BCC Minutes 06/20/2002 B (Budget Workshop) June 20, 2002
TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE
COLLIER COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
2002/2003 BUDGET WORKSHOP
Naples, Florida, June 20, 2002
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County
Commissioners, in and for the County of Collier, having conducted
business herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m., at County Commission
Meeting Room, 3301 Tamiami Trail East, Naples, Florida, with the
following members present:
CHAIRMAN:
JAMES COLETTA
DONNA FIALA
FREDERICK COYLE
THOMAS HENNING
JAMES D. CARTER
ALSO PRESENT:
THOMAS OLLIFF, COUNTY MANAGER
JAMES MUDD, ASSISTANT COUNTY MANGER
LEO OCHS, ASSISTANT COUNTY MANAGER
MIKE SMYKOWSKI, BUDGET AND MANAGEMENT
JANET VASEY, PRODUCTIVITY COMMITTEE
JOHN DAILY, TELECOMMUNICATIONS
RANDY GREENWALD, BUDGET & MANAGEMENT
RAY SMITH, POLLUTION CONTROL
JAMES DELONEY, PUBLIC UTILITIES
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June 20, 2002
NORMAN FEDERS, TRANSPORTATION
CHIEF RODRIQUEZ, FIRE CONTROL
KEN PENO, EMERGENCY SERVICE
BLUE WALLACE, COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
JOE SCHMITT, COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
DENNY BAKER, COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
ED PERICO, BUILDING DIRECTOR
WYNONA STONE, MISCELLANEOUS FUNDS
SUSAN USHER, BUDGET OFFICE
TOM WIDES, PUBLIC UTILITIES
ROY ANDERSON, PUBLIC UTILITIES
PAM LUBEY, WATER DISTRIBUTION MANAGER
JOE WEISS, BOARD OF DIRECTORS
JOE JAMAS, WASTE DEPARTMENT
JEFF WALKER, EMPLOYEE SERVICES
JOANNE BARCLAHEIMER, ADMINISTRATION
MARLA RAMSEY, PARKS AND RECREATION
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COLLIER COUNTY GOVERNMENT
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
· FY 2003 BUDGET WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
Thursday, June 20, 2002 - 9:00 a.m.
General Overview
Debt Service Funds (200's)
Trust Funds (600's)
Special Revenue Funds (100's)
Enterprise Operations/Capital Funds (400's)
Internal Service Funds (500's)
Gas Tax/Impact Fees Capital Funds (300's)
Friday, June 21, 2002.9:00 a.m.
Ad Valorem Tax Implications
MSTD General Fund (ill)
General Fund (001) Overview
~General Fund O0erating Division,.:
BCC
County Attorney
Management Offices
Emergency Services
Public Services
Community Development/Environmental Scrvicea
Transportation
Administrative Services
Monday, June 24, 2002 - 9:00 a.m.
(Lunch 12:30 - 2:00)
General Fund Budget Review (Continued)
State Attorney
Public Defender
Courts & Related Agencies
Airport Authority Operations
Review of General Fund/MSTD General Fund (Ad Valorem Tax) Suppor~d
Capitol Projects
~Constitution_~ Officem:
Property Appraiser
Supervisor of Elections
Clerk of Courts
Sheriff's Office
Tuesday, June 25, 2002 - Immedia~iy fo/lowing BCC meeting
Wrap-up (if required)
June 20, 2002
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Welcome to our first meeting of the
2002/2003 Proposed Budget Workshop. Please rise for the Pledge of
Allegiance.
(Whereupon, the Pledge of Allegiance was recited and the
meeting commenced as follows:)
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You can tell I've been here for a long
time, saying, you-all.
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, just before we start, rather than
taking time, I do think it's worth noting and asking that people to
continue to remember in prayer those people and their families and
friends that went down in that plane crash yesterday at Naples
Airport. And I think some of us know some of those people, and
certainly their families are grieving today and we need to keep them
in mind.
To begin this morning, one, I need to relay to you a story that
Jim tells me about a saying they have in the Army which I think is
apropos for us this morning. He says in the Army they have a saying
where they don't sleep often, but they sleep fast.
And unfortunately for you and for us, this has been a brutal
week and doesn't look like it's going to get a heck of a lot better
before next Tuesday.
So we appreciate the fact that you are staying with us and
continue to come in here, and I get to see you more than I get to see
my wife and she reminds me of that every single day.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: She could come and join us.
MR. OLLIFF: She would rather not. First, I need to say some
thank you's. Thank you to you all again for the perseverance, but
thank you in the budget process probably more for giving us some
clear direction for the first time in a long, long time in terms of the
Strategic Planning Process that we went through that I think helped
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June 20, 2002
us to put together a budget that -- that we feel is going to meet what
are your strategic needs.
Secondly, I certainly need to thank the budget staff and the staff
that put together the budget that you will review today. We estimate
that it probably takes somewhere near 10,000 staff hours to put
together the budget that you are looking at today.
And before you get to your final budget adoption hearings in
September, it will probably take another thousand hours of staff work
before this thing gets put to bed. There is a tremendous amount of
work, and I will tell you that Mike and his staff have been burning
midnight oil trying to make sure that the numbers all match up, body
counts are all right and the information that's in front of you today is
as accurate as it can be.
To begin with, I need to go back and at least refresh your
memory a little bit about the process that we established that got us
here. For the first time in, I believe, at least the 18 years that I have
been here, we have put together what I think is an annual planning,
budgeting and reporting cycle that makes some sense.
At the beginning of the page that I have put up on the visualizer
are the key points in time and the key work documents that we
produced that I think fit into your Strategic Planning.
The first is the Citizen's Survey, which is actually being
conducted as we speak and -- and being put into its written form, and
that's the survey that you will use in your Strategic Planning for
Fiscal Year 04.
Following your Citizen's Survey, then we will go into Strategic
Planning which you did earlier this year, where you walked through
all of the different work products and some of the information that
came from the Citizen's Survey. We also took a look at old focus
studies and Collier 2000 studies to try and figure out what it is the
community wants from this Government.
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Finally, you're in that middle process now, the budget. After
reviewing what the Citizens want, putting together a Strategic Plan,
we then will put together a budget which will be the frame work for
actually accomplishing the work of the Strategic Plan of what the
Citizen's told us to do.
Following the budget process, your staff will then go back and
create what we call Annual Business Plans. And for the first time, I
think we want to try and have Annual Business Plans that not only
start at the top, but match up from the Board's Strategic Plan to
individual divisions Strategic Plans to Department Work Plans down
to the individual employee work plans so that hopefully this entire
organization is all aiming towards the same purpose going into Fiscal
Year 03.
And then finally, there is a reporting process. And I think you
will see through the budget that we are taking a number of steps to
improve the way that we report, not only the numbers that result from
the budget, but I think that we will report significantly better the
activities that go on throughout the year as part of your budget.
In terms ofjust schedule and rough schedule, you have this as
part of your Strategic Planning package from earlier in the Spring.
But January, February is roughly the strategic planning vital signs,
time frames. Citizen surveys are conducted in March at the peak
season. The Budget and annual process is where we are today in
June. September, you will have your final budget hearings which are
required by statute. Those have to be conducted prior to October. At
the same time, we want to make sure that from a business standpoint,
we have business plans and action plans put in place prior to the
beginning of the Fiscal year in October.
Then you will again start your strategic planning for Fiscal Year
04 in January and February, and it's a recurring cycle. And this is a
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cycle that we want to ingrain into your organization so that it
becomes just a way of doing business for us.
You'll also remember as part of that strategic planning process,
we walked you through what I think at least my personal assessment
of-- of a summary of the years that we were in.
The year that we are currently I was unfortunately having to
entitle a year of response which I think we were trying as best we
could to respond to frankly a number of crisis management-type
situations.
And as I walk you through those, if you look at your packages,
all of these, were not done at the time that we were doing Strategic
Planning in the Spring.
And the ones that weren't done are highlighted in blue, but as of
today, as we go through the budget process, I think I can tell you that
all of these are either accomplished or are underway.
Obviously, the Golf Course Impact Fees have been collected.
We determined how the fees didn't get collected. We have fixed that
system primarily through major ordinance amendments where we
collapsed and consolidated about 19 different Impact Fee Ordinances
into a single ordinance that can be managed. We are in the process of
updating all of the Impact Fees. Most of them have been updated.
Your Parks Impact Fee is on your agenda for this coming
Tuesday. Your Transportation Impact Fee is in it's final stages of
being updated and will probably be ready by mid-summer.
We are investigating opportunities for additional fees and those
include, this year, an new Law Enforcement Impact Fee that we
already have a consultant working on to bring to you for adoption.
And in the Fiscal Year 03 budget, we have proposed the creation
of a Government Services Building Impact Fee to help offset the cost
of new capital construction for government buildings.
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In the transportation side, I think we were committing in this
year to -- to get some roads under construction and get them under
construction quickly, and I think everyone would agree that we did a
pretty good job of that.
Restructuring, provide a team of people to address the problem
where we restructured and created a new transportation division
solely devoted to planning and construction of roads, developed a
road construction plan.
I think for the first time the Board has a solid non-moving five-
year road plan to develop funding options, and I think we've put
together a funding plan for you that the Board adopted and approved
during the course of the year, establishing systems for entering
progress and completions.
We put together a caps track program which we have internally
gone through as a staff review on a quarterly basis for the last two
quarters.
The next quarterly review is one where we feel comfortable
enough with the system that we are going to invite the Board to
participate, and it's the first chance, I think, for you to be able to see a
lot of the outcome of your caps track program. A standardized
capital tracking program but not only that, the GIS as well.
You get to sit and see exactly where these projects are, what are
the neighboring properties, what are the impacts, what's the schedule,
what's the budget, and it's a great opportunity four times a year to
actually sit down and ask the project managers who are responsible
for these projects, how are we doing? That should occur in late July
for you.
Reviewing and amending land codes and comprehensive plans
regarding transportation, clearly, I think you are well aware of a
number of the LDC and Growth Management Plan Amendments that
you have already accomplished, including removing five percent
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rules, currently looking at Growth Management Plan Amendments in
the Building H is the Planning Commission to establish concurrency
management systems for, in particular, transportation, and looking
for additional local and collector road opportunities.
I think we are well on the way to doing that and, in fact, I know
that there are a number of opportunities and in particular in the Pine
Ridge Industrial Park to try and tye in some of those roadways to
JNC and Trade Center Way.
Those are the kind of opportunities that I think we need to find
in order to be able to vent off some of the traffic from your arterial
roadway systems.
On the waste water side, we committed to get the North Plant
Expansion completed, which was done, revising the planning process
and schedule for plant expansions. I think you will recall the update
of the master plan for both water and waste water where we crunched
the schedules and brought forward a number of the capital projects.
Revising the Revenue Streams to do two things. One, to lower
the use and increase the cost in new development. If you will
remember, you -- this Board has doubled the Impact Fees for water
and waste water, and you also created an inverted rate scale for water
which penalizes heavy users and-- and, in essence, provides a bonus
for those people who do not use as much water.
Again, establishing systems for ensuring progress and this
division is part of the Caps track Program as -- as all of the divisions
are so we keep up with construction projects there.
Getting the South Plant under the construction, the South Plant
is under construction at 951 and if you drive by there, you certainly
see lots of signs of activity there. We are shooting to have that plant -
- I'm sorry, that's at Lely. That plant is under construction as well as
is the water plant expansion on 951.
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And beginning the work of a long-term locations for future
plants, I think is part of that Master Plan Update you reviewed and
looked at locations for two new plants to be built in the future. And I
believe even as part of last night's Growth Management Plan
Amendments, you were laying some of the ground work for where
those plants will be and how to get there.
Internal Improvement Staffing, Mr. Jim Deloney started today,
and I think for the first time you have a full set of division
administrators -- or starting Monday, on board, and I will tell you I
think you have got the finest top management team that this county
has probably ever had.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thanks to you.
MR. OLLIFF: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you very much.
MR. OLLIFF: Mission and vision have been accomplished,
vertical and horizontal communications clearly I think we have made
some improvements in that area. And cross-functional teams are in
place and functioning not only within your agency, but across
constitutional officers lines and projects is important as GIS, the SAP
Financial Management System and I think you will begin to see some
more cross-functional type teams as we lay out the budget for you in
the PIO effort.
When you went through the Strategic Planning Process, if you'll
recall, we -- we ended up boiling down a lot of what we ended up
putting on the Board into some manageable headers and we grouped
them first into these -- these broad categories, and then ultimately, we
ended up with a strategic three point plan that included these three
items.
Primarily, revising the Growth Management Plan and Land
Development Code, developing reliable public infrastructure and a
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resource management process, improving the financial planning
management and reporting processes.
We took that as our guidance for creating the budget that you
will see today. That's what we wanted to make sure that we
accomplished in Fiscal Year 03. So as a result of that Strategic Plan,
we are actually working on a document that looks like this that you
don't have yet, because it's not finalized.
But these are the work products under each of your Strategic
Goals that we have built into the budget for Fiscal Year 03 that we
believe will forward and help to accomplish the three items that you
have listed as -- as being strategically important for you.
And this is a -- probably a ten-page document that continues to
go on and has department by department, division by division, work
products that not only include what they're going to do to forward it
but who's responsible, what the start date is and what the completion
date is for that.
So we -- we wanted to make sure that you understand that we
are not giving your strategic plan lip service. We expect to move that
strategic plan forward in Fiscal Year 03.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I assume, Tom, you are going to
have this nice handout for us so that we can publicize this through the
community?
MR. OLLIFF: Yes, sir. Absolutely.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Thank you, sir.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you.
MR. OLLIFF: One of the other things that's important, I think
before you start reviewing the Fiscal Year 03 budget is to just take a
few minutes, and I won't take much longer on my part of this
presentation, but to -- to go back and at least look at where are we
with the Fiscal Year 02 Budget that you are currently in.
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Since we met last year in this room, I will just mn you through a
series of the projects that were in that budget and what's been done
with them. Since we were here a year ago, you have completed the
Golden Gate Government Services Center.
And you cut the ribbon on that, which is again a shared facility
for a majority of your constitutional officers providing satellite
government services out into the community.
Again, I think that is a -- that is a trend that I would suggest that
this Board continue, moving those services out into the community
simply is better customer service, less taxing on your transportation
system and frankly, a lot less confusing for the poor public who has
to come down here to Airport and 4 ! and try and get some service
here at this location.
Continuing that, you also committed to do the design work for
what is called the North County Government Services Building. And
I'll tell you, this is probably the most ambitious satellite we have ever
undertaken. And this is, as far as I know, the only facility that will be
like it in the State of Florida.
This is on your library property, directly to the west of the
current regional library. It will include every possible government
service that we know how to provide off site.
You should be able to come to this one building and be able to
get a library card, a beach parking sticker, an auto tag, anything that
we provide, without having to figure out from the public's
perspective, whether it's the library, the tax collector or the Board of
County Commissioners that offers the service.
That plan is completely designed and it's out for bid right now.
The Construction Funds for that project are in your Fiscal Year 03
budget. While I don't have a current picture of it, hopefully you can
recognize it by its location.
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That is a picture of the Sheriff's Substation in Golden Gate
directly adjacent to the Government Services Satellite Building. That
building, it was completed in July and you all helped us cut the
ribbon on that, putting Don Hunter into a new substation there.
The 13th Street Bridge in the Fiscal Year 02 budget, you all
helped us cut a ribbon on that just last week. A continuing effort I
think similar to our -- our looks at other opportunities for arterial and
neighborhood collector roads, to provide bridge opportunities, to be
able to get Estates residents to have a better traffic flow of movement
as opposed as having to be forced onto a limited number of arterial
roadways through the Estates.
Also, since we met last, the first phase of Livingston Road from
Golden Gate to Radio was opened. The second phase of-- of
Livingston Road is well under way in construction and should be
completed late this Fall.
