BCC Minutes 06/16/2016 B (Budget Workshop) BCC
BUDGET
MEETING
MINUTES
June 16, 2016
June 16, 2016
TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
Naples, Florida, June 16, 2016
BUDGET WORKSHOP
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County
Commissioners, in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as
the Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing board(s) of such
special districts as have been created according to law and having
conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m., in SPECIAL
SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples,
Florida, with the following members present:
CHAIRMAN: Donna Fiala
Tom Henning
Georgia Hiller
Tim Nance
Penny Taylor
ALSO PRESENT:
Leo Ochs, County Manager
Nick Casalanguida, Deputy County Manager
Mark Isackson, OMB Director
Jeffrey A. Klatzkow, County Attorney
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NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING
Notice is hereby given the Board of County Commissioners of Collier County will conduct
Budget Workshops Thursday, June 16, 2016 and Friday, June 17, 2016, if necessary, at
9:00 a.m. Workshops will be held in the Boardroom, 3rd Floor, W. Harmon Turner Building,
Collier County Government Center, 3299 Tamiami Trail East, Naples, Florida to hear the
following:
COLLIER COUNTY GOVERNMENT
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
FY 2017 BUDGET WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
Thursday, June 16, 2016
AGENDA
General Overview
Courts and Related Agencies (State Attorney and Public Defender)
Growth Management
Public Services
Administrative Services
Public Utilities
Debt Service
Management Offices (Pelican Bay)
County Attorney
BCC (Community Redevelopment Agencies, Airport)
Constitutional Officers:
Elections
Clerk of Courts
Sheriff
Other Constitutional Officers requesting to address the BCC
Public Comment
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June 16,2016
June 16, 2016
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Will everyone please take their seats.
Thank you.
Are any other commissioners here yet; do you know?
MR. OCHS: Good morning, Commissioners.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Good morning.
MR. OCHS: I think that Commissioner Taylor is a bit delayed
this morning. She had to make a quick stop over at the Naples
Airport Authority meeting. She had a few remarks that she had to
make, and then she said she would be here shortly after 9 o'clock.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Great, great.
MR. OCHS: So I expect her momentarily.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: And I'm sure Commissioner
Henning's on his way as well.
MR. OCHS: I hope so.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Yeah. Okay. With that, Mr. Ochs --
MR. OCHS: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: -- will you please take over?
General Overview
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, good morning and welcome to
your Fiscal Year 2017 annual budget workshop. As is our custom
each year at these workshops, I'll make a few opening remarks about
the budget, and then we will move into individual presentations by
your court system representatives, your county manager agency
department representatives, and then in the afternoon you'll hear from
your constitutional officers on their budget request.
So if I might just begin, Commissioners. Again, the budget
process for the county staff begins every year with an assessment of
your long-range strategic plan. All of our budget allocations and
program and service requests are intended to align with these six
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primary strategic focus areas. These are long-range planning
objectives that we then convert into five-year business plans in each
of our major operating units, and then cascade into annual operating
plans and work programs.
In addition, the FY 17 budget has been developed in the context
of a local economy and local economic conditions that I'm pleased to
say have continued to improve over time since the great recession of
the mid 2000s. I think that is evidenced by some of the following
indicators on this slide.
You will see that countywide taxable values increased almost 10
percent. That's a continuing trend over the last five years of positive
growth in taxable value. Your taxable sales in the county are up year
over year over 5 percent.
Median home prices have increased 16 percent from April of 15
to April of'16.
Sales tax and state-shared revenues continue to be strong and
have a forecasted positive outlook from the state Revenue Estimating
Conference for the next few years.
Your peak season visitation April 2016 is down slightly year
over year, but still continues a strong upward trend over time.
Your permitting activity for construction continues to grow year
over year. The increase is about 5 percent year over year from May
of'15 through May of'16.
Unemployment rate has dropped by half of a percent year over
year.
So these are all, I think, positive economic indicators of
continued growth in the local economy. And while we're pleased
with that growth, we have to understand that there are many outside
factors that can influence or change that in the future, and we continue
to budget at a conservative level to make sure that we're ready for
those contingencies if they arise.
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A couple of the important budget outcomes and features of your
proposed 2017 budget. First and foremost, this budget meets the
budget guidance that this board provided to the staff late February of
this year. It's maintains a millage neutral tax rate for your General
Fund. It provides a reset of your Unincorporated Area General Fund
tax rate consistent with the discussion that this board had previously
in the year to restart the median landscape program that had been
deferred during the recession on improved county collector roads.
We continue to increase and place an emphasis on your General
Fund and in Unincorporated Area General Fund reserves.
Your principal debt and annual debt service continues to decline.
You do have expanded service requests for additional personnel
in your FY 17 budget as we continue to try to meet the service
demands of a growing public.
State and federal mandates have been addressed and are fully
funded. There's been an increase of five million dollars over what
was budgeted in 2016 to continue to attempt to address the capital
maintenance and replacement -- excuse me -- backlog that occurred
during the recession, and we are pleased to report that we have dollars
earmarked again this year towards the backlog of vehicle and heavy
equipment replacement. And we have a modest proposed adjustment
to employee compensation in 2017.
Commissioners, as I mentioned, the charts on this slide indicate
the rollercoaster ride that we've been on with taxable value
countywide. You can see the precipitous decline from 2008 through
2012, and then over the last five fiscal cycles you've seen an upward
trend in taxable value in both the General Fund and the
Unincorporated Area General Fund, taxable values for county.
This slide just reminds the Board of the millage rate history on
both your General Fund and your Unincorporated Area General Fund.
The General Fund millage rate remains at 3.5645. Your
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Unincorporated Area General Fund in 2017 is proposed at .8069.
That's a reset to the levy and the Unincorporated Area in FY07.
Let's talk about a few of the highlights of the 2017 budget.
Again, you have a millage neutral tax rate and an increasingly tax --
excuse me -- increasing taxable value environment will net about a
$24.3 million increase in General Fund property tax receipts.
Your Unincorporated Area General Fund tax dollars have grown
about $7.3 million; 3 million of that is earmarked for ongoing
operations and capital projects, and 4.3 has been earmarked
specifically to restart the median landscape program that we were
forced to defer during the great recession.
As I mentioned, we do have planned growth in frontline services
with expanded County Manager services totaling about $5.1 million.
We are proposing an increase of 78 new FTE; 22 of those are existing
job bank employees that have consistently worked over 30 hours a
week.
Because of the changes in the national Affordable Health Care
Act, that law requires now that any employee that works 30 hours or
more must be offered health insurance or face strict penalties, rather
severe penalties for noncompliance. As a result, we had been
budgeting this current year that health insurance allocation for these
job bank employees.
Now, these are not supplemental personnel. These are employees
that are essential to the ongoing operation of our county government,
and we try to recognize those. It is a very marginal increase, less than
$1,000 per person per year, to bring those people on as full-time
employees.
Again, general government, new capital and replacement
spending is in excess of$40 million. There's an emphasis on
continuing to maintain and improve your transportation network, your
stormwater system, your park infrastructure, governmental facilities,
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all the while placing high priority on continued public safety
infrastructure needs, including your replacement of the 800 megahertz
public safety radio system that you previously approved, as well as
replacements of your frontline ambulances, and a set-aside continues
to replace your Medevac helicopter next year.
Commissioners, we've talked about your backlog of capital
assets and facilities. And there was a discussion during budget
guidance to try to allocate additional funds towards the backlog
beyond what we had budgeted in FY2016, and this slide is a depiction
of the fact that we've allocated $25 million, a $5 million increase
towards the backlog capital projects while not increasing the total
allocation for your backlog and your growth-related capital program
in 2017, and we will get into some of the specifics on this as we go
through your budget.
I mentioned the position count. You can see that in the
expanded column, the second column from the right on this slide on
2017, the majority of your position increases are in public services.
Most of those, as I mentioned, 20 of those are the conversions of your
job bank employees that work in that particular department, and the
balance primarily in your enterprise funds, both in public utilities and
growth management, the cost of those FTE are fully covered by fees
for service in those two enterprise operations.
I also mentioned that the Board had authorized during the budget
guidance discussions in the spring a 3 percent general wage
adjustment for county workforce. That totals about $3.4 million and
is incorporated into your FY 17 budget.
I think it's important in an improving economy where there's
more competition than ever in the private sector for talented
individuals, that we maintain a competitive position so we don't lose
our best talent.
In terms of healthcare, again, because of this board's strong
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emphasis on a healthcare program that features wellness and
preventative care, we have been able to continue to control our costs
of health insurance to our workforce and, therefore, there is no
premium increase proposed for FY17, and your program is funded at
an actuarially determined premium level, fully funded with no
increase in premiums.
We continue the traditional premium allocation split of 80
percent employer and 20 percent employee pay for your agency as
well as the Clerk of Courts and the Supervisor of Election personnel.
Commissioners, the net county budget is slightly over a million
(sic) dollars for FY17. You can see the bar chart that indicates the
growth trends and declines over time from FY07 through projected
FY17.
This is a breakdown in one of your traditional pie charts of
where that billion dollars comes from. You can see 30 percent or 31
percent is ad valorem taxes, another 20 percent comes from service
charges. About 6 percent in gas and sales taxes, and you have your
beginning balance carryforward numbers.
And where that money goes, this is a general breakdown
between your county manager operations, your public utility
enterprise operations, transfers to your constitutional officers for
funding your debt service and, finally, your capital budget allocations
equal about 25 percent of that billion-dollar budget.
Let's talk about your General Fund budget this year. The FY17
General Fund budget is 385 million. That represents just slightly over
a 7 percent increase from current FY2016. Still below the high of
FY2007 by about $10 million.
This is the pro forma of the changes in your General Fund from
current year '16 to 2017. You can see that the bulk of that $24 million
increase is divided between your operations at 10 million and the
constitutional officer transfers at $12 million on the expense side.
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The revenue side you see property tax revenue increases and
sales tax increasing about $1.8 million with some reduction in your
carryforward fund balance moving into 2017.
General Fund reserves continue to grow. This board has placed
an emphasis on making sure that you had appropriate reserve levels.
You can see that reserves for 2017 in your General Fund will exceed
$33 million, and I think the commission is to be congratulated for the
continued emphasis on building your General Fund reserves even
through the difficult economic times.
Why is that important? It maintains a healthy corporate credit
rating. The General Fund, of course, is the cash flow engine for all
the other funds, protects our beginning cash balance, gives you
flexibility to deal with unforeseen mandates and emergencies, and
also the reserve fund for the constitutional officers. You're going to
see why it's important to maintain a healthy reserve level.
The Board had established specific floors and ceilings for
various reserve funds, including your General Fund, your water and
sewer utility, your building permit revenues, as well as your land
development planning -- land planning reserves.
You can see that most of these reserves are within the floor and
ceiling levels established, and we can talk about each one of these as
those departments present.
Your outstanding principal debt continues to decline from a high
of over 788 million in Fiscal Year '8 to projected 468 million in
FY17.
And also your debt service, as a ratio of your total bondable
revenues, is 6.8 percent projected for FY17. That is well within the
cap of 13 percent that's established by board policy.
Let's take a look at your General Fund revenue sources. You can
see that there continues to be a high reliance on your ad valorem
property tax receipts as your primary source of funding for your
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General Fund operations, sales tax contributes about 10 percent, and
we get about $10 million or two and a half percent from state revenue
sharing.
And this is just another snapshot of some of the primary revenue
sources in your General Fund. As we mentioned, ad valorem property
receipts are up 24 million; sales tax, about 1.8 million; state revenue
sharing is budgeted to increase by $800,000 in 2017; your gas tax
estimates are up slightly, about a million one from the current year.
Impact fees have increased almost $7 million as a result of all the
new construction activity that's underway over the last year or so, and
your General Fund carryforward or beginning fund balance is
forecasted at $45.6 million.
Let's turn now to your Unincorporated Area General Fund, your
budget highlights there. Your overall Unincorporated Area General
Fund is slightly over $53 million representing a 16.4 increase from
the FY2016 budget.
As was discussed in a workshop previously this year and
reflected in this budget, your Unincorporated Area General Fund
millage rate has been set at .8069. Almost 4.3 of that $7.3 million it's
raised as a result of that millage change and reset has been earmarked
specifically to restart your median landscape operation.
We're also increasing transfers in the capital program, and we're
going to see that, I think, as time goes on in your Unincorporated
Area General Fund as growth continues to move from west to east
and there's more reliance on the Unincorporated Area General Fund
to help fund some of our capital improvements in the rural areas.
This is the pro forma of your changes in the Unincorporated
Area General Fund for 2017 on the expense side. You see the
primary driver there is the restart of a median landscape capital
program. And you see the two increments on the right-hand side of
the slide on the revenue side. Those are dollars devoted both to
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operations and the new capital landscape restart.
This is a breakdown of your typical unincorporated area
residential tax bill for 2017. This is something the Board has asked us
to provide every year. It kind of breaks down all the government
agencies and what their percentage of the total unincorporated area
tax bill would look like: 44 percent in the school district, 20 percent
for county general government operations, about 15 percent for
constitutionals; you have seven and a half devoted to county MSTUs,
10 percent to independent fire districts, and smaller allocations to
your water management and Big Cypress Basin, and your Mosquito
Control District as well.
Commissioners, as always, we conclude with a few budget
challenges that we like to keep on the radar. As we've talked about in
the past, in terms of the General Fund, we continue to have a very
significant reliance on property tax and state-shared revenues, and we
need to be cautious about how susceptible those can be to outside
influence beyond the Board's immediate control.
We continue to attempt to balance the competing priorities for
discretionary dollars between capital investments, management of
your assets, and continuing operations to deliver service as you've
outlined and as your constituents expect.
With respect to the question of the issuance of new debt, the
2017 budget does not recommend, as we begin the fiscal year, the
issuance of any new debt; however, we'll continue to monitor that as
we go through the year, and once we're assured of solid estimates on
particular project costs and we know what the execution schedule is,
we'll be able to talk to you in more detail during the year about those
things.
We want to continue to remain competitive in the employment
market and also to make sure that we continue to maintain that
balance of 80/20 in your health insurance allocations and would
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suggest that you try to help us help the constitutional officers in our
striking that balance to keep working towards those numbers.
Again, we need to be cautious about unfunded mandates and
cost shifting at the state and federal level. Also, with respect to future
capital, as I mentioned earlier, we need to keep an eye on new capital
requirements that will need to be funded out of your unincorporated
area and continue to watch for potential erosion of the communication
services tax, which is the other primary revenue source for your 111
unincorporated fund.
And, finally, continue to balance the need and the desire to
maintain sufficient levels of reserves while also acknowledging the
need to fund growing operations and asset management.
So, Commissioners, in conclusion, I would say that the FY 17
budget that has been proposed allows us to maintain our ability to
deliver high-quality best-value services and programs to our residents,
it allocates discretionary dollars to both your deferred capital
maintenance and equipment replacement initiatives, as well as
towards new growth-related capital improvements.
We continue to build reserves in this budget, continue to retire
general government and your Enterprise Fund debt levels. We've
provided for a modest but well-deserved increase to wages and,
finally, I think the budget provides you as a board the flexibility to
quickly and effectively respond to unanticipated challenges or
opportunities that may arise during the year with sufficient reserves to
deal with any of those contingencies as they arise.
So, Madam Chairman, that completes my general overview, and
I'd be happy to take questions now, or we can hold those till we get
into individual budget presentations. We have your outline in your
agenda packet of which departments come in order. We typically
begin with our court system.
So if there's not any specific questions, we can move on to the
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detailed presentations.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Commissioner Henning?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: The FTEs, I think we had in
2008/2009 a peak before we started cutting positions.
MR. OCHS: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: It would be interesting to see at
the peak what the population was versus what we have 2015 -- or
2016, proposed '17.
MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. We'll get that for you this morning.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Commissioner Hiller?
COMMISSIONER HILLER: The median cost of housing that
you cited at the beginning of the presentation as 435,000, is that for
all of Collier County, including the municipalities, or is that for
unincorporated Collier County?
MR. OCHS: I believe that's countywide, ma'am, including --
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Can you get me the number for
unincorporated Collier County, please?
MR. OCHS: Sure. All set.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: That's it.
MR. OCHS: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: So from here, Leo, where do we go?
MR. OCHS: Yes, ma'am. We're going to turn this over to Mr.
Isackson to direct the presentations.
MR. ISACKSON: Thank you, County Manager.
The first up is our court system. Chuck and your crew, please.
Courts and Related Agencies (State Attorney and Public Defender
MR. RICE: Good morning, Ma'am Chair, and Commission.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: How are you today?
MR. RICE: That time of year again, I guess. It goes fast.
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For the record, my name's Chuck Rice. I'm the Court
Administrator here in Collier County. I'll introduce the people here
with me. To my left is our Administrative County Judge, Judge
Robert Crown.
JUDGE CROWN: Good morning.
MR. RICE: Our Public Defender, Kathleen Smith, to my right.
MS. SMITH: Good morning.
MR. RICE: And to her right is our State Attorney, Steven
Russell.
MR. RUSSELL: Hello.
MR. RICE: You know, always, we like to thank Leo and his
staff and Mark and everybody, and the Board for your continued
support throughout the years, not only this year, but for many years
with the court system.
We're here happy to present a pretty straightforward budget with
no expanded positions or programs. We're presenting a $5.2 million
budget for basically a net cost to the General Fund right at $2 million,
and we are budget compliant.
I'll just make a few comments about the courts and then let Steve
and Kathleen make a few comments about their agencies, and then
we'll take some questions.
But the courts have enjoyed another successful year. We have
implemented -- fully implemented a criminal case management
system and would like to thank the PD and the State Attorney's Office
for their cooperation and work with that also. Basically what that does
is put a case on a timeline, and we monitor that and try to meet those
goals of that timeline.
Our probation department is in the process of going paperless.
We've implemented a lot of e-filing. Also we're reorganizing our
magistrate department to make it more user friendly to the
self-represented and also, you know, to the attorneys that use the
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magistrates' department.
We enjoy a fully funded and staffed veterans court, drug court,
and mental health court. And those are all overseen by our Judge
Janeice Martin, one of our county judges.
So with that being said, Kathleen, make any comments.
MS. SMITH: I would just thank you for your continued support
of our agency. You are currently funding three positions for us which
are active in these successful programs that we have in court: Your
funding of a position for EID, which is an early intervention docket,
as well as the mental health courts, drug courts, veterans court, and
one support staff member. And these positions are really crucial to
allowing the success of these programs.
Other than that, we have gone paperless as well, which has been
quite a challenge, but we are there at this point exchanging discovery
with the state electronically, and we have electronic files at this point
as well. So all you do for us is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
MR. RUSSELL: Likewise, I'd just like to express our support
from the State Attorney's side. We have a pretty cooperative
relationship in terms of these types of issues between the agencies
involved.
Budgets are remaining fairly flat, as are caseloads, and we, I
don't think, have any major increase, but we appreciate the support.
MR. RICE: Judge Crown, any comments?
JUDGE CROWN: All right. Well, first of all, good morning,
and thank you for allowing me to be here and to make just a few brief
comments about the budget request.
I firmly believe that those of us in the courthouse are mindful
and responsible stewards of the revenue that funds -- that flows into
the courthouse. We're able to take that, in large part, and deliver, I
believe, high-quality service to the citizens of this community.
And I will just invite all of you at any time -- if you want to
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actually see what we do, then I personally invite you over to the
courthouse. Contact me at any time; we'll show you what we do in
the courtrooms and throughout the courthouse.
So this, I believe, is a reasonable request. The budget is a
nominal increase over FY 16, and so our request is that you approve
the budget as submitted.
And, again, I appreciate the opportunity to be here this morning.
MR. RICE: And I'd just like to add, we try to be very interactive
with the community. We never turn down tours. We set up tours.
We've had Youth Leadership Collier. We've had different schools --
numerous schools come through, Leadership Collier also. I think
many of you been through it also, so we're always willing to open up
and be transparent to what we do and try to welcome everybody to
their courthouse.
So any questions we'll be happy to take.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: No one has their light on, but I'll just ask
one simple one. You were talking about the drug court. Does that
also include your very successful teen drug court?
MR. RICE: Well, we have a teen court.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Yes.
MR. RICE: Yes, it does.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Okay, good.
MR. RICE: That's funded here also.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: I've sat in on a couple of those. They're
wonderful.
MR. RICE: And, again, if you guys would -- that's -- the teen
court is basically a diversion program kind of through the attorney.
It's a trial by peers. So it's really a great program. If you guys want to
know more information or want to come observe it, please, reach out
to us. We'll be happy to have you.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Commissioner Nance?
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COMMISSIONER NANCE: Yes. I have absolutely no
questions, but what I would like to do is I would like to thank all of
you for the way you've managed the essential services that you
provide for our community.
You very quietly and professionally have delivered the order that
is necessary for our republic. It's much appreciated for me. You've
remained off the headlines. You are not in the public eye. You're not
a topic of discussion, and I appreciate that. And that means that
you're doing a great job. You're delivering things very effectively and
very efficiently, and I want to thank you for doing so.
JUDGE CROWN: Thank you very much. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: And I would second that. I feel
the same way. Well said.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Commissioner Taylor?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: How's the renovation coming
along with different courtrooms?
MR. RICE: Well, right now we're in the process of building the
new office for probation. That's hit kind of a -- we've been stalled for
a few weeks waiting on our engineers to look -- they opened up --
when they opened up the ceiling, there's some ductwork that goes up
a shaft. It now has to be enclosed to meet code, so we've kind of got a
little setback there. But all in all, it's going great.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Have someone talk to Collier
County about this.
MR. RICE: We're certainly trying. But, no, it's going great.
Facilities have been great working with us and their project manager,
and after we get that completed, we'll move across the hall and build a
new courtroom.
The long-range plan for capital improvements is another
courtroom on the sixth floor. We're also modernizing our five
elevators that need to be done and rewiring the building.
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So, you know, the building is 28 years old now. Everybody says
"the new courthouse." Twenty-eight years old. But thank you. It's
going very well. Thanks for asking.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Good, good. Because, you
know, I've been in a few of your courtrooms, and it -- a little polish
here, a little polish there. And I know this has been budget. This is
not a reflection, so -- that you deliver the service that you do to the
people of Collier County despite everything is extraordinary and well
done.
MR. RICE: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Looks like you walk away with high A's
in the grading period.
MR. RICE: Can we leave now?
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Yes, you can. Thank you very much for
being here.
MR. RUSSELL: Thank you.
JUDGE CROWN: Thank you.
MR. RICE: Thank you very much.
MR. ISACKSON: Next up, Commissioners, is your growth
management division/department.
Growth Management
MR. WILKISON: Good morning, Commissioners.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Good morning.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Good morning.
MR. WILKISON: For the record, I'm David Wilkison, your
Growth Management Department head. And I have my senior budget
leadership team here with me this morning, and I'd actually like for
Stephanie on the left side to introduce herself, and we'll start right
across.
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MS. AMANN: Good morning. I'm Stephanie Amann, Manager
of Finance and Support.
MR. KOVENSKY: Ken Kovensky, Operations Director.
MR. FRENCH: Hi. Jamie French, I'm your deputy department
head.
MR. SHUE: Good morning. Gene Shue. I'm the Operations
Director.
MS. KEARNS: Good morning. Allison Kearns here at the
moment as a Growth Management Financial and Operational Support
Manager.
MR. WILKISON: Yes. Thank you, everybody, and thank you
for the opportunity to talk to you this morning about the Growth
Management Department's budget.
You know, Commissioners, last year, I sat in on the budget
workshop, and it was actually before I officially started here at the
county. And I sat here and really intently listened, but I can tell you I
had no idea of the incredible teamwork that it takes to put this budget
document together.
And I want to thank all of you for your direction and support. I
want to thank the County Manager's Office for their leadership and
guidance. I especially want to thank Mark and his team, the budget
team. I mean, amazing to work with. Just great guidance and support
for our group.
And last, but not least, really thank all of my talented GMD team
members who helped put this budget together.
Commissioners, we have a budget that is approximately $214
million this year, and we're in compliance with board policy staying
under the two and a half percent target in our General Fund 001 and
111.
And our expanded requests in 101 and 111 are all positions that
are needed to carry out board initiatives and programs. We have two
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June 16, 2016
project managers and inspector for the restarted landscape median
program. We have a traffic signal technician for the LED streetlight
conversion program, and then we're converting two job bankers in our
enterprise asset management program.
