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BCC Minutes 06/21/2002 B (Budget Workshop) June 21, 2002 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE COLLIER COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BUDGET WORKSHOP Naples, Florida, June 21, 2002 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners, in and for the County of Collier, having conducted business therein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m., at County Commission Meeting Room, 3301 Tamiami Trail East, Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: JIM COLETTA DONNA FIALA FRED COYLE TOM HENNING JAMES D. CARTER ALSO PRESENT: DAVID WEIGEL, County Attorney THOMAS OLLIFF, County Manager MIKE SMYKOWSKI, Budget Director, Office of Management BLEU WALLACE, Director, Utility & Franchise Regulation JOE SCHMITT, Administrator, Community Development Page 1 . - i June 21, 2002 JOHN DUNNUCK, Administrator, Public Services Division DR. JOAN COLFER, Director, Health Director JOANNE LEAMER, Administrator, Administrative Services Division JEAN MERRITT, Director, Office of Public Information NORMAN FEDER, Administrator, Transportation Division ED KANT , Director, Transportation Operations Page 2 COLLIER COUNTY GOVERNMENT BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS , FY 2003 BUDGET WORKSHOP SCHEDULE Thursday, June 20, 2002 - 9:00 8.m. General Overview Debt Service Funds (200's) Trust Funds (600's) Special Revenue Funds (lOO's) Enterprise Operations! Capital Funds (400's) Internal Service Funds (500's) Gas TaxlImpact Fees Capital Funds (300's) Friday, June 21, 2002 . 9:00 a.m. Ad Valorem Tax Implications MSTD General Fund (111) General Fund (001) Overview General Fund Operating Divisions: BCC County Attorney Management Offices Emergency Services Public Services Community DevelopmentlEnvironmental Services Transportation Administrative Services Monday, June 24, 2002 - 9:00 a.m. (Lunch 12:30 - 2:00) General Fund Budget Review (Continued) State Attorney Public Defender Courts & Related Agencies Airport Authority Operations Review of General FundlMSTD General Fund (Ad Valorem Tax) Supported Capital Projects Constitutional Officers: Property Appraiser Supervisor of Elections Clerk of Courts Sheriff's Office Tuesday, June 25, 2002 - Immediately following Bee meeting Wrap-up (if required) June 21, 2002 CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Welcome back to the second of four budget meetings. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Haven't we been here every day this week? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Three. Well, maybe four, Commissioner Henning, if we drag it out. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Let's not do that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: It's up to you. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: No, no. It's up to all five of us. Mr. Olliff? MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, good morning. Just to get started, and I was hopeful that I would share these for Commissioner Coyle's benefit as much as anybody. So I hope he's listening in the back. In terms of format, the reason the budget is structured the way it is is so the Board can focus in on specific fund types. Obviously, there is more interest and concern about General Fund and Fund 111, the unincorporated general fund, than in some of the other enterprise funds and then some of the other special revenue-type funds. Have you ever eaten a crab? A blue crab? COMMISSIONER FIALA: No. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Yeah. MR. OLLIFF: It takes forever. It takes forever-- COMMISSIONER CARTER: Yes. Sir. MR. OLLIFF: -- picking away and trying to find the meat inside the crab. The way we used to do a budget was like eating a blue crab, where you had a sit there and pick to find where were the general fund pieces throughout the three or four days of the budget workshops. And what your budget staff has done for you have is gone through ahead of time and picked out all the meat for you so that, today, what you will review is nothing but the ad valorem tax-related Page 3 June 21, 2002 funds. So everything that you look at today will be property tax supported in one way or another. So that sets why we structure the budget the way we do so that you can know where your focus is going to be. So today is a General Fund and a 111 day. And with that, Mike, I'll let you get it started. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Good morning. For the record, Michael Smykowski, Budget Director. We're going to start with just some basic summary information. It's on page A, just behind your schedule for the day. It's light blue sheet. Actually, the backside of that shows the overall growth in Collier County taxable value. The Current Year Gross Taxable Value is up to $39.3 billion. That is an increase of 17.6 percent. Of that Net New Taxable Value associated with new construction, either additions to existing properties or new properties coming on the tax role was approximately $1.9 billion or 5.6 percent of that 17.6 percent increase. The balance of the increase, 11.9, is from existing property. And the unincorporated area of taxable value actually mirrors that fairly closely. Overall, there was an increase of 1 7.7 percent. The new construction percentage was 7.9 and existing properties 9.8. Obviously, in the unincorporated area of the county where the bulk of the remaining land is and where the primary growth is, especially if you look out in the Golden Gate Estates and such, you would expect the new construction to be higher than the unincorporated area than in the incorporated areas. On page C, we see the impact of the proposed millage rates for the tax supported funds that we'll be reviewing today. The FY 03 proposed general fund millage rate, where we stand currently is 3.9175 mills. That's equivalent on $100,000 of taxable value to $391.75. That compares to the FY 02 adopted level of 3.8772 mills. As reported in the newspaper, if that were the mileage rate to be Page 4 June 21, 2002 adopted, it would be an increase four dollars -- equivalent to $4.03 per $100,000 of taxable value. In terms of the unincorporated area, the proposed mileage rate is .8069, which equates to $80.69 per $100,000 of taxable value. That is equal to the millage rate that was adopted in the current budget year. So there is no net dollar impact. Weare millage neutral in the unincorporated area general fund, inclusive of the expanded services that are proposed and recommended by the county manager in the upcoming year budget. And with that, I'd like you to please turn to the MSTD General tab, which is the unincorporated area general fund. That's a bright green sheet of paper. On pages B-2 and B-3 is a summary. B 2 provides a fund summary of the total appropriations in the unincorporated area general fund. And page B-3 shows the corresponding revenues for the unincorporated general fund. And just by way of introduction and for the benefit of those who might be viewing at home, the unincorporated are general fund is in place to provide municipal services within the unincorporated areas of Collier County. As there is not a city government to provide those municipal-type services, Collier County becomes de facto, the principal service provider in the unincorporated area of the county. Now, this millage rate is paid by those in the unincorporated areas of the county. And on population base, that encompasses most people, but it's important to recognize, this excludes the City of Naples, the City of Marco Island and Everglades City, because they are paying for municipal services through their respective general funds levied by the municipalities themselves. And to avoid -- Obviously, there's dual taxation considerations as well so that if -- for example, code enforcement. Collier County provides code enforcement in the unincorporated area but not within the incorporated municipalities. That service is provided by the Page 5 June 21, 2002 respective cities within their municipal boundary. So this, again, is just for the incorporated area of the county. Overall-- Let me look on page B-3. At millage neutral, the ad valorem taxes, the increase is 17-1/2 percent in total based on the increase in taxable value. There are a few other principal revenue sources that I need to highlight for you. Cable franchise fees are an important component of the unincorporated area general fund budget. It's the fourth line down. You will also note, there's a large budgeted increase within cable franchise fees, and that probably requires some explanation on my part. The adopted FY 02 budget reflected $1,643,000 in cable franchise revenues, and that was a State Department of Revenue estimate under the Tax Simplification Act that was adopted in the past year. That was the Department of Revenue's best estimate. So we relied on that for adopted budget. You see in the forecast, there is $2.9 million projected revenue. I've worked with Mr. Wallace. There is $500,000 from the last quarter under the old. Prior to the implementation of the Tax Simplification Act, that revenue was received this year. So that was $500,000. In addition, we've been averaging two -- approximately $200,000 per month in cable franchise revenue. So on an annualized basis, that would be $2.4 million plus that onetime revenue from the last quarter under the old tax structure. So that half million plus the 2.4 is how you arrive at the 2.9. As a result of half million dollars being a onetime revenue source, you will note that what is budgeted in current service is actually a decrease from that level. What we've budgeted is the $200,000 per month or $2.4 million plus an estimated 3 percent growth, which is fairly conservative. So that is how that figure was arrived at for purposes of our budget today. Page 6 June 21, 2002 And then also, obviously, in the big picture provided you, about $800,000 in new revenue from the FY 02 adopted level to the FY 03 level, in addition, you picked up $1.3 million in the forecast, approximately, from the adopted level as well. You also have some transfers from some of the other operating funds. You'll note under "other sources," transfer from general fund. That represents 20 percent of the comprehensive planning budget. The growth management staff is actually budgeted within comprehensive planning in fund 111, the unincorporated area. However, the growth management activities that they perform are really of a county-wide benefit. As such, a portion of the comprehensive planning budget is actually funded by the unincorporated ed area general fund. So those are kind of the highlights in terms of the revenue picture for the unincorporated area general fund. And if there are no questions, we'll move immediately, on page B-2, to the respective operating departments. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: One question, if I may. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: It's just a small one. Over here in the expense summary, the green sheet -- MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: -- the fourth item down, Cable TV. Exactly what is our expense there in the Cable TV? Is this the monitor? The process? MS. SMYKOWSKI: Yes. We have one employee who administers the cable franchise agreements. He's works under Mr. Wallace in the franchise administration. And there are some minor contracted services, obviously, in terms of negotiating cable franchise agreements as part of the administration of that office. So it's relatively small. Page 7 June 21, 2002 CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you very much. MR. SMYKOWSKI: The first department that we'll talk about is Roadway and Landscape Maintenance. And by way of history, previously, roadway maintenance and roadway resurfacing had been funded by four roadway MSTDs. Obviously, the road network itself is of a larger magnitude, and rather than benefitting a rather narrow segment of the population, we collapsed those four MSTU s into the unincorporated area and are now charging for that service across the entire unincorporated area population. And that was a Board policy decision, I believe, two years ago. Within the context of this budget, you have a couple principal things: roadway resurfacing and landscaping and median beautification projects. So it gives you an overall perspective as to what we're spending on that. There are also approximately $1.7 million in expanded services, and those can be found on page B-4. There's a summary. That $1,685,900 subtotal in the expanded column on B-2 ties out to the list that you see under Transportation Services on B-4. There's an itemized expanded service list totaling $1,685,900. The first of those is actually a million and a half dollars to fund increased roadway resurfacing that Mr. Olliff alluded to in his opening remarks, and we've also had a preliminary discussion, at least, in terms of the need for additional traffic counting stations within the unincorporated area of the county. Currently, I believe there were only two that are principally operational. And with that, I'll ask Mr. Feder to walk through the expanded surface list, and we'll try to address any questions the Board members may have. MR. FEDER: Mike, thank you. As Mike noted, the first one, a million and a half, is identified both for resurfacing for traffic count and also for the recapture capacity median modification. Page 8 June 21, 2002 COMMISSIONER HENNING: Your name, sir? MR. FEDER: Excuse me. For the record, Norman Feder, Transportation Administrator. For those three major activities, as you know, we've expanded and need to expand our permanent count station locations. We have already committed on Radio Road. We're in the process of working through issues on Radio, as swell as soon to come on Pine Ridge Road. We're looking at this as a source of funding to actually recapture that capacity in those facilities. And then the other major function, as is noted here, is continuing our commitment to resurface and keep the system up rather than lose the investment of what we have out there. The next item, $32,500: The roadway materials, cement and culvert pipe, two expanded crews, and allow that to continue. $22,000: Request for additional contracted mowing services, in order to restore a budget reduction from '02, estimated mowing costs. Request for additional contracted landscaping maintenance crews, again for a budget reduction in '02 and expanded demands for that service. $30,500 for a 3/4 truck extended body van, centralized automatic irrigation systems. And that's very important because we've had some difficulties and we want to make sure that we're conserving the water. And a request for a mounted aerial lift to perform quite a few maintenance tasks. And we can go in more detail for anything you want on that. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Ms. Vassey, would you please come up to the podium? MS. VASSEY: Janet Vassey for the record. On the issue of the 32,000, that has some materials in it for roadway and cement for new sidewalks and pathways and things like that and then pipes for the culverts. Page 9 June 21, 2002 This is actually associated with some funding in 001 to do this work. And in the 001 part that we haven't gotten to yet, we are recommending the drainage crew but we're not recommending the sidewalk work. And so that's where we're cutting that. We're recommending a reduction of $16,000 since these are the supplies that go with that group. I can get into why we're not recommending that crew, if you like, or we can have that discussion later. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Well, it all ties together, though, doesn't it? MS. VASSEY: Yeah. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I don't quite understand why we're not recommending to do this. MS. VASSEY: We can go into that. If you turn to page -- I think it's A-60 -- A-72. Okay. A-72 is showing you a quick response repair crew with equipment, and then it's the supplies that we're talking about over in the unincorporated fund, and it's five people and $217,000. On this, they already have a crew that does the sidewalk repairs. Plus, they have a contract that is also doing sidewalk. They've got a contract for $105,000 that does sidewalks and bike path repairs. And they're doing 14.5 miles this year in FY 02, and they're doing six miles more in FY 03. And so we felt that since they already have a contract, they're doing a lot of work, they already have a maintenance crew to do the sidewalks, that if they need a quick response maintenance crew, they could turn the one that they have into that, and that there's already sufficient money out there for the sidewalk repairs. And that was our analysis. MR. FEDER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. But what I will point out -- and I appreciate Janet's review of this budget. That issue is: Weare not keeping up with the demand for sidewalk repairs. We had Page 10 June 21, 2002 some liability issues previously. We at least focused to the most pressing needs, but we have more need than the sidewalk. The other purpose and the reason it's had quick response is we've got a growing number of demands. While we have our crews set up in districts in covering the maintenance operations, whenever we have a call and need to be responsive to the community, we have to then take that crew out of its scheduled maintenance cycle and try get it attending to an item. The idea was to have one crew that focused on responsiveness and their ability to go without having to reschedule an ongoing maintenance program, and we're trying to get a good schedule maintenance for the system but also it could help expand on our sidewalk where we find that we're pretty well far behind even though we have now, as pointed out, started a program a little more aggressively on the sidewalk issues. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Any questions? Commissioner Coyle and Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Just a statement. We made a decision late last year that road construction was going to be our first top priority. MR. FEDER: Correct. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Now, I'm being told that in order to do that, you're recommending a tax increase. I don't view expanded services as an essential responsibility when we have established roads as our top priority. So I, quite frankly, would prefer to see this money go into building roads and reducing the proposed tax increase. It's listed as a priority seven, and I think there are some other items here that are listed either, you know, further down the scale than that. But I just have a real problem trying to do expanded Page 11 June 21, 2002 services when we can't even get our roads constructed on schedule. And I would prefer to allocate our resources to doing that. MR. FEDER: We are meeting our construction schedule. We did not propose a tax increase. And we do need to still be responsive to the request that you received from the constituents and we received directly, and there's a lot of downtime for an ongoing maintenance. While we are focusing and are committing, consistent with the policy that you provided to us, the focus on capacity expansion, and we agree with that obviously, and we have been given that direction. We still need to maintain the system. We still need to respond when we have a clogged up canal, an item in an area that is beyond the ongoing maintenance schedule and have to respond sometimes when we have safety issues that develop and then have to take the crew out of its ongoing maintenance cycle. That's why we're asking for this. We know we're a bit behind in the sidewalk. That's why that was noted particularly here. But the definition was quick response, the ability to get out there and respond to these issues. If they are safety, they do come ahead of any of my capacity program. I must tell you that, first and foremost. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Two questions. This is a quick response repair crew. It says that it's to be used partly for the installation of sidewalks and bike paths. That's not maintenance. That's installation of sidewalks and bike paths. We already have one response crew -- or one quick response crew, don't we, that maintains these things? MR. FEDER: No, you have -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: You've got one crew. MR. FEDER: You have a crew that's working on sidewalk repairs. We have a number of issues where we had liability concerns relative to sidewalks, unevenness, cracking and the like. Page 12 June 21, 2002 COMMISSIONER COYLE: And one crew isn't sufficient to take care of those emergency issues? MR. FEDER: In catching up and being able to expand to that to address the other emergency issues, no. That's why we're adding sidewalks, to try and reinforce that effort and catch up. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I'll tell you one of my concerns is generated by the fact that we just tore up Airport Road to resurface it when, clearly, in my mind, and in the mind of most people who saw it, it didn't need to be resurfaced. Now, I understand that we've talked about that. And according to the manual, the manual says you were supposed to do it this year. Well, I don't think we make management decision on the basis of a manual. MR. FEDER: No, this one's on manual. We go life-cycle costing. And if you don't resurface it, which is just an overlay, you end up, if you allow the facilities to degrade, to go into major reconstruction as cracks develop, water gets down. You risk problems with your subbase. So you need a program. And, actually, our program is not as aggressive as your typical life-cycle situation. We're far from that. But where we have needs and heavily traveled facilities, we do need to make sure that we maintain them. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Oh, I'm not going to vote in favor of it. I think we've got some real priority issues. And it looks to me like we're trying to get everything done, and that we really are not focusing on our priorities. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Knowing that we had to settle for a couple of lawsuits on injuries because the sidewalks wasn't being maintained, I understand why you want to respond to this. Page 13 June 21, 2002 I guess the question that I have: This is a team that's going to just respond to the emergencies and the repairs of the sidewalks? MR. FEDER: Not just the sidewalks, any of the emergency situations as well or a responsiveness situation. As I said, obviously, our first priority is safety and always is. What we have right now is a situation where you have and where we're finding that a maintenance schedule where you address, rather than react, and try to get out there on the system. But we have an awful lot of cases where outside of that ongoing maintenance schedule, issues come up and you need to be able to respond to them, first and foremost, safety ones. Other ones, if they're not that critical, to wait until the maintenance cycle and schedule. But there's quite a few things that do happen, problems that arise, failures in a section of a roadway that we have to scramble to and the like. That puts us behind in an ongoing maintenance schedule, and that becomes a snowballing effect. We're trying to get out of that mode of operation, having the ability to be responsive and, particularly, to safety situations. And we can document a lot of those for you in detail if we have to. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I'm not quite finished yet. To understand these positions, are they going to be waiting for somebody to call for -- MR. FEDER: Not at all. They will be utilizing. That's why I mentioned the sidewalks. I said we're catching up on that program. That will be their first primary, but the amount of times that we have to pull crews out of their routine maintenance functions to go after these issues is why we brought this issue to you for the disruption that does. So we don't expect that they're waiting on anything. And I can assure you that they will be applied to very important purposes if it's not something that's come up. But if something comes up, they Page 14 June 21, 2002 are not undercutting the basic maintenance schedule and activity responsIveness. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Can this crew be used? Utilized for stormwater management, or do you have any -- MR. FEDER: Now, as far as requests we get during the rainy season, I assure you, they're going to be out there trying to address blockages along culverts and other issues. That's why I'm saying, they will be used there when this comes up while we're maintaining canals on an ongoing basis. We do get advised of where we have problematic situations, especially with heavy rain. So with the rainy season coming up, we would see it there. At other times of the year, we have other issues that we need to address. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you. MS. VASSEY: Okay. I'd like to bring your attention to-- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Janet, I'm sorry. I dont' mean to interrupt you -- MS. VASSEY: Oh, I'm sorry. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: -- but the commission is going to go down through this one item, first, and then we'll come back to you in a little bit, okay. If I may go next? COMMISSIONER CARTER: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I'll tell you, one of the most common complaints -- of course, to have 85 percent of the county in my domain -- is the lack of response to be able to take care of these emergencies that are out there. I've heard about them all the time, and I think it's part of the program that we're putting together. In order for this thing to keep flowing, we've got to have enough support out there. And if we take part of this away and say, okay, we're going to make you use the rest of these resources, the only thing I can tell you I can see is over-time, more lawsuits. We've had Page 15 June 21, 2002 enough lawsuits to finance this for 10 years in this past year, unforgivable, the cost of it, because we don't have the personnel out there to do it. And these lawsuits were settled in favor of the person that brought them up because of the fact that we had been negligent in taking care of this. We can take people and put them on over-time and maybe get it done if they want to work after six o'clock at night. We're not handling this. We've got to be able to get a grip on this situation. And I endorse this 100 percent. Commissioner Carter. COMMISSIONER CARTER: I loved your phraseology, Commissioner. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. COMMISSIONER CARTER: My kingdom is not nearly as big as yours. The last lawsuit this Board settled is in excess of $50,000 on a sidewalk incident. And I see it as an insurance policy. I see it as trying to play catchup. We have root systems that are breaking up sidewalks from the trees, that they're back in repairing and doing a much better job on it. You know, I don't want -- Who's looking to raise taxes? No one is, but I'm also smart enough to know that if I don't this, to me, it's like saying I won't have insurance on my car and go at risk. And I'm not willing to do that for $32,500. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. Commissioner Henning brought up many of the points that I was concerned with, the swales next to the sidewalks. Actually, both Commissioner Henning and Carter brought up the lawsuits. So I've had my questions answered. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning. Page 16 June 21, 2002 COMMISSIONER HENNING: I think in District 2, we have the oldest sidewalks within the system; isn't that right? COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, a lot of them are very old and there's constant repair. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: District 5, we're not burdened with sidewalks. We just don't have them, period, and we're happy to get the roads, though. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, if you get them, sir, see, we're just trying to make sure they get repaired. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Dirt paths are working fine, though, for the moment, you know, but roads would look great, a little pavement now and then. Gravel would even be fine. I'm sorry, Commissioner Coyle. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Just one final comment. I believe the county manager would probably like for us not to debate these issues on an individual basis and maybe just put them on a list if we've each got concerns and then deal with them at the end. Is that a more efficient way of dealing with it? MR. OLLIFF: It is to me. I think if there's a majority of the commission who wants to see at least the manager consider some of these expanded requests, we ought to create a list. And then at the end of the budget review process, you all can decide what to do with that list. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I think by the very nature that we're coming out now and expressing our feelings on it, we're growing the list or we're shortening the list. And at this point in time, I believe we've got three or four commissioners that want to see this remain on the budget. So why bring it back for consideration? I mean, the very fact we brought it up when we were expressing our opinions on that, I think we've done it. MR. OLLIFF: I agree. Page 1 7 June 21, 2002 COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. I respect the rule of the majority. But I'll you, the logic that putting more money into sidewalk repair is going to eliminate your liability for lawsuits. It just doesn't make sense. You're not going to stop your lawsuits by having this additional response team. You're not going to stop your lawsuits if you had 10 additional response teams. What you might do is catch one before it happens. But the chances are that your liabilities are going to remain the same even with the expenditure of this money. And I'd like to remind you that unless we begin to focus on committing money to the roads, it means more money out of the general fund, which means a tax increase. And I don't know how the rest of the commissioners are going to vote, but I'm not voting for a tax increase. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. Then let's put it to vote. And we're not voting for a tax increase as far as I'm concerned. I'd like to define this thing as adequate protection to be able to assure the road program to continue at the pace it's going at. And I move that we keep this as is on the budget. I make that motion at this time. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'll second that motion. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. We have a motion from Commissioner Coletta, a second from Commissioner Fiala. Any other discussion? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, one more. I'm so glad Janet brought this to our attention, because I think this is really important for us to even consider these things. And I agree with Commissioner Coyle. I think we all want to keep this millage neutral. Nobody wants it to go up. And we do want to find a couple million dollars tucked around in here that we can take, just as Janet has helped us to do, look at these things in a more comprehensive way to see what we Page 18 June 21, 2002 can moved from sidewalks, for instance, into roads. You know, what's reasonable to do. We all want to do that. We also want to make sure that we maintain the safety of our sidewalks as well as keeping these swales cleaned out as we come into raining season here. So just keep bringing them up, because there's so many that we adopted yesterday. I think we only swept one aside, and maybe this will be the own one today too. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: No, no, thank you so much. I mean, just the fact that we're having this discussion -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. It's helpful. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: -- we're also making sure the direction is going to be there that we're looking for and I was hoping not misunderstanding the direction. Commissioner Coyle. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Just a question. I respect the Board's majority opinion on this but -- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: We haven't yet. COMMISSIONER COYLE: The contract for the $105,000 in services, if you get this additional response team, are you still going to continued to spend $150,000 on contract services? MR. FEDER: The contract services that you mentioned was to develop a set of inventory to get into performance measurement, something that we haven't had. And what we are trying with the contract services is to develop that inventory system to go into our SAP program and to go beyond that, to actually be able to manipulate the data in the sense of developing performance measures in response to better allocate the resources. COMMISSIONER COYLE: An inventory system for what? MR. FEDER: Signs, pavement conditions. We have no management systems, per se, automated management systems in our maintenance program today. We don't know how long signs have Page 19 June 21, 2002 been out there. They lose reflectivity over time, whether they be a stop sign or even just informational. Our pavement condition, the issue that you raised in more detail, rather than general life cycle, do more analysis of actual condition and function in grading of the roadways on an annual basis; all of our striping on the roadway, upkeep of that. We need some management systems that help us best alloate our resources and make sure that we maintain the system. This is what that contract services is for. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. I just think it can be done fairly easily by driving down a street one day and you just look at the signs and see what signs need to be replaced, but nevertheless, we can proceed. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: That's not the -- Oka. Well, any case, is there any other comments? All those in favor -- MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, this is a workshop, and you don't need to take formal votes. I think what you really need to do is just go down the row and see, yes or no, are we putting this on the list or not, and then you can just start it -- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. Then that's just the opposite of the motion, and there's no motion. Therefore, I withdraw the motion. You withdraw your second. What we're looking for is -- MR. OLLIFF: Just a yes or no. Are we putting it on the list for consideration at the end? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: For consideration again at the end, do we want to discuss it? I know we spent about 15 minutes or 20 minutes on it now. COMMISSIONER CARTER: I have no interest in discussing further, sir. Page 20 June 21, 2002 COMMISSIONER FIALA: Nor do I. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Nor do I. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Not me. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Maybe. MR. OLLIFF: Okay. So that item is not on the list. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. MR. OLLIFF: We'll keep moving. Mr. Smykowski? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You may as well just stay right there too. MS. VASSEY: There was another item on our list, in fact, on page B-4. Before I go into that, I would like to say that the productivity committee looks at our recommendations as giving you another alternative. And we fully appreciate that it is your decision, and we have -- you know we're satisfied with your decision. So do not feel like if you don't take our recommendations, our feelings are hurt, because they're not. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Go take your marbles and go home, huh? MS. VASSEY: Right. No, we give you our view and then you make your decision. COMMISSIONER FIALA: You know, may I just jump in here for a moment? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Of course you can. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thanks. I met with Janet Vassey and then I met with my own budget committee. And as I was pouring through this budget, one of the things that I noticed was that there were some inconsistencies. As Janet and I were meeting and we were looking through all of these things, I noticed that there were, like, performance measures. Some departments offered them. Some did not. Page 21 June 21, 2002 I would like to see that every department had a uniform presentation so that we could compare apples to apples, and I would like to see us incorporate that for next year's budge and the second thing, you know, talking about how many vacancies they had and so forth. Another thing that the productivity committee did and the reason it took them so long to do this is they hauled out all of the budgets from the past years and they were able to compare what last year was and the year before, and they were able to -- and they did that. They analyzed everything. I would like to see maybe a comparative year-to-year table so that we can see -- you know, like for three years, for instance. You know, what did we do three years ago? What are we doing now? MR. OLLIFF: There is in every operating department in the book, ma'ma. If you'll look, for example, on page B-9, for every cost center, you will find the fiscal year '01, actual expense and revenues, the adopted budget for '02, the forecast for '02, which is our expectation for this year. So you've actually got all the way back to two years ago, budget-wise, for every cost center in here. And for every operating department, they do provide performance measures. Every single operating department has a performance measure system in here. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Actually, I found some that didn't, but anyway. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: If it's an operating department that actually produces any work -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, I see. Okay. MR. OLLIFF: -- you're going to have performance measures. MR. SMYKOWSKI: The division of administration obviously that's providing general administrative oversight, there's not Page 22 June 21, 2002 necessarily performance measures there. But in an operating department certainly like transportation there is. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, I'll write out some of my concerns. Then I'll submit them later on. MR. OLLIFF: Absolutely. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And I won't belabor this, okay. MR. OLLIFF: Absolutely. We're always happy to try and make some improvements to this process. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. And those will help us to do a better job. That's what I'm looking for. MR. OLLIFF: I think the next productivity committee recommendation is regarding the mounted aerial lift? MS. VASSEY: Yes, on page B-4. And, basically, that's the purchase of the mounted aerial lift. And, currently, it's being rented 15 days a year for a total cost of $6,000. And they were projecting that they were going to be going up to 30 rentals a year, doubled the workload, and that was the reason that they were going to be buying it, and we weren't real sure that the workload would be jumping to 30. We thought, maybe take another look, rent it for another year and see if it really is jumping to the 30 or not. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is that a -- MR. KANT: For the record -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Sorry. MR. KANT: I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Go ahead. MR. KANT: Edward Kant, for the record, Transportation Operations Director. One of the problems we have with the current operational mode of that lift is that we can't always get it when we want it, and we sometimes have to go several places to find one that that'll get where we need to go. That pretty much kills the day sometimes, just getting it and then returning it. Page 23 June 21, 2002 The other issue is that if you look around, you'll notice that we've been adding an awful lot more trees in the landscaping. Some of the older landscaping is starting to grow up, and it gets -- the necessity for pruning is just -- it's increasing. Our estimate of time is for the actual workdays. As I say, sometimes we have to go out and get it. And if we can't get one until late in the day, we can't use it till the next day. So we think that from an operational efficiency point of view as well as the fact that we're going to increase the actual usage of the equipment, it just makes sense to have our own. It's one of those things that as we grow and as we add stuff to the system, we need to have the right tools to do it. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Mr. Kant-- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Um-- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to jump in front of you, Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: How many bucket trucks do we have? MR. KANT: I'm sorry, Commissioner? COMMISSIONER HENNING: How many bucket trucks do we have? MR. KANT: Right now, we have two bucket trucks. They're in traffic operations. Actually, we have a single bucket truck for traffic operations. We have a lift-truck, I beg your pardon. One has a platform lift and one is a bucket truck. Those are in traffic operations. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I don't know what a platform -- MR. KANT: That's where the platform goes up vertically and has a little bit of side-to-side movement; whereas, the bucket truck, you pretty much get about a 270-degree reach as well as -- Page 24 June 21, 2002 COMMISSIONER HENNING: And the bucket truck, how many hours of operation is the bucket truck in use? MR. KANT: The bucket truck is in use every day, sir, and that's used by our traffic operations people. That takes -- Again, that's a different type of a piece of equipment. We use that for signals and overhead signs. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And you can't use it for tree trimming? MR. KANT: I guess if it were freed up, we could. The problem is that if we're trying to use that for tree trimming and I get a traffic signal that I need to service now, I've got to have that bucket truck. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I just find it difficult to believe that we're using the bucket truck, you know, eight hours a day. MR. KANT: I'm not representing to you, sir, that we're using it eight hours a day, five days a week. We probably are using it at about 60 to 70 percent of its available time. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. MR. KANT: The other times, it's there if we do need it. Then again, there's the issue of training. First of all, we can't have anybody driving that truck who does not have a Class A commercial license with the air brakes. I mean, this is not just a truck that's got a little thing mounted on the back of it. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I've seen it. MR. KANT: This is a very specialized piece of equipment. We also have to take a minimum of a day's training in the hydraulics just to get that bucket up in the air. I mean, it's just -- It's a nice idea. I agree with you on that score. It's just it's not the appropriate piece of equipment. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I understand now. MR. KANT: Okay. Page 25 June 21, 2002 CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. Sir, a couple of questions on that bucket truck and the operation. Of course, we have done somewheres along the line some sort of study to find out what it would be if we contracted that type of work out on the media. We're talking about the maintenance of trees in the median? MR. KANT: We do, sir. We contract about well over $1 million a year, probably closer to $2 million a year in contract work for the various MTSUs and for some of the county work because we just can't cover it with our crews. And again, most of these folks that -- Well, all the contractors who usually have their own equipment, they have their own lifts. And the cost, if we had the -- Frankly, if we had the people, we would do it a lot less expensively, but we just don't have the people. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. And I'm not through yet. MS. VASSEY: Sorry. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: The other question was: Can you rent this truck -- MR. KANT: Yes. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: -- someplace to be able to fill in the backlog when you get to that point where you can't handle it, or would it be totally cost effective? MR. KANT: We are currently renting the lift for pruning. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You are renting it and it's not cost effective is what you're saying. MR. KANT: What we're saying is that we feel that based on the increase in the workload and the logistics that we have to go through sometimes just to get it, it would make more sense for us to own our own. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. We'll go to Commissioner Fiala and then Commissioner Carter. Page 26 June 21, 2002 COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. My concern would be if we bought the truck, then we would also need to hire a crew to be using that truck. MR. KANT: No, ma'am. We use our current crew right now. This is not a self- contained unit. This is a tow-behind type of a lift. You've probably seen them. Painters use them. Sometimes some of the electrical contractors use them when they have to get up. Roofers use them occasionally. It's just a utility type of a lift that just gets you up in the air so you can do your work. It's not a self-contained. It's got enough power that you could move it around on the site, but you wouldn't want to drive that down a road. You couldn't drive that down the road. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Carter. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Mr. Feder, is it possible that you could take that 43,900, incorporate it into your million five and drop that off your list? MR. FEDER: Yes, we will look at that. I think if that's the request of the Board, we'll look at, as Commissioner Henning said, whether or not we have the operation vehicle at our disposal. We'll continue to look at our other options; and if not, then utilize out of the million five. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I think this is one we want to put on the short list, if I'm not mistaken. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Huh? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Put it on the list for discussion at the end. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, I don't know if that's necessary if Mr. Feder believes he can accomplish that. That mod is only a question -- MR. FEDER: I think based on your question, I'd be prepared to say that we could strike this and, in fact, take it up at a later time. Page 27 June 21, 2002 CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. Does that sound agreeable? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Great. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Fine. Thank you. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thanks for your service. We're all done; right? MR. SMYKOWSKI: With road and landscape, yes, sir. On B-2, the next item on the list is fire control and forestry. It's $12,400. That's an annual contract based on acreage within Collier County. That is statutorily required. There is no budget increase there. It's again a three cents per acre charge. COMMISSIONER COYLE: What page are you on? MR. SMYKOWSKI: B-2, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: B-2. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Item number 2, Commissioner. MR. SMYKOWSKI: The second one down the list under "Appropriations" is fire control and forestry. And that is based on a contractual arrangement with the Department of Foresty and is statutorily required at 3 cents per acre with no budget increase. MR. OLLIFF: Keep going, Mike. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Parks and Recreation, Immokalee. That covers, obviously, recreational programming of facilities in the Immokalee area, inclusive of the Immokalee pool. And the Parks and Rec staff is here. The expanded service requests are identified on page B-4. You will also note, there is a current service budget decrease from the adopted approximately $2.3 million level down to just shy of $2 million. And I'm sure they will be happy to identify the steps they took to get to that level and the associated revenue proposals they have incorporated into this year's budget as well. Page 28 June 21, 2002 CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Let me see if we can help this along. Is there any questions on this? Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yes. Why is the -- We don't have a millage decrease on this. It's just the request is down. MR. OLLIFF: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes, within this respective department. But, overall, within the fund, the millage is equivalent to that adopted in the current year. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: A question, Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: No. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I think we're fine on this. A wonderful presentation. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Cable franchise. We'll just click them off right down the list. Cable TV. Again, there's a decrease there of23.5 percent from the $202,000 adopted level down to $154,900. Commissioner Coletta, you had asked some questions in the opening. Again, this is the one individual who is responsible for administering our cable franchise agreements in Collier County who works under Bleu Wallace. And there are no expanded services requested. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: All right. I just wanted -- I understand that we recouped quite a bit of money back from the cable franchise -- or the cable people because of the dual diligence on the part of your department and as far as the collecting back fees, and I want to compliment you on that. That's a very positive thing. MR. WALLACE: Thank you, sir. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Any questions of Mr. Wallace? Thank you, Mr. Wallace. Page 29 June 21, 2002 MR. SMYKOWSKI: The next item is community development administration. That is down 11 percent. That's Mr. Schmitt's operation. That's just a two-person operation, the centralized community development administration; one clerical support person and Mr. Schmitt. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I've got one question. And that's down 11 percent. That's encouraging. But we didn't do any switching where we moved something to another department to get down 11 percent, did we? MR. SMYKOWSKI: In this case, only allocated insurance, we're showing under the other general administration. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: How much is that? MR. SMYKOWSKI: In Mr. Schmitt's budget, the reallocation was about $30,000. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: And if that was added back in, how much would that 11 percent going down change. MR. SMYKOWSKI: It would be up just a hair. It would be about -- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Not anything significant? MR. SMYKOWSKI: No. It would be 231,5 compared to 226. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. Thank you. No other questions. MR. SCHMITT: Mr. Chairman, I would just like to point so that you would know that 75 percent of that cost is carried by the development fees and only 25 percent of the cost in that cost area is general fund. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Are there any questions of Mr. Schmitt? No. Thank you very much. MR. SMYKOWSKI: The next item is public information. This is a switch from previous years. Previously, the public information Page 30 June 21, 2002 department had been funded in the general fund with a transfer from cable franchise fees to the general fund. Given that the activity of this department is so highly correlated with either the cable programming and the like, the decision was made rather than show it in the general fund with an offsetting transfer, it would be simpler just to budget this operation directly in the unincorporated area general fund. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I'm kind of curious why we're taking it out of the unincorporated general fund when the whole community at large benefits from this. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Well, you were paying for this primarily with -- When it was in the general fund, a bulk of it was already being funded with a transfer from cable franchise fees. The bulk of this operation is your whole cable franchise; the television programming, this workshop that's being advertised on TV. The staff that's associated that is really -- MR. OLLIFF: In essence, you pay for this department with the money that you generate from the cable franchises. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. I understand. Thank you. Questions? MR. SMYKOWSKI: There are expanded services. And Ms. Merritt and Ms. Leamer are here. They are identified on page B-5. And I'll let this staff walk through those one by one. MS. MERRITT: Thank you very much. Jean Merritt. The first request is for $8,400 to maintain the equipment in the control room. Cleaning: We've had a difficult time trying to find anyone that could do that outside of Tampa. We have now found somebody who can do that. These decks -- and we have some 20 pieces of equipment in there. These decks range from 4,000 to $9,000 apiece, and they do Page 31 June 21, 2002 have a limited shelf life. However, with maintenance and cleaning, you can expand that shelf life greatly. They're already four years old, and we have had to replace two decks presently, but we do know that if we can have expert maintenance and cleaning on a regular basis, that these decks will last two to three years longer. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Net profit gain would be-- MS. MERRITT: Well, the equipment that we have in the control room is expensive. And if we have to replace it, it will cost a great deal more than -- It'll all have to be replaced sooner or later. But the shelf life can be greatly increased if we have this maintenance. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Oh, no, I understand. I'm just trying in my mind to get a time frame of what the dollars and cents are, where the break-evens are, if it's at all possible. MS. LEAMER: Sure. Jo Anne Leamer. Good morning, Commissioners. This cost breaks out to be about $400 per deck, the $8,400 request. Ifwe are looking at about a $9,000 cost to replace a deck, and a useful life of four years, you know, we're approximately looking at a $2,000 cost on an annual basis. So you would be avoiding that cost with a $400 maintenance expense. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. MS. MERRITT: The second expanded request of for a portable sound system. We have a -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: It makes sense to me. MS. MERRITT: Pardon me? COMMISSIONER HENNING: It makes sense to me. Why don't we move on to the next item. MS. MERRITT: Thank you. The next one is for an ombudsman's position to implement what we hope to be a very Page 32 June 21, 2002 successful citizens' program called Collier Leads and to be able to respond to citizen inquires. As a matter of fact, we think an ombudsman can be a citizen advocate, can help a citizen get through the maze of government that sometimes they encounter, and that this position would be part of the overall strategies described to you by the Assistant Manager, Leo Ochs, yesterday. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: We have some questions from Janet on this one, I believe. We'll go ahead and take the comments from the productivity committee and then come back for consideration on this. MS. VASSEY: On this one, we felt that this position was originally justified for education and training seminars for the public. And if you'll go to page B-16, we looked down the list of what else is going on in that office, and there are already two people and $215,000 that are doing -- I'm sorry -- that are producing original programming, PSAs, special events, documentaries, that kind of thing. And so we were looking at that position as being an add-on to the kind of things that are already being done through the televised training and education that goes on. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. MS. MERRITT: Well, in response to that, I will say that the department is taking a multimedia approach. And while our television efforts are extremely important, we also believe that we need to reach the public in other ways as well. And we also -- This position as ombudsman would also have some training responsibilities that would reach out through the whole agency on dealing with the media, how to deal with the press, et cetera and so forth. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Would this cover such items as-- Right now I'm working on a project in the rural area to take roads that are nonconforming roads, that are private roads, and bring them into Page 33 June 21, 2002 the county polls through MSTUs. It's a pretty lengthy process. Would this be something that might incorporate something like that, to be able to take the people's concerns and be able to report back to them? I'm trying to get a feel for what this program can and can't do. MS. MERRITT: Certainly. As I mentioned before, I feel like the citizens need a place where they can go to a person who can help them get through the maze and understand some of the problems. And certainly the situation you described could be a catalyst for that kind of thing. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: So we're dealing when we were talking about an ombudsman, this was what we were talking about as being in your department, or is there something else? This overlaps on everything from code enforcement right on through? MS. MERRITT: Yes. MR. OLLIFF: This is a citizen's point of contact. It's one of the things that I think Sally Barker has mentioned on several occasions before where, from the general public perspective, they don't understand the way county government is structured nor should we expect them to. They ought to be able to have a place that they can come to to get answers and information, whether it be about a new project that's going done built in their neighborhood someplace or how to start an MSTU, and an ombudsman is for that position in that restructured PIO function that Leo laid out for you yesterday. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Tom, how is this going to work with all of the other public information people we see scattered out through the budget for the major departments? MR. OLLIFF: If you'll remember how that organizational chart was structured, it's, again, a matrix organization, what we were calling the customer information and communications department, Page 34 June 21, 2002 will report directly to the county manager's office. There will be a number of positions in that, including this ombudsman position. So that ombudsman position is going to be close enough to the county manager's office and the Board's office to be able to be that public point of contact for all of those people who are coming in looking for those kinds of information. But then they are also going to be responsible for the staff that are in each of the divisions that are responsible for the public information that comes out of those divisions. But we hope it provides a coordination so that from -- There's a different perspective from your offices and from our offices than there is from directly at the solid waste level. And before things get issued to the public, there needs to be a scrubbing, if you will, to make sure that everything lines up in terms of the communications that we send out. We have also talked at Commissioner Carter 101 s about the image that the county presents, that we have a very scattered and nonuniformed image that we present to the community. And I think part of this function is going to be make sure that we have a standardized image for the entire county so that everybody knows, when they're coming to a county facility, what it is; when they pick up a county publication, it's a county publication; and that, hopefully, there's just a lot whole more coordination in terms of how we communicate with the public. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And I think that's very important. But of the some of the description that you said this person is going to do is the job and duty of the county commission office in my opinion. When somebody asks how to create an MSTU, that's where they need, in my opinion, to come to the county commISSIon. MR. OLLIFF: And as respectfully as I possibly can, I'd probably disagree with that, because I think they are coming to your Page 35 June 21, 2002 office strictly because they don't know where else to go in county government because they don't understand our structure. And I told our staff when we were talking about this structure, it's as ifWal-Mart were a campus and they put each of their different sections in a different building. And when I showed up on the Wal- Mart campus and I want to buy a sponge, I don't know what stinking building to go to. I don't know whether to go to the automotive building or whether to go to the home improvements building or whether to go to the kitchen supplies building. And so the customer doesn't care. They go to the Board of County Commissioners, as that's the easiest thing and that's the only thing they know. And if we can provide another point of access for them to be able to get their information, one, they get it quicker. They get it faster. And, hopefully, you know, you're not running up and down the chain of command trying to get the public information. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You hit the nail on the head. I'll tell you what, Commissioner Henning is probably right about them coming to the commission. But in my case, I've taken the commission to them. I'm the one instituting it, not them, but the process is so long. Once a month I get to meet with them. My time is just not there to go every week. But if we had this officer there that had the petitions ready, they had everything in place to be able to keep it moving forward, we could move this by light years, and the frustration won't be in there in the community. MR. OLLIFF: We are not trying to discourage the public at all from getting to the county commission, because we think for a number of things that's where they need to go, to their county commissioners, their elected representatives. But I'll bet if I look back over the course of the information that you're producing out of your office, the vast majority of it is strictly Page 36 June 21, 2002 little bits of information that could have been provided directly by the staff had the person known where to get it and where to go much quicker and easier. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I just need to understand the process, because I think the objective is sound. But if someone has a question about the repair of a sidewalk, they will first call this department, I presume. You just call the general number, and then they will be referred to, I guess, the public information official in the transportation division. MR. OLLIFF: We don't want to refer people. We want to get them the answers to the first person that answers the phone call for them. We want that to be the last person at the county they have to talk to to get their information. COMMISSIONER COYLE: So the people in the departments - - or divisions will actually be reporting to this department? MR. OLLIFF: Yes, sir. The same way we do -- Human Resources is structured the same way. We have human resources analysts at Road and Bridge that speak Spanish and deal with the people who do your road maintenance work and, yet, they report to and are evaluated by and are a part of the Human Resources Department. It is a way to provide direct service and yet be managed centrally, and it has worked. It's a model that's worked pretty well for us in three different occasions. We think it will work well for us here. COMMISSIONER COYLE: So we don't think that if someone calls one of the other departments, transportation as an example, and talks with that public information official there and that public information official is not going to answer that question, are they going to refer them back here? Page 37 June 21, 2002 MR. OLLIFF: No. They are going to answer that question directly. If the public knows enough to call the transportation department for their question, they will get their answer right there. If they don't know enough and they're going to call the public information ombudsman number, they're going to get their answer there. Wherever they plug into our organization, we want them to get their answer directly from that point. And one of the other things Jean knows, that SAP program offers what we call a customer relation management system which allows us to track every single piece of information that's coming into and going out of the organization. So if we know that that person contacted transportation, we will have a log of that, and then the entire organization knows that there was a question about a pothole out at 63rd Street, S.W., or something. That way if we start getting a number of these phone calls, we already know. It's in the system. There's already a crew assigned. Then we don't double up on the responses. And the response is already on the screen. So the person at PIO then, who gets the next call from the neighbor, can say, "We've already dispatched a crew, because it's on the screen and they have that information for them. So our hope is to be able to centralize this much, much better than we ever have before. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. I definitely feel that we need an ombudsman. I think we've needed to respond to the public rather than have an answering machine be there and then maybe not return phone calls. We have another request for another person here, as well, the public information specialist. And I would like to see, rather than have two positions, have one position that maybe hires Page 38 June 21, 2002 both. That way we can still save some money here in the budget and, yet, we can answer needs. I think the public information specialist is important and an excellent idea, but I'd like to see them incorporate them together if we can and then think about it maybe next year. Is that something that could be done? MS. LEAMER: The ombudsman position we envision as a full- time position dedicated 0 serving the public and educating the public as part of the customer relations initiative. We're looking at Collier Leads which would be a quarterly school for our citizens. In addition to managing that program and managing the citizen inquires and questions, that's a full-time job. Just to explain what the public information specialist would be doing, they would be managing the content of our website. Currently, every department is generating their own content, and there is no one scrubbing that content or reviewing it, editing it to make sure that it is consistent and sending out the right message for Collier County. This public information specialist would generate the content, gather the content from other departments, edit it, decide what needs to be laid out where, what the prime space is on our website. You come to our front page. That has to be managed. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And I think it's a good idea, I truly do, but we're tying to save some money. And this is the way I feel, just speaking from one person. I would like to incorporate just one position, not two. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Possibly I might be able to change your mind on that. I'm going to give you an example where this would all fit together. The crisis that we had over the rural fringe with that misinformation sent out that just overwhelmed our office to Page 39 June 21, 2002 the point that it took us almost three weeks to get the first response out. Besides doing all our normal duties and jobs, we had to do a tremendous amount of research to try to pull the whole thing together. People were losing their patience. There was hundreds and hundreds of phone calls that were coming in continuously . You sent 7,000 letters out with all sorts of misinformation. It takes a response team to go back at it. And we tried to handle it from our office, and we did a terrible job, just an absolutely terrible job. We did get the response out in time. We did get to everybody. We were able to put the truth in front of them, but there was everything being flooded at the same time. It was an organized effort on the part of the other faction out there, everything from e-mail to newspaper ads to mass mailings, faxes. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, I agree. And the same thing with the code enforcement, remember, with the parking? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Right. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I thoroughly agree. I would like to see us try and incorporate -- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Oh, I understand it. I'll be honest with you. I've been disappointed in the performance that we've been doing. And I mentioned it a couple of times in the past, and I think is probably one of the things that I mentioned that brought this thing forward. I do feel that we're not communicating with the public on the level that we should be. I really do. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, let me tell you, though, that Naples Daily News really does all of our public relations for us right through the editorial page. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You call that public relations? COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's the only stuff we've had, so I think it's a good idea that we do have our own, but anyway. Page 40 June 21, 2002 CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Carter. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Chairman. Ever since I've been a county commissioner, I have observed that we do not invest in the things that could communicate well to the public. And I don't blame the public, and I don't blame the media, because they come and get it by bits and pieces. We have not had uniformity. We have not had-- You know, the website, if I take that, it takes all your information, and just a couple of examples here, you immediately get up on a site. But websites today are disjointed in terms of what's the theme, how are you communicating. There is no central response system that says this is the way to do it. So we have probably a lot of website masters with each individual with their own concept of how to communicate to the public. And what we want, I believe, as a board, as a county, to say, no matter what website you go to, you know it's Collier County. Here's the theme. Here are the goals that we're after in community service. You're not confused. So that's one part of it, and it's not inexpensive to maintain website sites, but it's a fault saving, in my judgment if you don't build the theme. You will spend it indirectly putting out fires, the hidden costs that no one out there ever thinks about, but it costs you dearly. Secondly, the position, the centralized position, you can call it an ombudsman. I just call it a public information office which coordinates for all the divisions. And they have uniformity through the matrix that Leo presented to us yesterday. And if we make these two moves now, the returns can be enormous. The public better understands what's going on. They've got a source of information, whether they're a techy and they go to the website, or there's somebody that says who do I call? They call public information. If it's a transportation issue, this person still says we'll take care of it for you, and immediately can talk to his or her Page 41 June 21, 2002 counterpart in the transportation division, and the alert is out. It doesn't take away from what commissioners do in terms of contact with the public. But it does give you an opportunity for uniformity. The other thing is there are situations that happen where, you know, somebody could drill a hole through a water main somewhere. And what's the response? Does transportation respond to it? And pretty soon, does the commissioner respond? The commissioner may not even know it happened. They call and say, "What about the water main?" You say, "What water main?" You know, and then you look dumb. "You don't know?" "Well, no, I don't know." But if the public information office does it, they're on top of it, and they can fast fax to us and say, "This is what's happening." It's automatic response. Sometimes you call it damage control, but you do it, and then theres uniformity. It's not a perfect system but it would take us well into an era where we can really communicate to the public. And all the good things that happen and all the things -- if somebody goes wrong, we immediately say, "We have a problem here, and this is what we're doing. " And I'm an advocate of doing this, and I know these are two items that when you're -- You know, I'm looking for ways to save money, too, but I don't think this is the time or place. This would affect -- The return on investment here could be enormous. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I totally agree with everything Commissioner Carter said. I'll throw in another idea, still saying, keep the ombudsman, because I think we have to have that. What about the RSVP program. We have some really talented volunteers who just eat, breathe and live computers and web sites and stuff, and it would keep them busy. It would fill the gap until we Page 42 June 21, 2002 have more money. And they're right there located on the same floor with you. Maybe we could use something like that, just a suggestion. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle. Coil. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Once again, I believe the objective is sound. Let me tell you what my experience has been. With respect to the development of a website, in order to do it properly, one has to have some understanding, preferably a good understanding, of the operations of the organizations that they're serving. And this is a complex organization, a very large one. And I don't know many people other than, perhaps, the county manager who has -- maybe Tom -- Mr. Ochs probably does. He's been here long enough -- who understands everything that goes on in this organization. So what I'm concerned about, I think it's a good idea but I think we must be careful about how we do it. If you have the transportation department or the utilities department provide information to someone to construct the website, there's a lot of coordination that's going to have to take place there and a lot of feedback back and forth about what is important and how should this information be displayed. So you've got an, essentially, a technician who is working on a website talking with operational people, and lots of times they talk in different languages. So my concern here is how does this overlap with or interfere with the activities of the IT department at the present time? What are they doing in this respect and how will their functions be impacted or perhaps reduced? Is there a reduction of costs associated with this particular implementation? I'll tell you, I'm concerned that no matter -- And, Jean, this is not a reflection on you or your department, but you are not involved in the day-to-day operations of the government, really, from the standpoint of what happens within some of those departments. You Page 43 June 21, 2002 can report on them and you do a good job, but I'm wondering to what extent. We have the skills in that department to do what you're talking about. MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, I'm going to suggest to you that you let Barry Axelrod, your IT director, respond to that question. And, frankly, if we don't have enough strong support for this, we ought to put it on the list and move on. Barry? MR. AXELROD: For the record, Barry Axelrod, director of the IT Department. The paragon, the model that we're following here is that when you come to the web, you will hit the county's portal page, which I'm sure you're familiar with. We look at that as a publication like a magazine, and we need somebody to coordinate the content of that magazine for the county, which article -- MR. OLLIFF: Barry, I need you to pull that microphone right in front of you. MR. AXELROD: Excuse me. -- which articles should be posted at which time, which one should be pulled at which time county-wide for the priorities of the county. So that would be the job of this person, to coordinate the content on that portal page, and that would be conveyed to the IT Department to actually do the publication of the magazine, do the legwork to get the content posted at the appropriate time and pulled. From that portal page, you would make links to the various department websites where their specialists who currently control the content of those websites, which we'd continue to have those websites. So it's, basically, the cover page of the magazine that we're talking about here. When you come to the Collier County page, you want to see what's happening right now, what's happening this weekend in the parks, what the special programs are, what the issues are today, and Page 44 June 21, 2002 that would be coordinated by this position. You would click on those and go to the special pages where those experts would have the full content presented properly. MS. LEAMER: IT's role is a technical role. They're not involved in managing the content that's displayed. Unfortunately, they have been pulled into that role. So by having this person in place, the IT folks can get back to their specialty. They are not editors. They are not writers. They're not public relations specialists or understand marketing issues. They understand the technical aspects of getting a website up and linked and running. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I'd like to poll the commission to see if there's a sufficient interest to bring this back for discussion. I think we've done quite a bit now. Commissioner Carter? COMMISSIONER CARTER: I'm going to support it, and I'm just going to tag on a second with Commissioner Coyle's concerns. The only way this would work is you have to build relationships, and those are assets, and that means your technical people. And this person and the divisional people all have to work in this matrix as a team under the ultimate guidance of Leo Ochs, who is -- It's coming down on this basis. And that framework has to be established. And it has to be integrated. And one of the challenges facing that team is not to duplicate and look for ways to be cost-effective in the way they do this. So we allocate the funds up front if we do this. Then the challenge would be to make sure that this thing doesn't grow and not be productive and accomplish the goal. Because if it doesn't, then it will defeat the purpose for which it was created. Your example is great. You go to the portal. You open the book and you just start going through the magazine to figure out Page 45 June 21, 2002 where you want to go. And that's why I will support this, because I want it to happen. I will also have to find out somewhere else to save approximately $146,000 in order to make this a reality to get to millage neutral. Now, I don't know how I'm going to do that yet, but I want to keep this on the list, and I will support it. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You want to keep it on the list then. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'd like to keep the ombudsman on the list, and I would like to explore having a volunteer at least for the time being. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle? Do you want me to come back to you? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yes, please. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: I think it's a great way to get out information to the public here in Collier County, the residents. My concern is not meeting goals. So if we're not meeting the goal to get that information out, then we need to reconsider that. So keep a close eye on it. I'm in support of it, yes. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I'd support it, keeping it on the list. The short list for the end? COMMISSIONER HENNING: No. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. That's what I'm trying to find out. COMMISSIONER HENNING: The long list. COMMISSIONER CARTER: The long list, yeah. Well, I'm with Commissioner Henning. I'm on the long list for this. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: On the long list, not to bring it back. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Can I ask a question about that? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Please do. I'm trying to find out myself where we are on this. Page 46 June 21, 2002 COMMISSIONER COYLE: Ifwe keep putting these things or keeping them off the list and we get to the end and we find out we're faced with a tax increase, are we going to come back and reevaluate some of these things? COMMISSIONER CARTER: I promise you, Commissioner Coy Ie, I'm going to do that. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: It's always open for the process. COMMISSIONER COYLE: All right. Fair enough. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. So we have: to keep it off the short list for discussion, unless there's a reason to bring everything back. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: To put it on the short list for future discussion; right? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. Retain the ombudsman. You don't have to -- Put that on the long list, yeah. I'm just for the other position, but that's all right. I think you've got a three vote anyway. MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Let's move this item. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. MR. OLLIFF: You don't have three supporting votes to have this reconsidered. So we're going to leave this within the budget. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. Thank you. MS. MERRITT: Thank you. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Just to clarify too. In the unincorporated area, again, we are at millage neutral currently with the budget as proposed. It is the general fund that we'll talk about this afternoon that we're above millage neutral. This fund is currently mileage neutral with the budget submitted by the county manager, just so we're clear on that. Page 47 June 21, 2002 CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Janet? MS. VASSEY: We had one budget policy issue that we would like you to consider. If you will look at page B-16, as Mike told you earlier, this department used to be funded by a combination of general fund money 001 and unincorporated general fund. About 55 percent was general fund, 45 percent was unincorporated. And with the changes made in this budget, it's 100 percent funded by the unincorporated general fund. And if you look at these items coming down the list on page 16 and look at those items that are franchised related, which is the basis for the funding of 111 and those items that are not, that are actually county-wide kinds of things that have nothing to do with cable franchising, you can see that switchboard operations is a county-wide function that doesn't relate to franchise monies. The next two items are franchise related. Publishing, the public information, is not. It's a county-wide. The Channel 11 and 16 we consider to be franchise related, ergo, 111 funding. And publishing, public relations, we would consider to be county-wide. And if you take all of those things and stack them up side by side, you would get fund 111 paying 70 percent of these costs and fund 001, the general fund, paying 30 percent. And we felt like this was a more logical split of the funding. I do agree that the past 55 percent didn't perhaps recognize all the franchise- related activities, but I also didn't think that 100 percent is the right mix either. So our recommendation would be funding 70 percent out of 111 and 30 percent out of 001. MR. OLLIFF: Mike, correct me if I'm wrong. This is a location issue because we are doing a transfer in of cable franchise monies to pay for 100 percent of the expenses of this department. MR. SMYKOWSKI: In the proposed budget in FY '03, it's budgeted directly in fund 111, so it is supported fully unincorporated Page 48 June 21, 2002 area via cable franchise. In the past in general fund, there was a transfer but it was not 100 percent. MR. OLLIFF: What I'm saying is all of the expenses are supported by cable franchise fees as opposed to property taxes. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes. MS. LEAMER: And cable franchise fees are not restricted in their use. MR. OLLIFF: Right. MS. LEAMER: So we felt it was inappropriate. MR. OLLIFF: So we were trying to remove all of the expenses from any property tax in this department, and then it's completely funded this year by franchise fees. MS. VASSEY: And I would say that's sort of semantics issue. The franchise fee money comes into 111 and it's there for anything. How you decide what you should fund by 111 should be those functions that are in 111 and then those functions that are in 001. If the franchise fee money doesn't support the public information office, it can support anything else. So it's really a question of what are the functions that are being performed in this office. And there are, I think, 30 percent of the functions are a county-wide thing that do not relate to any kind of franchises. I mean, the fact that you have a switchboard answering calls for county-wide inquires is a county-wide function. Likewise, publishing the information on what the county does is a county-wide function, and county-wide functions should be paid for out of 00 1. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I think I asked the same question earli er . MS. VASSEY: That really was -- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Carter. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, I understand that but it goes to the general fund, which is a property tax and which we're Page 49 June 21, 2002 trying to avoid, and I understand the theory. But on the application, I'm going to have a little difficulty with that because I'm trying to keep it off of the property taxes. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: That's the objective, to keep it off the property taxes; right? COMMISSIONER CARTER: Right. MR. OLLIFF: Mike, the next department is the Immokalee housing initiative. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes, sir. That's showing a decrease of 17.9 percent, and there are no expanded services; page B-12- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Community development, I believe. B-5. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Actually, B-2 in the summary and B-18. COMMISSIONER FIALA: B what? COMMISSIONER CARTER: B-2 and B-18. COMMISSIONER COYLE: B-2 and B-18? COMMISSIONER HENNING: It's B-5 and B-2 that were the expanded pages. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Questions? MR. OLLIFF: If there's no questions on the Immokalee housing initiative, the next one would be graphics and tech. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Graphics and technical support; that is correct. There's two tenths of a percent increase in the budget. There is an expanded service for $10,200 to reinstate budget reductions. That's identified on page B-5. On this item, the productivity committee had also noted, there is a racial nexus analysis that is done to reflect the costs of programs that should be supported in some way, shape or form by the development community 113. And there is an adjustment that we can make for about $55,000 funding, additionally, from the community Page 50 June 21, 2002 development fund out of building permit fees rather than ad valorem taxes. And it's our recommendation to make that adjustment. MR. SCHMITT: Mike, that change has already been made? MR. SMYKOWSKI: It has not, and you may have made it -- MR. OLLIFF: In our budget it hasn't. MR. SMYKOWSKI: -- internally, but in the calculations here, they have not been made. MR. DUNNUCK: Internally, yes. MR. SCHMITT: Okay. MR. SMYKOWSKI: So we would recommend making that adjustment, and that would actually add $55,000 of revenue to your unincorporated area general fund and reduce your ad valorem burden by a like amount. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Questions? Next? MR. OLLIFF: The next section is comprehensive planning. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Comprehensive planning. There's an increase of 25.7 percent, and it relates to a couple of things. Those are identified on page B-5 at the very bottom. There are three expanded service requests. I'll turn that over to Mr. Litsinger and Mr. Schmitt. MR. Litsinger: Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Commissioners. Very briefly, I'll touch upon the expanded service requests that we have. We're requesting three additional positions of which approximately 50 percent would be funded by transfer from your community development fund 113 be supported due to the fact that the development industry contributes to the need for these positions. Weare asking for one position which will go into your new community planning and redevelopment section to support your redevelopment efforts in the Immokalee and also the Bayshore Page 51 June 21, 2002 triangle redevelopment efforts for design, planning, engineering -- excuse me, design and planning support. Also, there will be some cross-support to your redevelopment efforts that we're going to be undertaking in the East Naples area and also in the -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: It sounds great. MR. Litsinger: -- and also Naples Park. COMMISSIONER CARTER: I'm okay. MR. Litsinger: The other expanded service requests that we have are for the two positions with the subject matter that you're also familiar with. COMMISSIONER HENNING: That's a mandate. MR. Litsinger: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. We'll move on. Does everybody agree with that? MR. Litsinger: That's the end of my presentation. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Before we go on, let's take a short break for the reporter here. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Okay. (A short recess was taken.) Well move on everybody agree. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Before we start, Mr. Olliff-- MR. OLLIFF: And, Mr. Chairman, I'm going to make a request. I think that we've got about another hour to be graced with Commissioner Fiala's presence. So I think what I would request that we do -- because I know that there are a couple of budgets she specifically asked to be here for the review. Once we complete the fund 111, which I think we ought to be able to get to in fairly short order, when we get to the general fund budget, if we could jump to the social services and public health Page 52 June 21, 2002 budgets. I think she wanted to be present when we went through those. Ad if we could move those up earlier on your agenda, I think would be helpful for her. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: No problem. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Do you think anybody noticed I was going to a Kiwanis convention? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: No. Really? COMMISSIONER CARTER: I noticed. COMMISSIONER FIALA: How could you tell? Excuse me. I'm sorry, a little levity. MR. SMYKOWSKI: That's find. If that's the wish of the Board, we'd be happy to accommodate that request. MR. OLLIFF: Code enforcement. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Code enforcement. There's a summary of the expanded service request on page B-6. They total $449,000 -- excuse me, $705,200 in code enforcement and community development. Staff is here to walk you through those and address any questions you may have. B-6. MS. ARNOLD: I just want to start by saying, this is a budget neutral -- No, I'm just kidding. For the record, Michelle Arnold, Code Enforcement Director. I am requesting a total of 13.5 expanded positions. I have some information to kind of walk you all through to justify that expanded request. What we've done in the past years based on the population increase and information needs is we have incrementally increased our staff with the population growth that we've experienced through the years. And although the numbers have kind of stayed in line with that population growth, meaning the number of cases that we've addressed over the years, I don't think that the performance measures Page 53 June 21, 2002 really give you a true picture of what the department is going through. We have had tremendous growth in population, and the area that my staff is responsible for is a mass area within the -- a vast area in the county. We have 12 territories currently, and there's an investigator that's responsible for addressing all the cases that are called in those territories. And as I said, although the numbers have kind of stayed in line with the population growth, and this chart here reflects some of the numbers that we've seen, we've had 25,000, roughly, in fiscal year '95-'96 of cases that we addressed. And it went up 27,000, and we're estimating about 27,5 for this fiscal year. But it doesn't tell you that we've addressed -- we've had a lot more activity. For those 25,000 cases that we addressed in '95, there was a total of 46,000 visits or -- you know, before we resolved the particular violation, we had to be out there 46,000 times, and then the numbers have bumped dramatically. In the last two fiscal years, although we've addressed 27,000 and expect another 27,000 cases again this year, we're estimating that the visits have already doubled to 81,000 visits as we showed in 2001 fiscal year to another -- and expecting -- and again, 85,000 visits in this fiscal year. And I think that can be attributed to the types of cases that we have been addressing. Historically, we've had a great number of cases that were simple cases that were like the litter cases or the unlicensed vehicle. You go out there, you see it. It's resolved in two visits. But our cases are getting a little bit more complex. The more population we get out in the Estates area, for example, in the rural areas, they're more complex. We have to do a lot more research. There's a lot more monitoring that's required with those Page 54 June 21, 2002 cases. And as a result, we're spending a lot more time on cases and it's affecting our response time, quite frankly. Our goal has been to address complaints that come into our office within 48 hours from the initial complaint. That number is -- It's getting harder and harder for us to meet that goal. I've tried to address the shift in trends in terms of the types of cases that we've been seeing in the department by instituting shifts for my staff, flex scheduling for my staff. We have increased the number of sweeps that we've conducted out in the community. We used to do quarterly sweeps a few years ago. We're up to about 32, 35 sweeps. Currently, we're doing weekly sweeps in neighborhoods just to address some of the new codes that have been put in place. One, specifically, is the parking standards that you all have adopted. So we're putting a lot of demand on the staff, and it's taking its toll on my staff. And we have quite a bit of turnover. Right now I'm down five people. And I think that that's something that the commission needs to consider. We expend a lot of funds for training and retraining individuals, and that's not reflected in the budget. The fact that we have additional people -- or we're putting additional demands on the staff that's remaining is not reflected in the budget. So this is the reason why I'm requesting the evening staff. What I found is a lot of the cases that we are now being faced with are occurring outside of the normal business day. And so a bulk of the requests that is before you is for an evening crew, a supervisor that would supervise that evening crew. It also is a support staff that would support the work that is being taken in by that evening crew. And I think that this would definitely address the community's demands or the community's education. MR. OLLIFF: Take a breath, Michelle. Just one of the things that I try and point out is when there's an area of what I would call budget emphasis, I want to point that out to Page 55 June 21, 2002 the Board, and I will tell you that code enforcement is one of those areas where I think this budget is emphasizing a significant service improvement. I think it's one of the areas where I have heard from the vast majority of the commissioners that we need more in terms of presence on code enforcement, and I think this budget reflects that. We're trying to respond to where we see service needs and concerns, and this is one of those areas. We're happy to answer questions or walk through the specific expanded requests that are on page B-6, whichever is your -- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. Questions and comments, okay. Comments, first of all, and I can see why you need an expanded service. But in my particular district, we had a lot of noise complaints and a lot of illegal parking at night, except that you only work from nine to five or eight to five, so you couldn't come out -- or the same with the weekends. That's when the noise occurs, but nobody was working. And I'm glad to see that you want to fill those spots. My questions are: If you had 8,100 -- I don't have the figures back here, but if you had 8,100 calls last year and you estimate 8,500 calls this year and you're already down five people, and I can understand down five if they're all frustrated, but how did you make 8,100 calls? MS. ARNOLD: Those aren't calls. Those are actually visits that -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, visits. I'm sorry. MS. ARNOLD: That's 81,000. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, okay. MS. ARNOLD: That's based on the times that we went out for each case that we've had in fiscal year '00-'0 1. We actually Page 56 June 21, 2002 performed 81,000 visits based on the cases and that personnel that we had out there. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Now, I want to support this. Don't get me wrong. MS. ARNOLD: Uh-huh. COMMISSIONER FIALA: But I'm saying if you had 81,000 calls -- visits, I'm sorry; I keep saying calls -- 81,000 visits and you're down five people because they're frustrated with all of the tremendous overload and you only expect 4,000 visits more and you want to hire 13 more people, I'm having a problem with that. So sell me on it. MS. ARNOLD: Oh, okay. The 85,000 is a projected for this current fiscal year. It's not what we expect to do next year if we have these people. This is a projected figure for this fiscal year. MR. OLLIFF: And it also doesn't reflect code violations which can only be found after hours. MS. ARNOLD: Right. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Mm-hm. MR. OLLIFF: So I think this 85,000 number, if you were to proj ect what it should be were we actually doing the enforcement that I think this Board wants us to, especially on parking issues, nighttime violations, noise, construction activities in the evenings and on the weekends and things like that, it would be a significantly higher number in 2003. MS. ARNOLD: Yes. MR. OLLIFF: It's simply an unmet need. We're not addressing those code violations that occurred after hours. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Especially with the two new big things, the signs and the parking -- MS. ARNOLD: Right. Page 57 June 21, 2002 COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- that you've now not been saddled with. I know that you need extra people. I just wanted the figures to show me that you're saying it. MR. SCHMITT: If I could add, I think we would call those, what is not reflected here, are the missed opportunities that certainly would raise that number, because they are not detected violations, because the people aren't out there to enforce. And that's no way to measure that. I guess there is a way to measure that. But as the county manager stated, it would be counted as missed opportunities. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. I'll step down and let somebody else take over. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I'm not really sold on the need of these extra code enforcement. Here's my reasoning. Parking ordinance. I asked the question, Michelle, "Can you handle this?" And, you know, your statement, if I remember right, was that you could. And I'll go back in a minutes and just make sure that that's what was said. MS. ARNOLD: Mm-hm. COMMISSIONER HENNING: But the complaints that I'm getting are the same complaints over and over again. It's not nighttime. And I grant you that there is some nighttime issues that you can address. But if you fill this five slots, I think that you could fill those five slots with evening people. I would like to see the daytime stuff addressed that the code enforcement's officers are not addressing that I hear over and over again. MS. ARNOLD: And I do recall you asking me that question, and, quite frankly, I did think that we could by utilizing the flex scheduling that I've already incorporated in my operations as well as doing sweeps. But in the last three months, I found that we cannot address some of those things. Page 58 June 21, 2002 And I think the reason why we're not addressing some of the things during the day is because my staff is out of their areas in the day because we're doing evening shifts right now to make up for it so that some of the investigators that would normally be in the field during the day are taken out of the field because we're doing evening sweeps currently. COMMISSIONER HENNING: You're doing evening sweeps because of the parking ordinance? MS. ARNOLD: Yes. COMMISSIONER HENNING: This is the problem that I'm talking about that has been going for over a year, the same violations over and over that I get calls about and that I see, too. I mean, they're there, very visible. The community sees it. A volunteer code enforcement's very frustration. And I just don't know, and I'm not sold on if we throw more resources on this, this is going to take care of the community need. It's my opinion. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. Commissioner Carter, any comments? COMMISSIONER CARTER: Come to me, and I think Commissioner Cole is next. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Forgive me. You're absolutely right. COMMISSIONER COYLE: That's okay. You're always . . Ignonng me. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: How could I ignore you, Commissioner Coyle. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Tell me once again how many vacant positions you have, Michelle. MS. ARNOLD: Currently, I have five; two are in the Immokalee area. One is for the Immokalee initiative. One is for a general officer in the Immokalee area and then three in the rest of the department. Page 59 June 21, 2002 COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. And have they been vacant a long time? MS. ARNOLD: They've been vacant in the last -- on and off in the last probably five months. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. MS. ARNOLD: It's just different -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: So maybe there's a shortage of2- 1/2 average -- MS. ARNOLD: Right. COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- annual? MS. ARNOLD: Right. COMMISSIONER COYLE: What I would like to suggest is that the workload then really doesn't include 2-1/2 FTEs, essentially, for the past fiscal year. In other words, for 2-1/2 FTEs less than you have right now, you were able to handle 85,000 visits. MS. ARNOLD: That reflects a full-time staff. That's my estimate with a full-time staff. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. So these are not the actual number of visits? MS. ARNOLD: No. MR. OLLIFF: Those are forecasts. MS. ARNOLD: Those are forecasts. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Those are forecasts. MS. ARNOLD: The '01-'02 is a forecasted number. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. And the '00-'01 is a real number; right? MS. ARNOLD: Yes. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And how many total staff members -- no, code enforcement people do we have? MR. OLLIFF: Investigators. MS. ARNOLD: On the investigative staff, we have 18. Page 60 June 21, 2002 COMMISSIONER COYLE: Actually on site; I mean, that is actually on board. MS. ARNOLD: On board, we have 18. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Now that's about 4,500 or so per person, and that would indicate that maybe 20 enforcement officers might be required for 85,000 visits. You're actually asking for about 25 or 26, if I remember correctly. So I would recognize your need to have some additional people, because I know that you're -- we've thrown a lot of things at you to enforce recently. I have problems going to the level that you're going to initially. MS. ARNOLD: Mm-hm. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And I'd feel a lot better about taking this in steps and evaluating how well we can handle it, handle the workload. And then, if necessary, we can take a look at some additions later on. But I would -- And with respect to the evening inspections, I think you need to have more people in that area to inspect in the evenings. But perhaps the unhired positions you've got right now could be converted to a flex schedule or an evening staff. And that way you would have, let's say, four or five people who would be available to work in the evenings, and you do have some over-time, I'm sure, associated with this; right? MS. ARNOLD: Well, I have a lot of over-time that I'm utilizing right now, yes. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. So if we had people, a shift, who could work in the evening, we could eliminate a lot of over-time, I presume. Is that a fair statement? MS. ARNOLD: Is that with more people or with utilizing the current staff level that I have? COMMISSIONER COYLE: With more people filling the positions that are vacant right now in the department and with a few more people, how much of your over-time budget would you say? Page 61 June 21, 2002 MS. ARNOLD: If I fill the positions that I have vacant right now, the need for over-time would be reduced because, yes, I'm using a lot of over-time to make up for those people. If I get added individuals, there probably wouldn't be the need for over-time. And yes, if I utilized them in the evening, I think that I would be addressing some of the concerns that Commissioner Henning raised, the fact that, you know, there are ongoing complaints that are being called into your office because people feel that they're not being addressed. COMMISSIONER COYLE: It's almost a 24-hour requirement, isn't it? MS. ARNOLD: I know. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Excuse me. Just to clarify my statement, it was daytime, the things visible in daytime. MS. ARNOLD: Right. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, as a proposal, could I suggest that the Board consider half of this request for our fiscal year '03 budget and that we, in addition, provide you monthly response reports to show you what we are doing in terms of number of investigations and the number of visits and then, you know, monitor that so that you will have be a better feel for exactly what impact that's having and then a year from now you'll be looking at the '04 budget? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: If I may comment on that, I don't have a problem with it. Where I'm getting the majority -- Almost all my complaints on inspection is Immokalee. Weare so short on an inspector there, that they just can't cover it. And without that one inspector going to Immokalee, it is going to be a total disaster. So if that one inspector, if we can get an inspector to Immokalee, then I can live with going with the -- looking at the expanded request later. Page 62 June 21, 2002 MS. ARNOLD: Can I ask a question for half, because I was asking for eight investigators, so we're talking four investigators because we would still need a supervisor -- MR. OLLIFF: We're talking about half of the expanded service request. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Half of the 13. COMMISSIONER COYLE: In dollar value. MR. OLLIFF: Exactly. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And then you decide how you allocate it. MR. OLLIFF: Yes, sir. MS. ARNOLD: Okay. COMMISSIONER COYLE: But there has to be an offsetting savings in over-time costs. MR. OLLIFF: And we'll bring that back in September as to what is the offsetting over-time reduction, because you're right. COMMISSIONER COYLE: But it's important, though, when we're involved in assessing the millage rate and everything else to know how these things balance out. If we have an expense reduction because of the over-time reduction and we have an additional service request reduction, then that's going to create a difference at the end of the day. MR. OLLIFF: And Mr. Smykowski takes copious notes about exactly what we're going to bring back for you, and we will bring that back. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Also, too, I'd like to have it in there about the one for Immokalee, because of the disastrous situation we're facing there, to be part of that agreement. MR. OLLIFF: Well, to be honest with you, sir, I think you need to leave that up to probably Michelle and Joe and the manager, Page 63 June 21, 2002 because right now you're sitting there with vacancies in Immokalee, and that's a big reason why we can't respond to the code enforcement issues in Immokalee. But we need to look at staffing levels versus the number of complaints, and we will get the code issues resolved in Immokalee. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. So, in other words, what we're going to do is meet the needs for the rest of the county and Immokalee is still going to be on the short end of the stick? MR. OLLIFF: No, sir. That is not what I said. We are going to respond to all of the needs of the county appropriately with the staffing that we have. I don't know that just sitting here today flatfooted that I can commit to you that one of those positions is going to be solely dedicated to Immokalee. It may end up being a halftime position that goes to Immokalee. But we understand that there is a code enforcement need in Immokalee and we will deal with that as part of the expanded service request. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Mr. Schmitt. MR. SCHMITT: Mr. Chairman, just to put you at ease, we've been trying to recruit for several months for the position in Immokalee and just haven't been able to fill it. And Michelle can talk about that. But I also want to make sure that you understand. Part of the problem with code enforcement, and for the rest of the commissioners, I asked, then I charged Michelle to establish a career progression because that's been part of the problem with code enforcement. There's been no identified step or career progression or opportunities for advancement or growth, and we're trying to establish that kind of a tier system as well to promote and retain the expertise, because we've had a high turnover in that organization, and it's a problem. And that's part of what we're trying to address with this. Page 64 June 21, 2002 CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning and then Commissioner Carter. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Commissioner Carter has been waiting patiently for a long time. COMMISSIONER CARTER: As you bring us back, I think what I'm going to address here is you've got a situation, what I'm going to call organizational effectiveness, and part of that is -- and I hear this as establishing what I call a 24/7 work schedule. And there are a number of programs to do that. You could do one that you're doing, but there are compressed work weeks. I would suggest you go to the manufacturing model, where it's a seven-day-a-week operation, and figure out how you can do this. The flatter the structure that you can come up with, the better, also looking at the career pathing within, not only internally, but where would you go after you're a code enforcement officer, and what are the opportunities. And I would like to see that revisited before I make a decision on this request that will be back here in September. But I think we could reduce the number of positions and still get to the goal if we just look at a better -- look at another way to approach the problem. And if I can lend any assistance to that, it would be my pleasure. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I know that we see the number of investigations. Mr. Schmitt provides that to us, and I appreciate it. Maybe what would help me is a number of cases that were closed that there actually was a violation or not. Because, you know, if we're seeing the same thing over and over again, is it that it's not a code in violation or what? And I guess it's up to you, Mr. Schmitt, whether you want to do performance standards on code enforcement officers to see if, you know, there's a problem in that manner. Page 65 June 21, 2002 MR. SCHMITT: Commissioner, if I could respond. Just from a standpoint of -- and I know you and I have discussed this, but also, the objective of code enforcement is to abate the problems. And then oftentimes, if it's abated, then there's no violation. So they go out. They do pay the visit. The violator recognizes that they have committed a violation. They take care of the problem and the issue is solved. And, of course, that's a case solved but it's recorded as a notice of violation. MS. ARNOLD: Well, there are different levels. I mean, I equate this to the speeder on the road, that, you know, you may speed and get caught and then you're good for a little while, but that doesn't mean that you're not going to speed again. There's so many violators out there that are repeat violators, and sometimes it's a simple violation as like they parked their boat out in front of their yard instead of the appropriate location. Well, they may do well with it for a little while and then they'll repeat it. It doesn't mean that it wasn't addressed initially or that they are not familiar with what the violation is, but they're just taking a risk. They're taking -- MR. OLLIFF: One of the other things that I need to point out is, if you'll recall, one of the things that we indicated that we were planning on doing in fiscal year '03, as part of our strategic planning process, was to go through and develop the operational performance measures for the departments. And I can remember Commissioner Coyle having a comment about, we're measuring things but we may not be measuring the right things and reporting the right things. MS. ARNOLD: Right. MR. OLLIFF: I could visit -- I could have 85,000 visits next year and I could visit McDonald's 85,000 times and I wouldn't have helped the code enforcement situation in this county a bit. MS. ARNOLD: Right. Page 66 June 21, 2002 MR. OLLIFF: And yet, I might have met my performance objective for a number of visits. So what we're talking about -- and the budget staff, through their budget analyst, are already starting on working on what are the real measurements this organization needs, not to see about activity but about to see about performance, to see about outcomes and to make sure that we understand what is success in each and every department. And this is one of those cases where I think we needed to measure better so that you know whether we're being successful as opposed to being busy. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. Commissioner-- MS. ARNOLD: And one of the difficult things that I struggle with with providing these performance measures is the database that we have currently. It doesn't do a very good job to identify, really, what the department's activities are. MR. OLLIFF: And that's being fixed as we speak. MR. SCHMITT: Yes. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle. MR. SCHMITT: It's budgeted to be fixed. MR. OLLIFF: Right. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Just a clarification. Part of this expanded service request includes a reinstatement of $25,100 for over-time. What I would propose to you is that we strike that request for additional over-time and provide you approval of 50 percent of the total amount of money that you have, which will give you $340,050 and we will saved $365,150, okay? Is that acceptable to you? Would that work? MR. OLLIFF: You're the Board; yes, sir. MS. ARNOLD: Yeah. MR. SCHMITT: Okay. MR. OLLIFF: We'll make it work. Page 67 June 21, 2002 COMMISSIONER COYLE: Now, the only other -- And this is just an observation. The training officer position for developmenting a new hire investigator training program, I know you've got to train these people. They're got to be certified, I believe, too. I just wonder -- and this is a decision you'll have to make, because we're approving the money, not the positions. But my guidance would be that unless you have an extremely high turnover, you're not going to have enough to keep a training officer involved doing that. And I would strongly recommend an internship program so that you have the new hired going along the more experienced code enforcement officers for a while until they really get trained. MS. ARNOLD: The train officer is intended, although for a new hire it's also intended, to service other things. For example, we've got more and more citizen volunteer groups that are developing out there, and we do need to train those individuals over and over because we do have an influx of, you know, somebody's interested, then they're no longer interested. And what we get if we don't have appropriate training is we get complaints that are really not violations. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. MS. ARNOLD: So we need to have that as an ongoing thing. And we do a lot of coordination with the sheriffs office, and those are additional training things that I'd like to get us more involved that we haven't had an opportunity to get involved in right now. MR. OLLIFF: We'll weigh that and we'll put the money where it can best be used. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah, wherever you think it's best. I was just about to say that. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: At this point in time, I'm going to come back to the rest of this here. We did promise Commissioner Page 68 June 21, 2002 Fiala that we would get to the social service and health budget before she had to leave. And so in order to be able to have enough time to cover it, I'm going to go to that and then we'll come back. MR. OLLIFF: Mike, what page are we on then? MR. SMYKOWSKI: Social services. In your general fund tab, you can go to A, as in apple, 25. It's a bright yellow sheet of paper. That is the summary for social services, of all of public services within the general fund. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Are you sure you can stay for this, Donna? Don't you have to leave now? COMMISSIONER FIALA: I can stay but -- COMMISSIONER CARTER: This is where we were going to make the savings; wasn't it? This is where we just eliminated this page; right? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Where are we? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I'm not too sure. COMMISSIONER FIALA: A-25. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: A-25. COMMISSIONER COYLE: A-25. MR. SMYKOWSKI: A-25 is your summary of all of the general fund departments under the public service needs division. MR. OLLIFF: And in this particular case, Mike, I'm going to stray from your process a little bit, and I'm going to ask Barry if he will take them to the program page for Social Services -- MR. SMYKOWSKI: That's A-41. MR. OLLIFF: -- A-41, because I'm not sure that the Board is clearly aware of the different programs that the department provides. And if Barry can give them a quick summary of that, I think it will help. Barry? Page 69 June 21, 2002 MR. WILLIAMS: Commissioners, good morning. Barry Williams, Director of Social Services. Just on page A-4l, I have a description of the various programs that we provide within the department. The services are those that are state-mandated, emergency, short-term medical or general assistance programs that support people at various times. The first program described is the Medicaid County Billing and Abused Children. These are statutory requirements that we have to provide payments for people that are inpatient hospital Medicaid recipients within Collier County as well as nursing homes. We pay an amount of money for people that are in nursing homes, as by statute. We also have a program within that that provides where children, abused or neglected, we pay for the initial evaluation. So those services are listed there. The next item is the indigent burial. In Collier County, if you don't have next of kin, you die, we help with the burial at Lake Trafford Cementary in Immokalee. Medical assistance programs are provided. They're described. These are services that include out ofhospital-- or out-of-county, rather, hospitals stays; again, statutory requirements where people who are treated outside of Collier County, we pay the Medicaid per diem for those individuals. This is an amount that fluctuates from year to year. In terms of projecting, we've seen sometimes we don't have expense and sometimes we have had significant expense in this area. The next item is a medication assistance program where we assist poor elderly and disabled individuals that are in need of prescription medicines. And this is provided to folks within the county as well. The other two items just to mention, an important one, I think, is the information and referral service. We get a large number of calls Page 70 June 21, 2002 each year. Approximately 29,000 people visit us. With that, many of the folks that come to see us aren't eligible for our services. However, our case managers are very aware of the services in our community and are able to connect people to a more appropriate service, whether that's a local nonprofit, for example, or a state or federal program, public assistance program. So we're able to divert a large percentage of people to these other services. The final item is just a shelter and welfare program where we provide assistance to people, again, that are disabled, that are temporarily disabled where we're able to help them with a month's rent where if they're disabled, they get back to work through this, and we're able to help them with the rent. This is something that we use to prevent folks from getting evicted as well as prevent homelessness. Just one other note. Within our Social Services Department, we have a variety of state and federal grants that make up our services for seniors. This is a case management program that supports seniors, frail seniors in our community. It helps them maintain themselves in their own home and avoid institutionalization. So that's another component as well as our department. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Just some questions. How many of these are mandated? MR. WILLIAMS: As far as, just to go through the list, the Medicaid County Billing and Abused Children is a mandate. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Is the amount mandated? MR. WILLIAMS: The amount is. For inpatient hospital, the amount that we pay is 35 of percent of the Medicaid per diem. COMMISSIONER COYLE: All right. And the others? MR. WILLIAMS: I'm sorry. The inpatient -- or, rather, the nursing home, the mandated amount is: Over $170 of the monthly expense, we pay $55 for Medicaid recipients. And then the children, Page 71 June 21, 2002 the exam for children, the amount isn't mandated. However, we contract with a local nonprofit to provide that service. So we've contracted with them. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And the other ones? MR. WILLIAMS: The indigent burial cremation is mandated through the statute listed there. The medical assistance programs, it's part of the general health and welfare provision in the statutes and, specifically, the HCRA, the Health Care Responsibility Act, mandates the out-of-county outpatient -- or, rather, the out-of-county inpatient payments. The next item, the medication assistance, again, through the general -- the health and welfare statute. The information referral, same. And the shelter and welfare, the same. COMMISSIONER FIALA: So these are all mandated. COMMISSIONER COYLE: So they're all mandated. COMMISSIONER CARTER: All mandated. MR. WILLIAMS: Through the Florida statutes; yes, sir. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Yeah. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well done. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. And the amount of money is mandated? MR. WILLIAMS: It varies. Again, the first items that I mentioned are mandated. Some of the others, like, for example, the children, the indigent burial, we have contracts in place at reasonable fees. The amount that we pay is not mandated but the requirement to provide the service is. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Thanks. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Members of the Board, this is one of the reasons that we spend time in Tallahassee, because these Page 72 June 21,2002 are mandated and they will continue to try to push more down on the counties, to have us pick that up versus the state funding it. And we have, every year, battled and battled through the Florida Association of Counties to try to hold it off as much as possible. Their goal is to cost shift as much as possible. Our goal is to cost shift at the least amount, and that is the ongoing battle that we always have with the legislature. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Many times on that battle. But, also, too, is there any possibility we could ever get grants to offset some of this mandated cost? MR. WILLIAMS: Commissioner, we have started to look at grant opportunities for some of these, in fact, through the community development block grant services. So we've been able to secure a small grant for medicine for Immokalee, approximately $60,000. So we are looking for ways to -- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Offset? MR. WILLIAMS: -- look for other funding sources; yes, sir. MR. OLLIFF: But I do want the Board to pay attention to that. There is an opportunity through CDBG funds to be able to offset some of your general fund cost here. And when you're going through CDBG allocations for fiscal year '03, you ought to keep that in mind. COMMISSIONER HENNING: We have some stuff on our agenda for Tuesday. MR. OLLIFF: Yes. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Quite a large expense. MR. OLLIFF: The other thing that I will point out is, as Commissioner Carter said, you do need to pay a lot of attention and make sure that your lobbyist, in particular, provides you reports on any effort that the legislature makes, especially in some of these, what are called Medicaid inpatient hospital and nursing home care. Page 73 June 21, 2002 I can't begin to tell you how many years in a row the legislature has tried to move some of that expense down to this level. And the financial impact of that can be enormous. I mean, there could be a much as three to four million dollar annual swings in what the county, this county in particular, would be required to pay. And you need to pay particular attention to that. And if there's one of those little small seemingly insignificant things that you need to get up there and lobby against, it's that. COMMISSIONER CARTER: That's why I spent so much time in Tallahassee. The Senate was actually better to us than the House on this issue -- MR. OLLIFF: Yes. COMMISSIONER CARTER: -- but you've got to work both sides. And our legislators, let me say, Senator Saunders representing Goodlette, Green, et cetera, they have worked with us. They know they've got the burden to cost shift, but they have worked with us to try and minimum it. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. MR. OLLIFF: I believe there's one expanded service request in this budget? MR. WILLIAMS: Yes. We're asking for an amount that trimmed last fall. It's an amount of $54,000. The rationale behing that is that we've seen, with our programming, there are fluctuations in the number of people that are served, and some of those things are outside of our control. People, for example, that are injured and hospitalized in our county, the expense can rise. And in what we're looking and what we're seeing in terms of the overall inflation for medical services has increased a significant amount. And so we're seeing that we need that amount to meet our current need. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning? Page 74 June 21, 2002 COMMISSIONER HENNING: What was your carry-forward last year? MR. WILLIAMS: Our carry-forward was -- We were right on the penny . We didn't have carry-forward in that side of the House. We did have a bit of carry-forward, though, with the services for senIors. COMMISSIONER HENNING: It's amazing how that happens, a zero carry-forward. MR. OLLIFF: Not in all departments. In that one it's pretty close. And, in fact, that one, generally, they will run out of a lot of their medical allocations by mid-summer to early fall. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Questions? Okay. Please move on. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Why don't we talk about services for seniors as well. Commissioner Coyle, you had asked yesterday relative to that. Tom, if you could put that on the visualizer, I think that would help. That's actually in your "Grants" tab on page D-8. And we had it included within the grants and trusts, but there was a $110,000 match on the services for senior side to leverage additional grant funds. And on your visualizer, you will see the annual funding contribution to the county. That $110,000 grant leveraging match has been remained consistent since fiscal year '99. At a minimum, we just went back five years. And it also shows the additional funds that are leveraged as a result of that $110,000, again, with the desire of keeping elderly residents in their home as long as possible to avoid the additional cost of placing them in nursing home care. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Questions? Okay. Move on. Page 75 June 21, 2002 MR. OLLIFF: I can't let this go. This is one of the great things the county government, I think, does for very minimal investment. You keep elderly poor people, frankly, in their homes rather than being sent to a state-run nursing home. Now, the alternative is if they go to that state-run nursing home, you pay the cost, and it is less expensive for this county to have those people stay in their homes then it is to shift them off to a state-run nursing home. The closest one that I'm aware of is in Lakeland, Florida. And in this particular program, those people don't want to go to the state-run nursing home. They want to stay in the home where they raised their families. And we will do everything from providing nursing services to in-home health care and those kinds of things to try and keep them there. But it is a very, very cost-effective program for this county. And I can't tell you how much you'd be paying on the Medicaid nursing home side were it not for this small $110,000 investment. And I'll tell you. You're one of the few counties that's smart enough to actually take advantage of this program, because a lot of counties don't do it because the paperwork is a pain in the neck. It is four separate grants that I believe we have to go to through to do this, and a lot of counties just don't want to put up with it, but it's a smart financial thing to do. COMMISSIONER CARTER: You're right, Mr. Olliff. And fortunately, the governor removed from the administration in that area a person who was hell-bound-- MR. OLLIFF: Yes. COMMISSIONER CARTER: -- on cutting these funds out. And thank God she went before the funds went, because we were willing to go through the effort to do for our county. MR. OLLIFF: And the last thing I have to mention is while I think Barry is a tremendous Social Services director, we did miss Page 76 June 21, 2002 Martha Skinner going through this budget process. Martha was with us for a better part of 25 to 26 years or something. MR. WILLIAMS: No, 30. MR. OLLIFF: It was nice to see that she sort of helped hand- select somebody as good as Barry to help fill in for her afterwards. MR. SMYKOWSKI: With that, I think we'll move to the public health department budget, which is in your general fund tab under A- 46 of the programs established by the public health unit, and it also identifies, by program, the general fund support of those respective programs, and Dr. Colfer is here. COMMISSIONER COYLE: What pages are we on? MR. SMYKOWSKI: A-46. DR. COLFER: Good morning. COMMISSIONER COYLE: A-46? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Mm-hm. DR. COLFER: Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Board. For the record, I'm Dr. Joan Colfer, Director of your Collier County Health Department. Our total budget includes both state and local funding this coming year in the amount of $8.9 million. I broke that down for you, and it's on the visualizer. The county portion that is being requested is $1.1 million. The state and federal dollars that we bring with us to the county is 4.3 million. Our collections for Medicare, Medicaid, third-party insurers is a little bit over one million. And fees and revenues we charge for services are 2.4 million. So if you put these two pieces together, we collect, I think, 39 percent of our monies back from the public. This funding supports the activities of your health department, which includes services such as 45,000 immunizations for children and adults this year, management of over 3,000 communicable disease reports, 18,000 visits for diagnosis and treatment of diseases such as tuberculosis, AIDS, syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia and Page 77 June 21, 2002 hepatitis, over 30,000 school screenings for hearing, vision and scoliosis, approval of over 4,000 septic systems as we continue to grow our community, testing of your beach waters, 4,500 dental visits, and a bioterrorism response that affected our entire community. In total, Collier County Health Department, last year, provided almost a quarter of a million services: $224,654. Part of our request to the county this year is for a total increase in county dollars of $81,200 for two positions. One is for clerical assistance for our disaster program, which as I'm sure you have heard from many others is no longer just planning for a hurricane. Bioterrorism has become a major component of what our health department does. The clerical support would assist us with the numerous clerical functions that are now being by a registered nurse with a bachelor and a master's degree. This is a wonderful person that was hired a little over a year ago who now knows virtually every fireman and every police officer in your community. She thought she was just going to work on hurricanes, and her workload increased fourfold without a bat of an eyelash or a single complaint. Willingly and smilingly, she has done everything possible to ingrain us with the rest of your first responders in the community. I think that this would make her a much more productive employee, and that's why we're asking for that position. I'd be happy to answer any questions or I can move ahead to preventive dental services. We're ready for preventive dental services. The second request is for preventative dental services for children. This is known affectionately amongst my staff as Dr. Colfer's tooth fairy program. To save money, though, I brought my magic wand with me from my previous job where the tooth fairy used it, and it was one of our most popular prevention efforts for children. Page 78 June 21,2002 But seriously, we have been able to reopen a dental clinic in the Collier County Health Department. It had been sitting vacant with equipment and everything for four years when I got here. And we, with your help, just recently opened to adults under 100 percent of poverty. We think many of those are going to be our HIV infected population. You gave us a little bit of seed money. We're using that to hire a dentist who will be able to pull down Ryan White (phonetic) dollars which is reimburse us for that patient population. I'm real happy to provide direct clinical services under certain circumstances when we're the provider of last resort or when we have special expertise. In the case of dental, we are the provider of last resort. Nobody else is going to serve this particular patient population. But what's missing is a prevention component, which is what I came here to do. The direct services are just fine, but we need to teach little children the importance of brushing their teeth, the kind of snacks they should eat, and the things that they need to go to the dentist for. And this what the tooth fairy would do. This is a program that I saw at a national meeting about five years ago. It was invented by a second-year dental student, a woman, who actually dropped out of dental school briefly to do this program. She also saw the need for dental education for little kids. She could still fit into her wedding dress, and so she put a wedding dress on. She still had her jeweled slippers. The Miss Kentucky Pageant -- she was in Kentucky -- gave her - - actually, they gave her a much better-looking one than this homemade one. They also gave her a tiara. And she proceeded to go to the schools in Kentucky, particularly the schools in the Appalachian part of that state, and teach little children about the importance of toothbrushing. Page 79 June 21, 2002 I wish I had her slides. They were just wonderful, and her stories were even better. One of the things we do with programs like this is get donations from the people that make toothbrushes, and we're able to hand out the toothbrushes. I told Mr. Coyle this story the other day. I think the saddest story that brought tears to all of eyes was about a little boy that came up and pulled on the dress and asked her if he could have an extra toothbrush. And she said, "Oh, sure, you know. "Do you have a brother or sister at home?" And he said, "No, I have three. And the boys, we all share our one toothbrush with our father. But if I could have a second toothbrush, then the girls could all share one with our mother." So this is the kind of crying need that, you know, I think is in certain patient populations. And we'd like to reach, you know, all the kids that are in our Chapter 1 schools, certainly, with this kind of a program. And those are only two requests this year. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Comment? Commissioner Coyle. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Questions. DR. COLFER: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Dr. Colfer, we've talked about the fees that you charge for certain services. DR. COLFER: Yes. And we sent you some information. Did you get that? COMMISSIONER COYLE: If I did, I didn't get it incorporated into this. DR. COLFER: Okay. COMMISSIONER COYLE: But what I need to understand is on page A -46, there are no revenues at all for any of the programs that are funded by the county. Is that reported somewhere else? Page 80 June 21, 2002 DR. COLFER: Yes, because there are -- you know, as you can see in this graph, I mean, we make 39 percent, you know, back. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. DR. COLFER: So, yes. I mean, there certainly are, and I don't know why none of the forms that you see here reflect that. But you're right; they don't. But we did send you over an analysis of our environmental fees, if you give me one second. I think we brought in -- Wesley, maybe you could look. Our budget director is here. I think we brought in $489,000 in environmental health fees. Oh, I'm sorry. They are there, for the two programs that actually make money. The swimming pool program brings in a lot of money: 239,000. But the OSTDS program brings in, also, additional money. So I think the environmental health program, in total, brings in about a half million dollars. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, where is that shown as offsetting the contribution for the general fund? DR. COLFER: It's on the bottom half under "Subtotal, General Revenue Funding, Environmental Health and Engineering. " COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. DR. COLFER: And this doesn't show everything, unfortunately. I mean, it's -- Our program is trying to fit into, you know, this schedule. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I guess my question is that the subtotal general revenue funding is $1,262,000. And that's the current level of service on page A-25: $1,262.000. And the $250,300 in revenues -- DR. COLFER: Right. COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- it doesn't appear to be deducted from the general fund transfers. And I guess that's what I was looking for. Do we net those out? Should not the revenue offset the reduction or the contributions from the general fund? Page 81 June 21, 2002 DR COLFER: I see where you are, but I don't think that's meant to be added together because -- And one of the problems is you have to take out -- If you go up to the top of the page, you take out the general operating and administrative costs which are not really dollars that given to us for operating programs. That simply pays for our -- You know, that's your contribution to us being here. You give us the building, the lights, the heat, the electricity so we can turn on the computers. So you have to deduct that 237 from the 1.343 at the bottom, which is how I get the monies from the county's, which is 1.1. But I see what you're saying. You know, should that offset? And, yes, it certainly should. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And let's see -- MR. SMYKOWSKI: Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Perhaps I can interject and help you out. The public health unit is a state agency. Those are state employees, and their budget is -- receives a contribution from the county to the tune of a million two sixty-two. But any revenues that are received as a result of those programs are reflected in the collective state budget for the public health unit. This is just a direct county contribution into that total of universe that makes up the public health unit. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, why shouldn't some of those revenues come back to the county rather than offsetting state's? DR. COLFER: No, because they go back in -- What happens with our fees -- and I guess I thought this happened with everybody's fees, in any place I've ever worked in public health, is they go back into the programs, so that we project -- In doing our budgets, and we're in a little bit different cycle than you are, we're sitting down now with each of program directors -- and Wesley's got the book Page 82 June 21, 2002 there with us -- and as we do each our of programs, there's a proj ected revenue for each and every program, and it goes back into that. I mean, they can only expand their services. They can only give anybody a raise. But that money is there. And so I roll it back in to each of the programs. MR. JONES: If I may interject a little bit, Wesley Jones, for the record, Business Manager. The only fees that are authorized by the county are approved fees, is down in environmental health. Like immunization, there is no county-assessed fees. It's all state- generated revenue. MR. OLLIFF: So, in other words, they only show you what is the net cost to the general fund, and you could roll it up the other way. And if we wanted to, we could show it to you with the fair share contribution of the fees, added to the net cost to the general fund, would be their total request. And then you can back out the fee revenue and get to the same number, the net cost to the general fund, which is what they're showing as their annual budget request each year, either way. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I still have some problems. We charge fees for lots of things. And one of the things that we just passed, an ordinance requiring that swimming pools -- nonregulated swimming pools be inspected, and assessed a fee for that. We also require, I think, inspections for occupational licenses in some cases, fees for tatoo parlors and/or body piercing. DR. COLFER: Right. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Now, the question is those fees come in somewhere, I presume. Where do they go? DR. COLFER: It goes into the program. So, for instance, the fees for the pools to support the staff that do those inspections. And that's one of the things that we'll show you as we continue that discussion about the pools, that the fees that we would charge, I think Page 83 June 21, 2002 it was like $255 per each pool that we would inspect, go back to pay for the salary for the inspector that goes to look at the pool. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And there are no other revenues or fees other than those mentioned at the bottom of this page? DR. COLFER: No, we charge -- We try very hard to charge everybody that comes to us for services. And we charge them on a sliding fee scale that's set by the state. We also do collect Medicare and Medicaid, any third-party insurance that people have. And if they don't have anything, we charge them out of pocket on this sliding fee scale. And that's how we -- I mean, that's how we get those revenues. I mean, that's a tremendous amount of what we bring in, and it just gets rolled back into the programs to continue to provide services. MR. SMYKOWSKI: I'm a visualizer. It shows problematically how the county contribution, which is in the first column, breaks out between communicable disease control, personal health, environmental health and engineering. Then it also shows the state general revenue component. And then the third column identifies fees that are charged and, collectively, that makes up the approximately $9 million total current service budget for the public health unit. DR. COLFER: So that 3.4 million, you know, is a significant chunk of our $8.9 million budget. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, that explains it better. DR. COLFER: Yeah. COMMISSIONER COYLE: So you're telling me that what is reported here as, I guess, cost on page A-46 is net of all revenue or -- You see, the point I'm getting at is the county is contributing X amount of money. The state is contributing X amount of money. There's revenue coming in. How is that revenue allocated between the state and the county? At all? Page 84 June 21, 2002 COMMISSIONER HENNING: No, it's going back into the program. DR. COLFER: It goes back into the program. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So you can do more services. DR. COLFER: Then you could continue to do the program. Otherwise, we'd have to cut the programs by 40 percent. MR. OLLIFF: They show it as a contribution based on the percentage of the expenses supported. So if the county contributes, for example, 30 percent or 10 percent of the total budget, then on the budget forms we show the revenue being allocated as 10 percent of the revenue. So, in other words, if you wanted to look at A -46, you could look at this as if the total public health department actualphysical year '03 request is $1,593,500, as it is the total of their grand total there at the bottom, one million three forty-three, plus the revenue number of 250 that's allocated to Collier County. But the net cost to the general fund is only a million three, because you're backing out what they're charging in fees and services. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Let me get to the bottom line. The county's portion for this program went from 4 percent to 13 percent in the past year. So the county's portion is rising rather dramatically. In fact, it's increased almost two and a halftimes. So I'm wondering what's happening here, whether the state is reducing their contribution and we're picking up the slack, or that there's additional services that we're paying for. You know. I just need to understand that, okay. And if we're paying -- We paid 4 percent last year. We're paying 13 percent this year. I just need to know what the 9 percent went for so that I'll understand what we're doing, because we're also, of course, setting up another health care program to provide services, Page 85 June 21, 2002 essentially, perhaps for some of the same people we're providing services here for. And-- DR. COLFER: But not the same services. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Not the same services. DR. COLFER: Yeah, but I don't know where you're getting the 4 percent. I mean, one of the figures that I have now, it's without all of that $700,000 for primary care and without the 250,000 for school nursing, but, I mean, we still had significant contribution last year, and that was, according to these figures, 29.5 percent, and this year we're down to 14 percent. So I don't know where you got the 4 percent going to 9 percent. COMMISSIONER HENNING: What are the extra services that we put on last year? DR. COLFER: Let's see. We provided funding for -- Well, one of them was the primary care funding, which we pulled back, and the other was a school nurse program, which you took away from me and gave it to the school system. Another one was the Foundation for Women's Health for OB Care, and the other was $60,000 for the adult dental services, and other adults under 100 percent of poverty. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Partially, I was incorrect when I said that it went from 4 to 13 percent in one year. It went from 4 percent of the total budget -- or it increased from '01 to '02, '03 allocation is where the increase really occurred. MR. OLLIFF: Right. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And the problem is that, once again, it is impossible for me to determine from the information in front of me whether I should make a decision on this budget or not, and this is not just your problem. It's the problem with a lot of this stuff I see. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Well, let's go to in Commissioner Fiala. Page 86 June 21, 2002 COMMISSIONER FIALA: Just two things. The first one is disaster services. As we try and take a little from each department, that would be the one I would subtract from this, because so many other departments also have some new disaster services in place, plus the ones that we had. So I would like to see that one deleted, and then I have a question. I go a lot faster. I don't think a lot of these citizens know that the state reduced the restaurant inspection, and I was surprised to learn of that. It has nothing to do with the county expenses, but I thought we always had inspectors checking the cleanliness of restaurants, and we do not. And I was just wondering if that's going to be reinstated. And if it isn't, if we can do something about it, and you can write me about it. I don't want-- DR. COLFER: No, it's a real quick answer. You do have people that are inspecting your restaurants. It's just they are no longer health department people, and I have a real problem with that, too, and raised that at state level. I didn't get a lot of support. The Department of Business and Professional Regulation took that over several years ago. In my mind, it's the restaurant associations inspecting themselves, but that was a decision made by somebody in the governor's office, I'm sure. But, yes, people do look at your restaurants. If there's an outbreak, you know, then we get involved; but, again, we're not doing prevention. You know, we're being called in after the fact. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Any other questions? COMMISSIONER CARTER: The last two, Dr. Colfer, under disaster services. DR. COLFER: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Did you have to spend monies in those areas where you had to take from another line item? Page 87 June 21, 2002 DR. COLFER: Are you talking about this current year that we're in? COMMISSIONER CARTER: Yes. DR. COLFER: Yes. Well, actually, and a couple of you had asked questions about grants before. I have an excellent staff. That's why we're able to do the good job that we -- that I think we do. And they wrote for a grant the year before last, and that's how we were able to have this young woman that's a nurse assist us in our disaster response this year, because we had a single person, at least, which the rest of the counties in this region didn't have. It was either their health director, their environmental health director, their nursing director stepping into that role. So we, essentially, were the grant for that woman's salary which is how we happen to have her, and we anticipate we'll get that grant again and we've been told, basically, that we would. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, I'm going to support leaving it in. DR. COLFE: Thank you, Commissioner. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Any other comments? Commissioner Henning, do you have something? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yes, I do. DR. COLFER: Yes. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I understand that, Commissioner Fiala, you're not sure. You don't want to support this disaster service. MR. SMYKOWSKI: I'll go along with that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: The program in Immokalee, not- for-profit, doing health care to the poor that we might contract with -- DR. COLFER: The one we might do, we might not do? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right. Page 88 June 21, 2002 DR. COLFER: That one? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah. DR. COLFER: Okay. COMMISSIONER HENNING: The name? DR. COLFER: Primary Care. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Their name is Primary Care. Okay. So Primary Care -- DR. COLFER: Oh, the group that's out there now doing pnmary care -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yes. DR. COLFER: -- in Immokalee? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yes. DR. COLFER: Collier Health Services, Inc. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Great. Thank you. They are providing dental care in Golden Gate -- DR. COLFER: Yes. COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- that is a not-for-profit, and I just have a problem competing against a not- for-proft. They're there for a reason. They're doing a great job, and I don't -- You know, competition is good in some areas, but I don't think it's good in Social Services. DR. COLFER I am so glad you brought that up, Commissioner Henning. We have a committee, CHSI, myself and Barbara Rumberger who's with -- She's the children's -- The Department Of Children and Families, and we look at dental care, all of us together. So, no, we don't compete with each other. We all try and fill gaps. We estimate that there's probably 15,000 children out there without dental care. Anyone of our offices would probably only be able to serve 5,000. And, indeed, the numbers that I've talked to you about today were 4,500 visits we've been able to crank out in a year. Page 89 June 21, 2002 So, you know, we think we're just barely getting there to meet the need. No, we're not competing with each other. Another way that we're not competing is my staff has come to me and asked me to do a fairly sophisticated procedure for young children that really have to be given anesthetics in order to be treated. I went over to look at the facility in Golden Gate. I felt they were much more able to do that. They had a ton more space and a lot more staff than we had. And we are going to be referring the children that need that procedure over to Golden Gate. It is a cooperative relationship amongst all of us to provide for the poor people in this community. We are not competing. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You can move them out to Golden Gate Estates any time you want. We'll take it. Anything else? COMMISSIONER HENNING: I don't know if anybody supports my position or not. COMMISSIONER FIALA: On dental? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yes. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I'm sorry. What's your position? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Competing against not-for- profit. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: No, I don't myself. Go ahead. Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Oh, now. I was just suggesting that the productivity has some observations concerning that. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I apologize for that. I get so wound up in these things, and you were going to remind me if we got a little bit behind, Janet. COMMISSIONER FIALA: It's the bright orange of my jacket- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: It must be. That's distracting me. Page 90 June 21,2002 COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- that bedazzled her. DR. COLFER: Actually, most of our issues have been covered. We noted that there were -- there's been a major increase in the type of services provided by the health department in terms of: It used to be the communicable disease programs got most of the most of the money, and now we've gone pretty heavily into the primary care area. And that was an observation that we were making. We were under the impression that the disaster position related to disaster planning, not that it was clerical. So our remarks on that are offbase, I guess. Then we were recommending not funding the dental program, recognizing that the shift to primary care has really changed what the county relationship has been in the past on the communicable disease kind of mission. And now it's really -- Two years ago, the primary care program was $113,000 and nowit's 512. And if you fund the dental one, it will go up to 560 or so. So that's quite a big change in two years, and we weren't aware -- we didn't know if you were aware of that shift and wanted to bring it to your attention. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Before you go, Ms. Vassey, there is one here: school health. I don't know if the committee realized that the school system is going to get a ton of money for that school health, that nursing program. I didn't know if you had any particular recommendations on that. MS. VASSEY: No, we really did not consider that. I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. COMMISSIONER CARTER: All right, Mr. Chairman, I'm going to support budget. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I have no problems with what's in front of me. I heard Commissioner Henning raise some objection to that, and I think Commissioner -- to the part there on disaster -- Coordinator? Was that it? Page 91 June 21, 2002 DR. COLFER: That was secretary, clerical person. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: And Commissioner Fiala agrees. Do we have a third person that would like to have that back for reconsideration? I myself see the need for it. We only have two, so I guess we go forward. Thank you very much. DR. COLFER: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Is there another item in social services? Public services? MR. DUNNUCK: But with the Board's indulgence, could I quickly request that we request that we review the library budget? Mr. Jones has his family flying in for his birthday and-- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Why, of course. You got it. You better believe it. MR. DUNNUCK: I'd like to get him out of town. COMMISSIONER CARTER: You don't have birthdays anymore, but we'll still like to recognize the gentleman. MR. JONES: For the record, John Jones, Director, Collier County Public Library. MR. DUNNUCK: The page is A-26 for your reference. COMMISSIONER CARTER: To help Mr. Jones out, gentlemen, does anyone have any questions on that? MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Jones has a 2 percent increase in his budget. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Two percent? That's fine. I don't have any questions. I think it's absolutely amazing what you've been doing. MR. JONES: I have an announcement I'd like to make that I just received word 10 minutes before I came up. We were awarded the NACO award for the county's -- for our literacy problem in the public library. We just received that this morning. That's the National Association of County Organizations award. Page 92 June 21, 2002 CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Well, we have some comments, though, from Janet, the productivity committee. Would you like to come up again, Janet, and we'll go over them real quick so we can get Mr. Jones on his way? MS. VASSEY: Janet Vassey for the record. We were recommending not approving the three new positions that were requested for library assistance. What we did was we looked at the workload in terms of circulation per employee at each one of the libraries and felt that the request for the East Naples one, the workload there was surpassed by Vanderbilt and Marco in terms of circulation per employee. And the other two positions requested for the headquarters, we thought there might be some flexibility in reassigning some of the people from the Naples branch where their workload did not appear to be as large as the regional library . MR. JONES: May I respond? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You sure may. MR. JONES: Unfortunately, I did not have the pleasure or neither did my staff have the pleasure of discussing with Ms. Vassey our outstanding group of citizens. There is in the library profession a norm. I'm not saying it's good. I'm not saying it's bad. But nationally, it is one employee to about every 14,000 circulations. Now, here in Collier County we decided many years ago we could beat that. So we went to one to 21,000 circulations. We are now up to one to every 25,419 circulations. We are providing 2.3 million items of circulation per year with 90 employees. Our neighbors in Lee County are providing 2.8 million circulations per year with 221 employees. Our friends in Sarasota County are providing 2.6 million with 156 employees. I had to ask you this year to approve over-time pay to pay people on Sunday, because my staff is not large enough to operate a seven-day facility Page 93 June 21, 2002 but we do, and we do it very few complaints that ever come in front of you. So nationally, we're well below the norm. Statewide, we're well below the norm, and we are a providing a bang for your buck. But it's your library system. You give me what you think it's worth, and I'll go run it the very best I can. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Any challenges or questions? Okay. Next item. MS. VASSEY: We would like to say then that on the over-time, we very much supported that requirement and felt that we should have the Sunday hours in both the Naples branch and in the regional area. And it was asked for only for the season months, and this was only one of two places where the committee actually wanted to spend more money and we wanted to see if the library opened on Sundays all year for all the permanent residents too. So our actual recommendation is approve the 16,000 for the Sunday hours and give him another 16 for the rest of the year. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Mr. Jones? MR. JONES: I hate to mislead you folks because my credibility is the only thing I've got. The reason that I had to ask for over-time this year is because in the past I only allowed them to take comp time on Sunday. I don't have a staff large enough to run a seven-day operation. Already I'm getting resistance from my people for just being open on the seasons and now wanting to open the new building. Y .? es, SIr. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Correction. You have more than your integrity. You have your friends and the friends of the library . Page 94 June 21, 2002 MR. JONES: I have a lot. But my integrity is when I tell you something, it is an honest answer. Then when you walk out of here, you can take it to the bank. MR. OLLIFF: Probably, Mr. Chairman, the better answer there is we tried opening on Sundays at a period of time and there was just -- there wasn't enough volume of both traffic through there to warrant it, we believed. That doesn't mean that in the future we shouldn't look at it again, because there are certain people who obviously would love to be to able to see the library opened seven days a week year round. But we just didn't see that the traffic warranted it opening seven days a week year round. And in August and September, you're going to see the similar kind of recommendations from public services when we get to the pool. There's just not enough public using the facility for us to warrant -- or to recommend keeping it open and spending the money. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. So your suggestion is we stay with the present recommendations that are within the budget. MR. OLLIFF: I just want to be on record that this discussion with the productivity committee is one of the more unusual I have ever had where we are standing here saying we don't want the money and productivity is saying we need the money. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Well, let's move on to the next item. MR. JONES: Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: And thank you, sir. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Unincorporated area, general fund, back to page B-2. Parks and Recreation. MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, it is 10 after 12. If you are intending to take a lunch break, this would probably be a good time to do it. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. Why don't we do that. One hour. Page 95 June 21, 2002 (A luncheon recess was taken.) MR. CHAIRMAN: All right. We'll start off with Commissioner Coyle asking a question. COMMISSIONER COYLE: How many board departments or funds do we have to go through this afternoon? MR. SMYKOWSKI: We have two to finish off natural resources, and we have quite a few in the general fund to get through, sir. We have, virtually, the entire county manager agency, each of the five divisions, plus management offices, plus the Board, plus the county attorney. MR. OLLIFF: Probably 30. COMMISSIONER COYLE: To do this afternoon? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Sure. Well, any problems or any suggestions? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. I don't know if you're going to like them but -- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: No, go ahead. What's up? COMMISSIONER COYLE: You know my frustration level-- MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- what we've been going through with. It's absolutely impossible for me to look at these budgets and make an intelligent decision about how you're going to spend the money within each department, okay. It simply is impossible for me to do that, and I have gone over financial reports for the last 20 years in my own company, and I can't make heads or tails out of this stuff. And I think it is not a productive exercise for us to sit here and try to extract information from staff members about how they're doing something, how they're going to do it, why do they need it, because they know more about it than we do and they're going to be able to provide us information that supports their position. Use tape for Page 96 June 21, 2002 beginning. And we're not in a position to provide contrary information. So I would suggest that what we do is try to deal with this issue from a broader perspective. I want a neutral budget. I do not want a tax increase, and I want more money going into the road funds to build road. What I would like to do is give the county manager direction to cut about $3 million out of what we've got here and leave it up to the county manager to decide what he does. He's far better qualified to do this than we are, and I think we're going to waste two more days and we're going to wind up at the same place. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I disagree wholeheartedly, but why don't you make that in the form of the motion so we can move on. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. I recommend that we give the county manager guidance with respect to the road reserve fund and to the reduction of any of the existing proposed budget and hold the county manager responsible for developing a budget that will get to us that point. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I support that position, and it is -- The information that you really need to make a decision on each individual department, it would take us months to go through it. And if that's the goal, I can support that goal. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. So we have a motion. We have a second. Now time for discussion. I feel like I'm being left out of this process to the degree that I really do not care for at all. I've been sitting on this thing for a year now reviewing everybody's movements back and forth, hearing about their proposals. And we're down to the point now where I feel competent to be able to make these decisions. The information that you need is always available and has been available. All you've got to do is just request it ahead of time and it Page 97 June 21, 2002 could have been given to you item by item, line item by item. Somebody could walk you through it and make the cross-references to how you get there. We're already a day and a half into this process, and to abandon at this time in favor of the county manager making those decisions would be derelict to the duty on my part. So, of course, I'm going to be opposed to it. Commissioner Carter, any ideas or thoughts? COMMISSIONER CARTER: I've never been a micro- manager. I always try to take a macro approach. If I could get to the end, the goal, if 3 million is that goal to try to get it over into roads, if we could -- You know, if the county manager through his staff can figure out how to do that and not compromise severely other programs, then I guess that's kind of qualifying it, but I think I've known Tom long enough that he hears what I'm saying, I could support coming back with: Here we are and let them determine the operating divisions because he's the gentleman we hold accountable at the end of the day, and he holds accountable his division administrators. However, there may be some legal problems with this that I'm not aware of or there may be some areas that the county manager doesn't feel comfortable in making that decision without our input as far as policy. And so I guess that's the only clarifications I need. I can go with the goal. I can go with macro. I just need to know if there's any fine tuning of that before we would hand it back to the county manager. MR. OLLIFF: If the direction of the Board were as it's stated, there are a couple of clarifications that I'd ask for. One, I can present you a budget at any number that you want to, and you need to recognize that I'm going to have to reduce the list that's in front of you. Page 98 June 21, 2002 My request would be that you allow us to make sure that the Board sees the reduction list to the detail and approves that reduction list so you know what it is that we took out of your budget, and there may be some discussion about that list when we present it. The second thing that I would ask for is that the Board recognize that historically you have always looked at your own agency solely, and I think there needs to be some fairness in terms of the total number of departments and agencies that are supported by the general fund. And as long as the direction is to fairly go out and make reductions to contribute to that road construction reserve fund and I can have the Board's direction in that regard behind me when I go out and make those requests, I don't have any particular problem with the Board's direction. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I'm going to go first this time. So what we're saying here is that everything that we decide at this point in time is null. It's gone. It's over with. And we would be starting from zero, that those decisions that were made with Donna Fiala present no longer matter, because I know that there's been some dissatisfaction on the part of certain members over some of the decisions that have been made. So now we're going to call in the chips and rewrite the game rules so that we can go forward with the direction one more time and have everything reviewed again and rehashed out. So this would be right from where we're leaving off now or would this be from the very beginning? That would be the question I'd like to ask. We've had a consensus on the Board of where we are to this point. So are we going from this point forward or are we starting the whole process over again from zero? F COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, let me try to address some of your concerns. We asked the productivity committee to review Page 99 June 21,2002 this budget in detail, and they've come back to us with a lot of recommended cuts, and we haven't bought many of them at all. And so what I'm suggesting to you is if we continue as we're going at the end of the day, end of Tuesday, what we're going to wind up is a budget that's too high, because we're not really reducing it substantially as we go through this process. And at that point in time, we will have to have this same discussion. The budget is too high. What are we going cut out of it? And who are we going to ask to do that? We're going to ask the county manager. And the last time we did this, after the September 11 th attacks and we recognized some revenues shortfalls, we said to the county manager: We want you to cut the budget by X percentage. And he went back and he did that. And he was able to do that and maintain an acceptable level of service. But, you know, my problem is that we will wind up at exactly the same place Tuesday night as we will right now if this motion carries, because we will debate all of these just as we have been debating them and the recommendations of the productivity committee are largely ignored, and then we will wind up with an excessive budget and not enough money going into the roads. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I think the direction is -- you're absolutely correct -- you need to take a look at everything that funds the general fund or everything throughout the whole system and make those recommendations. COMMISSIONER CARTER: I would understand that as it affects the general fund, and that's ad valorem taxes. We did make some policy decisions yesterday on the other funds that are not ad valorem. MR. OLLIFF: And those decisions, I think, would stand. I think all of those decisions should stand, because those have no effect Page 100 June 21, 2002 on the millage rate, and I think that's really the policy direction that the Board's giving me should they follow through on this. And for whatever consolation it's worth, you have to understand. I think that the staff knows what's important to this county commission. We have gone through enough meetings, Lord knows, this week alone to know what priorities the Board has, not only collectively but what's important out there within districts. And we want to make sure that the budget gets done the job that the Board wants to get done, and that's the goal of the budget, to follow the Board's mission, not the staffs. So when I go back and I look at the reductions, you can know that what's going to be guiding those decisions are going to be what the Board has told us is important to accomplish, period. So the reductions that we make won't be ones that we believe will affect anything that the Board thinks is important, and we'll show you that list. We'll show you exactly where it is that we will get those monies. And if that's the level that the Board wants to have, any road construction reserve, we will find a way to get there. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. And then before we take the vote, I'm going to be on the record that I am totally lost with this process that we're suggesting at this time, that if this -- I'm sure that if the vote was going differently or the direction was going differently, then we wouldn't be here at this point. We're at the ninth inning. We're calling the game to rerun the whole thing over again without the commission's say. I'll tell you right now. I think it is my responsibility to be sitting in every single thing that's taken place in a budget hearing like this. And to delegate this authority to the county manager is irresponsible. I can see what you're saying, to come back. But I'm telling you, we would not be here right now with this motion before us if it went your way, and it's not going your way, so we're calling the game. Page 101 June 21, 2002 And with that, if there's no other comments, I'm going to call the vote. COMMISSIONER HENNING: There is no motion, and there is no second, because this is the workshop, Commissioner. It's the consensus of the Board. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. And I only wish that Commissioner Fiala could have been here to put her two cents in if we waited till this point to do it, but that's beside the point. I'm sorry. Mr. Weigel. MR. WEIGEL: Thank you. For the record, David Weigel, County Attorney. Just to provide you the assurance that the action that you may entertain here doesn't have a problem legally at all. You're in the public process. The manager can take direction and bring results and recommendations back to you, and you'll have the opportunity again to hear input in a public way, receive public speakers to some degree and then make your decisions. A point of clarification, I want, on behalf of the County Attorney Office, as well as the Board of County Commissioners' budget is that the county manager budget is separate. It's very large and it covers many departments and divisions, but it doesn't include your offices and it doesn't include mine. So if you believe that there's some utility in going forward today with the review of the proposed budget for the Board of County Commissioners as well as for the county attorney, I'd offer that as a suggestion. And to some degree, you may find in the discourse that I will have in regard to the county attorney office some information with regard to funding sources, other revenues that may be of assistance to you in your future decision-making with Tom that will also give Tom a heads-up as to what he needs to do in getting back to you in a more definitive way in a few days. Page 102 June 21, 2002 What I'm really saying here is that if we have outside revenue sources that lessen the county attorney impact on ad valorem revenues, that's important for us. It's important for you. And it's very important for him to know as he brings back a general response to you. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Correct. And I think the county commission's budget is up for review also. We're not discounting that. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Before we move forward, I've got a couple of other questions. Constitutional officers. Do we still maintain that schedule on Monday to review their budgets? COMMISSIONER COYLE: When would we do that? MR. OLLIFF: I'm assuming from the direction that I will simply work with the constitutional officers and we will bring back a total general fund budget that will match up with the county's goals. And keep in mind, a lot of the constitutional officers are fee- supported budgets where they are sort of self-contained budgets. Some of these are actually approved through Tallahassee. And the only real issue is going to be the sheriffs budget. And I am going to expect from this direction to sit down with Don and his budget staff and work out some equitable and fair reductions to his budget that will mirror ours. COMMISSIONER CARTER: And when we would then have this discussion so that the millage rate could be tentatively set? MR. SMYKOWSKI: You don't actually set a tentatively millage till the meeting of July 30th. You have to set it and provide that information to the property appraiser and tax collector by law by August 4th. So we actually have plenty of time. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Okay. So let me recap this. You go back. You bring a consolidated list back to us. The county manager does and says: Your goal, go back to the strategic plan. Page 103 June 21, 2002 Number one goal was to build roads if I remember the strategic plan correctly. Commissioner Coy Ie is suggesting that we look for $3 million to add to the road building program. We're now charging the county manager to review all constitutional officer budgets, all operating department budgets, including Board of County Commissioners to find out how we're going to get there, come back with a list to demonstrates that we have done this, and we stay at millage neutral. Is that how I'm interpreting what you're asking, Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: That would be my objective; yes, SIr. MR. OLLIFF: And I would even go a step further. I will provide -- I will make sure that we provide for you before July 15th a list, and that way you have that well in advance of your July 30th meeting. You have time to look at it, review it, know where we stand. Then on the July 30th meeting, when you set the tentative millage rate, you can have a very productive discussion if there's one needed at all. MR. SMYKOWSKI: That's great. Based on your direction today, we could actually set the tentative millage rate based on your direction today. We know we're going to be at millage neutral. You actually do not have to outline those cuts. You could work through the summer if you had to. But for the purpose of the trim notice, that would go out as the maximum tax rate which would be millage neutral at that point. COMMISSIONER CARTER: I don't have a problem with that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: We can do that. MR. OLLIFF: The only other suggestion, if that's the pleasure of the Board, is that you do have one registered public speaker. And Page 104 June 21, 2002 I think for the workshop sake, we probably need to hear from the public and respond to whatever issue that may be. One public speaker you have is Laura -- and I think it's Benren's (phonetic )? MS. BEARENS: Bearens. MR. OLLIFF: Bearens. I'm sorry. MS. BEARENS: Good afternoon, gentlemen. Laurie Bearens for the record. Can I give you a handout (handing)? We just wanted to go on record as the bargaining unit. And as a whole unit of EMS, Collier County, we don't agree with the budget, the proposed budget for this year. We do agree with growth units. We do need them. Engine programs that we have in effect are a good supplement for EMS and they are effective. But, however, it has shown proven in the past that there has been problems with the fire department that's been just dropped out. In keeping up with the standards of service for the department that we strive to get the proposed budgets fall short of what we're asking for. We ask that they be reworked and re- represented. We want to continue to give the standard of care as proven in the past for Collier County EMS as worldclass. And we feel that accepting the budget as proposed is asking for lesser quality of emergency care for the entire county. We're not growing with the county and we're not giving them the service that they need. We're not really staying at the level of care that going. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Mr. Chairman, because of our decision that we're about to make, are there any other public speakers who want to address the commission, I would ask you, Mr. Page 105 June 21, 2002 Chairman, if there are others that would like to address the commISSIon. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Well, seeing none, is there any other business before this commission? MR. OLLIFF: I'm sorry? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Is there any other business before this commission today? MR. OLLIFF: I want to clarify exactly what the goal is, because the one thing I don't want to do is come back and not have addressed what the Board wants. You are currently one and a half million dollars above millage neutral. And I want to make sure that what you are looking for is a total of $3 million worth of reductions from the point that we're at now, or are you looking for a four and a half million dollars from the point where we're at now so that you actually have a net then, $3 million road construction reserve. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, let me ask you a question. If we wanted a net $3 million, can you get there? MR. OLLIFF: It would be -- You would see a little more pain at $3 million than you would at a million and a half. You will see some pain, I believe, at $3 million. COMMISSIONER COYLE: At $3 million net? MR. OLLIFF: Yes, sir. And I can show you both lists. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. Now, my original request was that we bring the budget to millage neutral and then get two million more dollars for roads. So I guess that's a total of three and a half; right? MR. OLLIFF: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Now, are we on the same wavelength or were you expecting something different? MR. OLLIFF: I just wanted to make sure that I'm clear. Page 106 June 21, 2002 COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Was that what I said earlier? I mean, was that your understanding earlier? MR. OLLIFF : Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. COMMISSIONER CARTER: So we're looking for three and a half million for -- MR. OLLIFF: That would end up with a net reserve in the fiscal year '03 budget of $2 million that the Board would set aside for future road construction. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Let me ask my colleagues for a point of discussion when we convene on July 30th. Would it be good information to have just a budget neutral without any extra reserves for transportation? COMMISSIONER CARTER: It probably would, Commissioner. That would give you two comparable lists. MR. OLLIFF: What I'll do is I will provide you a prioritized list with the cumulative totals of the dollar values that we have reduced. That way you can know where the one and a half million dollar line would be. You would know where the $2 million line would be, $3 million line, and you can choose which line you want to put in your budget. COMMISSIONER CARTER: The last thing I would say, Commission Coletta. Even though Commissioner Coletta isn't here, if it goes as that I'm thinking where she might not agree with this, she can go on the record later to say yea or nay whether she agrees or disagrees. I think I count three votes to say let's -- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You do. I won't argue. I won't argue the point one bit. It's just the process that we're using to get there that makes me a little bit nervous. But then again, too, it's the will of the Page 107 June 21, 2002 commission that rules. And I have no other comments to say other than I guess we go forward and wait till the meeting in July. MR. SMYKOWSKI: And for the benefit of the public, we will not be meeting on Monday then, just so we're clear on that as well. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Now, that's a big disappointment. Isn't there something we can do about that? CHAIRMAN COLETTA: We could come in and listen to everyone just one time around. MR. SMYKOWSKI: I'm sure we'll be working on our list however. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Adjourned. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Yeah. (Adjourned at 1:40 p.m.) ***** There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair - Time: 1 :40 p.m. .8'rJ-:10r;, <'\j\ ,.......~ (~'t, BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL~~~ JAME COLETTA, CHAIRMAN AT:rEST~.~ r".: ...- I' _.~_, ~.WiGII1?~E~7BROCK, CLERK ~/ "~L :. ,/ .'- 4:/~~-4;t:.~'&e Attest as to Chain.an' 'ftntture 01111_ s Page 108 June 21, 2002 These minutes approved by the Board on ~/()~~:a.-, as presented / or as corrected STATE OF FLORIDA) COUNTY OF COLLIER) I, Sharon A. Sullivan, R.P.R., Certified Shorthand Reporter, do hereby certify that I was authorized to and did stenographically report the foregoing proceedings; that the transcript is a true record of the proceedings had. Dated this 26th day of July, 2002. Sharon A. Sullivan, R.P.R., C.S.R. Page 109