The third phase of Livingston, which is the Pine Ridge to
Vanderbilt section -- or Pine Ridge to Immokalee Section is under
design in your current budget.
You just, last week, broke ground on Road Phase 4 which will
take it from Immokalee Road to the Lee County line and the first two
lanes of that roadway are already open providing direct public access
into Lee County and is one of the and, in fact, is the first new
north/south connector into Lee County since the construction of 1-75.
Also since you were last here in this room, Pine Ridge Road was
completed between Airport Road and -- and Logan Boulevard. The
Parkway was completed from Collier Boulevard to Wilson
Boulevard.
While it's not a recent picture, Airport Road was completed from
Pine Ridge Road to Vanderbilt Beach Road. And also since you
were in this room a year ago, the new Regional Library was
completed.
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So I think, if anything, you ought to pat yourself on the back for
having a pretty full year and -- and getting a jump on a lot of the --
the catch-up frankly that I think the community expected you as a
Board and we as a staff get done. I think it was a very successful
year.
There are very few things that I can point to that I think were --
were outright failures at all or anything that even slipped
significantly. We laid out a plan for you at the beginning of the year
and I would submit to you that even though the year is not even over,
that you have done a pretty doggone good job of keeping up with that
plan and -- and providing the public services that I think the
community wanted from us.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Do you think that maybe you could
provide that list to the Naples Daily News and they could publish as
well? I think that a lot of people need to be familiar with that list.
MR. OLLIFF: I'll provide that list to whoever you -- you want
me to provide that list to.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'm sure Denise wants to put it in
her column.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I would also suggest that we take
your clip that you presented this morning and run it on Channel 11 as
a separate overview consolidated State of the Nation, if you please,
State of Collier County, so that our citizens could see that on a
regular basis.
And I commend you, Tom. As I said often, as our turnaround
CEO, and I'll say it a hundred million times, we -- when I came here
to where we are today, this is my fourth budget session and we are
now operating this place like a business. And I'm truly proud to have
been a part of that process.
MR. OLLIFF: Thank you. I do think we have laid good ground
work and I think you have set a course in a direction that really all
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that's required at this point and, again, I'll steal a phrase from Jim
Mudd, is violent execution.
We just need to stay on top of that plan and make sure that we
keep doing what we've been doing and -- and watching over it and
make sure we are doing it right.
With that, I would like to walk you through real quickly some of
the highlights of the Fiscal Year 03.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Tom.9 Before you go on,
Commissioner Coyle has a question.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: It's -- it's not so much as a
question, but -- but I think it's something else that needs to be said
before we go much further.
I -- I don't think the people who are listening to this presentation
really understand how much of that is due to your leadership and
your guidance. You have done a wonderful job here and it's -- it's a
real loss that you will be departing for better opportunities in the
future.
But I don't want this moment to go by without people
understanding that you are the major driving force behind a lot of this
stuff, and fortunately, the Commission has provided you the support
and the funds to do it.
I know that many of the ideas came from you and I would like to
commend you for the wonderful job you have done providing that
kind of guidance for this county.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Here. Here.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: And this is not even his farewell
meeting.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Yeah. Don't start getting teary-eyed.
MR. OLLIFF: Too late. Thank you. You've got some good
people working for you. You really do, and don't let anybody tell
you that you don't.
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Fiscal Year 03 budget, there are a couple of things that we
wanted to try and get accomplished. One, I think we want to continue
to push forward some of those multi-year projects that I think are
exceptionally important, and some of them are not real high profile
but I think will make an enormous difference in the way you get your
business done here.
GIS is one that I think you have made a commitment to, grabbed
the hand of the property appraiser and then working in conjunction
with their agency to put together a system that will work for us and
allow us to work a little smarter, better and faster.
And Jim Mudd's going to walk you through exactly what's in
this FY 03 budget and give you a brief overview of that because it is
a multi-year project.
You need to be familiar with what we've spent, where are we,
where we're going with that project, because it is -- it is expensive, it
is long, but I think it's important that you continue to support it.
Following that, I think I have heard from the majority of you
that we probably are missing an opportunity to do a little better job in
two fronts. And one is in the public information front, to be able to
do a better job of getting information out to the public.
This morning is a good example. I think we continue to do a lot
of things very, very well. One of the things we probably don't do well
is tell people about it. And we need to try and -- and put together a
better organizational system for doing that.
And I think Leo will follow directly behind Jim and show you
some ideas that we have and this budget is structured around a
different organizational format for us to be able to handle public
information and customer relations. With that I'll mm that it over to
Jim and Leo.
MR. MUDD: Good morning, Commissioners. Last year, I gave
each one of you one of these books and there was a little tutorial in
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the back with a CD diskette to kind of help you to let you know what
the Geographic Information System was all about.
I hope you still have it, because guess what? We are still
following the plan in that task force and we use this as the Bible
every day because it basically laid out that plan by -- by fiscal year.
What I plan to do this morning is give you a brief update about
what the plan said, okay? What we've done to implement that plan
and where we are.
Next slide, please. The steps on this -- the steps on this chart,
the ones that are in green text are currently underway, and they'll
continue through this year with the exception of number 7, which
never really ends.
Because it's data automation and application development and as
people get to use it, they think of different applications that they can
use, and use it for to make their jobs simpler, better and more
efficient.
The step in red will be undertaken during FY 02, the latter part
of this year in 03 and that's basically develop survey accurate base
maps, and we're implementing that grid over those base maps right
now so that we can get the level of specificity that we need for
locations of utility lines, road right-of-way and things like that.
And then the last two in blue are eight -- eight and nine and
that's to evaluate the system performance and develop public access,
because it's not only an internal staff tool but it's also a tool for the
tax payers of Collier County.
Because there is information out there that they can use, too, to
get the information that they need, and I'll show you an application of
that this morning as we go along.
Next slide, please. I tried to give you a systems status. It might
be a little busy on the chart but it basically lays down the five areas.
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The people where we sit as far as getting those -- those technical
people on board, and I'll get into the specifics of that, but IT, we are
around 60 percent as far as their people for that IT Corp group that
we need.
And I basically call them the GIS masters, the web masters that
you need to have that Corp group, and kind of think of that as a hub
and spoke kind of operation because it starts there, but everybody in
the county and all the constitutionals will be tied to that system as we
-- as we lay that and we implement that structure.
Hardware, we've got it installed. We are putting some fiber
optic. I think the last piece was fiber optic out on Horseshoe Drive to
make sure that we had everybody tied in between community
developments and transportation. It was -- we had it going on a -- on
a telephone line. It was a little slow.
We got the fiber optics in it and it has definitely speeded things
up. And we also need to make sure that we've got a good connection
with the property appraiser, because it all started there and that's who
holds the base maps. We'll talk about that a little later, too.
Software, we are getting that on board. We've got the platform
layering. That's the RDBMS. That's an ESDI which is corporation.
That's their platform tool.
We are going to put 55 platforms of data out there on top of
those base maps for the county, so that's important to have that there.
And we are starting to lay those layered data forms on it right now.
We are in the process of doing that layering creation. And the
procedures, the task force is there. I'll talk about a little bit about the
composition just to give you a reminder, and we're -- we're doing the
public access procedures right now and we've got that in
development.
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Next slide. The people, the only people we've hired for GIS are
on the first column and the second column. The rest of the folks are
people in-house that we need to train.
The slide wasn't big enough to add everybody else, but we've
got Community Developments, Utilities, Transportation Users that
need to be trained, along with EMS folks, Sheriff, Public Services,
Department and other constitutional officers.
Because there's things in GIS that you'll talk about, voting
districts, what district am I in, who's my commissioner. No doubt,
Jennifer Edwards will be interested in that and -- and she will use that
from time to time.
We are -- we've hired three GIS analysts in our IT Group, and
we've got Mr. Bob Jetta on board and he's the leader of that group
and making sure that we're hiring the most competent and technically
proficient folks in GIS that we can get.
We've got two advertised positions out there and we have two
more to get in the 03 time frame. Why am I talking about this?
Because the GIS budget is dispersed in different places throughout
everybody's budget and you'll see that when you go to
Transportation, when you go to Utilities, when you go to Community
Development.
We just want to make sure that you've got highlights so you
know somebody is watching that entire program and we're making
sure those things are there and it's part of a bigger plan. Next slide.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: As you go through that, will you
have a consolidated sheet to show that, here's transportation, here's
this, here's this, give me one visual that shows that? I know they're
dispersed, but show me where it is and --
MR. MUDD: We can get that for you. I don't have it today but
I can have it for you tomorrow.
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June 20, 2002
COMMISSIONER FIALA: We can all have one then?
MR. MUDD: Yes, sir -- yes, ma'am. The GIS Task Force,
here's how we run it. We have a task force where we get together on
a once a month basis, more often than necessary.
We have a PM that basically runs all the requisitions through and
that's -- and that's done by Jim McGee in Utilities and Bob Jetta of IP.
But I basically share that task force and have been doing that for at
least a year and a half now.
We also have GIS coordinators that go out there and -- and
that's, right now is Will Walters out of WilsonMiller who's given us
that technical expertise to help us and get us and guide us along the
way.
We have an IT Corp GIS group which is in IP, and then we have
division analysts that are out there, and they're basically making sure
that layer data is getting put into the system, and again, it's a hub and
spoke kind of process that emanates from IT, because they are the
keepers of the net, but the users are the folks that dictate what data is
there, what layers and what application are put in on the machine.
Next slide. Oh, and I don't want you to get all hung up on this
one. This is just to let you know that we've -- we've acquired the
hardware, it's out there. There's a series of servers that are in
different locations in the county so that we can move the data from
point to point.
Next slide. This talks about a couple of those layers but there is
55 data layers that are planned. You know, there is address
matchable streets.
You can -- you can get the addresses, EMS or the Sheriff, if they
have a call out, they can punch this up, figure out exactly where it is;
is it in the back or the front, and that's envisioned in that system.
Now, the Sheriffs part will be -- will have a firewall on it
because he doesn't want all that data to go back out in the other
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June 20, 2002
direction, so he'll keep some statistics as his -- on his side of the
house, but this will be most beneficial for his operation and help him
a little bit.
It also helps in Community Developments. And I'll quote
somebody, and Ed Kantz been around for a long time, and we have
these property books. And Tom uses them all the time. The darn
thing is about this big(indicating,) and weighs about 45 pounds, and
when he wants to look at something, he looks at the picture.
Ed says, "I don't use that anymore. I click it up on my computer.
And I do it about three or four times a day and the book just sits over
there gathering dust."
And that's exactly what this is supposed to do. And that's -- and
that's proof and I'm not saying that it is hard to learn new things, but -
- I'll just leave that alone. And Natural Resources and also Surveying
for accurate natural grid sections and things like that.
Next slide. And I'm just going to give you some pictures.
Pictures are worth a thousand words. This is existing land use data.
This is at 300 level in the county.
Next slide. We start to zoom down a little bit into zoning
layering data. What you see before you is 41 and Pine Ridge and it
basically runs Pine Ridge out to the interstate and gives you all the
zone flats that are there and then you can zoom down into that in
order to look at it.
Next. Existing land use. This area is -- is Pine Ridge and
Airport Road. It gives you all the different existing land use numbers
and codes that are on there. Thanks to the property appraiser, we
have rectified aerials and parcel lines that will be available for use on
the map.
By this, it will ensure the data created by the individual
departments will overlay the data created by -- by everyone.
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June 20, 2002
Next slide. It gives you an idea of what utilities does then.
They put their water lines, they put in fire hydrants. On top of that --
on top of that, the particular overlay in this particular case, we have
King's Lake Crown Point PUD that's in front of you and how that
lays on is one of the layering tools.
Next slide. Some of the applications that we can use. And just -
- we just put a couple of these on the slide to give you an idea of
building permit inspections, how many times they have been out
there, what were the problems before.
They can be specified and they can be put on a matrix so when
you pluck on it you can grab that information, so you don't have to
search through your files in order to get to stuff. It has all kinds of
things, fixes and breaks and applications for water lines and sewer
lines.
Incident complaint tracking, you know, am I getting a lot from
the neighborhood, do I have -- and Commissioner Henning, you
helped me a lot of times with that code enforcement thing.
Where are the different incidents that we see and -- and maybe
where do we need to focus in order to help with neighborhood clean-
up issues and sweeps and things like that. They are important to this
community to make sure that we keep it a great place to live and
work.
Next slide. This should have some interest. We have a thing
called Map City and until we got all the software in, we grabbed a
web-based technology so we could export to each one of the different
users.
What's neat about this, you pluck on your house, you get your
house and it tells you if you've got -- you're an environmental
sensitive land. It can tell you what commission district that you are
in.
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June 20, 2002
And that's what you see on this one, or it can tell you where the
elementary school is around your house, and it can give you all that
information with a series of templates and menus. It's a perfect thing.
Right now, we've got it intra. We soon will have it external so
that we can put it on the web and people can grab that information.
The next slide. Tom told me I had ten minutes so I'm trying to
push it. This is what you have right now in this picture and, I think,
again, this picture really shows that we've got an inordinate amount
of space in this county with all kinds of maps, blue prints, all over the
place rolled up.
And that's a heck of a filing system that you see in the
background where everything is rolled up and it's piled around the
thing and it takes a while to find those things when you need to go
get them. We're bringing them into the computer.
We're putting them on line so that you've got an inventory and
it's easy to get to once you have the -- the different PUD number or
whatever you want. It brings it up so you don't have to go for a 30-
minute search trying to find it.
Next slide, please. I want to kind of give you -- and this is a
budget meeting so we need to talk about dollars just a bit. Here's
where the plan was that I briefed you last year as far as dollars were
concerned. It's a total of a 4.5 million dollar effort.
I will tell you it normally takes over ten million dollars to bring
a system of GIS into anything. With the help of Abe Skinner, we've
been able to save a couple million dollars. Abe has taken about four
plus million on in his shop and we've matched it so we can bring this
system on.
We're bringing it on in record time, so we are doing it in about a
two and a half year period of time, and that's pretty fast as far as GIS
is concerned.
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June 20, 2002
Next slide. Here's what we spent in 01. Pretty much on budget.
As far as what we wanted and some of the things that were on our
things to do are underneath data development, water distribution map
books to just name a few.
Next slide. In 02, we went out there at the -- at the County
Manager's request to cut three percent. We went into our budget and
went ten percent and that's $250,000. We basically cut that money
out of the program.
We are going to have to put it in 03 and that's part of your
budget in order to keep to plan. But we were able to pull that out and
still keep the program working and keep it pretty much on time.
And we did have, and Abe mentioned earlier to you in a meeting
that you were at, he had a three-month hiatus with his firm 3001
because of the 911 issue and they were called to do mapping
someplace else for a national interest and couldn't get back to Collier
County's needs until the January time frame.
So that three-month push back, we are trying to catch up on that
and keep it on schedule. So far, we've -- we've been able to do that.
Next slide. And this is what's in your 03 budget as far as dollars
in major categories, and I'll break those down specifically for you,
Commissioner Carter, and the rest of the commissioners for the 03
budget and let you know where that exists.
It's got some things on that particular slide for you. Is this
coming up.9 Okay. It just takes a little bit of time.
And then last but not least, what is a due force. This is faster
formation, better decisions are made, better data management,
operational efficiencies when we are cleaning out all those files with
all those maps, we can also make space for people to -- to work and
put a -- new spaces in as the county grows.
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June 20, 2002
We can have new applications and sufficient storage and
updating. And we don't have that right now, but GIS will give us that
ability, and it will make things better for us all.
So I just wanted to make sure that you had a perspective on that
and where we were and how we were going on GIS.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Who is this person?