Now, our revenue centric operations are up about 16 percent,
from 51 million to 59 million. And Jamie and his team have done a
great job providing a real incredible level of service while balancing a
staff that's really composed both of FTEs and job bankers.
So our expanded requests in Fund 113 are positions that we need
to continue to enhance that level of service, to heighten our expertise,
stabilize our workforce and to continue to upgrade our review
process.
In addition, we're going to be making capital investments to
enhance our level of service in the following areas: We're going to
make technology upgrades to make submitting permits and tracking
them easier, we're going to harden our IT infrastructure to minimize
system downtime both for our staff and our customers, and we are
going to be opening additional permit drop-off centers for the
convenience of our customers.
Now, Commissioners, earlier this week I passed out to you a
copy of our capital projects plan. It was a small binder, and in that it
contains a five-year work plan, project descriptions, and a map of our
Fiscal Year '17 projects for stormwater, roads and bridges, road
resurfacing, traffic operations improvements, and coastal zone
projects.
And a few things I'd like to highlight within that report is, you
know, we do have a funding program the next few years for the
design, permitting, and right-of-way acquisition for the Vanderbilt
Beach Road extension really to position it in the future for -- possibly
for debt issuance for construction and also the funding of the design
and permitting in Fiscal Year '17 for the bridges in the eastern part of
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June 16, 2016
the county so we can position them possibly for debt, issuance for
construction in 2018, or to prioritize those for a pay-as-you-go
program. And we continue to closely monitor those bridges and look
at the condition closely.
So I also wanted to give you a heads-up about something that's
coming to your June 28th meeting. We will be bringing forward an
executive summary on the median landscaping program. And in it
we're actually going to ask for the approval of a work plan for five
years and also for some advanced funding to do the design this
summer for the projects that we would like to construct in Fiscal Year
'17. So I wanted to give you a head-sup about that, and that will be
coming to your meeting on the 28th.
And in regards to stormwater funding, you know, last fall we
had our integrated water resources management strategy workshop,
and in that you gave us the direction and the guidance to investigate a
stormwater utility. And we are currently undergoing that feasibility
study, and we'll be returning in the fall with the results of that
feasibility study to really kind of update you where we stand with
that.
And I'd like to conclude my presentation with an update on our
airports. Due to the hard work of Justin Lobb, Allison Kearns, and
Gene Shue and, obviously, the great Airport Authority Staff that we
have, our airports have finished in the black for the third year in a
row, and they've replaced about a million dollars of aging equipment.
So I appreciate this opportunity to present our budget to you, and
we're here and ready to answer any questions you may have. Thank
you.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Commissioner Hiller?
COMMISSIONER HILLER: As you know, we've been
lobbying for TIGER funding, and I wondering to what extent you
have a sense of the probability of us getting it in the time frame for
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June 16, 2016
the projects that you're proposing, the capital projects, like, related to
the bridges.
MR. WILKISON: You know, we have one bridge project that is
funded by DOT, and then the other two, as you know -- and you
helped, thank you very much, with that TIGER funding. But I think
that there's a probability within that five-year window of really
finding out whether or not we would get funding for that, and that
would be helpful, without a doubt.
But realize the two TIGER-funded bridges that we have are
really for an upgrade of safety, and most of the other bridges I was
talking about, the ones way out east that are really older bridges that
have aged and need to be replaced.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: So would they qualify for the
TIGER funding as well or not?
MR. WILKISON: I don't believe so, because they -- the two that
we had included in the TIGER funding grant were really more of a
safety upgrade to provide safety out in the Estates for emergency
vehicle travel.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: As opposed to the ones that are
already in existence, which is, you know, repair and replacement
because of use.
MR. WILKISON: Exactly.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Understood. All right. I just was
wondering if that, you know, potentially could be, as we say, a
good-news item that might --
MR. WILKISON: It could potentially be, and appreciate it.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- add to --
MR. WILKISON: We appreciate your help.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Exactly -- to the budget.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Commissioner Nance?
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Mr. Wilkison, I would like to start
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June 16, 2016
-- and I'm going to take a little time here.
I would like to start, and I would like to thank you, sir, for your
leadership and your entire team. I think you've done an extraordinary
job.
I am very, very grateful particularly for the work that's been
done with the county airports. You know, we had quite a bit of
grumpiness on that once upon a time, and to see them thrive and to
see them, I think, in readiness for economic development in some of
the things that are going to go forward in the eastern part of the
county, particularly the Immokalee airport, I am gratified for you, and
I want to let you know that your citizens are aware of it, and they
appreciate it. And, like I say, it's not a high-profile thing, but you've
done an extraordinary job.
MR. WILKISON: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: It is very clear to me that staff,
throughout this budget, has done journeyman's work in its
preparation. And I'm speaking in an overview because I'm going to
get to something that's going to be not so happy in a moment.
I think the administrative preparation and the operational
preparation is clearly evident, and I think you've done a very, very
good job of crafting a very complete, easy-to-read, and well-balanced
budget across all of these different divisions.
I will tell you, though, that I am going to -- and I'm going to talk
-- I'm talking about this under growth management because the
median program that we've discussed here is under your division, and
it's going to go forward to something that I do have a grave concern
about.
I am -- I am very willing and supportive of increasing taxes in
the county and addressing things like stormwater utility albeit my
district is probably the district that bears the heaviest weight of any
tax increase.
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June 16, 2016
And to see our Unincorporated Area General Fund tax increase
as it is, is a burden, but it's something that I can support under certain
circumstances.
My hope when I arrived -- and, you know, when I arrived I think
I'm probably the only commissioner, at least in recent years, that's
worked with landscaping in a sort of business, landscape
maintenance. It was my hope that during the period of time and since
I came to service with the county during the recession that we would
get our head around our landscape maintenance program and that
we'd be able to come together not only as a board but as a community
and talk about how we could improve that program.
I will tell you that I think that there has been a failure in that, and
I think it's been almost total in that I feel like I bear the burden of that.
I think it's been a personal failure on my part to send a clear and
present message that we needed to do landscaping a little different
than what we have.
That said, it's clear and everybody understands that my district
has the least median landscaping of any district in the county, and
certainly I support the ornamentation of our community. I support
moving some of those things into my district. But it has been my
hope and my continuous hope that we would embark on something
when we did reinitiate this program, something that was going to be
more sustainable because my fear and actually my professional
opinion is that if we don't reform the way we do this, there's going to
be a very, very heavy environmental cost down the road.
Everybody knows that water things are on the menu right now.
And, you know, people are now, today, there are starting to be
discussions about investigations on water quality.
In the last 20 years, I believe that, unfortunately, the landscaping
that we've done here has been behind the cutting edge. We have not
-- our community has been a growth community, but we have not
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June 16, 2016
done some of the things that they've clearly done in California and
Arizona to be responsible, respectful for the environment.
And although I would love to have responsible landscaping
throughout my district, in District 5, I don't want to support something
that's going to go out there that is going to have a huge deleterious
effect that's going to be visited on the urban coastal zone.
As this water and these plumes of fertilizer that comes along
with the way we do business today, the people on the coast are going
to suffer.
So, you know, it's not that I don't appreciate the effort to help my
district. I believe this budget as a whole and the support that I've
gotten from my fellow commissioners for this budget is well
balanced. I feel like my district is being well supported. But I will
tell you today, as it's been explained to me and as I understand it, I'm
going to be a dissenting vote on approval of this budget for the simple
reason that I cannot support $4.3 million to continue a program that I
know in my heart is fatally flawed.
I hope that -- I know that my dissenting vote will not stop the
approval of the budget, and I wouldn't do that. I would not stop the
approval of the budget on a single item. My hope is that my open and
notorious dissent on this item is just going to engender further
discussion that I think is really necessary.
And so I don't want to be a fly in the ointment, and I don't want
any staff member in this room to think that I am, in any way,
criticizing this budget. This is a policy of the Board. The staff has
done a very, very good job, very, very professional job, and I can't
criticize it in any way. I'm well satisfied.
And it's not -- it's not your burden to bear, but it's your burden to
bring these things to life. And, you know, you're going to react with
the direction that you've given.
But as much as I support ornamental plantings and as much as I
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June 16, 2016
support beautifying my district, I cannot support this budget because
of this, because I think this is a tax increase that's being dedicated to
something that I don't think is really high on everybody's priority list
in my district.
I have to go back to my district, and I have to look them in the
eye and say, you know what? I voted for a tax increase that's being
used to finance a landscaping methodology that's not good. Not only
is it not good for us, and I know it's not high on your list, but it's really
not good for our coastal communities.
I cannot support this professionally with a clear conscience, and
I apologize to you for that. And I'm not -- I'm really not trying to be a
pain in the butt. And I know that I don't have support here, but what I
want to do is I'm hoping as we go forward and everybody wants to
support doing this that we can have an honest community discussion,
because we're going to be talking about water quality. And, you
know, I don't want to go out there when we start talking about the
quality in Naples Bay and go, geez, you know, how did we get here?
And here's Tim sitting here living in this community for 20 years
going -- I mean, you know, it's like a slow-motion crash that I can see
coming.
And I don't want to spend $1,000 to fix every dollar that we
spend to do something that I don't have my heart in.
So I apologize to you for this, and I apologize to my fellow
commissioners, and I don't want you to think, Commissioners, that
I'm ungrateful for the support you've given me in my district. But I
think -- you know, I didn't sleep last night because of this; honestly, I
didn't. But, you know, I just -- I hope that we can just go forward.
I want to have a good rest of the day, but I hope that down the
road that we'll have this discussion. And, you know, maybe, Mr.
Wilkison, the event that you're talking about will give us another shot
and, you know --
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June 16, 2016
MR. WILKISON: It will, and we will -- you know, we've been
working with the steering committee that we set up to look at plant
palette means and methods, you know, and the construction of
landscaping. And we will, you know, be ready and able to discuss
that on the 28th.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Sir, it's not your fault.
MR. WILKISON: I understand.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: And it's not the fault of the
commissioners. I think it's a personal failure on my part. Perhaps I
should have been stronger in my feelings about this earlier. But, you
know, I know we're going to be dealing with this, but it's not going to
be me. It's going to be the commission that follows me.
So, you know, maybe this day and -- you know, please let's get
past it. I'm not trying to be a downer to this event because I think you
guys have done just the greatest job, and I want to leave it like that.
You've done a tremendous job. And I know all the commissioners
have a lot of sweat in the details of this, too, in the things that they've
supported.
So my thanks to you. My apologies for bringing this up at this
time, but it's under your division, sir, so --
MR. WILKISON: I understand.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: -- sorry for kind of a backhanded
elbow and sorry for the -- I apologize to my commissioners for
starting off a happy day in this way. But I just need to get this out,
and I do -- I do regret it, but I feel compelled.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Commissioner Taylor?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: You don't have to apologize.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Ma'am, it's -- you know --
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: When I was --
COMMISSIONER NANCE: -- this is a team sport, you know.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: When I was running for this seat,
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June 16, 2016
I remember listening to you talking about water and medians.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Talk into the microphone.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I remember listening to you
talking about water and medians. And I listened to you and I'm
thinking, of course, that's right, and you do have the expertise behind
you, and you do have the knowledge. And Pelican Bay is what it is
today because of you.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Well, I don't know about that,
ma'am. You know, it's just --
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Well --
COMMISSIONER NANCE: -- I'm very passionate about it, and
I know that we're going to have to do better soon because if you can't
read the tea leaves north of us, you know, we're suffering some of the
same things in our own basin.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: So, please, let's go forward and
let's have a great day and congratulate all the staff for doing a great
job. Like I say, I regret this, but I needed to get it out now, and I'm
not going to mention it again.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Well, I wasn't going to vote
against the budget, but I was going to bring it up also.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Okay. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: We have to come into the 21st
century. We cannot keep repeating the same mistakes if we're
concerned about our environment and water quality. It's very simple.
Despite what the residents say. You know, they -- because if we're
going to lead, we have to lead. And it's a challenge, but you would
have my support, there's no question. What you brought up --
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Well, I hope in years ahead I can
help to some extent to help, you know, bring this to light.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Well, the time is -- it's not years.
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June 16, 2016
The time is now.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Well --
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: You're going to still be here.
The time is now, because we're going to get a plan.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Well, I'm very gratified, Mr.
Wilkison, that you made that statement. Actually, it made me feel a
little bit better right before I gave you a cheap shot. But, you know,
thank you. And you can count on me being active in that. Thank you
very much, sir.
But you-all did fantastic job. This is a great budget under tough
circumstances. And I'm very happy.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Nick, is that for this subject?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes. Madam Chair, you have one
public speaker for the Growth Management Division. Mr. Brad
Estes.
MR. ESTES: Good morning, Commissioners. Thank you for the
opportunity to speak to you at the workshop.
My name is Brad Estes. I'm the Secretary of the Poinciana Civic
Association, and, as you would guess, I'm here about stormwater
drainage again.
Our stormwater drainage system is dysfunctional. Most of the
swales have filled in and have lost their capacity. We have about six
miles of swales in our neighborhood.
Our outfall ditch is 20 to 25 percent below capacity because of a
buildup of sediment. About 140 of our driveways are in some state of
disrepair because water constantly stands in them and has for many,
many years.
Having closely worked with your staff for 18 months, I've been
-- I have become convinced that it's a lack of funding. I see
willingness, responsiveness from -- at least considering what we're
proposing, but I don't see action.
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June 16, 2016
Since September of 2014, at which time I met with Mr.
Casalanguida about this issue, only 32 swales of our 300 had been
restored. And all we're asking is that we restore our system, our
stormwater system, to the original design. We're not asking for
enhancements. Just restore the system to its original design.
I ask that before you adopt the coming year fiscal budget that
you -- fiscal year budget that you explore what really is needed for
Collier County to be able to address its county systems, the county
stormwater systems, not just in Poinciana Village but all over. But
we consider our system to be in a state of crisis. It's a public safety
issue.
On the overhead there you'll see four homes that were nearly
flooded on August 4 of 2014. The house on the bottom right was
within one-half inch of having water in it, and that -- I realize that
rainfall has been characterized as a 50-year storm. It's very rare. But I
remind you that the Vero Beach airport just got 9.78 inches of rainfall
in an afternoon. I think that was May -- I forget the date. It was in
May.
So just to conclude, we think the August 4th incident was a
warning shot. We want to be prepared. We want our system to
operate at optimal capacity. It doesn't guarantee we'll not flood. We
expect street flooding, but we're also very concerned about home
flooding. We are a vulnerable area and, for that purpose, we -- or for
that reason we ask that the system perform optimally and as designed.
Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: You kind of sit in a bowl, don't you?
MR. ESTES: Yes, we do.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Sir, what is the date of this
photograph? Is it on there?
MR. ESTES: That's August 4, 2014.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Okay. What was it like this
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June 16, 2016
January past?
MR. ESTES: We had no --
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Did you have acute flooding
during the --
MR. ESTES: We have street flooding on both our entrance
streets at less than two inches, about 1.7. I took some photographs
about 1.7.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: During that period of the 19
inches in the month of January, were you in dire condition there? I
mean, did you have acute flooding then, or not quite so bad?
MR. ESTES: Just the street flooding. Just the street flooding
and then some swale, but the swales percolated pretty well because
the ground water is pretty low.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: The dry season at that time.
MR. ESTES: Right. Yes, it percolated.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: So this is occurring during the
rainy season?
MR. ESTES: This occurred during the rainy season, yes.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Okay.
MR. ESTES: And it's exaggerate -- what's the word?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Exacerbated.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Exacerbated.
MR. ESTES: Exacerbated during the wet season because of the
groundwater.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you very
much.
MR. ESTES: Yeah, sure.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Commissioner Hiller?
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I have a great concern about how
we are managing our stormwater system, and I mean that at all levels.
What we're talking about here is the tertiary system. And the
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June 16, 2016
system is an integrated system. It all connects. And we're dealing
with the attempted management of the flow of water over what is
nearly flat surface, which is very difficult, because to move water
when there is no slope is very hard.
It is essential that we are fully committed to the maintenance of
the tertiary system, which is the swale system, to move water
throughout the county, and whether -- this happens to be in a
low-lying area, like Pelican Marsh is in a low-lying area, and where
we have allowed development in many parts of the county that are
low lying. We cannot, merely because it is in a low-lying area, ignore
the maintenance of these swales.
We have to maintain a standard across the county. The level of
service with respect to swale maintenance to that tertiary system is
critical to stormwater management. And I don't believe any area,
whether it's Pine Ridge Estates or Poinciana Drive at Balboa Circle,
should be treated differently or ignored.
So I don't know what you have to do with respect to this issue,
but it's an issue that comes up year after year, and it just -- and it pops
up in different parts of the county. One year it's this part, next year
it's that part, and every single time we have problems.
So if we want to manage stormwater drainage appropriately, we
must maintain the entirety of that tertiary system. And what we have
to also do is be consistently conscious of the interruption of sheet
flow which, in fact, we haven't been, as evidenced by how we have
built our roads, which has been problematic and has caused flooding
in different areas of the county that didn't exist before.
So I don't know what we need to do to help you get there. I don't
know if we need to -- I don't know if it's a funding issue or if it's a
priority issue. Whatever it is, it just needs to be rectified. So you
need to tell us what we need to do to avoid these problems anywhere
in the county.
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June 16, 2016
MR. WILKISON: It really is a funding issue. And in regards to
this specific example, you know, we went in for about a month and a
half and did swale maintenance, and we really want to see how that
performs this wet season and kind of in conjunction, which is very
important, this system outfalls to the extension of the Gordon River.
And we're currently conducting a study through a consultant of the
Gordon River extension. Kind of like -- we've gotten to the point now
where we've kind of clearly evaluated the existing conditions because,
obviously, any stormwater management system is only as good as its
outfall.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: No question.
MR. WILKISON: And it outfalls to that extension which,
obviously, then flows into the Gordon River.
So in conjunction with the two, the maintenance and see how
that works, plus looking at the study and taking into account the
outfall system of Poinciana Village and also as we look at our
feasibility study for stormwater utility.
I mean, because part of that that you directed us was to really
prioritize projects. So all of those things are kind of dovetailing
nicely together, and I think this fall we'll have more answers, and then
we can really look to the Board for a policy decision of where to go
with this.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I think that's very good news, and
I'm glad to hear that you're doing that, and I know we talked about
that when you were first hired and my concern with respect to
stormwater management, so I'm really glad to hear that you're looking
at it from a fact-based perspective and that you are engaging in these
studies.
I think you -- it would behoove us to move these studies forward
as quickly as possible. And the budget is a living, breathing
document, and we don't -- whatever we set here, you know, at the end
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June 16, 2016
of these budget hearings and approve doesn't mean it's etched in
stone.
So based on what you're saying, I sincerely hope that you will
come back to the Board this fall and tell us, you know, what we need
to get you funding to be able to accomplish what needs to be
accomplished in the interest of the public's health and safety, because
this is a public-health-safety issue.
MR. WILKISON: We will. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Commissioner Taylor?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Hi. David, we've spoken about
this many times, and I've met with the Poinciana Village. And I don't
mean to put you on the spot, but I can tell you when we had this
meeting the concern is the flooding, of course, but the concern is also
the building to the north that -- which land that used to be vacant now
has houses on it, more impervious surface is being built adjacent and
north of Poinciana Village, and their concerns were the ditches.
So I understand you're doing this modeling, but does that
preclude clearing out these ditches so at least some of the excess
water could be taken off the street, or do we need to wait until your
modeling is done this summer?
MR. WILKISON: I really think we should wait until the
modeling is done because what it looks at -- like I said, it will take
into account the development that exists that's north, south, and west,
and then it will also take into account any development that we can
predict within the basin also. That will be the proposed conditions as
opposed to the existing conditions and really takes all those things
into account to really kind of predict what is going to be the stage in
these -- you know, these outfall ditches that lead from Poinciana to
the Gordon River extension.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: So -- and, again, I guess what
can we do to give -- I mean, there's -- you can touch the fear in the
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June 16, 2016
neighborhood.
MR. WILKISON: Right. You know, I spoke both to the
director in my road maintenance division and our stormwater
management manager yesterday, and they both assured me that the
outfall ditches for Poinciana Village which were -- I think it's on the
north, south, and west sides, those have been cleaned and are
operational, and they have -- actually, in the last few years we have
cleaned those. So I think, for that part of the system, we've done what
we can do.
Now, obviously, the system alongside the roads which was
swales alongside the road, we did for -- about month and a half of
work for, I think, it was 32 homes, and we really want to see how that
performs.
Because, you know, understand, this subdivision was designed
and permitted and constructed probably in the '60s or maybe early
'70s. And rules were different back then, honestly, in comparison.
And you can see that, obviously, in the elevation of the finished
floors. I mean, it's, like you said, way lower than everything that
surrounds it. So -- and as you know, rehabbing these older systems,
as you and I experienced --
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes, yes.
MR. WILKISON: -- in another subdivision in the county, is
really almost a trial-and-error type situation. You need to make a
plan, execute it, and really see how that functions. Because it's very
difficult -- you know, so many things have changed over the last,
gosh, 50-something years almost.
So, you know, I think we've done what we need to do. We need
to look how this all dovetails into this Gordon River extension study
that we're doing. And then, obviously, as we perform this stormwater
utility feasibility study and prioritize these projects, come back to you
really for a policy decision as to how we treat projects similar to this,
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June 16, 2016
because this is not the only one, as Brad said. There are other ones
within the county that were developed many years ago who have a
similar type system.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And I guess this would be for
our board, and it's certainly not a decision to be made today, but there
are certain older neighborhoods, I think, that have unique construction
that may deserve attention that would be more than a newer
neighborhood in terms of they may need extra features in terms of
stormwater and what.
And I know the idea of an MSTU has been floated, or MSTU
has been floated, and I would like to -- and, again, this is not a
discussion for today because we need to think about it and talk about
it in terms of budget. But this is a budget meeting. I'd like to see if
we could waive those fees and have the -- there's stormwater -- there's
going to be stormwater tax that hopefully, if it -- if we go forward
with it, if the consultants agree, but any kind of older neighborhood
that -- that, through no fault of their own and really no fault of the
county -- it's just -- it's convergence of what we used to do in the past
and what we're trying to do in the future.
I think they deserve a little more attention in that way. So, again,
we don't have to make a decision about this today.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Commissioner Nance?
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Yes. Mr. Wilkinson, one item that
I wanted to bring to the attention of you probably for next year's
budget or a future budget but always to the attention of the Board is
something that's, you know, very closely in my scrutiny and people in
my district, and that's the lime rock road conversion program.
Okay. The lime rock road conversion program was re-supported
by this board once we came out of the recession. It provides
approximately $300,000 annually to pave unpaved roads in Golden
Gate Estates, and there's 32 of these roads.
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June 16, 2016
So at a hundred thousand dollars a mile, we do about three roads
a year, which means we're going to get across these 32 miles of roads
in the next decade, okay. But also on Page 58 of the Growth
Management Department packet is a listing of lime rock road
maintenance that's $250,000 a year, so the maintenance necessary to
maintain the unpaved roads is nearly equivalent to the amount of
money spent to upgrade them with paved surfaces each year.
What I'm saying is -- and I think we have a mathematics problem
here. And I think there's a win-win-win scenario for consideration is
-- I think there's every reason to believe that it's good money
management to go ahead and pave these 32 miles of road because I
think we're -- it's costing us double to re-grade them year after year
after year, and I think you're going to get several benefits from that.
I think number one, you're going to get happy citizens. Number
two, I think you're actually going to save money at the end of the day
when you consider the fact that when you pave these roads, the
taxable value of every adjacent property down there is going to
increase. It's going to return additional dollars to the coffers of the
government each year, and probably something that people are
sensitive right now is, please realize that some of these lots that are on
these unpaved roads are the greatest bargains in the county.
Most of the land -- most of the lots in Golden Gate Estates
provide areas for affordable housing. They provide attractive areas for
workforce housing. But if you are a young, working professional
with a family on a budget and you have children, you don't want to
live on an unpaved road. You don't have a pickup truck. You know,
you've got a car that's economical.
People don't want to take their young families on a nasty, dirty
lime rock dusty road. They're terrible.
