when you do get the green light in order to do that in the
future, we don't want to be behind the curve either. So it's just
basically identifying those areas that are potential and if we can get a
down payment on those to hold them in the that process, then we're
good to go. It's part of the planning process.
COMMISSIONER HENNING:
for you, sir.
MR. MUDD:
MR. OLLIFF:
You've got your work cut out
Yes, sir.
And, Jim, I'm going to back you up again on one
more, 74125, the supplemental irrigation water project, because I
know a number of the commissioners are aware of that issue.
MR. MUDD: That's -- that's the mule pen supplemental. The
majority of that work will be done this FY. There's about $140,000
that will be left over to do. We should have that up and running
December of this year. We've got the green light as far as the Florida
Department of Environmental Protection is concerned. We're talking
about a site that's going to give us 3.5 million gallons a day when we
need it during the dry season.
MR. OLLIFF: And, so again, so the board's -- in simple terms
what this is allowing us to do is to find a supplemental water source
so that come dry season next year we can meet our current
contractual obligations for our reuse water. Now, philosophically we
have decided not to be a reuse supply guarantee, but we do have
contracts in place that we feel we've got an obligation to try to do
what we can to need, so we're going to try to blend some water come
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June 21,2001
this dry season to meet your current contractual obligations, but in the
future being careful not to enter into new agreements until we know
we have the supply to be able to meet them.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, there's a benefit to the
community by getting as much people onto reuse as we can. MR. OLLIFF: Absolutely.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And my understanding is this is
going to be a user fee.
MR. OLLIFF: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, you always love if you go back
in history a little bit and read my articles, letter to the editor as to why
it was so important to utilize that versus the position that was taken, I
think that helped all the public understand where you were trying to
go, Mr. Mudd, so I really think this is a neat idea. We're going to get
there yet.
MR. OLLIFF: And keep in mind Collier County is the number
one reuse water system in the State of Florida, so we recycle more of
our wastewater than in any of the other 67 counties in Florida and
have demand out there for more than we can provide.
MR. MUDD: Subject to your questions, that's where we are in
the capital projects. As I said before, we have about 110 million in
debt right now. With the capital projects that you see before you, it
will bring us to about $201 million by next year in debt that we need
to work through that process, but you're talking about an expansion to
the water plant, you're talking about expansions to the north and
south sewer plants, you're talking about interconnects, you're talking
about supplemental water, a very aggressive program.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Have we gone to the money markets
for that yet? I mean, this is -- and I don't know what your time table
is for that, but it seems like we're in a good window of opportunity
when we have to do debt.
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June 21,2001
MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. We're working through that process
right now identifying which can go on the state revolving fund. We
just had the representative down to examine what we've got right now
as far as debt is concerned and talked to him about some other
opportunities for next year. He was just in the shop yesterday, so
that's -- that's good news.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Great.
MR. OLLIFF: Then, Mr. Chairman, I think we're moving to
page E-12, which is your solid waste fund.
MR. GREENWALD: On page E-12 solid waste funds are made
up of four different funds; solid-waste disposal, landfill closure,
solid-waste grants, and mandatory collections. In solid-waste
disposal they are requesting five expanded positions, three of which
are for recycling and one is for waste reduction. And in mandatory
collections they are requesting four expanded positions. The
expanded positions are all on page E-13 and E-14, and there are some
operating costs associated with those in capital outlay.
MR. MUDD: As I -- as I gave you this week, I've given you
your charts for the future of solidwaste options that we have in
Collier County. As I made mention in my e-mail to each one of you,
it is -- it is not a simple process. It's a complicated process. It has a
lot of moving parts. There is a big piece of those charts talking about
55 percent waste deviation where we send it away from the final
landfill, wherever it goes. If it's a char or if it's ash or if it's compost,
we move that away, and when you divert that much, you've got to
develop markets, you've got to educate your citizenry. You have to
work with commercial establishments to see if there are ways where
they can order their parts, products in a -- in a -- more of an
environmental-friendly packaging process.