MR. MUDD: Oh, this is my GIS hero. I will tell you without
him and his base maps, we would-- we would-- we wouldn't be
here. And a lot of this we owe to Abe Skinner and I -- and I try to
make sure at every turn that I make sure that he gets his credit in this,
because those base maps make it happen.
He started it with his four million dollar process to get that right
for his organization and it has done great things for him and it's doing
great things for us. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Question.
MR. MUDD: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is GIS going to be real-time?
MR. MUDD: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: When you --
MR. MUDD: The base maps will get updated every year, so the
picture that you see, you still have to do fly-overs in order to get the
base maps, but the information in those layers, they are updated on a
continuous basis.
So you'll -- when you pluck on that information, you'll get the
most recent survey, the most recent GPS great coordinate where that
location is.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: So it's recent data. It's not real-
time. Real-time is today, right now, at this minute, at this second.
MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. There's no system -- there's no system in
the world that will do that. I wish it would, but --
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June 20, 2002
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, I don't know if we need
that much government oversite in private property.
MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. For instance, right now, if they want to
go out and do a locate on a line, they have to go get -- they have to go
get a plan of where it was.
They go out there with their -- with their sizemick(phonetic)
instruments to try to find that line. Sometimes they get it.
Sometimes they don't. Sometimes we have a water break that a
contractor does.
And guess what? And you go, oh, my God, that was on the
copy I had over here and I annotated that we changed it, but that
wasn't the copy that he grabbed, because that was over in the
Transportation Department and this over in the Water Department
and Transportation made a change, they made a move and it wasn't
updated because it wasn't done on everybody's paper copy.
What -- this will give everybody the ability to have, is have the
most current information that exists no matter which department had
a change to it and it sits there and it's squared. It should save us lots
of money on the Utilities side because we have got a lot of bad
locates.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Your sound is going in
and out so I think somebody is giving you a cue. I don't -- I just don't
understand, and you can explain it to me sometime -- MR. MUDD: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- you know, how this relates to
code enforcement. MR. MUDD:
MR. OCHS:
Yes, sir.
Good morning, Commissioners. For the record,
Leo Ochs, Assistant County Manager. As Tom mentioned in his
opening remarks this morning, earlier this year, the Board and the
Staff engaged in a rather lengthy planning process that resulted
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June 20, 2002
in the development of a three-year strategic plan for the agency. The
first year of that plan, which is current fiscal year 2002 has been
designated as the year of internal assessment and change. And the
emphasis during the current year has primarily been on assessing our
critical business processes and our service delivery systems with an
eye towards identifying deficiencies in our systems, looking for
improvements and developing plans that will help us transform the
way that we do business in the future.
With that as a backdrop, the County Manager impaneled an
agency-wide task team to look at our current communications and
customer relations efforts across the agency.
As a result of that initial task team effort, you'll see on your first
slide a current inventory of our primary strengths and -- and
weaknesses in our current communications and customer relations
efforts.
I'll run through them just real quickly. In terms of the primary
strengths, we have trained and dedicated staff in both of those
operations. The agency as -- as a whole, has a strong customer
service orientation as evidenced in our mission statement. We are
constantly looking to exceed our customers' expectations.
On balance we have adequate resources, funding, people with
notable exceptions and you'll see those in your FY 03 proposed
budgets at the division level, and certainly we have had historically
strong support from the County Commission and Executive
Management in these two areas.
In terms of the weaknesses that were identified by the task team,
currently our efforts both on our communications, media relations
and customer relations are frankly rather disjointed and in many
cases, fragmented.
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June 20,2002
We lack, kind of, the consistent theme, consistent look and feel,
the consistent message that -- that corporations and -- and public
entities our size typically strive for.
There is currently in our organizational structure a lack of what I
call executive level strategic planning and policy deployment.
There's also a lack of, as I mentioned, kind of consistent coordinated
outputs in terms of our materials and our programs and our services,
both in our communications and our customer relation initiatives.
And then finally, the -- the task team concluded that we're fairly
reactive to the media instead of proactive and we want to reorient the
agency in that regard as well.
Next slide, please. Looking at those strengths and weaknesses
and opportunities to improve, the team developed a series of goals
and executive management objectives that would try to move us
forward in these two areas.
In terms of our primary goals, we thought it was paramount to
effectively promote and positively influence the public's, not only
their understanding but their perception about county government
operations and programs, services and our personnel.
And also to consistently improve our level of customer
satisfaction with county government programs and services as well as
public policy decisions.
In terms of executive management objectives, we seemed to
establish a series of those, the first of which was to establish a
dedicated executive level management and oversite function for
corporate communications and customer relations.
Secondly, was to improve our program coordination and the
integration of our services throughout the agency at an agency-wide
level. As I mentioned, we have very effective pockets of customer
relations and communications programs in different areas of the
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June 20, 2002
agency, but we haven't done a good enough job in coordinating the
resources and developing a common approach across the agency.
The team also felt that we needed to maximize existing staff
resources. We have creative and very trained professional people in
these areas in different pockets of the organization. We want to be
able to deploy those in -- in more constructive ways.
We want to do -- implement reliable systems to analyze, collect
and document customer expectations. The Board does that now
annually through the annual citizens telephone survey but the
committee -- the team felt that we needed to do much more together,
reliable, consistent, trendline data on really what our customers think
about the job that we're doing for them.
We need to do that on an ongoing basis so we have a benchmark
and then we have over time, the ability to compare on a trend basis
how we're doing in meeting our customers' expectations.
And finally, implementing an agency-wide systematic approach
to processing service requests and complaints. And the Board knows
better than probably anyone else in this room the volume of citizen
inquiries and complaints and service requests that you receive on a
daily basis, the ability at an agency-wide level to intake those, track
them, report back to the citizen and to the Board on the disposition of
each one of those and then to use the data as a management tool for
making decisions about how we deploy our resources in the future
that, we, as an agency believe we need to do a better job of.
Next slide, please. We looked at a couple of specific strategies
that would help us meet these primary goals and objectives. I would
like to run through those just briefly for you.
The first one is to reposition the existing public information
function in the organizational structure and also to broaden that
department's duties and responsibilities.
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June 20, 2002
We think in order to provide the profile that's needed and the
authority to get the job done at an agency-wide level, we need to
elevate the public information function into the executive
management offices similar to what we do with our management and
budget and send a signal, both internally and in the community that
this is a priority of the County Manager.
Secondly, as part of that, we would look to establish a media
relations manager. An individual that would help us be much more
proactive in our media relations. Examples would be setting up press
conferences, having media profiles done on all of the key managers
in the community, setting up a series of orientations with the media.
Many times, we have members of the press or television media that
are new to the community.
They turn over consistently. We need to do a better job of
bringing them into the agency, giving an orientation, helping them
understand who does what and establishing a central point of contact
so that we can meet their deadlines and be more proactive with the
media.
The next strategy is to establish a -- a formal reporting
relationship between executive level public information and customer
service function and the designated division teams.
And then finally, as I mentioned, we want to improve our
customer access to information and services and do that in order to
better respond to citizen complaints.
And I'll show you the final slide is of a proposed organizational
structure there where you see the communications and customer
relations function elevated to a direct report to the CEO of the
company.
And then the dotted lines would be shared reporting
relationships between that executive management office and teams of
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June 20, 2002
communications and customer relation specialists, some of which
already exist in divisions.
Others need additional resources, but this would be an
organizational approach to make sure that we are consistently sharing
information and programs and making sure that we have a consistent
look, consistent theme and consistent message in all of our
communications in customer-related activities. Thank you.
MR. OLLIFF: I think that ought to do it. You've got the talent
in your organization and it's really just a question of marshaling it
better, organizing it better and -- and making some of that talent
meet, I think, what are some overall county objectives as opposed to
just their own specific area objectives.
And I think the idea of elevating it to where it reports directly to
the County Manager's Office is going to make a significant change
and improvement. And I think it will address the concerns that I've
heard each of you raise.
A couple of other things and then -- then I promise you we won't
be much longer at this. A couple of the other things that I wanted to
at least highlight before you went into the budget was obviously, one
of the events that -- that this budget is going to -- to reflect are the
events that occurred post September, and I think we were all aware of
the immediate impact that it had on the tourism industry in our area.
And I think the Board had the foresight at that point to go back
in and make some reductions in your current year budget to be able to
carve out some money that you could put into your General Fund
Reserve and also to carve back some of the allocations that had
already been made on the TDC side based on our expectation the
revenues would simply not come in at the projected levels.
Not only did you cut down on TDC projects, but you put an
extra six million dollars in your General Fund Reserve by making
immediate cuts within your FY 02 Budget, and I think that helped
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June 20, 2002
you significantly going into this year's budget, as we thought it
would. TDC revenues, Mike, are back at about what level now? I
always like stumping him.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: We're going to have a shortfall of about a
million five from the gross budget. Over the last three months, the
projections have been very steady. We had forecast 8.2 million
dollars as compared to an adopted budget of almost 9.7. The
projections have been very consistent.
I just provided you with the May update yesterday, provided by
the tax collector and we're consistently within $10,000 on either side
of that 8.2 number that we used in our forecast, so we're feeling
pretty comfortable that -- and Mr. Wallace noted at the TDC meeting
the other day that Collier County and Palm Beach County were the
leaders in terms of recovering more quickly than other communities
in terms of the resiliency of our local economy relative to others in
the State of Florida, so for that, obviously we -- we are thankful.
MR. OLLIFF: And while we were late, you'd hope to thing that
some of that was as a result of-- of the Board's efforts along with the
Alliance to be able to generate some quick advertising out there
saying, "We're okay. Things are fine. Come on down and see
Southwest Florida."
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Give just credit, too, to the TDC
Board.
MR. OLLIFF: Yeah. But as a result --
COMMISSIONER CARTER: If I could interrupt, the four
million five shortfall, what year did that take us back to roughly,
2000 level, '99 level?
MR. OLLIFF: Oh, you're going to stump him worse than I did.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Thank God for computers and access to
the local network. Bear with me one moment, sir. The 8.2 level is
FY 99. We had 8.141 million.
Page 31
June 20, 2002
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Thanks.
MR. OLLIFF: But what you are going to see is the result of the
budget that you've got in front of you is, I think, some public
infrastructure security improvements.
I think clearly it is an obligation on our part to make sure in
particular that some of the target-type facilities have a high level of
security.
And that would include, in particular, some of your public
utilities areas, and frankly, some of your government buildings here
on campus. We have made some improvements, both at those
facilities and here on this campus.
Most of you are probably not even aware of the bank of security
monitors that we have located in the Facilities Management
Department. That's the picture on the bottom right.
We would be happy to take you down there and show you, but I
think we have a fairly sophisticated security system for this campus
that provides most of the visiting public as well as those of us who
work here every day a -- a fairly reasonable level of security given
the events that have occurred.
As well, I think the Sheriffs Agency clearly is going to have
some security enhancement built in to this coming budget. There is a
-- an increased responsibility on the part of the Sheriff and they have
been working in conjunction with us to increase the patrols to your
public facilities.
So I think we have been working on ensuring that your water
plants and your other public safety facilities are patrolled on a much
more frequent basis by the Sheriffs Department.
We are working with our own security department, the bailiffs
and the Sheriff in a much more coordinated fashion over the course
of this year and that will continue into 03.
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June 20, 2002
The -- the bad news result of that is -- is clearly evident in your
insurance costs. And I think your insurance costs have -- have
increased significantly. I think you are seeing a premium increases
on those insurances where we are not self-insured increasing by as
much as 33 percent, a result of, frankly, most of it just market
pricing.
I think the industry is recognizing that the Government, in
particular, may not be as safe an investment on the insurance side as
it may have been at one day, and we are just seeing that on the
premium side.
For your agency alone, I think your insurance increases have
been in the two million dollar range and that is a significant increase
in insurance costs in any single given year.
When you're going from 2.4 to 4.9 in a given year, that's an
enormous leap and one that I felt we at least needed to bring to your
attention as a budget highlight.
Overall, county-wide, it's pretty much the same trend. I think
county-wide insurance levels were at about three. We are now at
about six. So I think right off the top, you don't get a lot of
productivity out of making insurance payments.
There's not a lot of output that comes from making an insurance
payment, but it's one of those things where I'm not sure that you have
a lot of choice, other than to shop the market hard.
Increase in coverage is to catastrophic levels where we think it's
reasonably safe, and just try and continue to ride this and find the best
rates that we can.
The good news, and in comparison it's relatively small good
news to that, but you have what is called Indirect Service Charge
Program where your internal services in particular, Human Resources
County Attorney purchasing all those things that we do internally,
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June 20, 2002
they provide a service that has a cost to a lot of your Enterprise
Funds; Water, Sewer, Community Development.
We just got done going through an update of our Internal
Service Charge Program and that resulted in an increase of
somewhere around $450,000 net income to the General Fund as a
result of increasing our charges to those Enterprise Funds.
Another key highlight obviously is the Fiscal Year 03 Budget is
going to be the SAP system. And I will tell you that there is probably
no single thing that I think is going to make a difference in the way
you are able to manage this organization as much as this.
In conjunction with the Clerk of Courts, we have been working
all year long on putting this in place. We are scheduled to go live
October 1 st with your new financial management system.
And for the first time ever, you will actually have a financial
management system that is tied in with your purchasing system,
which is tied in with your budgeting system, which is tied in with
your Human Resources system.
So that payroll, for example, in road and bridge is not a process
that takes eight different people to input information in order to get a
check cut for the poor guy who is cutting the grass on the side of the
road.
This is a system that will actually take you into the 21 st Century
and -- and allow you to add components on an as-needed basis, but I
will tell you, the Clerk's Agency and ours have been working awfully
hard on this and then we've been pulling resources from within your
organization to make it happen.
And -- and just fair warning, October, November and December
are going to be ugly around here. When you convert to a new
Financial Management System, I don't care how much preparatory
work you do, it is not going to be flawless, and it certainly won't be
seemless and -- and my expectation is you're going to be making
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June 20, 2002
difficult adjustments over the course of the next full 12 months
before you get the thing calmed down some.
Also, in the budget are a series of capital projects and I'll run
you through these real quickly. The Immokalee Jail Expansion
project is already underway in Fiscal Year 02. It's an additional 197
beds, an eight million dollar project. That should be completed
before your Fiscal Year 03.
You've got a 951 Boat Ramp Expansion. That's an aerial view
of the boat ramp. I think if any of you have either been down there
on a Saturday or a Friday night or a Sunday, you've seen the cars
parked up and down 951.
Not only is there an opportunity to expand the boat ramp there
where it is and then the parking, but we are working so see if we can
secure some offsite parking on that -- the comer lot on the Isles of
Capri Road and Collier Boulevard, sort of that northwest comer up
there so see if there is an opportunity for some non-motorized boat
access into the back waters as well as some overflow parking.
The Courthouse Annex design money is in your budget in Fiscal
Year 03, and while I do not believe this County can afford to build
the six-story parking garage full facility, I think we are proposing that
you do something smart in the interim.
And that is to plan and stick with the plan that you have already
adopted, and then sink some pilings and some foundations for at least
two stories of that six-story building, and then future expansions that
are needed for office space here can simply go up with the foundation
that's in place on that building.
By building two stories, you are not required from what we
understand of our -- our current DRI status to do any -- anything
above ongrade parking. So you don't have to build the parking garage
if you only build the two stories of this building.
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June 20, 2002
This building, as you will recall, is designed to accommodate
courts and court-related agencies, so we ought to be able to put some
of the State Attorney's Office, Public Defenders and some of those
people in that building.
That provides more space for your Clerk of Courts and
eventually, ultimately, all your constitutional officers end up back in
this building and your agency actually ends up in that building.
So it's -- it's a real long, long process, but rather than lose sight
of that master plan, I think we're trying to make sure that we're
making investments in the right places for the long term here.