You know, my wife buys a lime rock colored truck every time
she gets a chance to get one. They ask her, what color, Mrs. Nance,
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June 16, 2016
and she goes whatever you've got that's closest to lime rock because
that's where I live, okay.
So if you want to provide good areas and attractive areas for
workforce housing in Golden Gate Estates, get these roads paved.
They would love to go there. It fits where they're going to be
working. It fits their budget. But they really object. I don't think
there's a female member in any family that wants her husband to buy
a home site on a lime rock road. They just don't.
So I think when you consider the cost of maintenance, the
increased ad valorem taxes that we're going to get back when we do
pave them, and the benefits to our much needed housing, that there's
every reason for you guys to do a mathematical analysis and come
back to the Board and see, does it make common, ordinary sense to
go ahead and get these paved. I think it's a win-win for many of our
efforts that we want to achieve.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Would that include all of the unpaved
roads in East Naples, too?
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Well, ma'am, right -- I think that --
CHAIRMAN FIALA: I think you have many more there.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: No, you do. I mean, right now I
can only address this program because this program only addresses
the Golden Gate Estates roads.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Okay.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: But there's every reason to think
that the same thing applies to others, you know.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Good.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: So, I mean, it's just a
mathematical problem. You smart financial guys can come back and
probably do an actuarial and show what it actually is going to cost the
county if we were to, you know, pave them up front rather than on a
pay go deal but, you know --
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June 16, 2016
CHAIRMAN FIALA: You definitely have plenty more in
Golden Gate Estates.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Well, you know --
CHAIRMAN FIALA: I just figured --
COMMISSIONER NANCE: And that's where --
CHAIRMAN FIALA: -- as long as we're grouping it together.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: That's where the workforce
housing is now, and that's where it can be. And, you know, if you
opened up 32 more miles of home sites, you might be delighted as to
what -- you know, you find people wanting to do out there.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: In Golden Gate Estates, when we do the
roads, do we do anything at all about stormwater? I mean, I realize
they don't have a stormwater management system out there, but is
there a way to, like, swale it to certain areas so you can direct away
from homes and include that -- incorporate that into the lime rock
road conversion?
MR. WILKISON: There are swales, you know, out there
adjacent to those roads that we maintain.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Good.
MR. WILKISON: You know, and they typically outfall kind of
end of the street to the canals, kind of the system that was put in place
in Golden Gate Estates.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Good. Oh, good.
MR. WILKISON: But we do maintain.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: It's remarkably effective for the
dollars spent. I think it works pretty good, you know, at the end of
the day.
MR. WILKISON: It does. You know, we'd be happy to look at
that --
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Just something for the future, not
for today.
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June 16, 2016
MR. WILKISON: -- and report back to you.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Something for the future.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: I just want to comment once about the
landscaping, and I under -- I heard both of you clearly, by the way,
and I am the advocate for landscaping, so that is true as well.
We -- in my opinion -- see, I only have an opinion -- I don't have
-- I don't have -- I don't have an education in this. But in my opinion,
when we went into the recession, we converted our landscaping
program almost entirely, took out all the grasses that we could,
replaced them with mulch, replaced them with bushes rather than
flowering plants and so forth because we wanted to use the most
drought-tolerant bushes that we could.
The landscaping has not been looking good ever since then. We
have a lot of things dying all the time in the roads, infested with bugs
and so forth. There's a couple places that still remain from before the
downturn in economy.
One of them is Davis Boulevard between Airport Road and
County Barn. It's gorgeous, but that's still from the old landscaping.
Along U.S. 41, they've torn out a lot of that old stuff already.
Some of it still exists. And it's more toward the 951 area. And the
difference is like night and day.
I don't know why these drought-tolerant plants that are supposed
to live so well in our -- in our environment keep dying and are
infested with things. There was one place planted on Marco Island,
and that stuff looks terrible all the time.
Now, I'm not saying -- I'm just saying what I see. I don't have
any education or anything. But what I'd like to have us do -- because
the stuff that I can see with my own eyes that has been there a long
time, I would like to see us continue that. It doesn't have to be full of
bushes or full of flowers or anything. You just need some grass, a
tree here and there, and maybe some little flowers around the tree or
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June 16, 2016
something like that.
But it makes a beautiful and calming landscaping effect which,
of course, the state has said is --
COMMISSIONER NANCE: I can address you quickly.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Let me finish if you don't mind.
The state has said that having landscaping in the medians is
really a safety feature because there's a calming effect so people don't
-- don't seem to want to rush as much. It feels a little bit better, and
not only that, but we have seen over and over again where people
aren't driving very well and they run into the median landscaping.
We've all seen that happen. But thank heavens they're running into
that instead of somebody else's car. And we usually charge them for
the replacement of all of those things.
So that's my opinion, for whatever it's worth. Go ahead.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Yes, ma'am. Everything you just
said is accurate, is very true.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Good. Could I have education points,
please.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Yes. No, everything you have
said is true. But let me tell you why the low input landscapes fail and
the lush ones you're more happy with, because with high inputs and
using the right ornamental plants, you can grow a pretty plant in road
base. You cannot grow a native plant in road base.
When we form our medians improperly and we throw all the
concrete debris and extra lime rock and boulders and everything else
in there, you eliminate your ability to put a native plant there that can
live, or a low-maintenance situation. You can put some nice black
dirt on top of it and load it up with fertilizer and load it up with water,
and you can grow a beautiful flower on it, for a while.
But then you're -- you know, you're doing -- you're doing two
things that are wrong. Number one, you're having to use huge inputs
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June 16, 2016
because you didn't start off doing the right thing. You started off with
a bad foundation, so you really have to put tons of water and fertilizer
in there to grow it.
And the second thing is, you convince people erroneously that
native plants can never look good. And what they really want is the
hanging gardens of Babylon at a high cost, which turns around and
pollutes Naples Bay.
So what we're doing is -- the unanticipated consequences of us
not doing the right preparation is that -- two things: We do something
that's unsustainable, and we send a very, very bad message to our
homeowners who we would hope would be landscaping their homes
in an environmentally proper way, because what we do in the
landscape medians is just an advertisement for our community. It
enhances our community. It does everything Commissioner Fiala
wants. It makes it look beautiful and so on and so forth. But the
problem is, the community members think, "That's what I want."
What they see, the hanging gardens of Babylon is what they want.
And when they try to do that down at the water's edge, uh-oh; 20
years down the road, we've got green algae, and everybody's
screaming, "what's wrong with our water quality?" "How did we get
here?" Where did we go wrong?" "Who's responsible?" And then
somebody turns and goes, "Oh, it must be that sugar farmer over by
the lake."
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Or in Collier County.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: No, no, it's not. It's the landscape
maintenance company that you hire every month that has to, you
know, try to do that.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: That's right.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: So everything you said is true.
But the solution is kind of-- you know, it's counterintuitive. It's
counterintuitive. But everything Commissioner Fiala said is true.
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June 16, 2016
CHAIRMAN FIALA: And you do have to admit that when we
have beautiful landscaping, it also increases our property values
which, of course, increases our tax base.
It also -- it also is very good for tourists to see, and our tourism
department loves it. And I know you know that. And I know what
you're trying --
COMMISSIONER NANCE: I agree.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: And we could say, this doesn't look as
well or this doesn't look as good, but forgive us because we're
protecting the waters 20 years down the road.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: No, no.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: I mean, we can't do that either. So
maybe there's a happy medium. We don't need to argue about it now,
but --
COMMISSIONER NANCE: It's the wrong time.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: But we should -- we should have just a
little get-together sometime, all of us, maybe, or few of us --
COMMISSIONER NANCE: We've got a workshop.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: -- to talk about it. Good. That's good.
Commissioner Henning was next.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I think we ought to plant fruit
trees out there.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Pardon me?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I think we ought to plant fruit
trees out there, and that way, you know, when you have your yard
sale sign to put up, you could pick up some fruit, or open house or --
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Ouch.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- flea market open here or
something like that, but --
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Thank you for the laughter.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: This is budget workshop. It's
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June 16, 2016
not horticultural workshop, so...
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. You are right. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Are you ready for that,
horticultural workshop?
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Thanks for bringing a smile to
everybody's face. That's cute. I'm sorry, Commissioner.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Are we going to have -- we are
going to have a horticultural -- I mean, it's serious business, it really
is. We need to be educated on it. So you're going to be here for our
horticulture workshop, sir.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: When is it?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Bring your tangerine tree.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: We'll just have to -- we have to
plant it, so...
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Very good. I'm sorry that this went on so
long. We've -- the morning has dragged by at this point in time, but
hopefully everything else will go along smoothly. But this is very
important to everyone.
And so thank you very much for being with us today. I'm sorry
that we carried on a little bit --
MR. WILKISON: Thank you, Commissioners, for your support.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: -- too long. Thank you very much.
MR. FRENCH: Thank you very much.
MR. ISACKSON: Commissioners, next will be public services.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I think we need a break for our
court reporter. It's 10:30.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Yeah. Good. We'll do that.
MR. OCHS: Ten minutes.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Yes.
(A brief recess was had.)
CHAIRMAN FIALA: The meeting is back in session.
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June 16, 2016
Welcome, new faces. How are you today?
Okay. Mark?
MR. ISACKSON: Yes, ma'am. Public Services, Mr. Carnell.
Public Services
MR. CARNELL: Good morning, Madam Chairwoman and
members of the Commission. Steve Carnell, for the record, your
Public Services Department Head, and I have with me our
management team this morning.
And I want to briefly just say that the Public Services
Department in FY 17, really starting in FY 16, were working very
closely together on some centralized improvements with quality
control, with our fiscal controls, our budget planning, and each of
these folks have participated heavily in that, and I'm indebted to them
for all the great work they've done in getting this budget ready.
I want to take a moment just to -- I'll introduce everybody briefly
and talk about their division.
We start at the end here with Kim Grant who is the Director of
our Community Human Services Division. And in the budget coming
forward this year, as the board knows, Kim is going to be moving
forward on our community-wide affordable housing plan. And part
and parcel to that we are recommending the addition of a new
affordable housing manager position that will help give us some
in-house expertise in that area along with also strengthening our
developer commitment monitoring that we do jointly what the
Growth Management Department.
And, also, we're to add a little more focus on trying to leverage
all of our grant funds and interrelate them more closely together as we
roll out programs.
Sitting next to Kim is Patricia Roland. Patricia is the Interim
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June 16, 2016
Director of the University of Florida IFAS extension. And most of
you know Tish in her day job as the vice president of 4H and the
extension agent who runs all of our 4H programs. And we have just
record participation in a number of our 4H programs this year.
And IFAS extension continues to reach out in the community
very actively. A number of close partnerships with Collier County
schools this year. Our nutrition program that's funded through the
University of Florida continues to have a very high profile in the
community.
And we're getting into the public school system, in addition to
that, in the 4H area with the robotics programs where we're actually
teaching the teachers and the students on robotics techniques and
technology.
So we've got a number of different initiatives going on with
IFAS extension that we're very proud of and excited about.
And then immediately next to me is Darcy Andrade, the Director
of Domestic Animal Services.
We're moving into Year 2, budgetarily speaking, of the
implementation of the University of Florida's college veterinary
medicine recommendations to improve shelter operations and
facilities. And one of the more conspicuous improvements in the
coming year is going to be the hiring of an intake coordinator who is
going to give us a more focused approach when our citizens come
into the shelter in terms of helping our pet owners with, in many
cases, retaining their animals and trying to encourage our owners to
keep their animals and help them do so and be effective with that.
We'll also be doing a little more proactive vaccination work through
this position to keep our animal population healthier.
DAS remains one of our big burgeoning success stories. Right
now in Collier County at our animal shelter five out of every six
animals that come into the shelter go home to somebody.
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June 16, 2016
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: That's nice.
MR. CARNELL: And that is more than double where we were,
say, when the shelter opened in the early 2000s. And that's to Darcy's
credit and that's to the credit of her staff. It's to the credit to all of the
rescue groups and partner groups in the community that work with us
and our volunteers who work very hard to love and care for our
animals in the shelter which, in turn, makes them -- not only treats
them humanely, but makes them more adoptable. So we're very
grateful for all the help and the great team effort that Darcy
spearheads every day at the shelter.
We are very cognizant right now and are monitoring working a
progressive plan to try to improve the climate conditions at the
shelter. We had very hot temperatures last year, and we're getting
some reports of that again this year.
And if you'll remember, the Board approved and we
implemented repairs to the ventilation system. And at this point we've
also installed temperature controlled monitoring, so we now have a
much more objective database for being able to monitor the
temperatures, and facilities management is able to operate the system
remotely from the government center as well, which really is a big
step forward from an efficiency standpoint.
And you -- I believe all of you are aware, we are installing
temporary air-conditioning units in the main adoption building, and
those should be up and running here by the end of the month. And
we're going to see how that works and what kind of progress we
make. It is a bit of an uphill challenge because that building was built
15 years ago back when nobody envisioned 83 percent live release
rates.
And we're at a point now where we -- the building doesn't have
insulation. It's not a matter of just putting in an air-conditioning unit
and go. There's a lot more work that would have to be done with that.
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June 16, 2016
So we're going to be -- in addition to putting this unit in to see
how it works, we're also going to be hiring an engineer to give us
some long-term options for how to manage the facility and come up
with our best options for managing climate control in the years ahead.
So Darcy continues to work with volunteers and the animal
community in that respect as well.
To my right is Amanda Townsend, who has two hats on today.
You may not be able to see either one of them, but she is not only the
Director of your Operations and Veterans Services Division but is
also the Interim Director of your Museum Division.
And if I could highlight the museum area for a moment, we're on
track this year to complete the restoration of the club car at the Naples
Depot. We're also in the process of coming forward to the Board with
a joint loan application with the Marco Island Historic Society to
hopefully bring back the Key Marco Island cat and other associated
Native American art artifacts collected on Marco Island more than a
hundred years ago, and you'll be seeing that at your next regular
meeting, the joint application proposal, to move that forward. And
we are very excited about that and really enjoy working with the
Historic Society and all the resources and commitment they're
bringing to that with us.
We are also looking in the coming year to develop a children's
interactive exhibit at the Naples Depot. If you ask me any questions
about it, that's about what we know right now, children's interactive
exhibit at the Naples Depot. And Amanda and her team are going to
be working with the community to scope that and figure out what will
work best and be of most interest to our children.
And then we're also going to be doing some master planning;
maybe a better way to say it is site optimization work at the main
museum here. We have kind of this burgeoning gardens. We have a
number of buildings there and exhibits, and we need -- we really need
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June 16, 2016
to go back and take a look at the whole thing. We're going to take a
relook and see if we can lay out the property better, better optimize
the plantings and landscaping that we have at the main museum and
get, you know, hopefully more bang for our buck going forward in
terms of how we operate that site.
Next to Amanda is Stephanie Vick, who is your Collier County
health -- Public Health Unit Administrator. Stephanie stands in the
shadows and does great work that nobody knows about. There's just
all kinds of things the health department takes care of that none of us
even know in terms of disease monitoring and control and keeping
our community safe. They're all on top of the Zika virus right now
and keeping everyone informed with that whole situation.
And then next to Stephanie is another member of the acting
guild. This would be Tanya Williams, our Interim Library Director.
We continue with our libraries to restore our funding with your help,
of course, of book and other materials purchases. Prerecession we
were buying $1.7 million worth a year. It fell to as low as about
$500,000 during the recession. Now we're back about halfway. It
kind of looks like what Mark's doing with the General Fund reserve.
We're bringing it back up year by year. We're going to be spending
over 900,000 this year. So we're moving back towards where we
were, and we're pleased with that.
And, of course, Tanya's going to be moving us forward on the
community-wide assessment of library services that we're going to
commence in the fall interactively with the community where we
bring them in and ask them for input about our libraries, what can we
do to make our -- what do you like? What would you like to see
changed and improved? So Tanya will be running point on that for us.
And then next to Tanya is Michelle Arnold, the Director of
Public Transit and Neighborhood Enhancement. And Michelle's
happy to report that we're completing the second phase of
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June 16, 2016
construction improvements at the David Boulevard/Radio Road
transfer station. We'll be putting in the awnings and bus covers -- I'm
sorry -- the covering for the passengers coming off the buses and also
adding a bus wash here shortly and then doing some pavement work,
and we'll have that project completed fairly early in the fiscal year.
And then last but not least is Barry Williams, our Parks and
Recreation Director. And Barry, as the director of really the biggest
and busiest department or division in county government. As usual,
all kinds of things going on.
First, on the operational side, we're going to be -- we're asking in
this budget to add a position at the Immokalee South Park. That park
opened in 2013, and it's been very well received and highly utilized
by the community, and we believe that there's an opportunity to
provide more services on the weekend with some additional
resourcing.
And we're happy to report that we're going to be able to cover,
we believe, about two-thirds of that cost through user fees in terms of
the groups that have interest and the ability to pay and use that site.
In addition to that, Barry's also recommended, and we're
recommending, to the Board the hiring of two more maintenance
positions: One at the Immokalee Community Park and one at the
East Naples Community Park, as we continue to build the use and
activity at that site. We want to have a little more maintenance
resource handy on that -- at the location at that community park.
Now, in addition, operationally, Barry's got some signature
projects coming forward this year. Big Corkscrew Island Regional
Park may be the biggest of them all. This budget includes $13.7
million towards the design and construction of that project.
Obviously, we're going to need more than that. But this coming year
is going to be about designing or redesigning and taking that master
plan that the Board adopted in March that we created through the
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June 16, 2016
community and making it into a buildable design.
We just, in fact, received proposals this week from competing
engineer firms, received seven proposals. So I was pleased to see a
good, healthy body of competition, and our staff selection team's
going to be working on that beginning next week.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Didn't we rename that the Tim
Nance Regional Park?
MR. CARNELL: That's good by me.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I thought we had done that. We
hadn't done that yet? I'm sorry, Tim. We're slow on the uptake. I
thought we had.
MR. CARNELL: We were going to wait till he died, but --just
kidding.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Could be sooner than you think,
sir.
MR. CARNELL: Just kidding. We'll await board direction on
that.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Tim Nance Memorial Park.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I would recommend a pre-mortem
decision.
MR. CARNELL: Okay. Understood.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Thanks.
MR. CARNELL: So Big Corkscrew is moving forward, and we
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I thought we had.
MR. CARNELL: -- expect to see the design completed and the
permitting and all that work done in time to go to bid sometime in
2018.
And then we also have the Eagle Lakes pool that is under design
right now. And we have -- this budget includes $9.1 million for the
balance of the design and the construction of that pool. We're
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June 16, 2016
wrapping up the 60 percent design phase right now and hoping to
have our permitting and design all done by the fall going out to bid,
opening bids hopefully in January, bring something -- a contract back
to the Board shortly after that, and with the goal at the moment of
trying to get that pool opened in the spring of 2018.
Pickleball. We had a discussion, an engaging discussion on
Tuesday with pickleball, and we're going to continue to move forward
in developing capacity there.
The Board on Tuesday approved a plan for us to look into
designing and building shelter covering, or a court-area covering over
the championship court area. In addition to that, we're going to be
removing some of the fencing around some of the courts just to clear
it up, make it a little visually more clear and operable for everybody
to access.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And constructing a helicopter
pad, right?
MR. CARNELL: Yeah, I got that in there, too, Commissioner,
yeah.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: I notice she hits that everything time.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Everywhere.
MR. CARNELL: Well, at the moment the other one is, of
course, we want to recover and put the higher level deco surface on
nine sets of courts that are closer to the Avalon school area. So that's
pickleball at the moment. And then, per the Board direction on
Tuesday, we're going to be sitting down with the pickleball organizers
here in the coming days and weeks and start a multiyear plan for
improving the facility and getting it into turn -- as Commissioner
Henning pointed out Tuesday, getting a commensurate commitment
from the US Pickleball to stay with us for multiple years. So we're
excited about that.
Then the ATV park. We really made kind of a breakthrough this
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June 16, 2016
year where we found some consensus. You've got a very faithful,
long-suffering, enduring ad hoc committee that's hung in there with
us, and we think we may have a possibility with the Immokalee
airport land in terms of being able to develop that.
We've gotten a tentative conceptual nod from the FAA that, hey,
this might work. No commitments yet. We're in the process now of
doing a feasibility -- environmental feasibility review of the property
which we'll have done at the end of the summer, hopefully.
And Mr. Williams' has started communication with the
surrounding property landowners to get their input; gotten some very
positive feedback initially in that respect. And, of course, we'll be
engaging more of the Immokalee community as a whole as we go
forward with that project. So we're very excited and looking forward
to that as well.
With that, I'll entertain any questions you may have from the
Board.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Right now I have none, but we do have a
speaker, right?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Madam Chair, we have four public
speakers.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Four. Okay.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: If you want to get started with that, I
can call them off if that's your pleasure.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Okay.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Mr. Brad Estes, followed by Mr. Phil
Brougham.
MR. ESTES: Real briefly, I just want to compliment the staff,
Leo and his staff, for submitting a budget that continues the progress
of DAS moving into a 21st century agency in its facilities, with the
appropriate facilities.
So, also, I want to also thank Leo and his staff for moving
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June 16, 2016
forward on the temperature issue. I was very delighted to see new
equipment out there yesterday that's being installed. So I bring
compliments and thanks.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Thank you.
Mr. Brougham, followed by Patty Teulet.
MR. BROUGHAM: This one works, right?
Good morning. I'm Phil Brougham. And, full disclosure, I'm
Vice-chair of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board.
I've got a number of things to touch on very briefly, but the
primary one, in my mind -- and it has been there for quite some time
-- is infrastructure, and that's infrastructure across the county and
certainly including our parks and recreation infrastructure, whether
they're community centers or playground equipment or docks and so
forth.
I had a brief conversation this morning with Dr. Yilmaz
regarding his progress with the implementation of the new fixed asset
program and system. That's a wonderful tool. It looks like it's
coming to fruition. And it's going to be able to give you a lot of
down-to-earth facts regarding the age and condition of your
infrastructure across all agencies; however, I'd just like to comment
that that is just a tool. It has to be supplemented with a funding
strategy, and that's something that I've spoken about before.
And I'm not telling you folks anything you don't know, I mean,
the heavy reliance upon the General Fund and how you have ups and
downs, and we're in an up cycle now, and we're a little bit more flush
with cash. But that's going to turn, and we're going to be back to
where we were, hopefully not. But I would think that in the future
we're going to be back down there in property values, and the General
Fund revenues aren't going to be what they are.
But the infrastructure remains. That's what our citizens rely
upon, not only for their health and safety, but also their fun and
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June 16, 2016
enjoyment in parks.
I commend you in what has been proposed in this year's budget
with respects to the parks' capital, repair and maintenance and
replacement. It appears that it's going to go up approximately a
million dollars, plus or minus, over last year, and that's great. And I
hope that can continue.
However, again, I would like to lobby for a dedicated revenue
source to be dedicated to infrastructure, capital, repair, and
maintenance. It would at least provide a stream of revenue that people
can rely on in their budgeting. You restrict the competition to some
extent for the General Fund.
Couple other points. Big Corkscrew Island is going forward
great. Let's not phase it. Let's not do Phase 1, Phase 2, 2 and a half,
3, 4, and have years to go before that's completed. Let's try to have a
plan that, whether it's debt service or whatever, let's build the park,
and let's also -- give me another 30 seconds.
Let's also possibly consider including in any debt-service
strategies the expansion of the community center at Eagle Lakes. We
need a bigger building. We already built this one, but we need a
bigger building. Now might be a good time to consolidate what we
need in funding in with what we need for Phase 2, 3, and 4 of Big
Corkscrew.
Final point, don't forgot there's 60 acres of land down by
Fiddler's Creek called Manatee Community Park. We haven't talked
about it for four or five years. Get it on your radar. It could be a
relief valve for what's happening with pickleball up at East Naples
Community Park. It can be a relief valve to come down there and,
perhaps, build some Little League fields, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Put it on your radar.
Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Thank you, Phil.
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June 16, 2016
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Ms. Teulet followed by Mr. Burgess.
MS. TEULET: Good morning, Commissioners. My name is
Patty Teulet, and I've been a volunteer at Domestic Animal Services
for the last five years.
I'm going to read from this podium. This is my first time, so...
Aside from spay/neuter to get the job done, I'm here to speak on
the subject of public relations as it relates to promoting the adoption
of animals at Collier County Domestic Animal Services.