There are a lot of companies that will reduce the amount of
packing and work with you in order to do that. We've got to discover
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June 21,2001
all of those particular items, and then we have to work with that
community. That's what a lot of that has to do in the mandatory-
collection part. There are a couple posts there, new positions, where
we're going to put somebody on the trucks. Right now we do it as a
spot-check. When we -- when we've got somebody that's idle, we'll
have them go out there. We've had Mr. Moraco go out there several
times to check the trucks.
Commissioner Henning has asked me a couple times of times,
"Hey, I saw this C&D truck, it went right up to the top of landfill,"
and he was right in that particular case. We need somebody there all
the time to look at what those loads are, to make sure if it's got
recyclable material we're diverting it to the recycle place before that
product hits the hill so that we can -- we can minimize or we can
maximize our -- our air space in the landfill and use it in a more
efficient manner.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Besides we don't want the
gypsum board to be accidentally going into the cell.
MR. MUDD: We try to divert that as much as possible, but I
can't tell you we're 100 percent total that stuffs not making it to the
top. If it's down at the bottom of the barrel or they decided to make it
powder versus a gypsum board piece, they're not catching it. These
kind of inspectors would do that process for us.
MR. OLLIFF: And we -- we've committed to you that Collier
County is getting aggressive in the recycling industry, and we are
committed to increasing those percentages statewide that we have to
meet, and I think this budget reflects a department that's willing to get
aggressive about it, and I think we have to get aggressive by being at
the source, and it's what you see this budget doing.
The one other thing that I want to point out -- and, Jim, you need
to walk them through these rate increases that are in here for both
mandatory and collection and for the Cart Program that are shown on
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page E-12 or, Randy, one of you, because that is a direct impact on
our consumer.
MR. MUDD: The collection disposal, if you take a look at the
rates on E-12 and you start taking a look at '01 and '02 rates, one of
the things that when you start taking a look at the total, part of the
rate structure change is that four cent a ton that we've brought before
the board, that equates to about five dollars and some-odd cents to
each one of the households, but another disturbing process that -- that
you need to know when you look at E-12 is the fact that the
mandatory garbage collection is also tied into when normal folks pay
their taxes on the property, and if you -- if you pay your taxes early,
you get a 96 percent break. You know, you get 4 percent off of the
bill. Well, when you start talking about solid waste, you know, that 4
percent off wasn't in anybody's calculations as they went through
that, and that's been compounding. So what's been happening over
the years is the carry forward has been getting less and less and less
and so this year we're having to transfer out of 470. If you look
under revenue second line in '01-'02, some $774,000 out of the 470
approach and we're -- and we're chewing up about $400,000 of carry
forward in that process in order to get us so that we can pay our bills
of that 1 million -- $1.05 million figure that you see under the '01-'02
total budget.
What does that equate to if we had to do a rate increase tomorrow
in order to catch that so it doesn't happen next year? It's about $13.50
per household. We need to work real hard with that rate process as
we do this summer, and we've done the time line of when we need to
have it finished the 15th of July keeps coming up as we backward
plan where we need to have the drafts so that we can start getting out
the notices. There's an 11 September day where we've got to actually
mail those notices, and then there's a 5 October date that we need to
make, too, which is the final drop dead for the mandatory collection
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June 21,2001
where it has to go through all the -- we have to dot all the I's and
cross all the T's. So we're backward planning trying to get that
process done. I don't know if we're going to be able to get it all done
by 15 July, but we're sure going to give it our best shot.