Your Naples Jail Expansion and Renovation -- I'm not
responsible for that clip art. The Naples Jail Renovation and
Expansion is in your Fiscal Year 03 budget. The -- the design is in
your Fiscal Year 02 Budget and construction is in your 03 Budget.
As that shows, that is a 34 million dollar project being budgeted
for and looking at both the combination of Impact Fees and Debt
Service Payments out of your 301 Fund.
800 Megahurtz System, you have a multi-agency committee
who is working on oversite of the 800 Megahurtz system, and John
Daily inside of your IT Department does a -- a masterful job on your
part of the agency of running that.
But there are and continue to be growth issues and the coverage
issues as the 800 Megahurtz Radio System, and I think you have
some items coming up on your agenda the 25th to hopefully make
some improvements to that system.
We plan on funding those with a short-term borrowing, being
paid for with -- in Fiscal Year 03, $428,000 worth of Debt Service
payments. But from a public safety standpoint, I do believe it's
important for us to get rid of those dead spots and make sure there is
coverage.
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June 20, 2002
We've had too many stories of public safety people being out
there looking for backup and not being able to make those
communicational links that are important.
Roberts Ranch Restoration is in your Fiscal Year 03 Budget.
We've got about $215,000 from your Fund 198. That is your Tourist
Development Fund. It supports the Museum Operation to do some
restoration of both the main house, a shed and a garage.
We've got a visitors center that was in the Fiscal Year 02
Budget. And each step is going to bring that whole idea of a -- a real
public facility in the middle of Immokalee that's a draw for the
Immokalee Community to a reality.
Finally, I think there is Paramutual Transfer and for those of you
who are new to the Board, there is a line item in your budget where
the way I understand it, certain counties are allowed to have
Paramutual-type betting, whether it be Hai Lai, horse racing.
And in return for allowing only a few specified counties to have
those kind of activities, the state law requires them to share the
wealth, if you will. So each county receives a certain amount of
money from your Paramutual revenues.
We have from an old 1983 agreement that held onto those funds,
but according to that 1983 agreement, beginning in Fiscal Year 03,
we began to transfer that money over to the school board, lock, stock
and barrel. So there is a transfer in your 03 Budget of just over
$440,000.
And again, that's money that we have been indicating to the
school board should they want to continue or expand their school
nursing program, here's a good revenue source if they want to look at
it.
And if I would guess, I would imagine they had not anticipated
this amount of revenue going into the budget year.
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June 20, 2002
COMMISSIONER CARTER: They probably didn't anticipate
that we were going to suggest they spend it either, but I think it's
wonderful.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: We have not budgeted for the School
Nursing Program Enterprise, so that is clear.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: My intentions never were to budget
for it two years in a row. It was just to be a catalyst to get it going.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: That is correct.
MR. OLLIFF: In your Impact Fee Capital Budget, you've got
$938,000 to pay for the Golden Gate Community Center Expansion.
If you'll remember, you bought just over seven acres on the north side
of the existing Golden Gate Community Center.
We've done some vacation of right-of-ways in there to close off
some of the roadways that separated those properties, and I think
you've got an opportunity to really enhance the -- the central focus of
the Golden Gate Community, thereby, expanding it's community
center. That's in your 03 Budget.
And finally, the last slide that I've got for you. You have -- I'm
trying to slow down for you a little bit. The Regional Park, and that
park obviously is going to take some borrowing in order to fund it,
but it is a project this Board and Staff have been working on for a
number years.
We are hoping to have that part built in conjunction with the
construction at Livingston Road that is necessary to get access to that
property.
It is located almost midway between Immokalee and Vanderbilt
and so you need to have that new Livingston Road segment in order
to be able to get here. So those two projects need to be coordinated
in their construction in order for us to have access for the public to
the site.
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June 20, 2002
You will be looking at construction just for that in the Fiscal
Year 03, and what we're trying to do is what we call construction
management at risk. And it's a system where you are provided by the
contractor that's selected a guaranteed maximum price for that
facility.
And we thought for this particular facility at that size budget,
that would be important for us. So you will look at that contract
sometime probably in the first or second quarter of Fiscal Year 03.
Those are the highlights that I have for you in the budget. I
would be happy to answer any questions, but other than that, we're
ready to jump into numbers.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Just one. Something I never
realized before coming onto this Commission, and I would like,
maybe for you to tell the audience out there is when you started this
budget process in February, how far you have pared down from what
you identified as your needs as stripped away continuously to bring
us down to -- to this level here, whereas it's at least manageable, and I
don't think people realize how much you have already stripped out of
there.
MR. OLLIFF: In overall numbers what was the initial budget
that we looked at in the County Manager's Office, there's about 12.8
million dollars if I recall, Mike, of projects that are not in the budget
that's recommended to you.
So just under 13 million dollars is not included in the County
Manager's recommended budget. You have access to a list of all of
those things that were cut. If there is something that I have not
recommended to you that you think is vital, by all means, go look at
that list, but I -- I think it's our obligation to try and provide you a
fiscally responsible budget.
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June 20, 2002
The total budget that you have in front of you right now is about
1.5, 1.6 million dollars, out of balance from a millage neutral budget.
As I recall, it's about a tenth of a percent increase in the overall total
budget or about four dollars per hundred thousand dollars of taxable
value today.
My expectation as we go through the process, we ought to be
able to find a way to get back to at least millage neutral there.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Mr. Olliff, I think this would be a
great time to recognize the great contributions of the Productivity
Committee in this process. What we do is we rely on Staff, of
course, for us very much for the direction that we're going.
But as a checks and balance measure, we have a very capable
committee called the Productivity Committee that's made up of
leaders in the industry, CPA's and former government employees
from different areas throughout the country, who oversee this process
and it's been going on for a long time. They make suggestions that
are independent from what staff recommendations are.
And here representing them today is Janet Vasey. Would you
raise your hand, Janet, so we can all see you. As you'll notice, she
has a seat pretty close to the front here, and occasionally during this
process, we're going to be asking Janet to come up and make
comments on different ends of it so we can get it from a different
perspective as we are moving into it.
And we are very appreciative of the fact that your committee has
been working on this for so many months and that they're willing to
come in -- of course, they do this at no charge to the County, and to
be able to advise us so we can be able to see it from another
perspective.
MR. OLLIFF: I -- I can't begin to tell you how many hours they
have spent spend. And I think we have probably worked as well with
them through this budget process as well as we probably ever have.
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June 20, 2002
I think I've had any number of department and division
administrators in with them trying to make sure and understand and
ask them questions that they have, and they've come up with a pretty
thorough list of recommendations for you to consider, and we'll do
that as we go through the budget.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And -- and Janet, personally has
taken time to meet with each one of us if we requested that. She's
written to us back and forth, coached us a lot, explained a lot of
things.
I know that she has really opened up a world of information for
me personally, so -- and that's nothing that anybody else -- they don't
have to do that. It's just that they're -- they're -- they've been there for
us when we needed them.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Right. And I believe Janet has been
doing this now for, what, five, six years. It's been a long, long time.
And Janet, when we get through this year, we are going to double
your pay.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Mr. Chairman, you know, this is
-- I said it last night and I would like to repeat it again this morning.
This is what a community is all about. Everyone is what I call a
stakeholder, has ownership.
We don't sit here and try to do something to you. We try to do
with our revenue streams what -- our best possible inputs from the
entire community, what we can do for each other. And that's what
this process is all about.
And when you take a lot of diverse interests and you pull them
together to assist you in anything that you are doing, you end up with
a better community and that's what the Productivity Committee has
done. Not working against us, working with us.
And there is a spirit among staff and this Board that says we all
are stakeholders. We all work together. The Board of County
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June 20, 2002
Commissioners is not immune from a budget process no more than
they are immune from the Transportation or any of these processes.
We live in this community just like you do. We pay taxes just like
you do.
So this process is inclusive and I am really proud at this point as
a County Commissioner to say we have come a long way in the last
four years. And for new people in the community, you may not
appreciate all the turmoil and things that we have gone through.
But today, we're coming out on the other side. And as Mr. Olliff
said, we are no longer in a reactive mode, we are moving in a
progressive mode to build a better and stronger Collier County.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: And in that note, I would like to take
just a moment and invite Janet Vasey up to the podium there to
address us on some directions that she is thinking about.
MS. VASEY: Thank you very much. Janet Vasey for the
record. I would like to say that the Productivity Committee is very
please to have been able to participate in this process.
And we do recognize that we are placing an amazing work load
on additional work loads on your county staff by all the questions and
meetings and things that we -- that we held with them, and we
appreciate that.
We recognized that we were working together to try and -- and
get a very good budget for you and find extra road money for you.
On behalf of our Chairman Jim Gibson, I would like to say that he's
very sorry he cannot be here. He has family commitment up in
Baltimore, so he wanted to express his regret.
And I'm here as -- I've been deputized to speak for the
committee as the vice chairman and would like to just participate as
things happen. We can explain any of our rationales for our
recommendations if you would like to hear them at any point in time.
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June 20, 2002
If you -- if you don't want to, we'll -- we'll sit here quietly. Thank
you very much.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. Mr. Olliff, would now
be a good time to take a break?
MR. OLLIFF: Yeah. Let's take a five-minute break.
(Whereupon, a five minute break was taken and the meeting
continued as follows:)
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Please, take your seats.
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, I think we are ready to turn this
workshop over to Mr. Smykowski and the Budget Staff.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Go for it, Mike.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Okay. Good morning. For the record,
Michael Smykowski, County Budget Director. By way of
introduction, first of all, I would just like to cover the schedule of--
for the benefit of those in the audience or in the viewing public.
We have workshops scheduled today, tomorrow and Monday,
and wrap up as needed following the Board meeting on Tuesday.
Today, Tom has already provided a general overview in terms of the
schedule of what we are going to cover today.
We are going to cover the Debt Service Funds, Trust Funds,
hear Special Revenue Funds, which include things like special taxing
districts, MSTU's, Tourist Development and there is a whole host of
Miscellaneous Special Revenue Funds, where we statutorily get fees
and fines for things for adoption programs, ADA improvements,
small activities.
Frankly, the Board doesn't have a whole lot of policy-making
role and we have aggregated those in a summary fashion pursuant to
our Budget Policy Direction. We'll try to cover those quickly to give
you -- we have given you an overview of what the, for example, the
Trust Funds, what they included, the various sources of revenues,
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June 20, 2002
why they may very widely from year to year. So we'll try to cover
those in a summary fashion.
Then we'll move into within the Special Revenue Category.
Some of our major funds, such as the Community Development Fund
which is supported by a building permit fee and planning and Zoning
Fees.
Again, for purposes of orientation, going back about five years,
we used to present the budget on a divisional basis and county
government is very complex. There are a multitude of funds
representing the various pots of money that various programs are
funded from.
That tended to be very disjointed in terms of following as we
have jumped from funding pot to funding pot, so we have switched
our orientation to -- and our focus is now along fund lines so that
today we'll be addressing things primarily that are not Ad Valorem
tax related.
On Friday, we will focus -- tomorrow, on the major Ad Valorem
tax-supported funds. The Unincorporated Area General Fund, and
we'll walk through all of the departments all across all the divisions,
as well as capital projects that are funded with Unincorporated Area
Taxes from A to Z, so that you'll understand any changes you make
within the context of those have an immediate impact on the tax rate
in that-- in that Unincorporated Area General Fund.
Following that, we'll move into the General Fund. Again, kind
of going from that A to Z format rather than jumping from division to
division, we are going to address everything that is in the General
Fund in the County Manager's Agency tomorrow. In addition, we'll
be looking at the Board Agency and the County Attorney's Office as
well. Then, on Monday, we'll conclude with the balance of the
General Fund Operations, with the outside agencies, your-- your
court functions, State Attorney, Public Defender, Airport Authority
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June 20, 2002
Operations, Capital Projects that are Ad Valorem tax-supported, and
then the Constitutional Office Budget, which are directly supported in
one way, shape or form by the General Fund.
And then on -- on Tuesday, again, given the size of the agenda, I
think it would be our desire to try to avoid wrap-up given the
magnitude of the agenda on Tuesday and try to use our time wisely
and we'll try to keep it -- keep the discussion moving today.
As we do get into the Major Operating Funds, again, by way of
introduction, I will have an overview by the O&B staff. The
information contained within the budget books has prior year actual
revenue and expenses, the adopted FY 02 Budget, forecast
information for revenues expenses for the current year, as well as the
requested Current Service Items and Expanded Services for FY 03
and their summary information relative to the Expanded Service
Requests as well as we go through fund by fund.
We also embarked on a new program format this year. And the
department directors, once upon the conclusion of the overview as
provided by the O&B staff, the department directors, as we get into
each of the major funding areas, such as Community Development.
They'll walk you through the programs that are provided within the
context of that fund so you understand the services.
It also provides information relative to the number of positions,
the total FY 03 costs relative to each of those programs. And the
major change was identification of the offsetting revenue so you can
see the -- the -- both their expense side of the -- the house as well as
the offsetting revenues and ultimately, a net cost of that operation so
you can see whether or not it's revenue producing. And there may be
some policy implications for you as we go through that review.
With that, I would like you to turn, please, to the Debt Service
tab in your book. It's page G-1. Again, within Debt Service there
really is little discretionary authority for the Board. This is payment
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June 20, 2002
of principle and interest for outstanding bond issues that -- or debt
that the county has approved.
On G-1, you see a summary. The total FY 03 Budget is
approximately 29.1 million dollars. There are no policy decisions
here. There are a few new projects that we are funding with debt and
we will talk about those on Monday when we discuss the capital
projects and there, obviously, if-- if any changes were to be made to
the budget, we would then adjust the debts, corresponding Debts
Service Budget.
The 800 Megahertz Radio System, that service is included in the
budget as Mr. Olliff indicated in his opening remarks.
Probably the only thing of note here, in the middle of your page
on the revenue side, you see the Transfer 001. That is the General
Fund Support of Debt Service, and you see the Adopted Budget had
7.4 million dollars in it.
You'll note our forecast was only -- is only 3.2, and that's a
function of the bond issue, primarily of the bond issue that was
approved earlier this year. We had a number of projects that were
initially budgeted with Commercial Paper.
Due to the timing of our needs, consistent with the long-term
interest rates being very favorable, we were able to secure long-term
debt for those projects consistent with estimated useful life of those
projects.
Obviously, we don't -- do not want to finance projects beyond
their maximum useful life so you are paying for something after it
has -- is considered fully depreciated.
So from that standpoint, you are at 3.2 million dollars. It does
increase to 5.1 in FY 03. That's a function of you are just paying
interest initially, in FY 02. You will have a principal payment in FY
03, increasing that.
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June 20, 2002
In addition, you do have those -- there were two projects that
were funded with debt, the 800 Megahurtz, and some mitigation land
associated with the Lely Stormwater Improvement Project and we'll
have a full opportunity when we review the Stormwater Capital
Budget on Monday to address that and identify the funding sources
for that project itself.
One other thing of note is the relatively short remaining
maturities. On a lot of the debt you look at -- just going on down the
line from the top, that Race Track Debt that Mr. Olliff indicated,
where we are making that full payment to the school board of
$446,500. That's because the Debt Service has been paid off, or will
be paid off in July, 2003.
The Guaranteed Entitlement Fund, 204, that has an expiration as
of October 03. The Parks General Obligation Debt, which is
supported by Ad Valorem taxes that was used initially to construct
the five community parks within Collier County has an expiration of
July 03, so we'll be levying taxes that's about $900,000 per year.
Our final payment -- final tax levy will be in Fiscal Year 03 for
that so that will free up $900,000 from pre-existing tax burden
because that debt will be fully repaid.
The sales tax, Naples Park Drainage, Pine Ridge, those are a
little longer. Those are in the 2012, 2013. Isles of Capri Fire is only
reflective because there is an actual there. That debt was actually
retired in April, 2000. That Special Obligation Revenue Bond,
March 04.