The mission statement for DAS states: To promote the adoption
of homeless animals to new families.
I may not be exact in these numbers, but I believe the advertising
promotion budget in the past allowed for $2,000 a year and may now
be increased to $3,500 for 2017. One full-page ad in the Sunday
edition of the Naples Daily News is upwards of 6- to $7,000.
I also believe that the public information coordinator for DAS
spends a mere 2 percent of his time on PR for DAS. In my opinion,
this does not come anywhere close to what this community needs for
adopting out these pets, especially with the influx of new families
moving into Collier County.
There are currently approximately 200 cats housed at DAS and, I
believe, on average, 90 dogs there every day. The daily care and
medical attention of all these animals is costly.
I am asking for the Board's consideration to increase the public
relations budget to allow more frequency in promoting adoptions of
all these homeless animals via local television, radio, newspapers, and
other publications. Thank you.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Madam Chair, Mr. Burgess has asked
for an additional three minutes or even a little more and has provided
a presentation, which I've passed out to the Board members. So at
your discretion.
MR. BURGESS: Great. Thank you so much.
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June 16, 2016
For the record, my name is Scott Burgess. I'm the Chief
Executive Officer of the David Lawrence Center with two locations
here in Naples and one in Immokalee. I first want to thank you very
much for the opportunity to present before the distinguished board
here today, and I would also like to sincerely thank our wonderful
partners in Collier County Government, including Steve and Kim,
who we work most closely with related to the grants management.
I'm here today to discuss the state of affairs relative to mental
health and substance issues that are in our county, and I have provided
a document with some slides. I know they say a picture says a
thousand words, and I'm hoping to be able to express a lot through the
documents and through the graphics here with the brevity of time that
I have.
For those that are unaware in the audience -- and I know the
commissioners are well aware -- David Lawrence Center is the
community mental health center and addictions treatment facility here
in the county. We are the only Baker Act receiving facility in the
county.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Excuse me just a second.
MR. OCHS: Let me interrupt you --
MR. BURGESS: Yeah, sure.
MR. OCHS: -- and invite you to come over to this podium
where we can display your PowerPoint on the overhead, if that will
work for you.
MR. BURGESS: I didn't have a PowerPoint. I had a handout.
MR. OCHS: Yeah. We'll just put the handout on the visualizer.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: So then the audience at home can see it
as well.
MR. BURGESS: Wonderful.
MR. OCHS: And I'll give you this hand-held mike so you can
flip the pages. Whenever you're ready, just tell me and I'll put them
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June 16, 2016
up.
MR. BURGESS: Okay. Terrific. So with the --
MR. OCHS: What page?
MR. BURGESS: I'm sorry. Just the first page would be great.
Again, for those that are not aware, David Lawrence Center is
the only Baker Act receiving facility in the county here, indicating
that we are the facility that takes care of individuals who literally have
been determined to be a danger to themselves or others and require
immediate psychiatric service in order to protect themselves and the
community.
And in regards to that, we also are the provider for outpatient
services and community-based services. We provide services to
children, adults, senior citizens, and we provide those to all
individuals regardless of ability to pay, regardless of insurance, and
that sort. So we are definitely for everybody in the community.
And our charter, as everybody well knows, is to make sure that
we're taking care of safety of the community as well as the wellness
and the well-being of every individual and their family in the
community.
What I wanted to do today is to humbly request a slight increase,
a moderate increase in the support that we receive from the county.
And I wanted to provide you the rationale as to why.
The first slide here is based on the growth that we have
experienced at David Lawrence Center, looking at FY 13, '14, and '15
just with five of our services, and then the second graphic, which is
now on the screen, is an aggregate slide. And maybe a little bit hard
to see for those on the large screen. But what it demonstrates is in the
last three years we've seen a significant increase in this community in
the demand for our services for both children and adults.
And in aggregate, we are now provided -- projected to provide
almost 221,000 service units to individuals in Collier County for this
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June 16, 2016
fiscal year. That's a 22.4 percent growth since FY14, and we haven't
requested an increase in funding in that time period.
So we've continued to provide more and more services to more
and more individuals in need without having requested additional
resources up till this point.
The next slide, please. As I mentioned, one of the most critical
elements and vital elements that we provide for the community is
being the Baker Act receiving facility providing those in-patient --
well, emergency assessment, first of all, and then the in-patient
support for individuals that are in desperate need to, again, take care
of themselves, be safe to themselves and safe for the community.
What this slide demonstrates is just specifically the number of
Collier County Sheriffs Office Baker Acts that have been referred to
David Lawrence Center across time. This is statistics directly from
the Collier County Sheriffs Office.
And what I'll point out to you -- and you can see in the graphic
representation the dramatic increase across time, but the data -- they
started tracking this in 2001. At that point in time, there were 300
referrals from the Sheriffs Office to David Lawrence Center for
in-patient support. If you fast forward seven years to 2008, that
number goes from 300 to 502 direct referrals from the Sheriffs
Office, and fast forward another seven years, and in 2015 we had
1,303. So you can see this dramatic increase across time from when it
first was tracked at 300 to now over 1,300 direct referrals from the
Sheriffs Office alone.
Because of that we've had to, obviously, increase our capacity
and our ability to manage all those referrals. And we've seen not only
growth in the number of individuals coming to us but in the severity
of the illnesses that we're seeing and the lengths of stay that are
required in order for them to stabilize.
The next slide, please. The next slide looks at some of the macro
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June 16, 2016
environmental challenges. And I'll read these. They're -- statically
speaking, the research demonstrates that one in four individuals are
going to be impacted with a mental challenge in their lifetime. One in
nine are going to be impacted with a substance abuse challenge in
their lifetime.
These are statistics that are across the board in every community
and are nationally recognized. These are our brothers, our mothers,
our sisters here in this community as well.
In addition to just looking at that from a statistical standpoint,
because we are a growing community and we've doubled in size in
the last 15 to 20 years, we're predicted to continue to double in size in
maybe the next 15 or 20 years, just literally speaking from a statistical
standpoint, the more people come here, the more that are going to
have need. And we have certainly seen that through the trend lines
thus far and is one of the major reasons why we're asking for
additional support.
Additionally, Florida ranks 49th out of 50 in funding across the
country for support for mental illness and substance abuse. We are
second only to Idaho in the lowest amount of funding provided from
the state in order to provide these services.
So we're very challenged from a state standpoint, and we also
have a very high percentage of uninsured individuals, ranking second
highest in the country.
Lastly, we do have a number of individuals that we do, try,
whenever possible, to get onto Medicaid when they qualify for such
and, unfortunately, even when we get people on Medicaid, the
actuarial studies demonstrate that it only pays for a portion of the
actual cost for treatment.
One of the things that we were asked to do by Collier County
was take a look from a local level standpoint, so we're looking at
some of those macro factors and maybe looking more micro and
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June 16, 2016
taking a look at other county comparison.
This is a little bit of a busy document, but what it will
demonstrate and what it does demonstrate -- we've broken out the
support that the community mental health centers in other counties in
the region are receiving from both the state level, the county level,
and other income sources.
And what we have been able to demonstrate related to county
support is that the other areas are slightly -- investing slightly more in
their support for mental health.
If you take a look at the graphic, what you'll see is that it's rated
on a per-resident dollar amount. And the lowest level is at $5.97,
which is the combined Manatee and Sarasota. The highest level is
Charlotte at $7.70 per resident. Currently the Collier County support
is $3.78.
So we have -- we have requested, based on the increase in
demand for services, the increase in our need to provide those
services to keep the community safe, and to assure the well-being of
all the residents of the county an increase of 264,400, and we are
asking that you would support that.
We certainly know just by turning on the television the
challenges that we have related to mental health in this country, the
challenges that we have related to substance issues, heroin addiction.
I can really go on and on.
We also know that we have a tremendous challenge with
violence in this society and a growing challenge. The last two
graphics -- and I don't want to belabor them -- is the increase in mass
shootings across the country. The first graphic is literally the number
of victims. The second graphic really speaks to -- if you would show
the second graphic -- speaks to the actual number of mass shootings.
And what it highlights there in those boxes, which are hard to see, are
some of the common themes associated with places that we've come
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June 16, 2016
to know well tragically: Columbine, Virginia Tech, Newtown. We
know that we need to be ever vigilant in addressing these issues in
order to keep our community safe and keep everyone well.
With that, I'd just like to encourage, if at all possible in your
budgeting process, the increase because we need to invest in the
human service and health infrastructure of our community as well.
And I'm happy to entertain any questions that you might have.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Okay. I have first Commissioner Nance.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Yes, sir. Thank you for bringing
all the information.
I just wondered if you had tracked any information regard -- you
know, I think that you certainly closely work with some of the other
service providers in the county.
Do you have -- other than this mass shooting thing which, of
course, is on everybody's mind at the time -- and I don't want to
politicize this, but do you have a body of information that indicates
the amount of the patient load that you have with violence-related
issues in all its forms, you know, whether it's criminal violence or just
behavioral or social? Do you have anything that gives us an idea of
kind of what our trend is locally here, I mean, short of, you know,
tragic and acute incidents?
MR. BURGESS: Sure. What I'd like to say first and foremost is
the vast majority of individuals that struggle with mental health
challenges and the vast majority that struggle with addictions
challenges are not violent. So I want to make it --
COMMISSIONER NANCE: That's my question.
MR. BURGESS: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I do -- you know, there's
causality and correlation. And what we do know from the national
information and what we know just anecdotally is that when we look
at these things, sometimes there is a mental health element or mental
illness element in these tragic situations.
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The vast majority of the time, these are individuals that are not
involved in treatment, and that's why it's so critical for us to get
people into treatment.
As it relates to not violence in specific but as it relates to
evaluating our performance against some of our counterparts in other
areas, we do participate in providing outcomes and
performance-based data to the state, and we are benchmarked, and we
have scorecards that demonstrate that David Lawrence Center beats
the averages as far as benchmarks in everything from quality outcome
as well as client satisfaction and numbers of clients served.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Next we have Commissioner Hiller.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Thank you. I've been an adequate
of your Baker bed program since long before I joined the Board.
When I first joined, there were attempts to not fund you, to defund
you. And then, fortunately, the Board, in our wisdom, recognized that
what you provide by way of a service is absolutely essential and is
actually integral to what the sheriffs mission is and that without the
presence of you in the system, that we would find that individuals
who do need mental healthcare would be placed in our jail system and
would be very much at risk to themselves and to the rest of society
when they came back out.
So providing Baker beds, and you being the only facility that
provides Baker beds, is a vital service that this community cannot
lose.
It is clear that we have a growing number of individuals who are,
unfortunately, candidates for being Baker Acted, and it is for their
protection. And I can see why you need additional beds, and I can see
why you need additional funding. And I fully support the request of
260,000 because in our overall budget it is a de minimis request with
a very significant community payback.
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So, you know, if you save one life, it's worth 260,000. If you
save one family from the grief of a suicide or, you know, potentially a
suicide/murder, which often happens in these instances, it is certainly
worth 260,000.
So I don't know, County Manager and Mr. Isackson, our Budget
Director, whether it would be possible to find that funding because, I,
for one -- and, obviously, it's a decision of the Board and it, you
know, obviously, would come back because this is, you know, our
discussion about these issues, but I would hope that we would be able
to find the monies to support you to get this done. Would that be
possible?
MR. ISACKSON: Commissioners, if that's the Board's
collective desire, what I'd like to do is wait till I get taxable value at
the --
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Of course.
MR. ISACKSON: -- end of July or at the end of June, excuse
me; that would be our certified value. I'll get with Mr. Carnell.
You have a budget document that you get in mid July, which is
the book that you get after the certified taxable values, and we have a
change log in that book which compares this document with the July
book. And at that point in time, once -- after I get with Mr. Camel!,
we can take a look at that additional $264,000.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I would really appreciate that.
And if you could bring that back to us if-- you know, and then the
Board could decide whether they would be supportive, and I hope
they would be.
I would also ask that maybe -- you know, I know the sheriff will
be presenting. You may want to ask the sheriff to also mention that
adding these additional beds is a benefit to him as well, that it isn't,
you know, just for your benefit, but it is actually a benefit for the
whole public safety system and it would, I think, benefit this board to
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hear from him that he endorses your request.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: I agree with you, by the way.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Thank you. I appreciate that.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Commissioner Henning?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah. The -- normally
not-for-profits we send them to United Way.
Leo, correct me if I'm wrong, the reason that we have
contributed to David Lawrence over the years is because of the
impacts to the jail system.
MR. OCHS: I think there's two reasons, sir. That's one. And,
secondly, and more importantly, frankly, there's a statutory
requirement for some county cost share in the provision of
community mental health.
So we meet that obligation, but we also, as you said, have a
strong linkage between the services they provide and what our sheriff
provides.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, I know the sheriff is --
actually, this board supported a jail study, and a part of that was to
house the mental health and rehab those people because of-- the jail
population for criminals have -- I wouldn't say -- but it's somewhat
diminished. So there is room in the jail.
So I think the proper approach is wait for that study and the
recommendations of the sheriff for housing mental illness people and
rehab because that's more of a holistic approach. You are aware of
what the sheriff is doing?
MR. BURGESS: Yeah. I'm aware of what the sheriffs doing in
regards to assisting those that are under his care at the jail. It is a --
quite frankly, it's a national issue and epidemic of what has happened
with under resourcing the community mental health system across the
country.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: No, I'm talking about the jail.
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June 16, 2016
MR. BURGESS: Yeah, the jail. I'm getting to that. I'll try to be
very brief.
So what's happened is -- and there's a phrase that's been coined
trans-institutionalization. We took individuals out of state hospitals,
and we underfunded community resources, and now these individuals
are struggling, and they're winding up in the prison system across the
country.
And I came from outside of Chicago. They give psychiatric
medicine to 1,800 people a day in the jail. Here in Collier County, I
believe the average daily census is 800. I think there's about 200 of
them have psychiatric issues.
So, clearly, there's a -- we have 64 total beds at David Lawrence
Center. So there's 200, you know, with psychiatric situations in the
local jail here. We've got 64 total beds. So, clearly, we're under
capacity, if you will, as a community.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, yeah. But also, you're --
I mean, just expanded not too long ago, maybe the last couple years,
your facility.
MR. BURGESS: Four years ago.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Was it that long ago? Okay.
Are you looking at another expansion?
MR. BURGESS: We are. Actually, we're looking to double our
children's unit right now.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, see, that's problematic
because you have zoning issues.
MR. BURGESS: We've -- well, we've already gone through --
we've got a master site plan that's already been approved.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. That's what we did
approve recently.
MR. BURGESS: That had been approved in the past, and we've
gone through with the county folks to make sure that we're in full
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compliance with the expansion, as was originally planned on the site
plan.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay, good, good. Well, that's
not an impediment then. But, really, the issue is, you know, the
partnership of the Sheriffs Department and how he's going to address
that through the mail -- or the jail master plan study.
So, Leo, are you aware of that?
MR. OCHS: Yes, sir, through staff liaison with your public
safety coordinating council.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Yeah, thanks.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Commissioner Taylor?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: The Baker Act issue is not
limited only to adults, and I know firsthand what that is, and I know
how important David Lawrence has been over the years that I was a
foster parent.
I think we're underfunded. David Lawrence is not -- it's a
wonderful private -- public/private partnership. And the community
steps up, but I think we need to, too. So I would support looking at
additional funding.
There's no question we -- I was in a big city when they opened
the doors of the state hospitals, and I remember it so clearly. It was
night and day. We used to call him the gorilla man. He was always
in a heavy coat, and he would sleep in the park. And he would --
that's where he was. And why was he there? Well, he was in a
hospital before, but we can't afford it anymore.
So I've seen that transition, and I don't think, as a society, we can
afford it anymore. And, frankly, it starts here locally.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I agree.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: I think that you're looking at a very
supportive board sitting here. So that's a good thing. That's what I'm
hearing from each and every one.
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I would like to tell board members, I was hoping by noon to
finish all of our departments so that we could get onto the
constitutionals when we come back from lunch, but it looks like we're
kind of going in slow motion. And here I am, I'm going to have a
couple comments also, but I'll make them very quick.
I was hoping to ask about the air-conditioning over at the DAS,
but I don't have to ask that question anymore. It's already answered.
That's a wonderful thing.
To Mrs. Teuret, Patty Teuret, she was talking about some
advertising but, you know, in the meantime, before the dollars are
even appropriated, I could suggest that every once in a while, maybe
once every week or two, one of the advocates for the animal kingdom
might want to write a letter to the editor and say, guess what, we have
all of these available right now, and they need you. You know, it's a
-- everybody reads the letters to the editor. So it might be a way to
get out some of the word now, and it's free.
The second thing is, I wanted to -- I wish I could read my own
writing. Oh, yes. Where are we -- where are we -- both of you, I'm
talking about -- the cable car on -- with the -- or the club car, excuse
me -- with the train over at the Naples Depot? Are we working on it?
MS. TOWNSEND: Yes, ma'am, we are. We have a contractor
who's working on the restoration of the club car. His progress has
been slow, but we've sort of-- we're working with him and are
finding ways to overcome some of his hurdles, and we have a definite
completion date of February 2017 now.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: February of 2017. Okay, yeah. Because
I keep looking over there, and I never see anything going on. And I
always want to walk in, but it's always closed, and --just to keep track
of it. I think that that's such a worthwhile project for the museums,
and I'd love to see it move along.
So that's all I have to say.
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Commissioner Hiller. Oh, my goodness. I have Hiller. Which
one is --
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Taylor.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Taylor and Nance. Okay. We can try
and make it a little quicker, okay.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: So I have just two comments but
they're important. And the first is -- it's with respect to veterans
services and animal services. And I know when I started, neither one
of you as departments really -- I mean, there was a lot of community
upset. I think the level of service was not where it needed to be. And
when I see both of your departments today compared to what it was
like, you know, six, seven years ago, it's nothing short of outstanding,
and I want to compliment -- I mean, all of you are outstanding
collectively, but these two departments in particular have gone
through a major transformation for the best. And actually, Kim, yours
has gone through a major metamorphosis also.
So, I mean, overall, I mean, it's really great to see a positive
change. And I know the animal community, as Commissioner Fiala
calls it, the animal kingdom, truly is very appreciative for what's
happened, and I know the veteran community is truly appreciative.
And your aide is now working as one of the -- your former aide
is working as one of the liaisons.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Really?
MR. OCHS: Alex.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Alex.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Oh, is she over there with the veterans?
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yes. And I can't tell you how
often I hear the vets compliment her service.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Oh, she's wonderful. They're loving her,
yeah.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: So good job. Really good job.
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CHAIRMAN FIALA: Thank you. Oh, and she's loving
working there, too.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah, yeah.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Let's see. We have next Commissioner
Taylor.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Well, under the subject of
considering more money, I would like to see if staff could bring an
analysis of the -- I believe it's a 10-year agreement, but it was struck
in 2008 for the -- it's an annual payment to the City of Naples for their
beaches, and I'd like to see that reviewed and analyzed for, perhaps,
an increase, perhaps not.
There needs to be a discussion with the city about it, of course.
But if we don't have beaches, we don't have Collier County. So it's
something that we probably should take a look, at least within the
city, because it is kind of the main area where they have tremendous
traffic.
So do I have agreement -- I mean, this is, again, to analyze it.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Uh-huh.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: What are you talking about?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: There's an annual agreement of a
million dollars going to the city to maintain their --
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Oh, for the parks.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yeah, yeah, for their beaches
and their parks, yeah.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, wait a minute. It was the
parks. It was the parks, not so much the beaches.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: No, it's the beaches, too.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Not so much the beaches. It
was the parks. It was a transfer of a million dollars. It was -- is that a
long-term agreement?
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COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Ten years.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is that what it was? Yeah.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I think it was 10 years.
MR. OCHS: Ten years, sir.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Ten years and it's coming --
MR. OCHS: It will be over in 2018 unless it's renewed.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Well, 2018, let's see.
You'll have a whole new board, won't you?
MR. OCHS: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Why rush it? Are you wanting
to -- or they're expanding again, right?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I just wanted to -- we may not --
the analysis may not come back. I'm just, you know, raising that
concern and having staff look at it. They may address it in
September. They may not until January. It doesn't matter.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: My opinion -- you might want
to wait, because my opinion is the City Council has expanded their
park over and over again without the county's input. They have
expanded the programs and now they've got, what is it, Baker's Park
or something like that.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Baker Park.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Well --
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And the Board of
Commissioners have never -- they've never been asked to do so, so --
and I understand by the media that they don't have the funds. They
were going to ask for a tax increase to do that. That was one of the
considerations.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I'm not suggesting Baker Park.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, the agreement was for the
parks. I mean, they -- I remember they've come and said, well, you
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June 16, 2016
know, the county citizens are using our parks and so on and so forth.
Yeah, when you promote, expand, so on and on forth, it does, but it
takes away from our parks and the needs that we have, you know.
Other issue of Marco Island roads.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: They've also extended the CRA for
another 30 years.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah. That's where it should
be coming from is out of the CRA.
So my part is do away with the agreement. So you might want
to wait until the new board comes on to --
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Can we just get an analysis?
Can we look at it? And I'm not suggesting it comes back.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I support you -- I support you.
And the reason I support you is it is absolutely true that the citizens
from unincorporated Collier County do use the parks within the city.
And so to that extent, it does behoove us to make a contribution, and
we should analyze it and make sure it's fair because there's, very
clearly, a benefit to us. If the city is providing parks that supplement
the parks that we're providing, that increases our inventory of parks
not at our full cost.
So if, you know, we make a lesser contribution and we're
providing -- we're getting that much more park in return through the
city's own investment in parks for the benefit of everybody, it's a good
thing.
So I absolutely support you on that. And I do think we should
have the study, and I do think it should come back and --
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Good. So we've got nods of approval?
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yes, absolutely.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Let's move this along, folks. Let's go.
Nance -- Commissioner Nance.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Finally and quickly, Mr. Carnell,
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thank you. Your department and your staff meets more of our
citizens directly because you're providing the services that they have
direct contact.
I'm going to give you very, very high marks for doing a great job
under some sometimes very stressful situations.
I get tremendous feedback from all of them, but I want to just
single out a couple of them, not to anybody else's criticism. But I'm
hearing wonderful things about veterans services, and I'm certainly
hearing, you know, wonderful things about parks and recreation
regarding the public outreach that has been associated with the park.
And, Mr. Brougham, thank you for your remarks, sir. Certainly,
the construction of the regional park out there is one of the highest
priorities for -- you know, just for me as the representative for the
citizens out there, you know, that 30 percent of the kids we have that
have been without a park are looking for it. But staff has kindly
advised me that this fall when they get a hard number on what they
think it's going to take to do it, that they will certainly support digging
in and looking at the methodologies to support it. So, Mr. Brougham,
I hope you'll stand at the ready to come back when that time arises.
Finally, I would also like to say that Mr. Carnell's public services
department is now involved and interjoined in our economic
development efforts through two specific managers and efforts, and
that is Michelle Arnold, who's doing very, very good work with our
Immokalee CRA Advisory Committee. That's a tough one, and it's
active as can be.
And, you know, with this new Promise Zones, you know, fasten
your seatbelts, and also something that other commissioners might not
have noticed, but Tish Roland at extension; extension is also
networked in our economic development and directly related to our
accelerator through Vanessa Belima (phonetic), who's a new staff
member out there, doing extraordinary job. She was instrumental in
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putting on a workshop out in Immokalee on how to start a food-based
business out there, one of the two workshops in the state of Florida
which had PhD staff member Susan Owen come down from
Gainesville.
So, I mean, our University Extension Service division is
networked with our economic development, so my thanks and
appreciation to you-all.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: And, finally, Commissioner Hiller.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: It feels like The Voice. I feel all
our chairs should be turned, and then as you do your presentations, we
should turn around and, like, hit the button, you know. No, I want
you in my studio. That's all I wanted to say.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Oh, okay. Well, that was cute, nice.
Thank you very much for a great presentation. It looks like you
get really high marks, every one of you. Thank you.
MR. ISACKSON: Commissioners, next up will be
administrative services.
Administrative Services
MS. PRICE: Good morning, Commissioners. For the record,
Len Price, Administrative Services Department.