MR. OLLIFF: If there's no questions on that, Mr. Chairman, I'll
point out that it's noon, but you are fairly close. You've only got
some impact-fee-related capital funds to able to review, and you will
have covered, actually, the full day's agenda, and our
recommendation to you is that you just push on through this rather
than taking a break for lunch and coming back.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I'm ready to keep going. Let's do it.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes, Mr. Chairman, if would turn to tab H
for capital. This is impact-fee-supported capital and gas-tax-
supported capital, and Susan Usher with the assistance of the
appropriate department directors will walk you through that. Again,
we'll start with parks impact fee capital.
MS. USHER: On pages H-2 through H-4 are parks impact fee
capitals. You will notice here and there there are a couple projects
that are on one or the other. There's mixed fundings on some of these
projects so, for instance, on the Golden Gate Community Center
Improvement Project, we just visited that in fund 111 when we were
discussing the MSTD ad valorem. Part of that project's been funded
over there, and part of it's being funded over here in impact fee. The
-- I don't know, Marla, do you want to or I can.
MS. RAMSEY: It doesn't matter. I got -- why don't I just start
with H-3 which is the main impact fee which is unincorporated areas
for regional and community parks. There's only three new projects
listed underneath there, and that's the Barron Collier High School --
actually, it's the Barron Collier Elementary School, upgrades to their
athletic fields to put Little Leagues at that location. There is the
expansion to the 951 Boat Ramp which we talked about earlier, and
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June 21,2001
there is a Manatee Dog Park listed there which is located off of 951
behind the outlet mall area next to the Manatee Elementary and
Middle School area to put a facility at that location and start the
process of development on that particular park.
On H-4, 365368 Fund, that is the fund that's the old impact fee
fund which we are looking to discontinue, although you'll see that
there is a little bit of impact fee coming in from some T-Bills and
some interest, but we're trying to discontinue use of that particular
one by spending the dollars. And that really is the only projects that I
have listed.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Questions by the board.'?
MR. OLLIFF: Just to make sure you don't have any questions
on that school project. She mentioned it as if we were doing a
construction on a school site. That's a continuing joint agreement that
we have where we are doing joint school park projects where the
public has access to all of those facilities after school hours and then,
frankly, we found out it's the same kids that are using it, whether it's
during the school day or after hours, so it just makes sense to spend
public dollars on building one ballfield as opposed to building a
school ballfield and a public county ballfield. It's hopefully
something that we will continue to do. We are working closely with
the parks on their capital planning side. They have a 20-year plan of
exactly where they are going to build schools, and we are working
with them to build parks in each and every location that makes sense
for us so that you'll continue to see these kind of programs in the
future.
Your next fund is library capital fund.
MS. USHER: That's on page H-5 is library impact fees. As I
said earlier, the North Regional Library will be opening around
January of'02. Right below that project is the Immokalee Branch
Library expansion. The library has applied for a grant from the state
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June 21,2001
to pay for half of that expansion.
MR. OLLIFF: And gotten it.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And gotten it?
MR. OLLIFF: It's my understanding. It was on the approved
list that I saw.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Good.
MR. JONES: Good morning. John Jones, library. We're on the
approved list. It has been funded provided the governor does not
veto it.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: He's already vetoed us enough.
MR. OLLIFF: Yeah. This may be the only dog we've got left in
the fight, so we think it's going to survive.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: When does he get done with his
pencil?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I don't know.
MR. OLLIFF: I think, obviously, by July 1st the state budget
and fiscal year starts so ...
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Keep our fingers crossed for a few
more days then.
MR. OLLIFF: We hope there's no more lead left in that pencil.
MR. JONES: Well, we're very high on the list. We're, like, No.
4 or No. 5 out of about 25 projects, so while I would not foresee to be
a soothsayer, I think they'd have to cut awful deep and hurt a lot of
people before they got to this particular project.
MR. OLLIFF: Unless there's any other questions on library
capital, we can move on to the Ochopee Fire Control and Isle of
Capri.