So we are actually in -- in very good shape in terms of-- we
have very little debt outstanding in terms of general obligation, and
that which we do have outstanding, obviously will be maturing in the
-- in the relatively near term.
And rates remain favorable. Obviously, we'll be embarking on
some major debts associated obviously with the Transportation
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June 20, 2002
Capital Funding Program. We're also looking at the jail in North
Regional Park.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: If I may interrupt you for just a
moment. Commissioner Coyle.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Two questions, Mike. With
respect to Entitlement 204 and Parks G0206. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: You -- you made the comment
that there would be a tax levy in FY 03. Would you please explain
what that means?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: For the General Obligation, the Parks GO
debt is General Obligation Debt which is supported by Ad Valorem
taxes, so the -- the tax payers that were in the boundaries of that
district when that tax was -- that was voter-approved debt to create
that, and the pledge was Ad Valorem taxes, so --
COMMISSIONER COYLE: So that's an MSTD essentially?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Is that what we are saying?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Now, going down the
revenues from the transfers from 001, if you look at the FY 01/02
adopted budget, it's roughly 7.4 million dollars, but the actual, the
forecast for FY 01/02 is 3.2 million.
Can you tell me why we were -- the actual is so far less than the
budget and why we are going back up to 5.1 million this year?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: We had a number of projects that were
budgeted with Commercial Paper initially in the adopted budget.
Based on interest rates at the time, we met with our financial advisor,
and based on the estimated useful life of the projects that we were
financing, primarily you look at the -- the North Naples Government
Center is an example.
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June 20, 2002
Obviously, that facility will be existing for approximately 30
years, 40 years, however long a building lasts. Obviously, you don't
want to pay that off over five or ten. We extended the payments.
The interest in the near term was three percent and on the long
end, probably just slightly over five, so as a result, you -- you based
the debt service on the maturities of those -- of those facilities.
In addition, typically in the first year of a bond issue, you are
only -- you only have an interest payment as opposed to a principal
and interest payment, so that's why it ratchets back up in FY 03
because you have not only the interest payment, but also the principal
payment.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Is that a fairly level charge from
that point forward?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: So -- so what -- what you've done,
if I understand it correctly, is you have really saved almost 2.5
million dollars as a result of this process.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: That is correct.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Thank you.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Within your General Fund Allotment you
have a certain amount allocated to Capital Projects and/or Debt
Service, and obviously that freed up two and a half million dollars.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Again, as I -- as I mentioned, there is little
to no policy decisions here because this is previously approved debt
issues, most of which were approved 17, 18 years ago. With that,
that would conclude our discussion relative to Debt Service.
And with that, we'll move to our-- the tab that is Grants and
Trusts. It's page D-1. On page D-2 and D-3, there is a summary of
your Principal Grant Funds. On D-2, there is a description provided
as to the nature of them and what they are used for.
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June 20, 2002
Just to highlight one, you've talked about the Summer Food
Grant Program recently. Obviously that's included. The numbers in
term, overall, there is an increase of 46.9 percent. That's a function
obviously of the anticipated grant levels, the largest being within the
Sheriffs Grants.
Again, there is not a whole lot of-- there is no policy decision
here. These are, you know, Grant Funds and they are going to
vacillate wildly from year to year depending on the remitting
agencies, either state or federal and the availability of funds within
those respective --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: May I ask? Usually we hear of a
lot of grant applications and acceptances from the airport, but that
isn't in here, from the Airport Authority.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: No, ma'am. And -- and there is a reason
for that. Again, going back to the -- the fund structure, the Airport
Authority, especially on the capital side is funded not only by grants
but a corresponding match from the General Fund.
As such, items that are funded by the General Fund, we will
embark upon -- actually, Airport Authority is scheduled for Monday,
and any grants that are associated with those Capital Projects will be
addressed at that point in time because there is that General Fund
Match required.
We'll address that in the context of the General Fund rather than,
you didn't want to discuss it here while there are major General Fund
implications due to match requirements associated with those grants.
These are by and large, fully grant-supported. The Sheriffs
grants are matched with Confiscated Property Trust Funds, so there is
no Ad Valorem requirements here.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you.
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June 20, 2002
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Are we going to get into a
discussion of any General Fund Transfers into this particular section?
Are we going to talk about that somewhere else?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: If-- if there were a General Fund
Transfer, we would discuss that as part of the General Fund, yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: All right.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: In this case, the grants here, there is no
General Fund.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, there is --
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yeah. With the exception, excuse me, of
Services for Seniors --
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yes.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: We will have that opportunity when we
address the General Fund.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. And the other revenues are
just to -- to show the effect of the grants that netted out to zero costs.
Is that what you are saying?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: That is correct.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Thank you.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: With that, Commissioners, if you would
turn to pages D-12 and D-13 in the same tab. These are Trust Funds.
Again, the Board has -- there is really no policy decisions for the
Board within these sections, within these respective funds.
The receipts vary widely from year to year due to the nature of
the revenue source. As an example, the level of property confiscated
by Sheriff's deputies in a given year, statutorily, obviously, you--
you don't want to budget.
You see in FY 03, under Revenues For Confiscated Property, we
don't anticipate how much property they are going to confiscate in
any given year, but you see the actual in this case, you have $92,100.
That was based on actual confiscation to date.
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June 20, 2002
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Question if I may, Mike? MR. SMYKOWSKI: Sure.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: The money that's confiscated or the
property that's confiscated and turned into cash, what happens to
that?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: That is restricted in use within the
confines of the -- and if you look at your description on D-12, it's for
the use of funds to defray costs of School Resource Officers, Crime
Prevention, Safe Neighborhoods, Drug Abuse Education and
Prevention Programs, other law enforcement purposes, and also, as
required, matches for Drug Control Grants and Drug Abuse
Education.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: The question is is if this doesn't
come in, this particular revenue source, do we make it up out of the
General Fund?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: You would not spend -- you just wouldn't
have the money to spend, so you -- it's --
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: So in other words, this doesn't offset
some money that would be coming from Ad Valorem taxes?
MR. OLLIFF: No, sir. And typically, what happens, is the
Sheriff, during the course of the year, you will see a series of one or
two budget amendments where the Sheriff will actually come in and
request some of the Drug Abuse Trust Fund monies to be able to pay
for typically small, capital-type items that he is using at some of this
drug education programs.
So it's really -- he tries, and I think it's a smart move not to put it
toward a reoccurring operating cost and then usually uses it for small
operating capital instead.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. Commissioner Coyle.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Have -- have we verified that
these -- this income, so to speak, is actually occurring in the budgets
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June 20, 2002
of the departments where this is to be used? I think that's where
Commissioner Coletta was going.
We are obviously going to be looking at the Sheriffs Budget and
the Library Budget and -- and some of the other budgets.
Have you verified that -- that the Trust Fund Revenue has
actually been reflected in those budgets?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: It's reflected in the budget here. It's
actually in a separate, distinct fund separate and apart from the
General Fund, Library Budget and the Sheriffs Operating Fund.
There is actually a separate trust fund where this money is
restricted. The Board -- here you are acting in a trustee capacity.
Any funds received are for a very narrow purpose and are restricted
solely to that purpose.
MR. OLLIFF: Let me give you an example that might help.
The DAS, for example, the Domestic Animal Services Trust Fund,
the monies that are established in that trust find can only be used for
Neuter/Spay Operations.
So we have to keep that separate and apart so that we can keep
clean the revenue and the expenditures outside of the regular
operating budget of that department.
Same thing in the Library Trust Fund. When people are making
donations, usually they are making bequeaths for very specific-type
expenses, and we have to keep those separate so that we can show a
tracking, but all of that stuff does go through your County Finance
Department and it shows here in a separate trust fund budget, but not
in the Department Operating Budget.
So you can't use these funds to offset standard operating costs,
for example, in any of those departments because they are
specifically isolated for very specific uses.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I -- I guess my question is that, as
an example for the Neuter/Spay Program, if-- if the Animal Services
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June 20, 2002
Department is asking for an increase in -- in expenses for that
particular department, is this revenue reflected in that department's
budget for the purpose of showing a reduction in expense? MR. SMYKOWSKI: No.
MR. Olliff: No. And-- and typically the Neuter/Spay Program,
for example is one hundred percent self contained within this trust
fund.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: So there would be no general
obligation --
MR. OLLIFF: Right.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- transfer for that particular fund?
MR. OLLIFF: Right.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Is that true of all of these?
MR. OLLIFF: I can't say that the line is bright and white in
every case, but for the most part, yes.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: All right. We'll have an
opportunity to ask those questions whenever we go through this
budget, I presume.
MR. OLLIFF: Right.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: With that, Commissioners, we'll turn to
our Special Revenue Tab. If you will, page C-2. There are two funds
here. There is an 800 Megahertz Special Revenue fund which
provides funding for operational costs of the 800 Megahertz Radio
System, including of maintenance of that system.
And the revenue for this is a $12.50 surcharge on moving traffic
violations, again, so that is a maximum surcharge authorized in
statute currently and that is restricted solely in use for the 800
Megahertz Radio System.
So costs of the 800 Megahertz Radio System maintenance,
where they might otherwise be in the General Fund, Commissioner
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June 20, 2002
Coyle, in this case are restricted in a -- in a separate pot of money in
Fund 188 so that the operational costs of that system are born here
and are offset by the moving traffic violation revenue that would
otherwise have to be borne by the General Fund if this revenue
source were unavailable.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Question if I may. Does this reflect
the vote we are going to be taking on Tuesday for the tower, on the
upgrade.9
MR. SMYKOWSKI: The tower, not -- not here, no. This is for
maintenance of the system. The -- the actual cost of-- of that capital
project is budgeted in your Capital Fund and is supported by General
Fund, a short-term loan to be repaid over five years in the General
Fund.
And when we talk about capital projects in the General Fund on
Monday, you will have an opportunity to discuss that fully and you'll
have a full discussion of that obviously prior to the Board meeting.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: We have some towers out there
that we lease space to the private sector. Does that money go into
this fund?
MR. DAILY: Yes, it does.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: John, for the benefit of the court reporter,
and as new members come up to speak, if you could please identify
your name for the record. I'm sure that will be appreciated.
MR. DAILY: John Daily, Telecommunication Manager,
Information Technology. We also receive reimbursement back from
the fund for the maintenance for mobile and portable radios that are
in each of the individual departments.
We invoice those departments and that money goes back into
this fund also, so this primarily just supports the infrastructure of the
radio system.
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June 20, 2002
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Would that be under Concession
Fees? Is that where you are reflecting that income for rental of those
towers?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: That would be under Interest and
Miscellaneous. Actually you have -- the Concession Fees are -- are
associated with the Americans with Disabilities Act Improvement
Fund 190. And that's the other fund here that we are going to talk
about.
That accounts for handicap parking violation revenues, and
Concession Fees from the snack bar are used to defray costs to
improve handicap access to government facilities. And they are done
typically, I think Mr. Camp works with the Steering Committee to
prioritize the types of improvements necessitated to improve access
to the county government facilities by handicap members of the
public.
MR. OLLIFF: Unless there are any other questions on that, we
can keep moving, Mike.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Okay. That -- we can turn to page C-6.
Mr. Greenwald?
MR. GREENWALD: Randy Greenwald for the record. C-6
deals with Pollution Control. Pollution control formerly consisted of
Funds 108 and 114. Fund 108 was closed beginning in FY 02 with
only Residual Funds for administrative costs remaining and those
have been incorporated into Fund 114 this year.
The total budget for FY 03 is $2,197,200. The revenues for Fund
114 consists of Ad Valorem taxes, contracts with the State and
reimbursements from other county departments.
The Ad Valorem tax is a voter-approved special tax that is not to
exceed one tenth of a mill and is only to be used for related efforts to
protect ground water, fresh water, surface water and other non-titled
water resources from all sources of pollution.
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June 20, 2002
The proposed FY 03 Ad Valorem tax of .0358 per $100,000 of
taxable value is a decrease of .0062 from the FY 02 rate of.0420 per
$100,000 of taxable value.
Ray Smith, the Pollution Control Director, will now provide
some background information in the FY 03 Expanded Budget
Request for Pollution Control.
MR. SMITH: Good morning, Commissioners. My name is Ray
Smith. I'm the Director of Pollution Control for the record. My
administrator Jim Deloney is sitting at my left. You're right.
I'm going to provide you a brief overview of what we at the
Pollution Control Department provide services to the county. We
have a Pollution Control Program and a Petroleum Cleanup Program
which we have state funding for.
In addition to that, we have a Small Business Assistance
Program that we go out to businesses and provide any assistance in
proper management for their hazardous waste. This is a state
mandate.
We have a water resource monitoring program, an analytical
services program that go hand in hand to this monitoring effort to go
out and check the ground water and the surface water.
As Mr. Greenwald identified, these are water resources
throughout the county and we also provide services associated with
pollution complaint responses. As residents call in, we respond out
and provide them those services.
Pertaining to -- I'm sorry about that. Regarding Special Services
-- or excuse me, Expanded Services, we have no increases in our
FTE's through the Department. We have 22.5 FTE's with 25 team
members within our department.
We are requesting to reinstate our operating budget reductions
of $800 so we can attend contract meetings that are required for our
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June 20, 2002
staff. We also are requesting and it's called a gas -- for the record, it's
called a Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometer.
I don't know who invents these terminologies, but the bottom
line, it's a laboratory instrument that does pesticide analysis and
petroleum product analysis on drinking water, water in general; that
type of water.
And again, on GTS, again, I didn't invent the technology, but it's
an instrument that you can take in the field. It's -- and identify very
specifically your exact coordinates within the county, which is
extremely important when you start identifying municipal wells and
remodeling the well-field protection zones.
So this is an extremely important piece of instrumentation we
request. And I would like to mm this over to Mr. Greenwald.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: If there are no questions --
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I have a question concerning the --
the spectrometer. Does it have the capability to detect any other
impurities, such as biological agents of some kind or is it limited?
MR. SMITH: We have a laboratory that does microbiological
work. The -- the instrument we are discussing right now does
organic analyses. It has the capability of-- depending on the
equipment you purchase and your add-ons to that instrument, you can
expand out the organics that are being analyzed, but our focus at this
particular point in time are pesticides and petroleum products in our
ground water supply.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: May I ask how we measure that
now?
MR. SMITH: At this particular time --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes.
MR. SMITH: -- when we measure it, we would send this out to
a private laboratory to have it analyzed at $595 per sample, which
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June 20, 2002
you could see over a period of one year to one and a half years, we'll
hit a break even on that and we'll start saving money for the county.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, okay. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: What is the current millage rate
that's being charged?
MR. SMITH: The current millage rate?
MR. GREENWALD: .0420.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: It's identified at the bottom,
Commissioner, .0420. The proposed, based on the increase in taxable
value would decrease and the millage required .0258, a decrease of
sixty-two cents per $100,000.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Another question. With respect to
the inspections you perform for other people, do you charge a fee for
that, and if so, where is that revenue indicated in the revenue?
MR. SMITH: The inspections that we conduct for individuals
throughout the county --
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah.
MR. SMITH: -- or abusing complaint inspections, where a
resident would call --
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Inspections of petroleum storage
tank facilities to ensure compliance and protection of ground water.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: That's actually under contracts,
Commissioner. The petroleum site and storage -- Storage Tank
Management Programs are done under contract, I believe, with the
Florida Department of Environmental Protection. MR. SMITH: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Do those contracts offset the cost
of the inspections themselves or--
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Commissioner, if you mm to page C-8, I
think you will see the -- the programmatic breakdown and you will
see the costs and the revenues for each.
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June 20, 2002
The Storage Tank Managements, there is a slight cost as well as
the Petroleum Cleanup and Restoration, you see $200,400, total cost
revenues of $172.7.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Is there any reason we can't
recover that additional cost? Why should we have to do that at a
loss?