And I am going to give you an opportunity to go and have lunch
because I'm going to be extremely brief. I've always believed that if
you don't hear a lot from my department, it's because we're doing a
good job, because what we do is all the behind-the-scenes work that
makes sure that everybody else gets their work done.
With that, just a few little comments. This year we are going to
be focusing -- the budget that we've brought you is going to be a focus
on hitting deferred replacement of vehicles, of equipment, of our
infrastructure, improving it from an IT perspective, from a building
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perspective. That is going to be the total focus, as well as our -- on
our human resources.
We've got a lot of new program initiatives. We want to make
sure that we're competitive in the market, that we're providing good
service to the public, and we're going to start improving there.
Obviously, we're going to be focusing on compliance, on
following the rules, working with our procurement section. We're
going to try and improve our processes so that maybe we can make
things flow a little bit more smoothly by having pre-meetings and
post-meetings to get all the issues out in the open. We've actually
started that practice, and it seems to be very promising.
We've got some challenges coming to us with some changes in
the laws and the rules regarding workers' comp and unemployment,
so we're going to be tackling those and making sure that we stay in
full compliance.
Our emergency services are gearing up on a preparedness side.
We feel like we've dodged the bullet for a number of years, and we're
starting to get a little nervous about that, and so we're going to start
really focusing on exercising our equipment and our knowledge and
our plans to make sure that they're all ready for us just in case we
need to use them, and hopefully we will not.
EMS, under its new chief, is preparing strategically for the
future. We're going to be taking a look at our processes and making
sure that we're doing everything as well as we can, as our goal -- it
has always been our goal to be a world-class service provider.
With regard to that, you had asked us to take a look at our
billing, and I'm just going to give you a very brief overview of that.
What we've learned is that we're collecting about 66 percent of what
we bill, and about 60 of that is from Medicare and Medicaid.
So we've looked at what would happen if we changed our rates.
If we lowered them, our collections would go down because that 60
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percent would stay the same, and so then the insurance companies
that pay would have to pay less. Obviously, if we increase them, we
could earn a little bit more.
We are somewhat in the middle in terms of the rates that we
charge statewide so, you know, there's some room to do that if that's
the will of the Board.
We're continuing to work towards fire consolidation again this
year and taking that a little bit further. This year's budget includes a
modest increase in our staffing. Primarily it's converting temporary
employees to permanent employees, most of whom have been with us
for a long time. So it makes good sense to keep them on board and
keep that knowledge in-house.
With that, I forgot to introduce my team, and so I'm going to ask
them to do that and, for the first time, I publicly I want to
acknowledge that Allison Kearns has agreed to join our team
temporarily to fill in for the retiring Joanne Markiewicz in
Purchasing. So this is the first announcement, and I will send out an
email acknowledging that fact as well. We've just been a little
overwhelmed recently.
So if I could just start at the end, we'll just introduce everybody.
MR. LINGUIDI: Good morning. Dennis Linguidi, Facilities
Management, Government Security.
MS. BUTCHER: Good morning. Tabatha Butcher, Chief of
your EMS department.
CHIEF McLAUGHLIN: Good morning. Alan McLaughlin,
Chief, Ochopee Fire Control District.
MS. LYBERG: Good morning. Amy Lyberg, Human
Resources.
MR. SUMMERS: Good morning. Dan Summers, Director of
Bureau of Emergency Services and Emergency Management.
MR. BERRIOS: Good morning. Mike Berrios, Information
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June 16, 2016
Technology.
MR. CROFT: Good morning. Dan Croft, Fleet Management
Director.
MR. WALKER: Good morning. Jeff Walker, Division
Director, Risk Management.
MS. PRICE: And I will entertain any questions you might have.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Do you know, I don't have a button on, I
don't have a light on. So it looks like everybody has done so well that
nobody even has a question about it. Thank you for being here.
MS. PRICE: Thank you.
MR. SUMMERS: Thank you. Thank the Board.
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, next up is our Public Utilities
Department.
Public Utilities
DR. YILMAZ: Good morning, Commissioners. And for the
record George Yilmaz, Public Utilities.
First, we sincerely appreciate your policy guidance all the way
from enterprise funds to managing our reserves, has helped
tremendously over the years and give us north star. We thank you.
We also thank our County Manager and Office of Management
and Budget for their support and continuous guidance in this process
so that we are in compliance with board-approved policies, guidance,
among others.
This proposed budget enables the department to deliver essential
life-sustaining services to our customers who is -- not just the
customers, residents here, but also customers that -- transitional but
also customers that visit us. So they all become our customers, and
we have the peaks and valleys in our demand and supply curve that
we need to meet and have our infrastructure to do so, and we thank
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June 16, 2016
you, giving us funding and resources both operational and capital, to
meet those demands that is changing faster than Dow Jones Industrial.
And I'm also pleased to report that we are in compliance with all
federal, state, and regional rules and regulations, and also we go
above and beyond in terms of QA/QC and internal controls in our
processes that provides additional assurance to our customers that is
reflected in annual customer confidence surveys that we send out that
simply gives them what they are drinking, what's in their IQ water,
and what have you.
I'm pleased today to report that Public Utilizes Department 2'17
proposed budget is revenue centric and meets all of the guidelines in
the budget policy you have approved in February 23, 2016, agenda
item under 11A.
Now, my Financial Supports Director, CFO, will provide you
with highlights and with the short script to give you sense of where
we are, where we're going, and what the horizon looks like. Joe?
MR. BALLONE: Thank you, George.
And good morning, Commissioners, and thank you for having us
here today.
As you know, Public Utilities Department is comprised of two
enterprise funds. That's the Collier County Water/Sewer District and
Solid and Hazardous Waste Management. And I'll give you the
highlights of each of those two fiscal budgets. And if you'll allow me,
I'll start with the water/sewer district.
In 2017, the utility plans to produce and distribute over nine
billion gallons of potable drinking water; collect, transmit, and treat
approximately seven billion gallons of wastewater, and distribute that
as over five billion gallons of irrigation quality water to our customers
and for the benefit of them, the visitors, and the tourists to Collier
County, all meeting regulatory regulations 24/7 and 365.
As an enterprise fund, our revenues are fees for service. There's
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no government support. And those are spread across eight different
funds, including operating, capital debt, and impact fee funds.
Our capital improvement plan, our CIP, is funded at over $56
million in Fiscal 2017. That's almost a $10 million increase over
FY16's approved CIP. So we're getting at a lot of that infrastructure
that needs repair and rehabilitation.
Those projects include, but are not limited to, pipe replacements,
water main replacements, Basins 101 in Naples Park in the north and
305 and 306 in East Naples, as well as rehabilitation to -- and work
across all of our four treatment plants.
Our debt service of 18-and-a-half million dollars is fully funded,
and we have no new debt programmed in FY 17.
But just as a reminder, the Fitch rating agency has maintained
our triple A bond rating. And recently Moody's rating agency has
upgraded our utility from Triple A2 to Triple Al.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: That's an upgrade.
MR. BALLONE: It's good news.
Unrestricted reserves for the water/sewer district for operations
and capital total $19.2 million, and that represents 50 days of
operating in capital funding within the board-approved policy
guidelines of 45 to 60 days. And, as George mentioned, the budget is
revenue centric.
I'll move to solid and hazardous waste next. The division meets
all federal, state, and local regulations for solid and hazardous waste
collection and disposal ensuring public health and safety while, all the
while, increasing public awareness of the importance of recycling and
waste diversion.
As in the water/sewer district, revenues for this enterprise funds
represent fees for service across multiple funds. You see the growth
wherever you drive in Collier County.
Customer accounts at the recycling center are anticipated to
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exceed 63,000 customers. That's about a 22 percent increase over the
prior year.
Our FDEP certified recycling rate for Fiscal 2013 was 63
percent, and our goal is to reach 70 percent by the end of 2018 and the
state mandated goal of 75 percent by 2020.
Tonnage, as you would expect, at the Collier County landfill as
well as the Immokalee transfer station, continues to increase, and
those are up 5 percent and 17 percent respectively, and it's no surprise
it's concurrent with the growth that you see everywhere you drive
here.
The capital improvement program for solid waste is funded at $4
million in Fiscal 2017, and solid waste is currently debt free, but we
are planning to continue with a "pay as you go" in Fiscal 2017.
In this division, operating in capital reserves budget, at $9.3
million in Fiscal '17, that represents 72 days of operating and capital
funds, again, within the budget policy guidelines of 60 to 90 days for
solid waste. And those really are necessary to initially respond to
disaster recovery debris mission.
And solid hazardous waste, as is with the water/sewer district, is
revenue centric in 2017.
These proposed budgets are in compliance with your guidelines
and, as others have done, we respectfully request an approve -- for
you to approve it. And I, along with the division directors and
George, are here to answer any questions that you might have today.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: First, how about if each person
introduces themselves and tell us what their job is amongst that
division.
MR. BALLONE: Sure. If we can start with our Operating
Directors to the left and move across.
MR. MESSMER: Good morning, Commissioners. My name is
Steve Messmer. I am the Water Division Director.
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June 16, 2016
MS. JOHNSSEN: Good morning. I'm Beth Johnssen. I'm the
Wastewater Director.
MR. RODRIQUEZ: Good morning. Dan Rodriguez, your Solid
and Hazardous Waste Management Director.
DR. YILMAZ: Good morning. I'm George Yilmaz. I work for
all of them.
MR. BALLONE: And does a good job at that, too.
And again, Joe Ballone, the Financial and Operations Support
Director.
MR. CHMELIK: Tom Chmelik, Director of Planning and
Project Management.
MS. CURRY: Amia Curry, Financial and Operational Support
Manager.
MR. BALLONE: Who, by the way, pulled all of this together
for you today.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Pardon me? I couldn't hear you.
MR. BALLONE: By the way, pulled all of this information
together in a nice packet to give to Mark to give to you.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Oh, thank you for telling us that.
MR. BALLONE: Thank you, Amia.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Commissioner Henning?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you.
You're asking for new FTEs. Could you provide me -- it doesn't
have to be now -- what your FTEs were at the peak.
MR. BALLONE: Yes. At the peak they were actually -- I can
tell you today. At the peak, water/sewer district employees were 357,
and we will be at 410 in 2017. That averages about five FTEs per
year over that time period.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Has your flows changed or --
you were -- did I write it down here wrong, 357 at peak?
MR. BALLONE: Three hundred fifty-seven employees at peak,
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June 16, 2016
yes, water/sewer district.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And you're proposing 410?
MR. BALLONE: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Has your flows increased that
much?
MR. BALLONE: Flows increase according to demand. But just
as a reminder --
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I mean, you haven't had any
expansion of planning --
MR. BALLONE: Infrastructure --
COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- capacity.
MR. BALLONE: The infrastructure has increased dramatically.
And just as a --just to identify some of that, the conveyances of the
infrastructure that the utility accepts at every one of the board
meetings, so far this year through Tuesday's board meeting, you've
accepted 19.9 miles of potable water main -- potable water mains; 403
new valves. And just a reminder, every one of those valves has to be
turned every year; 209 new hydrants; and 44 new sample points.
On the wastewater side, again, 19.9 miles brand new just this
year in our -- that we have to maintain; 19.9 miles of gravity mains
and force mains, 73 valves, 334 new manholes, and 14 lift stations.
That's just since you started meeting in September.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Well, the capacity hasn't
changed. Your capacity hasn't changed.
DR. YILMAZ: Joe, if I might.
MR. BALLONE: Sure.
DR. YILMAZ: Commissioner, I think your question is strategic
and right on the mark. The capacity, we have checkmark and
checkbook that reserves our plant capacity against board-approved
development. As board-approved development becomes reality, we
issue wet permits. Then we have the field operations expanding even
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though our capacity being consumed. And we're not increasing our
FTE as much in the plants, but it's in the field all the way from
Reflection Lakes to Publix fire flow (sic) all the way to northeast.
And what your chief financial officer indicated, that it averages
five FTE since the time frame you mentioned. That's about
two-and-a-half crew, if not one-and-a-half crew, depending on the
size.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Why don't you provide me the
expansion in their job description.
DR. YILMAZ: Absolutely. Will do, sir.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you.
DR. YILMAZ: Will do.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Very good.
Commissioner Taylor?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Well, I happened to go through a
lot of old papers recently, and one of them -- I actually photographed
the expansion of the Marco utility, the wastewater down on Marco,
and in that magazine they talked about bioreactors, another thing.
Where are we with -- are we doing this, or what's happening with
this?
DR. YILMAZ: Commissioner, I think that that's another very
good strategic question, and the answer is yes. We have been
working on it last 23 months, and we are, as we speak, going through
RFP review for a national search and some international technologies
that will take biosolids, septage waste, and grease trap waste and turn
it into renewable energy and also turn it into natural gas, and
remaining inert material is going to be more suitable for -- close
enough in terms of quality for organic farming, sole supplement and
fertilizer.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. So we're moving in that
direction?
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June 16, 2016
DR. YILMAZ: Yes, ma'am, we are moving in that direction.
The only difference is that ours includes grease septic waste and also
it includes septic waste. The difference is one comes from
restaurants, which is one waste stream that we have no facility in
Collier County to treat, and very few facilities nearby. The other one
is septage waste. As you know, not all our customers are in utility
system all the way from Immokalee to Collier County.
So we did have great deal of customer base on septic tanks, and
we want to make sure that we do have a sustainable infrastructure that
we can provide that service locally and -- however, transportation side
of it is going to be market driven. We just want to make sure that
there's a complying means and methods of disposal of those wastes
that no one wants to touch.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Well, the City of Naples knows
how important it is because of what's going on behind the post office
in the septic, and -- but it's also important, as you say, to allow them
to remain on septic if it isn't, you know, a threat to our water table.
And water is wound into all of this, so I'm delighted to know that it's
moving ahead.
DR. YILMAZ: Absolutely, Commissioner. Without taking
more of your valuable time, just to mention that we're not walking
alone on this endeavor. Our County Manager's general guidance has
been if you're going to initiate something sub-regional or regional,
and if there's optimization in terms of breakeven and -- so we have
been in communications with our City of Naples utility and, verbally,
they are on board, and they want to join us --
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: That's good.
DR. YILMAZ: -- subject to seeing the details.
So we are -- we are engaged with City of Naples in concept.
Once everything gets to the point that we know dollars and cents --
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Right.
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DR. YILMAZ: -- this could easily be helping our city's as well
as nonutility customer base who have septic tank and -- but they don't
have means and methods of disposal within the Collier County in a
large scale.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you. Thank you very
much.
DR. YILMAZ: My pleasure.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: What -- I remember last year, I think it
was, where you had an award that was the best-tasting water, I think,
in the state of Florida, right?
DR. YILMAZ: Yes, ma'am.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Do you still retain that?
DR. YILMAZ: We got the sub-regional. We're going to go for
national next year.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Oh, really?
DR. YILMAZ: And our compliance manager lease working on
improving (sic) the water.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: How I wish that I had city -- I mean
county water, because that would be wonderful. I hear it's just -- I
don't get to taste it, but I would love to sometime. I should get -- I
should come into some of your departments and take water out and
put it in water bottles or something. Thank you.
Let's see. I have one more. That's Commissioner Nance.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Yeah. Dr. George, are they using
your water in the new brewery up there at Creekside? I'm just asking
you. You know, they might owe you a commission if they make a lot
of money, you know. If it's the best-tasting water.
But just a side, one comment I just wanted to make is, the
septage management issue is very, very important. One of the
reasons is, if we come out of our Growth Management Plan here with
an overlay of low density for the Estates, which I think is going to get
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June 16, 2016
supported and I think is rationale and reasonable and a benefit to the
county as a whole, that's going to mean that we are going to need to
operate septage properly, not only at the installation and homeowner
basis, but also in managing the waste stream.
And although you don't reach out and cover the whole county,
because we're rural and because we don't want this material
discharged into the environment improperly, I think we need to have
the appropriate facilities that can reach out and cover it, you know, on
an enterprise basis. Just to recover our costs, make sure that that's
available. It's a good thing for our county and a good thing for our
conservation in remote areas to encourage these people to do the right
thing without an excessive and unreasonable cost.
So thank you very much in your efforts.
DR. YILMAZ: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Thank you. And with that, I have no
more questions for any of our members. And we thank you all for
being here. Very interesting.
DR. YILMAZ: Thank you. Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: You're doing a great job in that recycling.
MR. RODRIQUEZ: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Just super.
MR. ISACKSON: Commissioners, if we can have our -- change
up the batting order just a little bit, if there are no objections, we can
go to management offices. We have Mr. Dorrill, the CRAs. We can
get them dispatched and back to their work --
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Great, good.
MR. ISACKSON: -- if you don't mind.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: That's a very good suggestion.
MR. OCHS: Go ahead, Neil.
Management Offices (Pelican Bay)
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June 16, 2016
MR. DORRILL: Good morning, Commissioners. I started to
offer Steve Carnell $20 to present my budget this morning. It's sort of
-- as was the case when that was Leo's division, it kind of turns into a
love fest every year, but it is interesting to listen.
Just as a brief introduction, it's been almost 180 years ago since
Florida created its first community improvement district. In 1822, the
territorial legislature -- Florida was a territory -- created the Florida
Road Highway and Ferry Act. It did not have taxing authority or
power, but it gave the district manager the ability to go out and
conscript labor with the militia.
So can you imagine me going out through Pelican Bay and, with
the help of the sheriff, rounding up a bunch of conscripts to cut the
grass every day. It's kind of interesting.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Florida's two pre-eminent
community improvement districts were created. One of them was
called Reidy Creek, which is today Walt Disney World, and the
second one was the Pelican Bay improvement district, which is now a
world-class community and vacation resort.
Our budget next year, I'll focus on the primary operating fund,
which is Fund 109. That's our non-ad valorem based fund. We do
have a fairly significant increase in the fund only in percentage terms.
You know the total cost currently per resident for the Pelican Bay
Services Division is $518. It's intended to increase next year to $651,
or about an 18 percent increase, but it works out to about $96, and
that's primarily due to two things.
We've had kind of a difficult and challenging labor model there
within our landscape crew. We actually have about 15
groundskeepers that are county employees and, frankly, they come
with a pretty high labor burden and overhead rate, and so they're now
supplemented by contracted day laborers who come in two different
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versions. The senior version is able to operate our mowers and our
Kubota equipment, but we now have more contracted day laborers
trying to perform the landscape function than we do, actually, county
employees, and that was intended to save money.
The community as a whole, and our board voted 10-1 to
recommend the increase to you for the coming year. And the increase
is primary attributable to two things. They're increasing their cash
flow reserve. Your fiscal policy, I believe, sets reserve targets from
12 to 30 percent cash flow. Our target is increasing next year. They'd
like to have it around 18 percent.
And we also have a new four-man crew. Again, in this case, it
will be day laborers because the community as a whole really wants
to see higher service levels. They feel there has been a lot of deferred
maintenance there. They want to increase the amount of new
landscape installation. And so those are sort of some of the
highlights.
There's no change in the Fund 111 subsidy. It remains at
$150,000. They continue to be very proud of their stewardship role
with respect to Clam Bay. No new or expanded services there. And
that's kind of a quick overview, and I'd be happy to answer any
questions.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Thank you. None so far.
Community Redevelopment Agencies
MS. JOURDAN: Good afternoon.
MR. ISACKSON: No, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Jean.
MS. JOURDAN: I'm sorry, Mark. Go ahead.
MR. ISACKSON: Please, no. Go ahead.
MS. JOURDAN: Good afternoon. Jean Jourdan, Bayshore
Gateway CRA.
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June 16, 2016
The CRA's proposed budget for FY 17 the proposed personal
service budgets is in compliance with budget guidelines.
I want to thank Ed Finn. He's instrumental in assisting our
department to ensure that everything is in compliance, and he's very,
very helpful to us.
Our operating expense budget increased for planning services for
50,000 to a big, whopping 70,000. We also have budgeted 50,000 for
our grant program in order to assist commercial businesses coming
into the area.
Of course, our transfer to our debt service remains our biggest
budget obstacle that we have right now. So we're just keeping on
functioning until we can get this debt paid off.
We also had the Haldeman Creek MSTU which they're basically
still just collecting their funds in order to dredge in the future. And
then the Bayshore beautification MSTU, they're moving forward to
construct -- design and construct the Thomasson Drive pathway
pedestrian project, and additionally, we're looking into an
interconnection from Bayshore to Sugden.
We're continuing with our landscaping. We did have a lot of
landscaping issues this year because our irrigation system kept
breaking down. It's finally up and working, and so we're moving
forward.
Any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I just really like what you're
doing.
MS. JOURDAN: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I love that area.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Me, too.
Michelle?
MS. ARNOLD: Well, I'm here for support. As you-all know,
that recently the CRAs have been reorganized under my division, and
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I'm here to support Jean and Christy. And I'll turn the mike over to
Christy so she can talk about the things that we're doing in
Immokalee.
MS. BETANCOURT: Good morning, Commissioners. We're
pretty much the same budget as last year. We're a little bit lower.
We do have three full-time positions. We just hired -- we're
hiring a staff in June -- on June 27th, so that alleviates some of the
stress that we're under.
But we're pretty much maintaining the same; same thing with the
CRA. Our budget is about 160- for operating -- 163- for operating.
The -- we remain the same for the commercial facade grant,
which has been really popular this year. We hadn't had any
commercial businesses applying in this year. We've had at least five
wanting the grant.
But we're still at one a year, so we're trying to already -- we
probably already have one lined up for next year. So that's still good.
And we have the sweat equity grant that's slow. We're having
people apply, but nobody has been awarded the grant, so we're still
keeping the funds there, 15,000.
We do have the repayment of the $30,000 that we're paying for
the business development center. That's our repayment. Other than
that, everything maintains the same. For the MSTU, same as well.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: You're doing a great job.
MS. BETANCOURT: Thank you.
MR. ARNOLD: There's a lot of great things happening in both
of the CRAs right now, and there's meetings about the accelerator
programs that are out there. And the designation that was just
announced is exciting. So we're looking forward to a lot of new
things in the future.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: It's exciting.
And the areas are really gentrifying. You can really start seeing
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the change.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Commissioner Nance?
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Yes. I don't know that this is
completely the best time to mention this, but since it's so intimately
related to what Michelle just mentioned and Christy in the CRA in
Immokalee, the establishment of the Promise Zone, I think to take full
advantage of that, that is going to have to take very, very careful
consideration on the part of the County Manager since the CRA and
the County Manager agency is working directly together I think in a
much improved organization -- organizational design.
I don't know exactly what is going to be necessary to
accommodate and take full advantage of the Promise Zone, but I
would suggest to you that perhaps there's going to have to be -- and it
is completely appropriate to have some sort of a staff allocation. I
don't know if current staff can handle that or if there's going to be
additional FTEs that are going to be necessary to do the job that, you
know, can take full advantage of that.
But I think it would absolutely be justified because I think that
benefit is going to come right back and circle right back into our
economic development and jobs creation effort.
So in whatever incarnation the County Manager best thinks that
additional horsepower needs to be applied, I would look forward to,
you know, his full consideration and review of staff to figure out how
we can really get engaged with this and capture everything that's
available.
MR. OCHS: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I promise --
MR. OCHS: I promise.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- to help you and Commissioner
Nance with the Promise Zone.
MR. ISACKSON: Commissioners, you also have Mr. Wert and
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Mr. Sheffield if there are any questions for those particular areas.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: May I just mention --
CHAIRMAN FIALA: I just wanted to say something while
you're coming up -- if you don't mind, please -- I wanted to say I read
in the paper a couple days ago that Matname, Matame (phonetic),
however you say it, just bought that Arboretum village area for 8.7
million.
MS. JOURDAN: They did.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: So that means we're going to see some
improvement going in there.
MS. JOURDAN: They closed.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: That's right across the street from the
Botanical Garden, for anybody else who doesn't know that. And
congratulations. I know you've been working on that for a while now,
so that's a good -- that's a nice, good thing happening.
Pretty soon you're going to be picking away at that loan and get
it out of the way. So that's wonderful. And I also read that the Trio,
that hotel that's supposed to be --
MS. JOURDAN: Fortino.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: -- building right at the point there, they
expect to start construction in October.
MS. JOURDAN: Correct.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: That is a wonderful thing. We need some
things like that in this area. We don't have a hotel in East Naples yet.
So we'll be using that for the pickleballers, I'm sure.