MS. USHER: On page H-6 is Ochopee Fire Control impact
fees. Those impact fees was started to be collected in 1998. We're in
our fourth -- third year of collecting the money, and there are no
projects at this time to spend that money on for next year. On H-7 is
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June 21, 2001
the Isle of Capri impact fee fund. Again, that was started back in
1998 and, again, there is no plans next year for any capital
improvements there yet.
MR. OLLIFF: But that's primarily because if you look at how
much is collected -- I mean, you've got $45,000 over several years
collected in one fund and 56,000 in another -- you've pretty much in
these kinds of funds have to save the money in order to be able to
accumulate enough to actually buy a piece of equipment for either of
these districts. So this is pretty much a sinking fund for future
equipment purchases.
MS. USHER: On page H-8 is the EMS impact fee fund. As you
can see on the projects down below, Station 17 is now open and
operating, and those costs are forecast. Station 19, which is off of
Davis Boulevard, they purchased the land this year, and I think next
year they're going to build the station. And Station 21, the Grey Oaks
area, again, we have a little bit of money budgeted this year for land
purchase and next year to build the building. This facility will be
shared with two fire districts, the East Naples and the North Naples
Fire Districts. So that'll keep -- by sharing the costs will keep our
costs down.
MR. OLLIFF: So the board's aware, that Station 19 in East
Naples is the one failed to highlight at the beginning. Station 19,
when they say, "off of Davis Boulevard" is actually at the intersection
of Davis and Santa Barbara on the northeast comer of that
intersection. It's a joint site with the school board. The school board,
I believe, has plans to build an elementary school on that site. We've
also looked at that piece of property as the possible future site for an
emergency services center that is on much higher ground there and in
a strategically much better location, than is the first floor of Building
F for a future emergency services building, that we would build in
conjunction with S.O. And a number of other public safety units.
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June 21,2001
MS. USHER: Okay. On H-9 is the correction facility impact
fee. The -- this year we paid for the design work for the Immokalee
Jail. That jail will discuss -- Immokalee Jail we'll discuss tomorrow.
They'll be funded out of General Fund ad valorem. Also planned for
next year is an impact fee study and also the design work for the
Naples Jail, to expand the jail portion. On page --
MR. SMYKOWSKI: The impact fee study, Commissioners, for
the record, is to update the correctional facilities impact fee to again
maintain currency with current market conditions in terms of cost of
construction.
MR. OLLIFF: And, again, in anticipation of that $20 million
jail project that you saw that we're doing the design for, we need to
make sure that the impact fees are at their highest legal limit in order
to be able to provide as much of an offsetting funding source for that
as possible.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Just to remind everybody, we
don't have a law-enforcement impact fee, therefore, growth is paid by
the existing residents.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: That is correct, and we will talk about that
tomorrow. The county manager has included in the General Fund
reserve funding for a law-enforcement impact fee study to address
that very question you just posed.
MR. OLLIFF: And we've actually already talked to the sheriff's
department and their staff, and they are both, not only well aware of
it, but, I think, will be happy to work with us in trying to pursue that.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I was going to bring it up
tomorrow anyway so ...
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Good.
MS. USHER: On page H-10 through H-11 is gas tax road
construction, and H- 12 through H- 15 is impact-fee-funded road
construction. The engineering department for the road department is
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June 21,2001
paid from the gas tax, and on page H-10A you will notice there is the
expanded services for that department. They are requesting one
secretarial position, two vehicles, some software, and a laptop
computer for 157,300. The budget on H-11, you can -- there is -- it
doesn't have a project number. It's right below where all those O's
are, there's a transportation engineering department, and you can see
that these expandeds are included in the $1,552,900 for the requested
next year.
MS. SMYKOWSKI: The key issue here, just noting again what
Mr. McNees outlined in the introduction on H-11, a bond proceeds of
114 million to make this a -- a viable program. It is dependent upon
bonding to bring these projects to fruition.