MR. SMITH: The petroleum storage tanks, what we are doing
at this particular point in time -- well -- well, let's focus on petroleum
cleanup. We are in the process of negotiating costs right now. As
you may be aware, the state's fiscal year begins July 1 st, which is a
little off from our year.
These numbers that we are providing you are based on figures
that we had from last year and we are -- feel confident that we'll
receive this year.
The -- I can tell you already with the cleanup -- petroleum
cleanup monies, we are going to be receiving more monies and you
will see that in an executive summary when the contracts -- well, you
will receive that information from me when the scope of service has
been signed. So we are receiving more money in petroleum cleanup.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I guess my concern is it's a 1.3
million dollar transfer from Ad Valorem property taxes here, and I'm
looking for ways to reduce that -- that transfer from Ad Valorem
property taxes and try to fund as many of these things as we can from
fees or contracts.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: I think the question the Commissioner is
asking is, can we not increase the estimated contractual revenue and
offset the millage slightly?
MR. OLLIFF: I think the answer is, we can look at that between
now and September and see what we can do. And I think that's a
good point to be made and we'll -- we'll see if we can't squeeze the
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June 20, 2002
DEP for some additional revenue and/or the people that we provide
the inspections for.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: And just to save some time and
perhaps confusion, throughout these budget hearings, I'm -- I'm going
to be asking for a balance of revenues versus expenses, just as if we
were performing a business function here.
So if you could be prepared to -- to try to maybe provide that
information up front or be prepared to -- to ask it -- or answer it
particularly when it comes to Ad Valorem Property Tax Transfers.
I'm looking for ways to reduce the Ad Valorem Property Tax
Transfers to -- to functions that should logically be paid by persons
we are performing a service for. Okay? To the extent that that's
possible.
MR. DELONEY: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I understand it's not--
MR. DELONEY: I understand clearly.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: That's it.
MR. GREENWALD: And we've got it, and I think some of
these are estimates that could very well be more optimistic in the
final analysis, and we'll provide that, of course, through an Executive
Summary Process.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Thank you very much.
MR. GREENWALD: Yes, sir.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: You will recall as well, Commissioner,
the final millage that will ultimately be levied will -- is when you
bang the final gavel in September, so if that improves between now
and then, obviously, we'll have latitude to make those changes and
reduce the millage correspondingly at one of your public hearings in
September.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Thank you.
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June 20, 2002
MR. SMYKOWSKI: With that, we'll move to page C-12 and C-
3.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: There's a summary of transportation
division related MSTU's, with a corresponding table at the bottom of
C-12 that shows the relative millage impact and the tax dollars
proposed to be levied both in FY 02 and FY 03 in the column at the
very right, showing the relative impact per $100,000 of taxable value.
Again, in terms of board policy making role, it's a little more
limited here. There are a whole host of citizen advisory groups
within the context of each of these MSTU's that works with staff in
developing the budget.
In most cases, specifically in the Beautification, you see Golden
Gate, Radio Road, Lely Golf Estates, Immokalee Beautification. The
millage impact is zero. The -- the Citizen Advisory Groups have
elected to levy the maximum millage consistent with the ordinance
and the staff recommendation is to abide by the citizen request.
Again, these MSTU's were brought forth by citizen groups
petitioning the Board who wanted -- who elected to tax themselves
for a specific service and therefore, the Board has typically abided by
the wishes of that citizen advisory group in terms of budgetary
recommendations.
Again, they work with the staff in developing those. I will also
note at the very bottom, Livingston Road, Fund 161, there is a large
increase in terms of tax dollars. There was no tax levy. That is a new
MSTU proposed at two mills.
Now, I know the Citizen Advisory Group there is still working
out and is exploring some cautionary proposals. Obviously, between
now and July 30th, we'll have to bring that to final resolution in terms
of adopting a maximum tax rate, because once you set your proposed
millage rate at the end of July, you cannot exceed that.
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June 20, 2002
You can always reduce it from that point forward. The
Vanderbilt Beach MSTU, that is also a new tax levy proposed in FY
03. That is a half mill tax levy which would correspond to $50 per
$100,000 of taxable value. The Livingston Road at two mills is $200
per $100,000 of taxable value.
And Mr. Kants and Mr. Feder and Ms. Newman are here if there
are any questions relative to those or if you had any questions relative
to the -- comments relative to the new MSTU's where we stand
currently.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Comments. I noticed that in
North Naples, we have a lot of districts dealing with drainage,
neighborhood drainage and stuff like that. And just citizens have
taken responsibility of what they want in their neighborhood and I
commend those people for doing that.
MR. OLLIFF: Unless there are any other questions here, the
only other thing I would like to point out, because I think this county
does a tremendous job of what I would call specialized government.
And, I mean, I think we customize government as much and as
I've ever been associated with for specific communities and
neighborhoods who have desires and needs.
And I would continue to urge you to look at MSTU, MSTBU
processes as a way to -- to satisfy a lot of communities who have a
request for a higher level of government service. I just think it makes
a world of sense.
We have actually put together a very simplified brochure on
how to do that for our community, so anybody who wants the
information on how to create an MSTU, by all means have them
come see us and we'll provide them the way.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I think that's an excellent
suggestion. Is there any way we can send out to some of the
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June 20, 2002
communities that are requesting us to perform special functions, like
putting in traffic control devices and/or do Stormwater Management,
can we initiate mailing to some of those people suggesting they
pursue this alternative and in the meantime --
MR. FEDERS: Commissioner, I think your point is very well
taken. We are exercising that and are working on that process of the
brochures and how the process works, and as we have more of these
specialized requests, we are raising those opportunities wherever an
MST would make sense.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. You-- you understand that
there are at least two that are requesting some traffic calming in their
neighborhoods. I don't know if they have received any
correspondence that indicates to them what is available.
I'll be happy to do that within my district, and I'm sure the other
commissioners would be too, but it would be good if it were a normal
process.
If we get a request from someone, we provide them that
information and that way they could get started, perhaps dealing with
that before it gets to the Board of County Commissioners.
MR. FEDERS: We are normalizing that process. We have
received some, but they are obviously welcome to get that.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: And if you give me some of that
documentation, I'll get it distributed to them.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You're welcome to join us this
evening, Commissioner Coyle. We are going to be going to
Immokalee. Ed Cants is going to be there.
We are working on a MSTU, a general one to cover a good part
of Immokalee to bring those roads up to compliance and there is
pretty much acceptance on the part of the community.
We also got one going on Rock Road and we have one in the
process, too, down on Orange Tree, so this is a wonderful process
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June 20, 2002
and the government, they step in and they actually become their own
government entity.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I'll have to decline your invitation,
however.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, I'm surprised with
Commissioner Coyle. I thought you just needed another meeting to
make your life complete.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Immokalee is absolutely beautiful
this time of the year.
MR. OLLIFF: Mike, where are you heading us?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Page C-32, there are three MSTU's, Fire
District MSTU's, actually, four, excuse me --
COMMISSIONER HENNING: What page?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: C-32.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: It's a yellow page. We have four fire
district MSTU's. Probably first and foremost, is Collier County Fire.
That is to protect areas that are outside the boundaries of an existing
fire district.
There is a mutual adjoint agreement between the various fire
districts in terms of who is providing coverage in those areas and the
relative percentage shares of that -- of that money. That's a two mill
tax levy.
Isles of Capri, pursuant to the Board direction this year, has
increased it's millage from one to 1.5. You see the corresponding
impact per $ ! 00,000 taxable value of $50 and that was, I think, there
was a lot of community discussion before that ever came to the Board
and it was approved.
Chief Rodriguez is here. Ochopee Fire obviously is --is
covering the 1-75 corridor as well as the eastern segment. They have
a huge area in terms of coverage. There is a four mill tax levy that's
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June 20, 2002
consistent with what it has been in the past. No impact in terms of
millage.
The Goodland/Horr's Island Fire Control MSTU, prior to the
Marco Island incorporation, Goodland and Horr's Island were
provided fire coverage by the City of Marco Island. When Marco
incorporated, Goodland and Horr's Island were no longer included in
the boundaries of that district.
Therefore, an MSTU was created to provide the means of
generating funding for a contractual service agreement with the
newly formed city of Marco Island, so coverage to the Goodland
Horr's Island Fire Control District is provided through and inter-local
agreement between the Board and the City of Marco Island.
The millage within the Goodland/Horr's Island Fire Control goes
from .7377 to .6181, a decrease of $11.96. Mr. Ochs has renegotiated
the agreement. We had an existing agreement with the City of Marco
Island, which has expired.
That will be on your agenda for the 25th. Mr. Ochs is nodding in
the affirmative for approval, and that's for a two-year period I believe
that's $56,400 -- $56,600, so that's, actually, the Ad Valorem tax levy
decreases slightly and the -- there is a $200 increase in the agreement.
So we can -- within Isles of Capri, we can expand it for three
full-time fire fighter positions. This will help to comply with the two
in/two out rule which recommends minimum staffing to ensure
firefighter safety.
Due to the interrelationship, the fire districts are discussed
within -- are reflected here, Commissioner, you need to be aware,
there is a-- a slight-- there's $5300 that goes from the General Fund
to the Isles of Capri Fire District for-- they have the only rescue boat
within Collier-- within Collier County.
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June 20, 2002
And they are oftentimes called outside of their district
boundaries to -- to assist either stranded motorists, boat fires,
whatever-- whatever the nature of the emergency is.
And as such, they are provided a small stipend from the General
Fund for that service that's provided obviously for the cost of making
those runs outside or their district.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: That's $5300?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: $5300. It was in 02 and 03. While Chief
Rodriguez is here, given there is no increase there, I think it's -- it's
worth addressing here rather than making him come back tomorrow
to discuss that in a -- in a similar fashion.
The Ochopee Fire, due to the increase in taxable value, that also
has a major decrease in the PILT Transfer. Actually, that number is
slightly incorrect. It went from 370 -- 349.6 and it's -- actually
should be $190,800, not 45.2. There is a --
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: What page are we on?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: C-32.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: So instead of 45.2, it's what?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: It's $190,800 going from 349.6, so there is
a major decrease. That's due to available fund balance within the
Ochopee Fire District due to increased value.
You are actually seeing values as ports of the islands tend to
grow over time and the magnitude of the housing cost there, you are
seeing that reflected in the taxable value within the Ochopee Fire
District.
And as such, there is some money, payment in lieu of taxes that
is from the General Fund, obviously they're covering a -- a wide
variety of calls on the 1-75 corridor for emergencies, as well as fire
responses for which they are compensated, so the balancer for the
Ochopee fire District is that PILT Transfer from the General Fund,
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June 20, 2002
but it is -- there is a 45-percent decrease again, going from 349.6 to
$190,800.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Question. The two in/two out
sheet, is -- is that a mandate or is that a recommendation?
MR. RODRIGUEZ: It is a recommendation. It was approved
on April 1 st of this year.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: It was approved by who?
MR. RODRIGUEZ: By the Florida State Fire Marshall's Office
in Ocala.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Would you give us the boundaries of
your district?
MR. RODRIGUEZ: Yes, sir. We cover a portion of Fiddler's
Creek, which is the first mile into Fiddler's Creek, as well as a portion
of Mainsail Drive all the way south to the top of the Marco Bridge, as
well as the Isles of Capri.
And we also cover a huge portion of Key Wayden Island where
we provide fire and rescue services with our boat to the residents out
there, the homes that are out there.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA:
there?
MR. RODRIGUEZ: Yes.
How about the foresty lands out
We also participate in District One
distribution where we provide any type of assistance out in the
Golden Gate Estates area or anywhere in Collier County that needs
assistance with the brush fires.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: What about if we do work on State
land? Do we get any kind of reciprocal agreement when we help
fight fires on state land?
MR. RODRIGUEZ: Not unless it's been declared a State of
Emergency. We just have a mutual aid agreement with all of the
state agencies.
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June 20, 2002
MR. OLLIFF: And that's where you get what's called PILT
money, payment in lieu of taxes from the federal government, so
primarily most of the land out there are federally held and we get
PILT payments from the federal government.
I will tell you and it's something you need to keep an eye on. I'll
ask Mike to provide some subsequent reports for you. The federal
government is making a move to try and reduce PILT Payments to --
to all states and local governments, and while it won't have a
tremendous impact on us, it could have as much as $100,000 impact
on our revenue side of the picture.
I have sent a letter asking that they reconsider that, especially as
it would impact us financially here, and I think other fire districts
have done the same.
The only other thing I wanted to say in Rod's defense here,
frankly, is he runs the cheapest stinking Fire Department I have ever
seen. They -- they beg, borrow and steal.
They hold garage sales to raise money down there and I think he
has got a tremendous amount of community support and does a great
job for what I think is a fairly reasonable budget.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: That's true. He does a -- they do a
wonderful job down there and they make a dollar go a long, long
way. I was just trying to point out the -- the size of the district is so
enormous, it -- it escapes most people what the responsibility is.
And the only hope I would have is that whenever we do have
fires in forest lands, that we try to go to the government and get it
declared an emergency so we can get compensated. Mr. Peno?
MR. PENO: Yes. Commissioners, for the record, my name is
Ken Peno, of the Interim Services, Emergency Service Administrator.
To answer your question, if we are called to another district or
another jurisdiction, we do have a plan in place to reimburse or
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June 20, 2002
collect from that district, just as they did from us a couple of years
ago.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. Any other questions?
MR. OLLIFF: Mike, where are you heading us now.9
MR. SMYKOWSKI: C-38 is the Tourist Development Funds.
MR. OLLIFF: Again, Rod, thank you.
MR. RODRIGUEZ: Thanks.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Again, you have four major funding
groups here. There is one fund for museums. That's Fund 193 and
that -- there is funding in the FY 03 budget for the Collier County
Museum, the Marco Island Historical Society and the Botanical
Gardens. And those have already gone through the TDC and on
through the Board.
Again, your policy making role has primarily already taken
place due to the TDC meeting and your recommendations -- approval
of the recommendations that have been previously submitted through
the TDC through Mr. Wallace and Mr. Havel related to beaches.
In the advertising, we do have 1.2 million dollars budgeted for
advertising of Collier County as a tourist destination, and the budget
does include the tourism manager -- a tourism manager position and I
believe we are at the point of having made an offer.
We are finalizing the -- I think they were down to three and we
are trying to narrow that down and get someone aboard to take on
that responsibility and relieve Mr. Wallace of his duties therein.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Just a question concerning the
museum allocation. Has the $900 expanded service fee or amount
been approved by the TDC.9 Is that coming from TDC Funds?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes. That is from TDC Funds within the
existing Museum Allocation.
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June 20, 2002
COMMISSIONER COYLE: So that has already been
approved?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Again, the third fund is Beaches. Mr.
Havel has submitted a comprehensive list. The Board has already
acted upon those. The only other point is Item 4, which is the
Disaster Recovery Fund that we hope to not have to use very often,
but in the event of emergency, we do like to have those funds
available and ready to go with an ad campaign. We did dip into that
slightly this year.
The Board approved $250,000 in supplemental advertising
following the 9/11 issue and the slow down in tourism. We've uped
that back to a million dollars to have a million dollars available in the
event of some catastrophic event.
Again, hopefully never to have to use that, but in the event of
hurricanes or other natural disaster, it just's prudent to have that
available as needed.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Mr. Wallace has done a remarkable
job of pulling this all together, even though it's something that was
handed to him like a hot potato.
And he has done a remarkable job of bringing all the entities and
moving forward to the Director of Tourism, which, in very short
order will be coming forward. A couple words on that may give
reassurance to everyone where we are going, Mr. Wallace.
MR. WALLACE: For the record, Bleu Wallace. For the record,
I'm the Director of Community Development Operations that has
been tasked with overseeing the tourism effort.