Okay. Would you like to wait until the other two people got
their --
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Sure, sure. I just had questions.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Okay. And I'll just keep -- okay.
MR. WERT: All right.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Jack?
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MR. WERT: Thank you, Madam Chair.
Management Offices (Tourism)
Jack Wert, your Tourism Director. Coming off a really, really
spectacular 2015/2016, we're looking for and really monitoring the
international economy and certainly the U.S. economy as well.
Definitely seeing some slowdowns, some leveling off.
And so we've been very conservative with how we have
budgeted next year. We're keeping our marketing budget exactly the
same as it was last year. And we think we can adequately market the
destination over the entire year as has been our case for the last couple
of years.
So we're looking at, perhaps, a 2 percent growth in the tourist tax
revenue. It's -- it continues to grow, and we certainly anticipate that it
will. We're actually seeing the summer months pick up some now,
which is a really good sign.
Keeping our staffing the same as it was at 11.75 FTEs, and we're
managing the budget and certainly the four funds that we oversee:
Our administrative fund, the marketing fund, our emergency fund,
and the grants fund. And, boy, there's good news there, I think, in our
grants this year.
We had a lot of help from the private sector. A committee was
pulled together to look at why our -- especially our non-profit grants
were not being requested in the numbers that we had in the past. We
made some very decided changes in the application process, in the
process for getting reimbursed for those grants.
And I'm happy to say that we got some renewed interest there.
We've got the Artis-Naples and the Naples Botanical Garden working
together in a joint project this year to bring an origami exhibit to both
places at the same time. So they'll have an outdoor and an indoor
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exhibit as well. This is a traveling exhibit that is exactly the kind of
event that we were looking for in the non-profit sector.
Also, the Children's Museum has come back for a funding
request as well, again, for traveling exhibits. So there's that family
market that we're really trying to build here in Collier County.
And on the marketing side, we've got several events that we've
gotten applications for this year. You've certainly seen the growth of
the Stone Crab Festival each year, and we're definitely going to be
trying to help them again to grow that event again.
The Bacon Festival has gotten to be quite popular and is on the
grounds of the Naples Airport, and it looks like this is going to be a
growing event as well.
So we're going to help those organizations. Also, the Seafood
Festival in Everglades City, we're going to be assisting them again
with a grant request. So we've got a lot of good things going, some
good excitement.
And I've got to say, along with the pickleball and so forth -- and,
Commissioner, you were listening in on yesterday's Sports Council
meeting -- I have not heard such excitement in this community about
sports and events and bringing young families and so forth --
COMMISSIONER HILLER: BMX.
MR. WERT: -- to the area.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: BMX wasn't there.
MR. WERT: They weren't there, but cricket was.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I know, but they'd be considered
-- they didn't even know that the county could help them, and that's
why we want to bring them in. That's why they were here.
MR. WERT: Absolutely. We're going to talk to them and --
COMMISSIONER HILLER: A thousand spectators.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Well, thank you for that about the
pickleball.
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MR. WERT: So, definitely, we're going to continue to grow
sports. We see that as a wonderful opportunity to fill in the times of
year when we really do need business and we can look for events that
fit into that time frame.
So very excited about what next year is looking like. But, again,
we're going to be conservative and do what we can to keep -- truly, in
a down or a slower economy, if you're level with the previous year,
which was a huge win for the community, then I think we're going to
be good.
And the final thing is, job growth continues to be really good in
the hospitality and tourism sector. We're at 64 straight months of job
growth now. So we're very pleased with that. And the governor has
recognized our county twice for that kind of job growth, and we want
to see that continue. I think that helps to fuel the entire economy.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: All that with 11 employees. Will you
believe that, huh? Wow. Amazing.
MR. WERT: We're doing it. Smoke and mirrors.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Mike?
MR. SHEFFIELD: Commissioners, hi. Mike Sheffield, your
Manager of Communication and Customer Relations. And I'd be
happy to answer a few question or give you a few highlights this
morning.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Can I comment on Mike's?
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Sure.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: First of all, thank you for all you
do.
MR. SHEFFIELD: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: And to all of you. I mean, you're
all doing a phenomenal job. A lot of what you-all do goes directly to
economic development, and as a result, you're very important and,
obviously, from my perspective, sitting as chair of economic
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development, I really care that the message gets out as to what we are
doing and how we can help.
And to that end -- and I've talked to Leo about this, and I've
talked to Mike about this -- I really hope to see a greater impetus in
messaging about the economic development initiatives on the part of
county government. And I don't think the community knows what's
out there by way of grants, as you have an example. We just heard
from the Immokalee CRA that has a grant available that goes to
economic development, but people don't know how to apply, they
don't know how to -- they don't even know that it's out there if they do
know how to apply. And we need to get the word out.
So, you know, like I've said, you know, we really need to
commit resources and efforts towards the messaging so that we can
continue the trend of job creation and stimulation of the industries that
have been key, like tourism.
So whatever you can do to make that happen, Mike, you know,
working with the team here, working with our economic development
office, working with the accelerator, get the word out about the
services we can offer, about the incentives that we offer to make sure
that people outside the community as well as inside of the community
avail themselves of it and we continue what's been very successful to
date.
I think that's probably my biggest concern, and that is we're not
getting the word out.
And, Leo, I hope you're committed to that --
MR. OCHS: Yes, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- you know, especially in this
arena in economic development. We need that.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Thank you.
And, Commissioner Taylor?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Jack, I understand the room was
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overflowing last night, 46. Usually it's 20, and they double.
MR. WERT: Seventy -- we had 70 people in that room.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes, in the Sports Council.
MR. WERT: Amazing.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And you're right, I mean, I was
listening by phone. But the excitement -- and it was boom, boom,
boom, we can do this, we can do this, we can do this, we can do this.
And that's just -- that's just the professionals that -- out there, not the
public. And the pickleball just -- they -- I mean, it was wonderful. It
was energetic. It's -- sports -- I've been told it's raining sports in
Collier County, and I believe it now.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Cute.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: There's no question. And
everyone is energized, and we've got the BMX issue and things. So,
you know, it's hard -- you've got a staff that does a lot of other things.
We've just got to carve out some time, or if you come back to us and
ask for something, maybe we might consider it because the -- it was
wonderful.
And, you know, for me not to see their faces but to hear their
voices was even better because I could hear the excitement, the way
they talked and the speed with which they talked and how they
interacted. I mean, this -- we have such an energized community to
move sports ahead, you know, these amateur sports.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: We haven't even tapped the new reef yet
and the new sport of scuba diving, right? Boy, oh boy. And
amplified fishing now that we're getting some of our fish population
back. That's -- you know, that's a whole other thing that -- you know,
sports are going to take over, which is good.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Here's the thing. When I started
on this board, sports weren't even discussed.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yep.
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COMMISSIONER HILLER: And then we brought on, you
know -- because as you know, I am sports obsessed a little bit. I
mean, actually a lot.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: No, you're not.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah, no.
So I'm so glad to hear -- because as I move off the Board, I'm
really excited to hear, Commissioner Taylor, that you and,
Commissioner Fiala, that you're both passionate about sports as well
and that you'll carry this on --
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Oh, yeah.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- because when I started, there
was, like, no mention of sports. Then we started a sports marketing
division, and Jack and I were tirelessly, you know, with the athletes in
the community from the Nats, you know, to -- which are the
tri-athletes, to Gulf Coast runners. And I mean, I can't begin to tell
you how much I thank you for what you have done in really
promoting this as a segment of our tourism market that was untapped
and which has gone into the shoulder season, which was another
concern that I saw that it was not -- we were not getting the maximum
return on the investment in the tourism infrastructure that we had
here. We were well, well below capacity, and this has really made a
significant difference.
So I really hope that you both, Commissioner Fiala and
Commissioner Taylor, like, keep it up. And if I can help in any way,
you know --
CHAIRMAN FIALA: We'll rope you in.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- I will. Rope me in because I
am -- that is such a big deal.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Our chairman doesn't want to
announce this yet, but she is starting to take secret pickleball lessons
because next year she's got --
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June 16, 2016
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Well, I just -- I want to make an
announcement, too. I am not going to do BMX. I mean, absolutely
not.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Commissioner Henning?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah. Just an observation.
Most of the comments today were not questions about
budgetary. They're comments about the operations or personal things.
I'm here for the rest of the day; however, I hope in the afternoon that
we can respect the staffs time and the time that we take up from
them.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Well, I think staff has done an
outstanding job, and I think they deserve the recognition we're giving
them as part of bringing forward budgets that reflect what their past
performances and what their future performance is intended to be in a
fiscally conservative and responsible manner providing the highest
level of customer service. I think this board recognizing them and at
the same time, you know, applauding them for their budgeting is a
good thing.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: And, Mark, did you want to do anything
else, or should we break now for lunch?
MR. ISACKSON: Ma'am, it's 12:17. Are you looking for an
hour break? We have the constitutionals scheduled at 1:00. It's your
choice.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Let's come back at 1:00. We can
do this in 45 minutes, eat.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Yeah, okay.
MR. ISACKSON: Very good.
MR. OCHS: Back at 1 with the constitutionals?
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Back at 1:00, yeah.
MR. OCHS: Thank you.
(A luncheon recess was had.)
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June 16, 2016
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Good afternoon. The meeting will come
back to order, please.
MR. ISACKSON: Commissioners, first up in the afternoon are
constitutional officers, and we'll begin with Jennifer Edwards,
Supervisor of Elections.
Supervisor of Elections
MS. EDWARDS: Good afternoon.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Good afternoon.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Good afternoon.
MS. EDWARDS: I want to introduce my staff. You-all -- most
of you-all know them. This is Melissa Blazier. She's the Chief
Deputy Supervisor of Elections, and Alex Breault is my Assistant.
I have three things to tell you today. Number one, our budget for
next year is approximately $3.7 million. That's a 9 percent decrease
from the current year budget, and that's because we only have one
election in next year's budget.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Well, we can approve that now, and you
can go home.
MS. EDWARDS: All right. I do like to remind you, though, of
our equipment. And not this year's budget, but next year's budget,
when I'm sitting here before you, I will be asking for about $360,000
to add to what we already have in our 301 reserve to meet mandated
equipment needs.
And the third thing is to say thank you so much for our new
facility.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Oh, it's -- yeah.
MS. EDWARDS: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: And it was -- it's wonderful.
M S. ED WARD S: It's wonderful.
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COMMISSIONER HILLER: It was so necessary, and I think
it's going to really -- well, you know, the level of service out of your
office has always been very high, I think it's going to really take it
over the top. You have a -- you really made the right decision when
you -- when you saw the need to consolidate into one space.
MS. EDWARDS: Thank you. But I couldn't do it without
you-all. And the county staff has just been outstanding to meet our
needs, be responsive, and we appreciate that, too.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: And I'm glad that you vacated that
space now because I'm hoping now it will turn into a county gym.
No, I'm not saying that's what will happen. But wouldn't that be
great, you know. We could all do yoga at lunch. I mean, that's just --
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Well, speak for yourself.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. You can -- we'll do an
indoor pickleball court for you.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: I was going to say, I smell indoor
pickleball.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: That's great.
MS. EDWARDS: I always give credit for compliments like that
about the great work we do to our wonderful staff.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: No question.
MS. EDWARDS: There are 22 of us, and --
COMMISSIONER HILLER: They're well-deserving.
MS. EDWARDS: -- everybody works really hard to provide the
best service we can.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: You know, I don't have any lights on
here that says that one of the commissioners want to say anything, so
it looks like your visit was short but very sweet. Thank you very
much for being here.
MS. EDWARDS: I appreciate that. Thank you.
MR. ISACKSON: Next up, Commissioners, is the Clerk of
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Courts. That's led by Ms. Crystal Kinzel.
Clerk of Courts
MS. KINZEL: Good afternoon, Commissioners. For the record,
Crystal Kinzel, Finance Director. And I have with me Raymond
Milum, who is our Accounting Manager.
And I want to -- I want to add to the compliments this morning,
particularly for the county staff, the budget office in particular, that
works with us on our budget and throughout the year, also the
constitutional officers that we work with in preparing all the
financials. It takes a whole army of people to do this, so we
appreciate them.
On May 1 we provided the Board with a book detailing the
Clerk's budget. We are -- that's it. Thank you, Commissioner, for
holding it up.
We are only six-tenths or less than one percent of the county's
overall budget, and our increase this year is 180,500 that we're
requesting from the Board.
We are in compliance with the Board's budget guidance. We are
requesting below the comparative counties percents of increase for
the year, so we're below those.
We adhere to the county's pay plan guidance for our employees,
and we participate in the county's insurance at the same levels. I
know that's been a concern of the County Manager, and I wanted to
point out that the Clerk continues to follow the county plan on
insurance.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Thank you.
MS. KINZEL: And we are not requesting any new positions in
this budget. We're holding status quo and hope to have another
successful year at the Clerk's Office.
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COMMISSIONER NANCE: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: I looked through the budget. It just
looked great. I don't have a complaint in the world.
MS. KINZEL: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Commissioner Hiller?
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yes, thank you.
I do have a number of questions. The first is -- is as it relates to
what you're charging for services with respect to public records.
MS. KINZEL: Yes, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: And, you know, most recently
there was a case where there was a lawsuit between you and -- or not
you, but -- by "you" I mean the Clerk's Office and Gina Edwards, a
reputable reporter who sought public records and was overcharged,
and the Court found that she should not have been charged by the
page for documents that were already stored electronically but rather
she should have only been charged for the disk.
And so, you know, obviously what the Clerk's Office had done,
I'm sure, is what the Clerk's Office has done in the past, and based on
this ruling, I'm not sure how the Clerk can assume that the fees
derived from records requests would remain the same given very
clearly that a dollar per page will no longer be the charge for
documents that are already electronically stored, which I would
assume and I would hope would be the majority of your documents.
And I'm talking about Board documents. I'm not talking about the
court side of the Clerk's Office. I'm talking about the Board's side.
So if you could explain how that's going to work.
And tying into that that the cost for public records to the public
has to be equal to your actual costs. I mean, you can't make a profit
on these fees. And I want assurances that you are not generating a
profit on the fees that you are charging the public.
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MS. KINZEL: I can assure you, Commissioner Hiller, we're
following the statutory guidelines and/or any court case resolution for
our fee estimates.
Public records are something that you really can't determine.
We left it the same as last year because we may get additional records
requests. We may not. Anytime you're estimating your revenue --
there may be no public records requests next year or there may be
double what we had last year.
We left the revenue estimate as -- the same as last year, but we
certainly will follow all of the laws regarding public records.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: But -- so just -- so really this is
not a real budget then, because I mean, you must -- what percentage
of your record --
MS. KINZEL: It is a real budget.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Let me -- no, it's not a realistic
estimate. What percentage of your records are electronic versus non
-- you know, versus hard copy that would fall under the very narrow
exception that was identified in the Edwards ruling where you could
charge up to a dollar per page, like, because it was for a specific
function, like internal audit, as an example?
MS. KINZEL: And remember, Commissioner Hiller, it really
isn't -- we're very electronic and automated.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Are you?
MS. KINZEL: But also -- it also depends on the data and the
format of the data that's requested.
We can also charge computer time and staff time for additional
requests. So you can't just tie it to how many records would we have
to do at a dollar, how many records would we have to do at 10 cents.
It will be a combination.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Right.
MS. KINZEL: So it's a real budget. It's a real estimate, but it is
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an estimate, especially when you're dealing with publics records
revenue.
We have no idea what the total are. But, obviously, if we don't
produce the revenue, we would have to cut the budget somewhere
else. That's why we have a budget.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: And so I understand, as of right
now there is absolutely no surplus in the matching between what
you're charging the public and what the underlying cost is to generate
those records? Like, there's no margin where you're, you know,
having --
MS. KINZEL: There is no profit embedded in that.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay.
MS. KINZEL: It would be the actual costs of the -- pursuant to
the statutory requirements for charging for public records.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: So for the benefit of the public,
just so that they know exactly how you're charging or you're going to
be charging is if something is electronic, like in the case of the records
that were requested by Gina Edwards, it would be the cost of the disk,
correct?
MS. KINZEL: Commissioner Hiller, I --
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Because that's what it would take
to download?
MS. KINZEL: -- I'm not going to address a hypothetical, if you
don't mind because --
COMMISSIONER HILLER: It's not a hypothetical. It's a court
order.
MS. KINZEL: The nuances --
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Let's just talk about the --
COMMISSIONER HILLER: But it's important.
MS. KINZEL: Commissioner Hiller?
COMMISSIONER HILLER: It's very important.
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June 16, 2016
MS. KINZEL: I'll be glad to go back and explore any question
that you have on that.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: That would be great.
MS. KINZEL: Each public record request that we get has
particular nuances, as you pointed out, whether the record is
electronic, whether the electron (sic) paper, how much time it takes to
gather the information, how much does it cost to produce the disk, is
there computer time involved in generating it, all according to those
statutory elements.
So to sit here and say to the public, oh, if you come in, we'll
charge you 10 cents or we'll charge you $1.50 is really pie in the sky
or asking me to determine something in advance.
We need to understand the public records request, and we do that
with each and every request to our office.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: So what you're telling me is that
the public doesn't have any certainty, no -- there's not, you know, a
stated fee schedule --
MS. KINZEL: Yes, they do. The fee schedule is posted on our
website, and they can refer to that website in both our records and
recording fees and also the court fees for public records. So those are
all posted.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: And it's going to follow this most
recent ruling and will respect, you know --
MS. KINZEL: We always follow the law, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- the 15 cents a page. Hmm?
MS. KINZEL: We always follow the law.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Well, clearly not, because the
Court ruled against you. But let me continue.
The next thing that I'd like to ask -- and this is very important. I
have a real concern as to what source of revenues you're using for
your litigation fees, and I'd like to know where you are drawing --
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where you're pulling those dollars from in order to pay for the
litigation where you sued the County Manager and the purchasing
agent and, most recently, where are you pulling the fees from to pay
for Mr. Pires in the most recent garnishment case? So if you could
provide that information for me. I mean, I would --
MS. KINZEL: Sure. I'll be glad to provide that later. What we
have budgeted in the budget for litigation or legal fees is all supported
by the recording fees that the Clerk generates.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: By recording fees?
MS. KINZEL: Recording fees.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: But how's that possible? Because
the recording fees can only be offset by the cost associated with
providing --
MS. KINZEL: No, ma'am. That's public records.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Oh, you're talking about -- I'm
sorry. Recording, yeah.
MS. KINZEL: Recording of documents. And that is a fee that
the Clerk earns and is under the Clerk's budget.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: So he's -- I'm sorry. So he's
pulling the revenues to pay for this litigation out of recording fees?
MS. KINZEL: Yes, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: And there's no matching
requirement for recording fees that the fee that you charge for
recording --
MS. KINZEL: No.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- is offset by the cost of
recording?
MS. KINZEL: No. Those are set statutorily.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: So whatever surplus there is in
how you provide that is going towards the litigation against the
county?
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MS. KINZEL: It's being used for several things. It's used to
offset some of the costs of the Board's activities. We use a portion of
that revenue to offset the recording department costs as well as about,
I think it's a million eight --
MR. MILUM: MIS and part of administration, part of the
accounting, records management is all offset by this.
MS. KINZEL: Are offset by recording also.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I'm looking -- I'm looking at
recording, and in your budget where are the legal fees identified as
part of this budget?
MR. MILUM: They're in the administration department.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Are they separately identified as a
line item?
MS. KINZEL: Yes, they are.
MR. MILUM: Yes.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. Can you refer me to
specifically which --
MS. KINZEL: Sure.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- line item?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: She's using the Board's budget
book and not the book that was provided by the constitutional
officers.
MS. KINZEL: Oh, okay. That's fine.
There is no line item in the item that is prepared by OMB. They
consolidated to the operating and those levels.
If you go to the Clerk's submitted book, there's a specific line
item for that legal fee.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: And those are the legal -- so just
for -- okay. I understand. That's great. I appreciate that. And --
MS. KINZEL: Those are budgeted on Page 32, and there's a
highlighted note indicating that those legal fees come from the
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recording fees.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: And the other question -- the only
-- and this is my last question. You've had a number of-- well,
they're personnel related questions. The first question is, what,
approximately -- and I know you probably don't know this off the top
of your head, and you're welcome to come back to me, but if you
know it, I would appreciate it.
What is the turnover that you're experiencing in your accounts
payable department? You said you had about how many people, 20
people in there?
MS. KINZEL: We -- I think it's about 14 that actually handle
accounts payable. We have revenue and also payroll. We've had a
significant turnover in our accounts payable staff
COMMISSIONER HILLER: And what, approximately, is the
percentage turnover?
MS. KINZEL: You know, I would have to go calculate that.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Could you?
MS. KINZEL: I know we've lost three in the last eight to 10
months out of the 14 or so.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I would appreciate it if you could
let me know what the turnover is --
MS. KINZEL: Sure.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- because that, you know, goes to
the cost of operations, obviously. It makes it more difficult and most
costly when you have that high of a turnover rate.
What -- you've had a number of openings in your internal audit
department. You've had postings that have been up there for quite
some time and they're not being filled.
MS. KINZEL: Luckily we have two interviews scheduled for
next week, so we're very hopeful that we'll be able to fill those
positions.
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COMMISSIONER HILLER: Well, keep me posted about that,
because, you know, some -- I think one of them has been open --
hasn't it been open about a year? Haven't both been open that long?
MS. KINZEL: No, no.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: How long have they been open?
MS. KINZEL: We've had a couple of people in the positions
that may have moved on.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Oh, I see. So you hired people --
and so you've had turnover there also?
MS. KINZEL: We've had turnover in internal audits.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. Got it. So you anticipate
you're going to fill those positions?
MS. KINZEL: Yes, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. Because I was going to
suggest that you cut them out of the budget if they hadn't been filled.
MS. KINZEL: Oh, please don't. We do definitely need them.
We're running short-staffed in internal audit, and it is very difficult to
hire, you know, internal auditors with experience, particularly at the
rates of pay. I think now that the economy is bolstered in other areas,
particularly accounting skills are highly marketable, and we're -- I
think that's one reason that we're seeing the turnover.
We're in competition with the private sector. We're in
competition with board departments. So there's a lot of additional
opportunity that allows people to change. So we are definitely hoping
to fill those positions.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: No, no. I completely understand
that.
Lastly, with respect to, you know, your audit function, there was
an Attorney General's opinion -- letter, I should say, and they were
citing Alachua, and it came to you in August, the 9th, 2012. And
what that letter highlighted, that besides your duty to pre-audit for the
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benefit of the Board, that you also had a duty to audit constitutional
officers?
MS. KINZEL: No, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: No?
MS. KINZEL: No.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: It says, as an arm of the Board in
auditing the records of constitutional officers.
MS. KINZEL: No.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: No? No need to do that?
MS. KINZEL: We do not do that. We audit the Clerk. We have
a guardianship auditor that is paid by the Court's function who works
with the court side of the Clerk's operations, but not the other
constitutional officers.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: You don't do that?
MS. KINZEL: No.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: No. Well, it just says that in this
-- you know, and they were citing Alachua. I was just curious about
whether --
MS. KINZEL: That might be a different county construct.
Perhaps a charter county has different requirements or different ability
to audit, but in --
COMMISSIONER HILLER: No, it was --
MS. KINZEL: -- Collier County we do not audit the
constitutionals.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: This was addressed to Dwight
Brock. I'll give you a copy of the letter. You can take a look at it.
And when was the last time you audited your payables
department with respect to compliance to the Prompt Payment Act?
MS. KINZEL: We review that every day, every month that we
have -- paying disbursements.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Have you done -- have you done
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an internal audit on yourself with respect to that? I mean, I've noticed
that a number of other counties do that.
MS. KINZEL: No, we have not done a formal internal audit on
that function at this time. We did it -- we review the payables on a
continuing basis, obviously, so we can meet the Prompt Payment Act
each week with payments and checks being cut on the over 100,000
invoices that we handle.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I would suggest you look at what
other counties have done to audit their payables department, and they
have done formal audits to determine compliance with the Prompt
Payment Act. And I would suggest that you consider adding that to
your list of proposed audits.
MS. KINZEL: We will certainly consider that, and I hope to get
those other positions to help handle some of that. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Okay. Commissioner Henning?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah, it's the duty of the Board
through its external auditor in working and in concert with the Clerk
of Courts to audit the constitutional officers, and that's the
comprehensive audit report that we get every year.