MR. OLLIFF: If you look at the bottom of page 8 -- H-11, I'm
sorry, under the revenue section, you'll see right in the middle of the
revenue list, bond proceeds, and if you follow that all the way to the
far righthand column following the fiscal year '02 request that's
where you find that $114 million.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: We can get the money. We just have
to figure out how to service the debt.
MR. OLLIFF: They don't usually give you the money until you
figured that out first.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Talk about chicken and egg.
MS. USHER: Did you want to discuss any of the road projects?
MR. OLLIFF: Steve, you may want to highlight some of the
major road projects through there.
MR. MILLER: Yes. Good morning. Steve Miller, Director of
Transportation Engineering. I am proud to tell you that as you heard
earlier from Mr. -- Mr. Olliff, we do have five projects that are under
construction. I will tell you that we have a very aggressive program
this next year, this next fiscal year. We are planning on starting four
more projects to the tune of about $70 million. I will list those for
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June 21,2001
yOU.
We've got Goodlette-Frank Road from Pine Ridge Road north to
Vanderbilt Beach Road we're planning to get under construction next
year. Also Livingston Road, Phase 3. As a side note, Livingston
Road Phase 2 is being bid today, so we'll know who the low bidder is
today on Phase 2. Again, we'll have Livingston Road Phase 4, which
is from Immokalee Road to the Lee County line. It's coming on line
next year. These are all, like I said, very aggressive schedules. And
right now we're right on target with our plans and plans production
and real happy to report that to you.
MR. OLLIFF: I want you to notice he did that without ever
looking down. He's -- he's got these road projects down -- down pat.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Good.
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, unless there's no other questions,
we can move on beyond transportation.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think we've all gotten a very good
picture on transportation over the last year, so moving right along.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Frankly, Mr. Chairman, the remaining
funds are small funds with residual cash. On page H-16 an old
Wiggins Pass Dredging Fund with funds in reserve. There's $500
residual cash in the museum capital fund. Pelican Bay Funds we'll
address at our separate public hearing. On H-20 there's a road
assessment receivable fund that's used primarily as a revolving loan
fund to advance construction on some of the beautification projects.
And there's an Olde Naples Park Drainage Fund 326 and with that,
Mr. Chairman, we are done for today.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Any questions on the board? If not,
thank you very much.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Tomorrow's schedule, Mr. Chairman,
we'll review the General Fund. We do have from the published
schedule there is a slight change. Courts have requested a 3 p.m.
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June 21,2001
Time certain, just because that's when the judges are -- are available
and due to some other pressing court matters, the State Attorney and
Public Defender we've requested that they be heard first so that they
can attend to their other court-related matters.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I'm sure we can accommodate that.
It'll be our pleasure. Is there any public speakers, Mr. Olliff?.
MR. OLLIFF: There are none registered, Mr. Chairman, and the
only other thing I wanted to get on the record today was just to make
sure that you as a board had received the comments that
Commissioner Fiala provided as a result of her budget committee,
and I'll tell you that there were a couple of unanswered questions yet
on some of the ad valorem General Fund items, and we'll make sure
that as we go through your ad valorem budgets tomorrow that we
answer those as we go through the reviews of those particular
departments. Other than that, Mr. Chairman, I don't have any public
speakers for you, and unless there's any other business for the board
COMMISSIONER HENN1NG: Well, now's a good time to
grab everything we can out of Commissioner Fiala's district while
she's not here to --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: And with that closing note, we stand
adjourned.
Page 90
June 21,2001
There being no further business for the good of the County, the
meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 12:20 p.m.
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
BOARD OF ZON1NG APPEALS/EX OFFICIO
GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL
DISTRIC~.~~S_ CONTROL.
JAMES D. CARTER, Ph.D., CHAIRMAN
ATTEST:
· i'(?,,,,, .. ThE~;e m~nutes approved by the Board on
as presented c~ or as corrected
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT
REPORTING, INC., BY CAROLYN J. FORD, COURT
REPORTER
Page 91