Joe Schmitt, the Administrator of Community Development
headed up the interview panel that was made up of five individuals,
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June 20, 2002
one of them from the tourism industry, and we have involved the
tourism industry in every step of the way as a group program.
We had interviews with finalists last Friday and made an offer
and we are waiting for acceptance. Hopefully, we can have a tourism
manager on board in short order.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Once again, all these funds come
from the tourist tax?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Any other questions? Thank you.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: With that, Commissioners we'll move to
page C-44 and 45, which is a summary of both the appropriations and
the revenues associated with the Community Development Fund.
Again, that is a self-supporting fund for the regulation of the
building and construction industry in Collier County funded by --
primarily by Building Permit Fees along with planning and
engineering review related fees. I would like to just provide an
overview of the fund.
The total Fund Revenues are actually down 10.3 percent. That's
a function of the expenditure for the building expansion that they are
soon to break ground on, I believe. That will be coming this July.
We are looking to break ground on the building expansion.
There -- there is a -- there are a host of expanded service
requests that I'm sure Mr. Schmitt will walk us through as well as the
programs provided. Within the context of that though, we do require
a fee increase.
The budget is set up -- if you look on the purple page, C-44,
about midway down, it shows Total Operating Costs, and then there
is a line called Net Operations, Current Services, 14.4 million on net
operations with expanded services of 1774 for a total of
approximately 16.6 million dollars. That is balanced against the
operating revenues.
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If you would look on page C-45, the subtotal for Departmental
Revenues, you see 14975 and 1762, so we're -- overall to make this
work, there is a highlight at the bottom of C-45 showing overall, you
would need a fee increase of approximately 27 percent to balance
both the current and Expanded Service Operations as proposed in the
budget in keeping operating revenues and operating expenses in
equilibrium.
In other words, while there is a healthy reserve within this fund
to absorb any fluctuations in the construction industry, which in
Collier County has been particularly well-insulated from major
fluctuations, but over time, the inevitable will come as we get closer
to build out in Collier County. That -- the reserve is roughly
equivalent to about five months of operating expenses.
So while that is a seemingly a large sum of money, when you --
if you were to go into a major downturn, five months of operating
capital is -- is not an exorbitant amount of money.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I presume we are going to have a
chance to address each of the expanded service proposals later in -- MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes. We are going to do that in short
order.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: I'm just kind of giving you a general
budget framework so you understand the funding sources from this in
kind of a big picture perspective and then I'm going to turn it over to
Joe Schmitt, who is the administrator.
He is going to talk about organizational changes he's made --
he's proposing in the FY 03 budget, as well as take you through the
Expanded Service Requests.
The format itself also provides on one of the key things that Mr.
Baker is looking at or will be looking at, Building Permit Fees have
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June 20, 2002
been the driving the principal revenue source within -- within this
fund. You see Building Permit Revenue in Current Service. It's the
first line on C-45 of 9.9 million dollars.
Total -- total inclusive of expandeds is approximately 11.1. If
you look over to C-44 under the fifth or sixth line down, Building
Review and Permitting, you see on the expense side, it costs five
million dollars.
So obviously, we're making -- a large source of the income is on
the back of the building permit fee. A long-term issue within
Development Services has been to make the planning and
engineering side closer or to being self-supporting, relieving some of
the burden on the building permit side.
And just to highlight that for you, Commissioners, the planning
revenue, which is the third line down, is approximately 1.8 million
dollars, third line down on C-45 versus the cost of planning services
of 2.6 So you upside down there to the tune of about $900,000 where
expenses on the planning side are actually subsidized by building
permit revenue.
Engineering is in a similar vein. Engineering Revenue is
approximately 1.1 million dollars. Overall, engineering expenses
inclusive of expandeds is approximately 1.8 million dollars, so you
are upside down there $600,000.
Obviously, we would like to admit the -- while we are looking at
fees, and one of the expandeds that we'll talk about shortly is a -- is a
Comprehensive Rate Study is -- is looking to shift that -- redistribute
that burden from the building permit side to the planning and
engineering fee side.
And with that, I'll turn it over to Mr. Schmitt and Mr. Baker
from the Community Development Division.
MR. SCHMITT: For the record, Joe Schmitt, Administrator of
Community Development and Environmental Services. Just to
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June 20, 2002
follow up what Mike said, the industry prefers it that way where the -
- the lower cost is at the planning end, meaning the SBP reviews -- or
the site -- or the -- well, the plan review piece.
Then, when they come in to the building permits where the
expense is really at. What I really need to do within this division is
look at the cost of doing business. I need to evaluate the cost of
doing business.
There is no system right now that -- to capture what it costs for a
plan review, what it costs for a building review, what it costs for an
SDP, what it cost for each of those aspects of the building process,
and I need to implement, and that's a whole other hour explanation.
I don't want to get into that, but that's where we need to go so I
can operate like a business and compare direct and indirect costs,
billable hours, non-billable hours; those kind of things.
What I handed out in front of you I'm going to highlight briefly.
As far as my -- when you look at the division, I have ten funds and
approximately 34 cost centers.
So over the next two days we are going to be bouncing back and
forth, but right now, we are concentrating specifically on Fund 113.
But I'm going to highlight all of the expanded services just so you
have an overview.
I handed out a color version. You should have that in front of
you, and for us that are both chronologically and visually impaired, I
have a -- a black and white copy that has been enlarged a little bit and
you can make some notes on. Current Organization, 233 and a half
FTE.
No, I didn't saw one person in half. That is part-time positions
that roll up into the code enforcement.
Highlight of the Changes. What I'm going to do -- and I'm
going to go over each of these, it's the creation of a community in
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June 20, 2002
planning and redevelopment organization within the Planning
Services Department.
I'm going to move the Immokalee Initiative from code
enforcement to the planning -- community planning and
redevelopment.
We talked about the Public Affairs or public information piece
expansion of code enforcement services and creation of an
environmental and review staff. What does that mean?
If you go to the next slide, you have expanded services. I go to
actually 31, plus 31 and a half FTE and the numbers are so indicated
on the chart. I'm going to go through each one of those so you can
get an idea of what the expanded services are.
You can keep that chart for reference and I'll go back to it again,
but that's just a highlight. And I'm going quickly because I don't
want to burn up a lot of time.
This is probably the most significant. Planning Services
Department, the Environmental Natural Resources. Frankly, I have a
Director of Natural Resources, who really was overlooking about six
folks and I said, you know, what I need to do is get the
Environmental Review Fees out of the Planning Department and
create an environmental and natural resource piece.
And as you recall, even from last night with the rural lands, rural
fringe environmental portion, an oversight in this county is going to
grow significantly. In fact, we don't even know yet as we begin to
assess in 04 and 05. So Bill Lorenz, I'm moving for my
Environmental Specialist into an organization called Environmental
Planning and Review.
What that does is separate that overview process in that they
don't become co-oped by the plan review process and it's a separate
and distinct review, and I'm talking about one expanded position.
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June 20, 2002
We'll talk about that but what I'm looking at is an environmental
planner.
And functionally, they will become an Environmental and
Natural Resource Department. Over in the planning services, I'm
recommending that we separate out of comp planning the folks who
do the overlay studies, the 41 study, the Vanderbilt Beach, the East
Naples, the Golden Gate Master Plan.
Those kind of folks that do those kind of things that are really
community planning and community redevelopment. The CRA and
taking -- I'm going to move five people from comp planning into this
organization, and what I'm asking for is another expanded position to
go into that organization. You are going to see that. It's already been
approved.
You've been briefed on that as part of the CRA, one third for the
Immokalee CRA, one third for the triangle and then one third for--
for comp planning, so -- so that's the one expanded.
Current planning, I'm looking for four planners to go into
current planning. One senior planner, one principal planner, one
planner and one tech.
And in comp planning, the two expanded positions that are
showing here, those are the two expanded positions that we talked
about last night during the rural fringe, that would be looking at third
quarter of the fiscal year, looking at hiring and creating some
positions to begin to manage and plan for the implementation of all
the activities associated with the rural lands and rural fringe.
So if you look at the net in planning, plus seven in net plus one,
so that's -- that's the planning services and the natural resources,
environmental natural resources.
Building and Planning Review, I'm looking at eight total
positions. My department director Ed Perico will talk about that and
we'll discuss the expanded services there and explain why we need
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June 20, 2002
those positions to support the industry. And frankly, seven positions
in inspections and planning and one in contract licensing.
What I have done with finance and housing and urban
improvement, and I -- I neglected to explain that my economic
development manager, which is part of this position I want to move
into the -- the planning and redevelopment piece where I think it
belongs.
It does not really belong under the housing and urban
improvement. It really belongs with the -- the team that is going to
look at the community planning and the economic development to
promote that piece of it, especially when you are talking about the
CRA business, so my -- my economic development manager will
move.
HUI, there's really no plus ups here, but what I've done is taken
my business manager, Mr. Danny Baker, made him into a
Department Chief, really a Department Director, Finance and HUI
Department and downgraded the HUI manager position.
I want to keep that position though and put that under the CBDG
functions and that person is going to focus primarily on grant
applications and going out and getting the grant money that exists out
there.
We really don't have anybody to cast the net, to got out and get
that kind of grant money. So that's kind of a capture of what I've
done there.
I think the most significant impact here is code enforcement, 13
and a half folks, and we'll talk about that tomorrow, so we'll save that
on our plate when we talk about the General Fund.
But this is frankly what we are looking at, to capture this we are
looking for an afternoon and evening shift to do our code
enforcement and -- and we've got some figures. We'll talk about that
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June 20, 2002
more in length tomorrow at least from an aspect of where we want to
go with code enforcement.
And the other piece was the Public Affairs Office -- Public
Information Office. This is -- we already have the community
planning coordinator.
What I'd like to do as -- as part of the overall plan within the
county, this would be the public affairs or public information piece,
to handle things, customers -- customer relations, customer
complaints, relationships and the public information piece with --
with growth and all the other aspects as part of this business.
And this person would report directly to me, and if you think
back of several of the things where I think in my six months here --
somehow it seems longer than that, Boss. I don't know.
But it -- I think we can recognize some failures in the public
information piece that we need to be proactive instead of reactive,
and this person would capture that.
And this is also talking about the -- the part that you-all
approved. Back in October, the Community Planning Coordinator --
I'm -- I'm using you-all, there you go. See that?
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You picked it up from me. And
before you go on though, we do--
COMMISSIONER COYLE: No. You got to get it right. It's
ya'll.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Fiala would like to --
MR. SCHMITT: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Fast question. Is this -- this person
that you are talking about like an Ambotsman(phonetic.) I got that
impression, like Sally Barker had suggested that we bring into the
county was an Ambotsman to be that liaison?
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June 20, 2002
MR. SCHMITT: Yes. In -- in my position, it would be -- I'm
looking for this person to do three things, and it integrates with the
overall plan within the county.
Of course, the -- the person at the county will be doing that at
the county level, but I also get a lot of, as you well know, I get a lot
of mail from each of the commissioners that are customer complaints
and customer issues, and it eats up a lot of my time to try and sort it
out and I think you need me to do things that need to be done to run
your organization.
This person, I would say, "Get this to the right department and --
and sort it out. Call the person, discuss it." Frankly, be more open
and -- and focused on customer service.
So they would be dealing with customers. They would be
dealing with the legislative affairs. Things that you want and you
need from my department through the departments or through the
division.
And third, with the media, a point of contact with the media.
Really, from a standpoint, there is a lot of things that we do and
oftentimes when I get a phone call, it's the 1 lth -- the 59th minute of
the 1 lth hour and Denise may have a deadline and I'm trying to sort
the pieces, and -- and certainly it would be nice for them to have
someone to talk to to get the information and integrate. This person
would be part of that whole piece within the county.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Just a general comment I wanted to
make so that we can try to keep our department heads and everything
else moving forward, whenever I send out an e-mail with a
complaint, of course, I always send it to the county manager too, but
then I reference it down. But I asked for a staff person to reply to that
person.
MR. SCHMITT: Yes.
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June 20, 2002
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I think I asked for yourself or Norm
Feders to have to reply directly to every single request that comes
through and to have the complainant think they are going to get that
response back from that person is really taxing the time of that
person.
You know, generally, I can see when we are handling a situation
of immense complexity and we need a general -- to come down and
pass it on might be one thing, but I -- I find it's working very well for
me. Commissioner Henning.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Mr. Schmitt, right now you
have an assistant in your office; correct? Connie?
MR. SCHMITT: Yes. Operations -- basically, her official title
MR. MUDD: Operations analyst.
MR. SCHMITT: Yes. Operations analyst. Thank you, Jim.
MR. HENNING: Isn't she fielding some of these --
MR. SCHMITT: Frankly, she's handling all the business pieces,
the moving of budget, those kinds of things. That's one person and
my business manager. I mean, that's the depth of the organization.
And -- and she is handling a lot of other things that I'm doing in
trying to run the organization.
Everything from managing funds to when evaluations are due,
all the other things associated with that piece of-- of the operation.
Very little from this standpoint. Yes. I do get her involved in that
but -- but this has grown into a full-time job. It really has.
And just to answer Commissioner Coletta's, no, it's not
something where I -- personally, of course, I get the e-mail and I send
them out as well.
But I need somebody to begin to capture these kind of things,
where are the systemic problems, and do those kinds of analyses.
Where are -- where do we need to begin to focus our energies rather
than -- than being reactive again, it's more of doing an analysis and
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June 20, 2002
being proactive. And that's really what we need. We need -- the
county is growing and the -- the issues have -- have increased.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning.
COMMISSIONER HENN1NG: Yeah. If I can continue on?
MR. SCHMITT: Yes.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: The way that the county
manager's coordinates is structured, we are -- the questions that we
get from community development are supposed to be sent on to you,
being the administrator.
MR. SCHMITT: Yes. That's fine. I need to keep my finger in
all that and I do. I read all my e-mails. It's not a problem.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And with this person, what you
are saying is they are going to be handling our questions now.
MS. SCHMITT: I will be using them to -- to sort them out to
the right location and -- and then making sure that they are answered.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. I misunderstood then,
because what I heard you say is you get a lot of e-mails from
commissioners and what you are looking for this person to do is
handle that.
MR. SCHMITT: A piece of that. It would be some of that. But
also handling -- I have a lot of folks who call and schedule
appointments who want to have issues that involve whether it's code
enforcement or -- or permits or other type of activities that they
want -- they want to have solved and -- out at Horseshoe Drive.
So this would be a person also who would help deal with those
customer issues. I don't know how better to explain it. I think -- it's a
person that would -- is used in that capacity to help sort out where
can the problem be solved and who does it need to go to within the
organization to get solved.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: How do we address the layered
government question so we can get a response, the Board of
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June 20, 2002
Commissioners? Are we still sending e-mails to you and then you
are going to direct those where they need to go?
MR. SCHMITT: Yes. I would prefer that. I mean, that's, I
think what you should do. I mean, I'm -- I don't have a problem with
that.
MR. OLLIFF: That is still my suggestion. I continue to tell you,
I think this is a fairly small part of what I think we envisioned this
person doing. You've got to keep in mind that your new public --
what do we call that new program for -- for planning where we are
out in the community?
MR. SCHMITT: Well, it's the community planning --
MR. OLLIFF: Well, the Public Information Program that we've
got for all the planning functions, for rezones, the developers are
required to go out and have the public meetings. One of the reasons
we lost the last person who quit us recently was -- was because of the
number of night meetings, and it was probably averaging four a week
that that person had to go in the evenings to ensure the developer was
holding the right kind of meeting out in the public and that he was
saying things that were truthful in terms of rezone applications that
might be in front of you.
This person, part of that function is going to be to take some of
that workload as well. And if there is one division that any of you
know needs to have good improved public communication out there
in terms of getting the truth out to the public about what's happening
in terms of land use items, it's this division.