MS. KINZEL: The external auditors actually audit each of the
constitutionals independently, and they attest to each of the audits for
each of those constitutionals, and it is included in your comprehensive
CAFR, absolutely.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah. It's presented to the
Board.
MS. KINZEL: By the Clerk's Office. We prepare the
consolidated package. But each constitutional does prepare their own
financial statement.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Well, there are no other questions here.
Just from me personally, I think you did a fine job.
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MS. KINZEL: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: I think you were very conservative in
your budgeting, and there's no complaints.
MS. KINZEL: We try. Thank you very much, Commissioner.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And I want to take this moment
to thank our County Manager because yesterday I believe he, at my
request, continued an item from Tuesday so that the Clerk's Office
would have an opportunity to meet regarding the contractors. And I
understand -- and I guess, Ms. Crystal, you need to speak to it, but the
County Manager made it possible, and I understand it was a very
successful meeting.
MS. KINZEL: I believe so. Nick and I just talked about it
before we started the afternoon session, and we think it went really
well. I think the vendors were able to assert some of their
frustrations. We were able to take those into consideration and have a
little bit of a controlled plan moving forward, so we're hoping that this
will really make a difference. Absolutely, good news.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you, County Manager.
MR. OCHS: You're very welcome.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Very good.
MS. KINZEL: Thank you.
MR. ISACKSON: Commissioners, next will be the Sheriffs
Office and Sheriff Rambosk.
MR. OCHS: Hello, Sheriff.
Sheriff
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Good afternoon, Madam Chair,
members of the Board of County Commission. Thank you for the
opportunity to talk a little with you about our budget request.
As I've mentioned in the past, today gives me an opportunity,
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which I like to take advantage of, to recognize some of our members
on what they do for Collier County, and I want to do the same today.
And I'll keep it brief.
But a big thanks go to the men and women of the Collier County
Sheriff s Office for accomplishing many, many more things than I'm
going to get a chance to tell today to keep Collier County safe, but it's
the number one element of why we work together so well with the
community, with government, with business, and it makes a
significant positive outcome.
We have members of our finance team here, but I also like to
introduce -- and I know you know all these men and women -- but
Chief Bloom from operations; Chief Hedberg is not with us, from our
legal counsel; Chief Roberts from corrections. He's unable to be with
us; Chief Smith is here with us; Chief Schmelth (phonetic) from
community outreach is not with us today; and Chief Williams is
unable to be in attendance.
But this is my opportunity to recognize and thank each one of
them for helping guide and run the day-to-day operations that produce
the results. So from me to our staff, thank you.
I also want to thank our command staff, none of whom are here
today. But, you know, we've committed to work together with the
community, with government, with the school system, and I always
like to recognize the terrific relationship we have with your staff,
starting with you as the Board and your commitment to public safety;
to the County Manager, who always resolves whatever issue that we
come up with either by himself or through his staff; every member of
your organization but particularly we work very close together with
parks and recreation who help with our summer program. Your
facilities staff-- here's Chief Roberts.
Your facilities staff is absolutely excellent, and they're with us
each and every day trying to keep us straight, and your finance
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department that helps us get what we need and pay our bills.
So we also work together very strongly with each of the fire
districts throughout Collier County, and EMS, who are our closest
partners, and want to thank them.
As in the past, I've stood before you and let you know that the
crime rate in Collier County was down in years past. It remains
down. And we had a reduction of about 3.1 percent last year. It is the
lowest recorded crime rate in history. They've been keeping records
since 1971.
Traffic incidents, crashes, aggressive driving, unfortunately, are
on the rise. And we're looking at our STEB (phonetic) unit which
deals directly with traffic. We've implemented a number of initiatives
this past year and will expand them particularly for aggressive
driving, as that is becoming a nationwide epidemic problem and,
unfortunately, it occurs here as well.
We look to our volunteer core who, again, gave us nearly 32,000
hours and has saved us hundreds of thousands of dollars. And we had
a chance to recognize them this year, but I like to make sure that you
know we have such talented volunteers here throughout Collier
County.
Our Summerfest program we just kicked off last Friday night. It
was at the water park. We had about 1,800 young people there. We
have gotten terrific reviews. That program, as well as all the other
summer and winter programs throughout Collier County, have grown
over the last seven years from contacting 5,000 young people to today
making contact with 40,000 young people. So, again, we appreciate
your support, particularly in the parks and the Collier County school
system where we actually have deputies assigned to gyms and open
them so our neighborhood kids can find a cool place to play,
particularly during the summer.
We've done a lot of reintegration efforts through the -- our jail
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and corrections element. We did more than 770 reentry plans. That's
no cost, no additional cost to what we do in Collier County, but what
it does do is it eliminates the potential to come back to jail. And our
tracking right now is about only half return.
So if we're able to keep people on the right direction and keep
them out of the jail, that is our goal. Keep crime down; keep our jail,
staff, and costs down and keep Collier County safer. So that's terrific.
Our investigations department, in about an hour I'm doing a
press conference which will be the second of our largest narcotics
investigations this year, and I'm going to wait until we give that
because we're -- the investigation's ongoing right now, and you'll be
able to see that; we'll make sure that you get an update and press
release as we do that. But a very significant case that will take
hundreds or thousands of doses of drugs, cocaine off the street, both --
COMMISSIONER HENNING: From our streets?
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Our streets as well as Southwest
Florida. So I'm sure you'll be pleased with that.
We continue our crisis intervention training, our partnership with
NOMI and David Lawrence Center trying to identify those who are in
need of mental health. As you know, the jails throughout the nation
typically become the mental -- largest mental-health facility in their
particular counties.
We have been working directly with them for years, as you
know, trying do the 40-hour CIT training which is the number one
training that agencies throughout the country are trying to get to
provide. And I will tell you that between the City of Naples, Marco
Island, Hendry County, and our deputies we have 953 trained law
enforcement officers in the full 40-hour course which then enables us
to identify people that need help and get them to where they need
help. And in our county that's David Lawrence Center because the
jail, while we can secure people, we don't have the ability to get them
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to the right place.
Community Outreach has done a terrific job. In fact, they were
recognized this year from the SMILE organization, which is social
media and law enforcement. It's an international organization. And in
agencies with 150 people or more, your Community Outreach
Department was recognized as the top in the nation for providing
information to the public in a variety of formats.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: That's awesome.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: That's very important. They put
information out, get feedback back to us to help keep our community
safer. And that really had to do with leadership, creativity, and
innovation. And when you're looking at an international capability,
that's a pretty strong award.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I think we need to recognize
Chief Spell. She's on here --
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Yes. Chief Spell and her staff is --
COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- and she's amazing.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: She's not with us, but she heads that.
We also did receive stars in the arts award for our community
gallery where more than not we have young people's art who -- some
of whom are at risk that we recognize and make sure that our
residents have a chance to see that.
We turned on our 911 communications center, at least the first
six elements of it out of the 13. The CAD, computer aided dispatch,
computers went on in January. Locution had actually been in place a
little bit before that for multiple dispatches of equipment. The
automatic vehicle location system or more commonly known as
closest unit response now is fully operational, on board with all
districts, and we're currently working with the City of Naples to bring
them on board. They had a delay because their CAD system or their
MIS system, rather, was on its last legs, and that has got to work
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together. So they will be coming on.
And as an example, to let you know just how well that works,
with closest unit response, of course, getting the closest appropriate
unit for your emergency, as I sat in the corns center in March when it
was turned on, within two hours an emergency call on Crayton Road
came up, an ambulance that was assigned to North Naples that was
down at Naples Community Hospital, I believe, was northbound on
U.S. 41, about Parkshore Drive or that area. The computer found that
ambulance that had gone back in service, dispatched it to the call, and
a minute and 30 seconds they were at the scene.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: That's great.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Well done.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: So that is a lot of work. A lot of credit
to your staff, to our staff who implemented it, a lot of IT issues. And,
you know, with any new thing, there's always little things that we're
trying to work. But that's the way we want it to work all the time, and
we're continuing to work on that. So a lot of other good things
coming there.
We will be one of the best centers in the country. There are
about a dozen of them. And when all this is put together, we will
absolutely be there. So that's very, very important.
I wanted to touch just a second on active shooter and our
reallocation of training, our policies and procedure changes, working
together with fire rescue, EMS, to train not only in the event that we
have an active shooter but to change mass casualty response
protocols.
We've been doing this since January. We've trained all our
supervisors. We have a professional nation -- national company that
has come in. We, unfortunately, were in the midst of training during
the California event this year. That -- they were actually sitting there
doing the training. And as we look at everything that has been
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unfolding since, we are way, way ahead of the rest of the nation, for
the most part, except for maybe the large cities who have very strong
intel components.
But we've added two things. One is we want to bring it to the
public to make them more aware, no matter where they are, whether
in Collier County or Paris or New York, of what they simply might do
to help protect themselves and their family.
And we saw -- not that I know that these people were here, but
the family in Tel Aviv who heard gunshots who fled the area. It can
happen anywhere.
And we are very proud of the business connections we've made.
A lot of businesses are calling us. They want to know what to do.
And it's that connection of not only training but working together with
community to keep people safe.
A lot of different things. I'm going to skip over a number of
them, but we have been recognized again, Sergeant Nicole Minick,
Accreditation Manager of the Year from COLIA. That is a national
recognition or actually a state recognition, and she keeps us on track.
We are going for COLIA, which is the Commission on Law
Enforcement Accreditation, accreditation for our corn center. We've
actually had the inspection; we just had it. We are waiting for the
response. We believe we will be favorably approved, and that will be
in the end of July. So we'll let you know how that comes out. But we
did very, very well.
There are a lot of things that I'd like to include, but we can't. I'd
like to thank you again for improving our jail facility. The
air-conditioning project worked very, very well. The start of the D4
substation went very, very well. So we appreciate everything that
you're doing.
As we submit this year's budget, we have submitted it within
your budget parameters, and that's always important for us to make
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sure that we're working together with all elements of the county.
And I would ask this, though: With what's transpiring
throughout the world and the United States, I would like the
opportunity to come back to you should we need some additional
equipment, training, or staffing to address unfolding responsibilities
that we may find ourselves having to provide.
So with that, I will open it up to any questions that you might
have, but more so, thank you for all of your support.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Commissioner Hiller?
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Thank you. As you know, I think
the service you provide is, like, the most important service that
government does provide to the community. And you and your chiefs
and your entire administrative staff and all your deputies have really
gone above and beyond in protecting this community and doing an
outstanding job, and I want to thank all of you for your service.
With that, I do have some specific questions. To begin, earlier
this morning we had David Lawrence present, and one of the asks that
they had was an increase of funding of about 263,000 to further
bolster their Baker bed facility.
There was some discussion about a study that you're engaging in
regarding the jail system and mental-health accommodations, and
what I would like to know is your opinion and whether or not you
support David Lawrence's request to provide additional Baker beds to
help you and the community.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: I was not aware of the discussion, but
I'll let the chief touch on specifically where we're going with the
medical aspect. But I will tell you that I've been working with David
Lawrence for some time because, you know, we don't have the ability
to help people get better; only they do, or organizations like them.
All we can wind up doing is housing and, ultimately, releasing
and then putting that dilemma back out in the street. So in the past,
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you might remember I've been here; I've addressed the Commission
to support David Lawrence's request --
COMMISSIONER HILLER: You have, always.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: -- historically, and they greatly benefit
us. But let me ask the chief to be more specific.
CHIEF ROBERTS: Thanks, Commissioner. That's actually
why I was late to the meeting, and I apologize, but I was on a
conference call with David Lawrence Center regarding some issues
with the jail and Baker acts.
As many of you, I'm sure, have heard before, the jail becomes
the refuge of last resort for the mentally ill in our community. And
recently when you guys approved the master plan study, part of that
was to look at potentially redesigning and reconfiguring the jail that
we have to better fit the population that we have, not the numbers,
because we have plenty of jail beds, but they're for the right types of
people.
At any rate, the issue with the David Lawrence Center is when
the person is Baker Acted -- they are the community crisis center;
therefore, they have to be involved in that treatment.
When that person is also an inmate at the jail, under current
circumstances, one, we have to transport them out there, which is a
problem that I was trying to deal with in the conference call that we're
working on to try and take advantage of telemedicine and some of
these things, but we also have to wait for a bed.
And, as you can imagine, an inmate in the jail waiting for a bed
out there, sometimes three or four days, is not a good thing, because
the sheriffs deputies are having to fight with them or medical staff are
trying to deal with them and those sorts of things. So it becomes quite
a problem for us as well as the David Lawrence Center.
But from our own viewpoint, they're certainly trying to do as
much as they can with the funding and the staff that they have, and
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they're woefully behind in funding of staff--
COMMISSIONER HILLER: So you do agree that there is a
need for them to provide additional Baker beds? Because it isn't your
intent to create, you know, a Baker bed facility within the jail?
CHIEF ROBERTS: It is -- they need to provide additional
Baker beds for the community. Also, we need to have not necessarily
Baker beds, but --
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Well, you need to have a separate
CHIEF ROBERTS: -- housing areas.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- yeah, housing to separate the
populations.
CHIEF ROBERTS: To separate the --
COMMISSIONER HILLER: That makes sense --
CHIEF ROBERTS: -- mentally ill from the medically ill.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: But keep the Baker beds within
David Lawrence.
CHIEF ROBERTS: Yes.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: All right. So you do agree with
their need for additional --
CHIEF ROBERTS: They're constantly overcrowded for what
they have for the crisis unit.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: All right. Well, thank you for
that.
I have a few other questions. As always, in light of everything
that's going on, I've always been very concerned about our schools.
And every year I've been advocating for more and more funding
towards our YRD program, and every year you have been increasing
your presence within our school system from, you know, the very
young to our teenagers. Are you continuing to do that?
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Chief?
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CHIEF BLOOM: Good afternoon, Commissioners.
Yes, Commissioner Hiller, we continue to move forward with
adding staff. I don't want to get into numbers of--
COMMISSIONER HILLER: No, of course not. Yes.
CHIEF BLOOM: The end game for the sheriff and myself, and
obviously all of our staff and the community, is provide the fullest
coverage, especially based after the horrific terrorist attacks this
weekend. We all agree. The country's changed.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: It has.
CHIEF BLOOM: We're under attack, and some of our top
priority targets, we believe, soft target, are our schools. So we
continue to put 100 percent of our current resources and future
resources dedicated to that, so...
COMMISSIONER HILLER: And I'm glad to hear that. My
concern was, you know, we had talked about it year on year, and that
the commitment was to progressively increase your staffing. And I'm
glad to hear that you're doing that. And I do understand --
CHIEF BLOOM: Yes, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- the issue of the numbers, and so
I don't want to get into details.
To that end, that population is also very vulnerable for another
reason, and that is because of predators and cyber stalking. And
you've started your cyber stalking program and, you know, educating
the kids in schools about the danger of making contact with strangers
online. That is an ongoing vulnerability.
And I looked at your budget with respect to that, and I kind of
question whether it's enough. I think you need more money than what
you've allocated, quite a lot more. So, I mean, I know this is not final
and I know, you know, every budget is, like I said this morning, a
living, breathing document.
I would really ask you to maybe look and see whether or not you
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don't want more funding for cyber security for juveniles, because I do
see it as a high-risk area.
I'm always trying to increase your budget. I know you always
want to cut it, but I always see areas where I think we can -- even
though -- as great as you are and as much as you do, that -- I just don't
think you can do enough. And this is one area where I think there's a
great deal of vulnerability.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: And just to provide you some
background, which I know you know, since we have such a strong
presence in our school system, we're able to utilize those deputies to
work on our sexual offender and predator checks which most other
communities don't have, which is why we have a lot of contact and lot
of people. Not to say that we will not continue to do more, but we've
got a benefit that other organizations do not have.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: No doubt. I just want to see that
educational factor increased through you as opposed to through the
school community so that these kids really understand, you know,
from your perspective what the issue is and how it works. Because, I
think, unfortunately, you know, in -- as non-law enforcement citizens,
I mean, we have some idea, and I think the wrong messages are
communicated, and I think the truth really needs to get out.
So whatever support you have -- you need in the way of
education for educating these kids about the dangers of cyber contact
I think is extremely important.
The next thing on my list goes to human trafficking. And to
begin, I want to compliment you for everything that you have done to
fight human trafficking in Collier County and to work with the Board
on promoting the partnership to advance the public's understanding
and involvement in fighting human trafficking.
But, you know, most recently you promoted, and rightfully so,
your victim advocate and turned that victim advocate into a detective,
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which is great, and I love the fact that you have a dedicated detective
-- you know, investigative team addressing specifically human
trafficking, which is why you've been so successful.
But have you replaced that victim advocate with another warm
body?
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: I don't know that we've replaced them
yet today, but our intent is to replace.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. And is that factored in this
budget?
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Yes.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. I want to make sure that it
is, because --
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: It's included.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- I want assurances that you do
get someone, because it's a -- I do believe in victim advocacy, and
especially if you're intending to get to prosecution and you don't want
the victim to run away or be hurt again. In this particular instance, I
think it's extremely important.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Yes. And I'll check on that after today's
other events.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: And, again, you know, to the
extent that there is anything that we're discussing that hasn't been
contemplated in these numbers and, you know, if you do intend to add
something, just let Mark know, and we will have a change sheet when
we finally adopt the budget to consider these issues.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Commissioner Taylor?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Sheriff Rambosk, I understand
from what you just said that you have a training, is that right, to teach
entities about what would happen if there was --
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: An active shooter, yes.
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COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: -- an incident, right.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Yes.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And are we -- are we part of the
list of entities you train? I mean, besides -- we know we have
security, but I would think this would be reach out to the common
person, too, no matter where they are. How are you doing that?
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: We actually have been doing very well
with that, over a thousand participants, 24 different organizations,
whether they be homeowners association, businesses. You can go to
our website to sign up.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: We -- as we're out speaking -- I just
spoke at noontime, and I encouraged the organization, as a group, that
we would come in and provide that or any one of their homeowners'
associations.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: So we are growing day to day. What's
more important than local, we have requests from all over the state of
Florida. I was just talking to Lieutenant Rich Hampton last night, and
they're looking for us to come and provide this training in different
areas of the state. What we prefer to do is do a train the trainer so that
we can keep our people here and let those be trained.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you.
CHIEF BLOOM: Commissioner Taylor, you want to give me a
call, I can help coordinate that.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Oh, that would be great. Thank
you.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I wish that -- you know, I know
our staff has been briefed on those type of security issues. I think it
might be beneficial if we as commissioners were also briefed by you,
if that would be possible. I know it benefited Leo and Nick, but we
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didn't have the opportunity to sit in when you had your experts talk to
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: I'll be happy to do that and meet with
each one of you.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: And just share with us what you
feel is necessary for us to know is appropriate.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Absolutely.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Right now all I do is hit them with my
purse.
Commissioner Taylor, are you finished?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yeah, thank you.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Okay. Commissioner Nance?
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Sheriff Rambosk, thank you for
your outstanding accomplishments on our behalf.
I wanted to ask you something; it's really an inquiry that you
might be able to help me understand.
Does your office have any role in electronic business-related
crimes regarding theft of communications, proprietary information,
data systems, or anything of that nature, or is that all handled at the
state level or higher?
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: We do have an economic crimes unit
that has a science and technology capability. I will tell you that we
haven't done much of those investigations and typically work with the
state --
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Okay.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: -- through their avenues.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: I just wondered if you felt like you
were going to be required to have -- in light of what's going on and
what's taking place, if you anticipated that you were going to have to
engage in this more directly at a local level, you know, and -- you
know, it's kind of an open-ended question. I know you might not
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have an answer, but I'm just -- I'm interested because I see a lot of
incidents of this, and I'm just wondering how it's going to impact us
locally here.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: It's going to. It actually has been. The
utilization of technology, whether it be phones or computers, and our
ability to forensically investigate those devices, we've actually got
two trained persons right now. We've got to increase that number
even just to do telephones; as simple as that.
So we are looking at competent trained professionals that we can
bring in, and that I actually considered as part of this future request
that we may need to make of you if we can find that talent to bring
them in here, but we do have a small cadre of people right now.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Because I think a lot of times
somebody thinks that the only sort of cyber criminals we have are the
Chinese or the Russians or somebody trying to come in at that level.
I'm concerned about, you know, the gentleman that's in our own
backyard that's trying to do harm or get into somebody's bank account
or take advantage of somebody or get their proprietary information or
their records or something.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: You're exactly right. And we don't
think of it much, but everything we touch electronically now becomes
part of the investigation as a resident or a business.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Necessarily.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Yes. So, yes, we are -- that is an
up-and-coming area that we need help with. And that also lends itself
to your and your staffs help in trying to get the forensic science
capability up, not only for processing and storage of evidence, but that
investigative capability as well.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Have you noticed that nobody's
complaining about your budget at all? I just thought I'd enter that in.
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Commissioner Hiller, we'll finish up with you.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: The cyber security issue is a very
significant one, and soon you'll be able to recruit from the Navy.
Annapolis -- I know all about the Navy now. I'm an expert. But they
just recognized the importance of cyber security, and they built a -- I
think it's like a 200,000-square-foot facility, and their first group
graduates out of that program have just been put into operation.
So, very clearly, it is the future. And, Commissioner Nance,
you're 100 percent right, we're going to have to allocate resources to
that because it is a -- it is the real threat down the road, besides the
risk of mass killings.
I forgot what I was going to say.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Okay. Well, then we'll just wind it up
now.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: I just want to tell you I had a constituent
email me. She was just scammed. And she's a pretty smart cookie.
And she said she knew what questions to ask and everything, and they
still duped her and got her.
And so she called you guys, and she said that you swooped right
in on that. But, of course, there was nothing to do to get her money
back. But, anyway, so we know you're out there for us. And we thank
you for everything.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: And I remember what I was going
to say. We absolutely have to get the forensic center.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Okay.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: We really need that.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: And we still continue on. Commissioner
Taylor?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: One parting comment. Thank
you, thank you, thank you for the work you do with the young people
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in this community.
How your outreach has made a huge difference in the future of
this -- of this community, and it's because of you. And thank you
very, very much for that.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Thank you. We appreciate it.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Thank you, all.
MR. ISACKSON: Commissioners, you have -- transitioning out
of the constitutionals. You have debt service, which was covered in
the County Manager's overview session, the County Attorney, and the
Board of County Commissioners. If we could lump those together
and take those -- any questions on those particular areas, please.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: However you want to do it, we're with
you. We're not going to do the Property Appraiser or anything?
MR. ISACKSON: The Property Appraiser is a fee officer,
ma'am. The Tax Collector's budget's not due here until August 1.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Okay. I just have his thing then. Okay.
MR. KLATZKOW: I figure everybody else sat here.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Come and sit up in front of us. Take the
hot seat, right?
MR. KLATZKOW: There you go.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Go ahead, Jeff.
County Attorney
MR. KLATZKOW: Commissioners, I pretty much have the
same budget this year as I had last year. Same number of full-time
employees. I'm asking for, essentially, the same dollars this year as I
did last year, and happy to take any questions.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I just think it's great that you've
been managing the litigation load as you have. I mean, it's just -- over
the years, you're -- it's less and less and less --
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MR. KLATZKOW: We have almost no litigation.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- which is phenomenal. You
know, when I started, you used to give me these litigation packages
which were this big, and it wasn't, you know, one case. It was, like,
five or six cases per page.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: On each page.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: And to see where we have gone
really goes to your credit, because it means that, you know, we're
doing things correctly, and that's extremely important. So, you know,
that's very good.
MR. KLATZKOW: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: We appreciate all your help --
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah, we do.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: -- appreciate all your help, too. Boy, a
lot of guidance. I know that I can call him day or night; he's always
there at the other end of the telephone.
MR. KLATZKOW: Well, I have no life, so I appreciate the
phone calls.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: There is one thing. Jeff, there is
one thing I'd like to ask, and this is just regarding our support of the
Legal Aid Society. And I know how we pull that money in for them
and make that allocation. But, you know, I've been thinking a lot
about the whole affordable housing crisis, and one of the things that I
think is really important is that we help people to also stay in homes.
So to the extent that we have individuals who find themselves in
financial distress and are facing possible foreclosure, you know, the
Legal Aid Society has done a lot of work in that area to help citizens
avoid foreclosure or deal with foreclosure if they're facing it.
And so I was wondering -- and I don't know. This is the will of
the Board, and I know a number of you are very supportive for the
Legal Aid Society, as am I. If we could maybe find additional
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funding beyond this 108,000 that we give to Legal Aid to help to see
-- to be allocated specifically to assisting clients of theirs who are
potentially going to lose their homes to help them stay in their homes,
because that means less of an issue for us to, you know, deal with
someone who, once again, is going to have a problem being housed
here in Collier County, very clearly, because of those kind of
circumstances. It would be a preventative measure.
And I was wondering -- and you don't have to answer today, but
maybe it would be worthwhile talking to the Legal Aid Society to
what extent they have those type of clients now and if additional
funding towards assisting those kind of clients could help keep these
people from losing their homes and furthering the affordable housing
problems that we have in the county.
And so, you know, maybe an allocation of an additional hundred
thousand which, you know, in our budget is very, very small, could be
very significant to them and help towards that end.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Is Rural Legal Services also
engaged in that?
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I am not sure --
COMMISSIONER NANCE: I just don't know.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I don't believe they deal with
those kind of issues. I think they deal more with the immigration
issues and the trafficking issues as opposed to foreclosure issues.
The Legal Aid is the one who has primarily, as I understand,
been working on the foreclosures and, you know, tenant evictions and
things like that.
MR. KLATZKOW: With a majority support, I'd be happy to
call Legal Aid and start a conversation.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Will that be okay? Just to see if
there would be any way? Because it could be part of our overall
affordable housing.
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COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I remember, though, when we
went through this in 2008/2009, Kathleen Passidomo led the charge.
I mean, she was. She was very important.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: She was very good at that.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: So they've got some kind of
foundation. Whether they need extra money -- I'm sure they do. I'd
like to understand what they need extra money for, what areas they'd
like to cover.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I would agree. I mean, just
explore the opportunity. I was thinking of it in the context of our
affordable housing program and plan that we're working on
developing because, again, you know preventative measures are as
important as reactive measures. Any, again, we have to explore it.
It's just -- it was something that I was wanting to bring to your
attention in light of the funding that we give them. If you could look
into it.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Commissioner Henning?
BCC Office
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah, thank you.
Well, before I address Mark's question, I want to say that the
Board gives direction about the budget early on in the year, and all of
a sudden we want to change it, we want to change the direction and
allocate -- allocate more money.
The time to do it, if the Board has concerns on certain things, is
during the -- during the budget process.
To -- from a whim, with foreclosures not what they used to, now
all of a sudden we want to double somebody's budget. I just find that
very interesting.
But to get back to the question. On the Board's -- the Board of
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Commissioners' part of the budget -- which is not in guidance. It's
above guidance, and maybe that's because of the comments I'm
hearing up here that it's not in the guidance, because we want to -- we
want to get bigger.
You know, an increase of administrative assistant? We're adding
one more person? What's that all about?
MR. ISACKSON: Sir, I think we were reacting to some
conversation that the Board had about restoring the clerical position
up front so we -- all we did was appropriate some dollars in there for
that. And if the Board wanted to debate the issue, they certainly
could.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: What was the vote on that?
MR. ISACKSON: I couldn't -- I couldn't tell you, sir.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: I think we were just commenting on it,
and we were asking them to go out and see about it, but our certain --
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, let me get back to my
questions, please.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Okay. Well, I want to answer.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: It has to be by the majority of
the Board. So did you have a majority of the Board's support to
increase the staffing in the Board's office?
MR. ISACKSON: I understood it that there were -- there was a
majority, so that's why we stuck it in there, sir.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Was that a polling, or was that
actually an agenda item?
MR. ISACKSON: I don't think it was an agenda item, sir. I
think it was just some nods that came from a session that the Board
had. And I don't know. It may have been after under
communications or something like that. I couldn't tell you exactly
when it took place.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. You've got increased
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travel. I mean, you've got three commissioners that are not going to
be traveling next year, and we're going to increase it, increase the
allocation across the board?
MR. ISACKSON: Well, sir, it's -- I think some commissioners,
as you just indicated, travel more than others, and we've got five
individual cost centers plus a catchall cost center in the Board's side
of the house.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: What's -- the catchall is for
FAC, isn't it?
MR. ISACKSON: Well, no. It's actually an area where if a
particular commissioner goes over their travel or goes over certain
areas, we can dip into that pool of money to --
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Why don't you provide us the
breakdown for the last two years.
MR. ISACKSON: We can do that, sir, certainly.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Yeah. Right now we took on a new one,
which was the NACo. Now, it's true that I haven't -- I didn't go to
California or I'm not going to California, which is the next thing. I
just cannot do that.
But they have three conferences a year where all of the -- all of
the states get together and the counties within the states, and they
have these giant things. And I sit on the board for the energy
environment and land use committee, so --
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Commissioner Fiala, you do great
work.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Can I finish, please? May I
finish?
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Sure.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: May I finish?
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Well, I was just explaining the extra
travel. You asked.
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COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, I asked staff for the
breakdown of travel of the commissioners. I think it's very, very
important to fully understand the budget and where the money's
going.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Including gas --
COMMISSIONER HENNING: So anyways, I'm going to go
ahead and finish before I get interrupted again and again and again.
What's with the additional software that we need in the office? I
don't understand that, the IT, Microsoft.
MR. ISACKSON: What page, sir? I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Page 6, the bottom footnotes.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Oh, IT office allocation.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: IT Microsoft office.
MR. ISACKSON: That's the initiative, sir, that we're changing
some of our software. That's an allocation that we've got throughout
the agency.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay.
MR. ISACKSON: That's just an allocation. That's your portion
of that particular item; that's all.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And cell phones; we're
increasing cell phones? I -- they can have mine.
MR. ISACKSON: I'll note that, sir.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: They'll have to answer your
calls, and they can respond on your behalf.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: You know, to have extra, you
know, cell phones for five commissioners, I'm not sure.
Why is the grant for the Collier County Health Departments on
the Board's budget? It used to always be in public services, 50
million -- or $50,000. That's on Page 7. Grants and aids the amount
MR. ISACKSON: I think that was just a placeholder, sir, in the
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event that -- because sometimes that area runs over. That can easily
be re-appropriated if that's an issue with the Board.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, I'm sure it's not an issue
with the Board. I mean, I'm hearing more of them want to increase
our budget.
And then the final one is the remnants, including -- well, half of
it -- let's see. Half of this -- remnants includes almost $2 million to
the Naples CRA, 1.9 million to the Collier County share of housing in
-- and, and it ends, feeding juveniles held in the state DJJ. That's --
wasn't that out of the County Manager's side of the budget last year?
MR. ISACKSON: No, that's always been -- that's a section of
what we call other G&A, sir, in the general fund. You've got two
specific areas there. One is the DJJ cost. It's always been there,
always been in this section.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay.
MR. ISACKSON: And the other one is the Naples CRA, which
is up $400,000 simply based on taxable value. So that's driving a lot
of the increase.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: The -- well, the DJJ, is that
considered -- with the consideration of the bill that passed and to the
reallocation of funds?
MR. ISACKSON: You know, there -- and I also -- keep in
mind, sir, I also used that -- used some of that money in the event that
there's some unforeseen circumstances that occur during the course of
the year, and there are many of them. So I also use that as a --
COMMISSIONER HENNING: A buffer?
MR. ISACKSON: Yes, yes.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. So $400,000 is coming
out of the Board's budget because Naples City Council extended the
Naples CRA?
MR. ISACKSON: Yeah. Well, that -- they extended the CRA,
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yes, and the -- and the -- I don't think people understood and realize
that we -- we send over there the equivalent amount of our millage
rate, the General Fund millage rate, have been for years, since that
CRA was initiated based on taxable value. So they're getting
two-plus million dollars a year, which is a substantial portion of their
budget, the Naples -- their CRA budget.
They also make a contribution from their General Fund budget,
but it pales in comparison to our contribution.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Right.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. And then half of-- that's
where I read it, on Page 9, the budget also reflects half of the Board's
annual approved park system contribution by the City of Naples.
My understanding when that dope deal -- oh, I'm sorry -- that
deal happened in mid 2000s, that that was coming out of parks and
rec, the Unincorporated Fund.
MR. ISACKSON: There's a General Fund component. There's
a piece that's paid for from the General Fund that comes out under
parks and rec. There's a 111 piece that we stick under other G&A out
of 111 that's just happens to appear in this particular segment of the
budget.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: So the other half, the other half
is out of the unincorporated area?
MR. ISACKSON: No. The other half is taken from the General
Fund 001, and it comes out of the parks and rec's budget, yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: But didn't all of it come under
the parks and rec?
MR. ISACKSON: No, not since I've been here, sir. It's always
been this way.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. That's all the questions
that I have. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I have a question.
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CHAIRMAN FIALA: Thank you for representing everybody.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I have a question.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Oh, I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Are we going to leave the
receptionist in the budget, or are we not going to?
MR. ISACKSON: Well, maybe right now we need a vote to do
that because I don't want to be caught.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: No. I mean, if it was the
majority of the Board, the guidance, then the majority rules, but I
don't know if you need a vote.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Can I make a suggestion? Given
that the Board is going to change -- given that the Board is going to
change, why not just leave it in there? Because the budget is going to
change based on many different factors throughout the course of the
year. You're best off to leave it in here, and when the new board is
seated, the new board may want a receptionist.
And I don't think it's appropriate for us on our way out to
eliminate this as a budget item and then you have a problem and then
you don't get what you want. And you may not want it. I mean, the
decision may very well be that you don't want it, and then you just
eliminate it from the budget at that time. I mean, you're looking at
November. You're looking at just a few months of it sitting in the
budget and then --
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: They're not going to be put in
there next month?
COMMISSIONER HILLER: No. I mean, it would be by the
vote of the Board.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Doesn't start till October 1.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Right.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: October?
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah, October. So you're looking
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at October and November. Like, to the middle of November. You're
looking at a month and a half.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: The money's not being expensed
until someone is hired.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah, the money --
COMMISSIONER NANCE: It's not going anywhere.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: No one is -- the money is not
being spent. It's just sitting there as a budget line item that you guys
can eliminate by your own decision at that time.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: You know, we have -- we have
five aides in the office. And it's not that they don't work hard, but
that's five people back there.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Yeah, but they --
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: But they're not always back
there.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: I mean, what if I come to call on
you and there's nobody there to receive me; what am I going to do?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Go downstairs.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Go downstairs to the County
Manager's Office.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: My thought was simply to let the
new board address it.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: But they won't know.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: I didn't want to opine on it on the
idea that --
COMMISSIONER HILLER: It sits as a line item. It's not an
expenditure, and then the new board can decide.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: You can't put it back in, but you can
always take it out.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: I'd rather have somebody do that
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than have to make a budget amendment to add a new expense.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: And, again, the purpose of this
meeting today is a workshop to discuss these issues.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: And then afterwards, you know,
again, you're going to have line item adjustments. You're going to
add and subtract throughout the whole year.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Well, you know -- and just to put
it on the record, I do oppose it. I don't think it's necessary. It's -- I've
heard enough issues about not having enough to do back there to feel
that it's important to hire another person.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I don't disagree. I don't think it's
necessary either, but I just don't want to speak for whoever my
successor is in November.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: But they may not know either,
you know. That's the issue. But just -- I'll put it on the record. Thank
you.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Thank you, Mr. Klatzkow.
MR. KLATZKOW: Thank you, sir.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Your shoes have wings.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Madam Chair? Madam Chair?
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: My light is on.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't even see that.
Please go ahead.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: We're not forgoing you, sir.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, okay.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Even though I'm short term.
Again, if the majority of the Board directed that, that's sufficient
-- that's sufficient enough for the change. It's majority rule. And I'm
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okay with that, even though that I don't think it's necessary.
Now, here's how my office operates. If you call into the office,
there's a voice mail. You leave a voice message, and my aide and
myself check that on a regular basis and, you know, deal with
whatever we need to deal with.
But everybody's different, and we're elected different. So
however you run your offices, it is what it is. But I just want to
explain that it can happen with five aides.
MR. ISACKSON: If there are three nods to jettison this, then
we can take it out. As has been said before, this is a -- the budget's a
living document. We do 6- to 700 budget amendments a year to this
document. So if there are three nods to take it out, we'll take it out,
and we'll --
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Which way you want us to
nod?
MR. ISACKSON: It will be simple.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Nod if you want to take it out --
MR. ISACKSON: And I certainly apologize for putting it in.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Everybody -- the other four are just kind
of quietly sitting here right now. We can always take it out at another
time.
Okay. Commissioner Nance?
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Yeah, Commissioner Henning, I
think that this board did very well on reducing and eliminating
contract employees and employees in the County Commissioner's
Office over time.
Honestly, those changes that we made that were -- actually, we
were pilloried for some of the changes -- have saved the county over
$500,000 in salary and benefits annually.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Why do we want them back?
COMMISSIONER NANCE: I'm just saying, sir, I don't think
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it's -- I think the next board's going to do as they wish anyway, so...
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Maybe we'll make it a
campaign issue.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: No, I don't think so.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: You know what, when you -- no, I'm not
going to say that. I'm going to stay quiet. Moving on.
MR. ISACKSON: Commissioners, I think the County Manager
has some additional information he'd like to put on the visualizer.
Concluding Remarks
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, this morning, at the end of my
presentation, Commissioner Henning had asked for some comparative
information about the peak fiscal year in terms of employee head
count and population versus what's been proposed for '17, so I wanted
to share that just briefly with the Board.
So FY2008 was the peak of our employment or workforce head
count at 1,969 FTE. At that time, we had a permanent population of
332,590. That equates to, essentially, one full-time employee for
every 168 people.
So when you look at that ratio compared to 2017 with 1,845
budgeted FTEs with a permanent population of 357,000-plus, that
equates to one FTE for almost 194 people in the county, or said
another way, if we applied the per-employee rate that was used in
FY2008 to the permanent population that's projected for 2017, our
FTE count for next year would be 2,115 FTE.
So I think it shows that there's been some productivity gain over
time, and your FTE counts for 2017 are still reasonable compared to
the population.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: So each county employee has to,
in this budget, take care of and provide services to 193.6 citizens?
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MR. OCHS: Versus 168 back in 2008.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: That's great.
MR. OCHS: Sir, does that respond to your question?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, it's -- well, it does, and
the point is when -- in the budget it shows an increase of employees,
new hires and things like that. You have to put it in perspective
because we have eliminated, actually eliminated positions we're not
replacing. It's not what's called replacement. In all fact, it is replacing
as the budget revenue increases. That's my point.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Mr. Ochs, what does that look like
if you eliminate the enterprise employees? That might be -- I mean,
you know, now that we're playing this little analysis game, you could
take a look at it and see --
MR. OCHS: Right.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: -- you know, since we do things
on an enterprise basis. And, you know, really, I like to do financial
comparisons with and without the enterprise funding because the
enterprise funding is supposed to tax, tag, and title pay for itself. So
those numbers are interesting.
And also, on your pie chart, I did want to mention, just for a
budget review for the Board and for citizens, when you look at the pie
chart that shows the percentage of revenue that comes from ad
valorem tax dollars, I think if-- I think if you take that carryforward
and consider that 70 percent of that carryforward is from ad valorem
tax dollars, I think you'll see in raw terms your ad valorem tax dollars
are approaching that 80 percent number that we continue to suggest is
problematic.
So it's not as if our reliance on fairly much a single source has
been diminished. I don't want any citizens to think that somehow
that's suddenly gotten to be a better number. So I'm just yakking now.
We can --
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MR. OCHS: That's a good point, sir. Thank you.
That was all I had, Madam Chair.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: No, you were going to get the
number on the housing. You didn't get that?
MR. OCHS: I don't have that ready for you today,
Commissioner. I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: And I'd be curious what source
you're using for that housing number for the unincorporated part of
Collier County.
MR. ISACKSON: It's the FGCU --
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Well, you know that the U.S.
Census also has a housing census that distinguishes between the cities
and unincorporated Collier County.
MR. ISACKSON: The Southwest Florida regional economic
indicator report for May of 16 from Florida Gulf Coast University,
ma'am.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah, that's great, but I would
also -- I don't know if they've come out with another housing census,
but it would be worthwhile if you could look that up and see what that
is for unincorporated Collier County versus, for example, the City of
Naples, you know, and the other cities.
MR. OCHS: Kim Grant's working on that right now.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Super. Thank you.
MR. ISACKSON: Ma'am, that would bring you to public
comment.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: The newspaper just published something
the other day that said the foreclosures are down, way down, and
only, what, about 5 percent now are foreclosures versus what it --
what it was up to. So --
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: But then on the other hand --
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June 16, 2016
COMMISSIONER HENNING: May I comment on that?
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Sure.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: -- I heard --
CHAIRMAN FIALA: I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I listened to a report that said
foreclosures may be down --
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: -- but what's happened is credit
card debt is spiraling out of control.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Okay. So go ahead, Commissioner
Henning.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: So why would you want to
double the budget of Legal Aid for foreclosures if it's --
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I didn't say we should double it. I
said that we're asking the County Attorney to go and research to what
extent they're dealing with foreclosures --
COMMISSIONER HENNING: What was the number that you
understood, Jeff? A hundred thousand, that's what I heard.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: I gave that as an example. I don't
know what they need. That's why Jeff is going to call and find out
whether or not there's a need. Because my point is, if we can avoid
people losing their homes -- and, by the way, Commissioner Taylor,
you're absolutely right. This was Representative Passidomo's cause,
and she was actively working on this issue, but no one is working on
this issue now.
And as we were talking about that plan that we're asking, you
know, citizens to be part of an advisory board and give us guidance
on, I had the thought that it would not be a bad idea to see what we
could do just to make sure, as a preventative measure, that we avoid it
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Okay.
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June 16, 2016
COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- because I think we're going to
have a financial problem again. I think this -- I think we're --
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Everybody knows that everything goes in
cycles.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Absolutely.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: So let's get back to the budget meeting,
and let's just say, unless there's anything else --
COMMISSIONER HILLER: Aren't we done?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Wait.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Yes, sir?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: So you understand my point,
then, with your comment of foreclosures being so low?
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Yeah. It was just in the paper last week,
so -- but I understand her point as well, but I think right now there's
no urgency to it.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Commissioners, this is a
workshop. This is a time when we're supposed to be able to talk
about these things. I'm not offended by any discussion on anything,
and I hope no one's taken my comments in the wrong context either.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: No, not at all.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: How could we? We love you.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: It's just in the spirit of muddling
forward, you know. I mean --
CHAIRMAN FIALA: And you do a good job of muddling.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Oh, I'm sure. Mrs. Nance would
agree with you, ma'am. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Anything else? County Manager?
MR. OCHS: No, ma'am. Thank you for your time.
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Do we have any public comment?
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Mark?
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June 16, 2016
Public Comment
MR. ISACKSON: Not unless there's any public comment.
That's all.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Any public comment?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, ma'am.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Nick, anything to say?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Oh, yes, we do.
MR. SCHWERIN: Do I have to file the paperwork with the --
COMMISSIONER NANCE: Step forward, sir.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: If you dare.
MR. SCHWERIN: Frank Schwerin from District 2, Delasol
Lane.
Thank you so much for this open meeting, and it was very
instructive. Just the last bit on hiring a temp when you don't -- it's just
like, you know, I signed up for Lifelock about four years ago, and I
just saw I'm getting billed $80 every month, or whatever it is.
Because it says, until you -- it's a free trial for one week, and nobody
ever cancels it.
So the trouble with hiring an employee is that's a life you're
dealing with.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: No, we're not hiring anybody.
MR. SCHWERIN: No. If you were to hire somebody in
October, you have a line item.
COMMISSIONER HILLER: No, no. We're not hiring anyone
in October.
MR. SCHWERIN: We don't know that. There's a line item that
would allow it. If you were to hire someone in October and say, you
know what, we just had a vote in November or December, you're
gone.
I would say -- my recommendation, and put that on the agenda at
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a future meeting -- I heard three people opposed to that that you added
on without -- there could even be litigation about adding on a line
item without a vote of the Board, which I might even consider
pursuing that, you know, with consultation. You could add to your
stack.
No, it just doesn't make any sense to have a line when you have
five people, according to the testimony of Penny Taylor, who are
sitting around idle, clerks.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: See, now that's kind of--
MR. SCHWERIN: Ma'am, may I talk for one more minute?
(Two speakers speaking at the same time.)
CHAIRMAN FIALA: -- painting (sic) the picture a little bit
because although we have five aides, there are only two here.
MR. SCHWERIN: You know, in IT people --
CHAIRMAN FIALA: The other three are not, Frank.
MR. SCHWERIN: -- don't have secretaries anymore. It used to
be in the old days you had your own personal assistant and a typist
and a transcriptionist. Nowadays everyone is -- this is my secretary. I
don't need a receptionist. It's kind of old-fashioned. But it makes you
feel important when they can say, oh, the commissioner's not in.
I think -- vote now to delete the line item, or put it on the next
agenda, and it will become an issue, possibly, for a campaign,
because it's constant. Every elected official wants to increase their
budget. It happens from the top to the bottom so they feel important,
they have all the fancy accouterments, the cars.
The travel expense, unbelievable.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Like Commissioner Hiller suggested,
let's wait until the new board.
MR. SCHWERIN: No, it's like Lifelock. You don't sign up for
a free trial for one month. It never goes away.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: I'm not going to --
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June 16, 2016
MR. SCHWERIN: And I pledge to you, it's going to come back
-- it's going to come back. It will never go away, and that person will
be sitting there, and then the pension we pay for for the next 20 years.
After they're long gone, after you're long gone, we're going to be
paying for their pension for the next 20 years. Think about it.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: Well, that's why we don't have anybody
there now, Frank, so don't tell us it will always stay --
MR. SCHWERIN: Delete it.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: -- because it doesn't.
MR. SCHWERIN: Delete it.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: And with that, Board -- Commissioner
Nance, you want to finish it off?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: No, I just wanted to address
what Dr. Schwerin said, because I don't think it's a fair
characterization, sir.
I think in the last four years there has been a transformation, in
fact, sir, in this office. Let me share it with you, because I think the
public would appreciate it as well.
When I arrived, the aides were working in a particular way that I
think had been carried forward for many years. And I personally
believed that it was because there were many commissioners that had
served for a very long time, and it was kind of a system that was
carried forward.
It was advocated by me to set up the relationship between the
administrative assistants and the commissioners so that each
individual commissioner could utilize their aide in the manner that
they thought appropriate, and that has occurred.
And I think every one of these commissioners, if you were to ask
them how they utilize their aides, Commissioner Henning and I do
things vastly different. My aide travels across the county sometimes
with me, sometimes without me. He represents me on things that I
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June 16, 2016
cannot attend when I feel like it's very important. So they're used in
many different ways. We use electronic devices in different ways.
So this is evolutionary. And, you know, my input to the County
Manager was very open-minded on the idea that three new
commissioners were going to be sitting here, and I just wanted to
afford them the opportunity to work through something that they
might or might not support at their will without having to go -- having
to adopt a budget and then go back and have a budget amendment
immediately because there was a demand from a new public servant,
and that was the spirit of it, sir. That's it.
I'm neutral on it. You know, I don't believe that all these
decisions should be deferred because there's going to be a new board.
You know, I plan on working to the last day on which I'm on the
payroll, but there are certain things that I just would like to be
courteous about, and, you know, I'm -- I'm going to support whatever
successor I have, and I'm actually working with every single
candidate to make sure that they are able to serve the people of Collier
County in the way that they see fit, and it's going -- and I'm going to
help them to the extent that they ask me to.
So it's just in that spirit, sir, nothing more. Okay. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: And with that, the meeting is adjourned.
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June 16, 2016
*****
There being no further business for the good of the County, the
meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 2:30 p.m.
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX
OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF
SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL
DO A FIALA, CHAIRMAN
ATTEST
DWIQHP . BROCK, CLERK
Attest as tg,C4rn1an's
`s'ignature.only.
These minutes approved by the Board on -1-4t2--‘ , as presented
-k/ or as corrected
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT
REPORTING SERVICE, INC., BY TERRI LEWIS, COURT
REPORTER AND NOTARY PUBLIC.
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