And I just think it's one of those things where you can really get
some good benefit and address a lot of the problem areas that your
office and my office and Joe's office has been dealing with over the
course of the last year.
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June 20, 2002
Because to me it's -- it's more communication than it is anything,
and then we have got to get better information out to the public. I
think that's the primary focus of this position.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Correct. And -- and what I see
is -- is we got public information here(indicating,) over here in
transportation, now in community development, it's all over and I
don't see any coordinated effort to --
MR. OLLIFF: That was exactly the presentation we made
through Leo on the overall, what we are calling customer service and
communications function, where it is -- and you've got to understand.
This is a little different for this community and this organization, and
it is called a matrix type organization.
It is one where you have your traditional boxes in line on the
organizational chart, but you also have what we call a matrix
organization that exists within it and it has worked very, very well for
our GIS functions and for our FMS functions.
We think it will work very well for public information, where
the public information officer is going to report directly to the county
manager, but then is going to have oversight responsibilities for the
public information people that are located in each of the divisions as
well, so that there is going to be work plans developed that are
coordinated throughout our agency through a single public
information officer that reports to the county manager.
So I think you are going to get that coordination that I think you
want through that new structure that Leo presented to you.
MR. SCHMITT: Absolutely. This person, for lack of a better
term, are almost going to have two bosses. One, they are going to
have to work for me because they have to keep their finger on the
pulse of the organization, but yet they are going to have to focus their
eyeballs up to the county manager's office on what's happening
across the organization as well.
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June 20, 2002
COMMISSIONER HENNING: One more question on this
position. You said that it's -- what kind of relationship is it going to
have with code enforcement?
MR. SCHMITT: That will be a large part of this from a
standpoint of, again, you know there are a lot of customer complaints
and they are not going to get involved in that.
Those complaints go right into the customer service reps that
answer the phone, but -- but they are also things to come to my level,
again, where they begin to capture that data and evaluate where the
needs are.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Can you elaborate on that a
little bit?
MR. SCHMITT: Just yesterday, I had someone come in my
office and wanted to show me TV tapes out in Golden Gate about a --
I sat there for 25 minutes talking with him and looking at the tapes
about what he thinks is an illegal business going on next door. I
looked at the tapes and those kinds of things.
I mean, I need to deal with those kinds. They are not -- we don't
need them up at your level. They need to come to me if they don't
get resolution, so I would ask this person to help sort that out.
I'm worried about budget. I'm doing other things. I would have
somebody to help sort that out and get that solved through code
enforcement if, in fact, I need to get code enforcement folks out and
make sure that Michelle is tasked with a tasker of some sort in order
to respond back to me.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is this person going to be over
the code enforcement director?
MR. SCHMITT: Oh, no. No. No
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is she still going to have the
power?
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June 20, 2002
MR. SCHMITT: No. Code enforcement reports to me. I mean,
I -- there should be no -- this person is a personal staff officer
reporting directly to me. In fact, if there is any guidance, it would be
me over to Michelle. That's the way it has to be.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Then don't you think that you
should be reviewing those complaints about code enforcement if you
are the one --
MR. SCHMITT: Yes. But I have a director that we pay to do
that, but I -- yes, that's part of my responsibility. I have a pretty large
organization and I need to focus on where those problems are as well.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: On running the organization.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, I'm not going to beat this
upm
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Let's go to Commissioner Coyle.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: The Productivity Committee had
some recommendations with respect to some of the additions. Joe,
have you had a chance to take a look at those and -- and respond to
them and--
MR. SCHMITT: I have --
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Before you do that, I'd like to
make sure we're going to be able to get Janet up also to -- to address
that so you can sort out differences. Okay?
MR. SCHMITT: Commissioner, can I make a request? We can
sort those out as we go through each of the departments.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay.
MR. SCHMITT: And I think that's the best way to do that,
because we have the data that at least from a standpoint to
demonstrate why we need the expanded services and then, of course,
the decision is up to you whether or not those are approved.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Do we do this as part of your
continuing presentation or is this going to be done at a different time?
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June 20, 2002
MR. SCHMITT: We are going to do that with Mike as we go
through each of the budgets.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Commissioners, if you could turn to page
C-46, there is the department by department list of the expandeds and
I think with that, we'll begin walking through --
MR. OLLIFF: We'll move into that. I just -- I wanted to let you
know why we just did what we did. There are three divisions where I
think there is some major organizational changes. And I have heard
from at least a couple of you that -- that you don't want to have to try
and follow the "P" to find out the comparison from the FY 02 budget
to the FY 03 budget.
And so we tried to provide for you as clear as we could
organizational chart pictures that showed what was changed and a
handout so that you can keep that with you as you are going through
the budget so that you will know where the "P" went to from FY 02
to 03.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Mr. Olliff, you want to find an
appropriate time to break for lunch. I'll let you pick that.
MR. OLLIFF: How long do you think this division is going to
take, Mike?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: I -- I say we try to walk our way through
the expanded list on --
MR. OLLIFF: And take a break after Community
Development?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yeah. That would be a logical break
point.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: C-46. Joe, you want to just take them one
by one? I see the first one is the communications coordinator.
MR. SCHMITT: Right. We have already gone through the
communications coordinator, planning services. I talked about those.
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June 20, 2002
Unfortunately, Susan Murray, the Interim Planning Services director
had to leave.
She had a personal emergency, so Denny and I -- Mr. Baker and
I will try and -- we're going to cover that, but we have talked about
the expanded services, and in that, the expanded services.
Now, I need to clarify that some of the budget pages still haven't
caught up with some of the re-organization and that's going to be
somewhat confusing, but it's just a matter of wharp speed that I'm
trying to move on trying to get the re-organization in place by the
time we implement the budget.
What we show here are all the planner positions, the two
principal planners, the senior planner, a planner in planning tech,
those are the actually plus five, and then the additional one that goes
over into the -- that will go into the environmental and natural
resources, so those were the planning positions, and, Denny, if you
want to put those up on the visualizer and we can briefly show some
of the Expanded Services.
One of the things that I'll ask Denny to point out frankly is the
number of hours in planning the substantial increase number of hours
with the implantation of the public participation process.
MR. BAKER: Good morning, Commissioners. Denny Baker,
Business Manager of Community Development. The first-- you can
see this on the visualizer okay, this is from Susan Murray. The first
graph up top is talking about the activity for rezoning conditional
uses and variances in the year 2002 and 2003.
You can see there is a very, very significant increase of 120
petitions between those -- those two periods of time. A very, very
significant increase. That's about--
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Commissioner Coletta.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Yes. Go ahead, Commissioner
Henning.
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June 20, 2002
COMMISSIONER HENNING: On this item, I think that we all
know how hard the planners and how long they are working and how
great they are --
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: And how short-staffed they also are.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yes.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right. And I-- if anybody has
a problem with this or if anybody doesn't have a problem, can we
move on?
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I have no problem with this.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you, yes.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I think we can move on.
MR. SCHMITT: In fact, I'm anxiously looking forward to --
and so is Susan of the arrival of our new Planning Services Director
and Margaret, when she comes in the first of July and certainly Susan
will be relieved as well.
I think the only piece that I don want to highlight, we do have
the expanded two that I talked about in the briefing that -- as part of
this third quarter and we're still feeling it out.
We'll come back to you -- to the Board as we begin to do some
analyses as the implementation of the Rural Lands and Rural Fringe.
The next -- the building review, Mr. Ed Perico will talk, and I know
Janet had some -- some issues here she raised about the expanded
services and Ed will talk about the aid that he's requested.
MR. PERICO: For the record, Ed Perico, Building Director. A
quick overview of my organizational chart, which would be--
include reviews of inspections, planning review, contractor licensing,
all right? I'm sorry I couldn't fit it all on one bigger page.
But anyway, we're asking for eight additional building
inspectors within the department. One for signs, two in each,
electrical, plumbing mechanical. Our increase in our workload is just
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June 20, 2002
unbelievable. We keep saying it's going to go down in the county
and it just keeps going up.
I'm up about 1300 permits issued, the same time this year as last
year. My construction value is up by approximately up a hundred
million dollars.
My revenues are up. My inspections have gone up about 6,000
ahead of last year at the same time. I'm projecting about 165,000
inspections for this year. We've taken on an additional work loads
with the new building code that's gone into effect.
What I've done is done a comparison of inspections per
employee per day with the adjoining counties, which shows you that
my inspectors are going out-- we have a full staff of 27 inspectors
working.
They are going out with an average of 26 inspections per day.
In reality, they are doing about 29. What I'm proposing, like I say,
with here, to comparison with Martin County, Sarasota County, Lee,
you can see that they are averaging anywhere between 12 to 17
inspections per day. I'm not trying to compete with the other
counties.
What I'm trying to do is go apples to apples and in reality, we
are not with the homes that we are doing here in Collier County. It's
getting a lot more complex, the sizes of the homes and stuff.
MR. SCHMITT: IfI could point out also that the -- these are
fees paid for services provided, so it's no an Ad Valorem hit. It is --
it's a fee for service and, of course, any delay in inspection raises the
value of-- of the construction because that's a principal part of the
whole process and I'm not telling you nothing you don't know, but
this is a fee for service type of operation.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I'd like to go to Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's what I was going to ask. So
in other words, if we have eight new positions, then we will get the
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June 20, 2002
money in for those inspections to pay for those positions? It will not
come out of Ad Valorem tax.'?
MS. SCHMITT: Yes, ma'am.
MR. PERICO: That's correct.
MR. SCHMITT: Yes, ma'am. That will come out of the -- the
fees that they pay when they come in and draw a permit, and -- and
we are going to raise our fees accordingly, but these are services
provided based on the fees that they pay.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: User fee.
MR. SCHMITT: User fee. Absolutely.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, oh, I see. I did not understand
that. Okay.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Commissioner, all of these expanded
requests on page C-46, while we are talking about the Community
Development Fund 113 are fully fee supported.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: If I may point out another-- another
item, the complaint we have been getting, we have had some
problems in the past with missing different things along the way, and
with 29 inspections a day, just -- just try to vision this. Traveling
from one end of the county to the other, covering 29. How
thoroughly can you give an inspection? Are you going to be able to
do that?
You are doing the -- the builder a favor when you are doing
those inspections. You are certifying that building or that house
meets the qualifications that -- for Collier County. And if you screw
up on it, then they pay the price down the road and then we look
foolish.
How can we expect them to perform the way they need to be
when we are asking them to perform services way over and above at
29 a day. It's just unbelievable.
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June 20, 2002
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And actually we are getting sued in
a few instances because the spot survey wasn't complete --
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Exactly.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Because probably they were
driving by and didn't -- didn't get as much as they should have.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle and then
Commissioner Henning and Commissioner Carter.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: He gets to go first.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. We'll let -- he's the senior
member of this Council.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Not the oldest, just the senior.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: No, but the senior member as far as
time.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Let me ask a question. I
understand a number of positions and then I believe you told me it
would take some time to train somebody to get up to speed to do this.
This is not like you walk off the street and the next day you are a
building inspector. So this would be a phased-in process as I would
understand it.
MR. PERICO: Yes, sir. What I've done now-- what I've tried
to do, we have to be -- we're mandated by law that everybody has to
be state certified. I can't just bring any guy off the street.
He has to be able to meet a provisional license, show years of
experience prior to being able to go out to anybody's home. And my
guys average about 33 years of experience in each discipline and I
feel very proud about that. They know their job.
My concerns -- I'm very concerned to be perfectly honest with
you, with the number of inspections that they are doing. You know,
act on what you had said before. I'm also -- I have lived here 25
years.
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June 20, 2002
I've got a lot of commitment in this community and I've been
with the Building Department 16 years. And I don't want to see
anything happen here, so I need all the help I can get.
Like I say, it's a User Fee. I want to run it like a business and if,
in fact, things start to take a dive, we'll have to take a look at it. If we
have to start letting people go, then we'll look at it, if there ever is a
recession. I mean, you know, like I say, all these years I haven't seen
it yet, so --
COMMISSIONER CARTER: So is it realistic that we could
hire and train and put six people in in a fiscal year or would this
really in reality be, maybe three or four?
MR. PERICO: It's going to take time because there again, with
the applications and as busy as it is, we don't get all the people we
would like to get in, and I'm not just going to hire somebody just for
the sake of hiring them. They are going to know what they are doing
before they come on board.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I'm-- I'm just having some
difficulty with the format here. You need to help me. I'm
accustomed to looking at an organization and looking at the revenues
and expenses and seeing where they are. So I'm having a little
difficulty here with respect to Expanded Services.
I've got one sheet on page B-6 that says Community
Development and it listed -- lists a number of Expanded Services,
including the eight code investigators. And then I have C-46 which
indicates Expanded Services and in some cases, maybe all cases, the
numbers are substantially different --
MR. OLLIFF: Let me try and help you.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah.
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June 20, 2002
MR. OLLIFF: What you are looking at on B-6, we are -- again
this book is broken down by not only division, but by fund. So the
Funding Source is different on B-6 versus the Funding Source that
you are looking at on C-44, 45 and 46. Everything that we are
currently working through right now is fee-driven.
These are the functions in Community Development
Environmental Services that are supported by fee revenue. The
things that you are looking for back on page B-6 are General Fund,
Unincorporated General Fund 111.
So we tried to make sure that then you are looking at funds, you
know that what used to happen was Commission would make a cut in
a particular program and think it affected the tax rate.
In this particular case, we want you to be very clear that when
you are making adjustments on page 44, 45 and 46, that those are fee-
driven and supported functions.
The reductions there don't affect the millage rate or the tax rate
whatsoever and will be very clear when we get to those pages when
you are talking about Ad Valorem taxes. These are all fee-supported.
That's why they are all separate and that's why they are in separate
sections of the book.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: For the Commissioners, the way it's set up
on page C-44, if you look in the Expanded column, the first one
under Development Services Building Admin, $182,000. If you look
at your first subtotal on the Expanded list on C-46, it's $182,000.
So it's two expandeds that total that 182. The total Departmental
Expandeds are $1,542,600, which is your subtotal grand total at the
bottom of C-46. So department by department, it's going to tied back
to that Expanded List.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: So we are going to be talking
about Expanded Services for this department in -- at two different
times?
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June 20, 2002
MS. OLLIFF: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Is that what we are saying?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes, sir.
MR. OLLIFF: And the fact that I think it's just a mere
coincidence, you are looking at eight expanded requests on page B-6
and you are looking at eight over here, they are eight completely
separate positions in completely separate departments.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Code Enforcement, we'll -- we'll be
addressing first thing tomorrow morning and that will lead on into to
our General Fund discussion and we'll discuss the various funding
sources.
The differentiating factor here again is, these are fee-supported
and then those other requests are in a separate tab because they are
Ad Valorem tax-supported.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: These expanded positions, I see
it as Public Health and Safety. These people are going out there and
inspecting their homes, whether it be a remodel or new construction.
And I can tell you from the responsible contractors out there or
subcontractors there is a little concern about the time allotted for each
inspector to inspect electrical and plumbing; those things that are
hidden in the walls.
And if-- if we could use this money for transportations, I might
think a little bit harder on these Expanded Services, but I don't have a
problem with them the way they are.
MR. SCHMITT: This -- this money can only be used in
services provided within Community Development. We can't-- we
can't move this to another area.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I know.
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June 20, 2002
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: And I would like to take a minute to
recognize Janet Vasey from the -- the Vice President of the
Productivity Committee. Do you have some comments on this?
MS. VASEY: Yes, I do. Thank you very much. Janet Vasey for
the record. We are recommending that you do not approve the
administrative positions of $82,000 for the Communication
Coordinator.
And the reason was we looked at the -- what else was going on
in the administration area, and there is the Community Planning
Coordinator. That position already exists in this office and has -- has
not been filled and has not been planned for filling for the rest of this
fiscal year. And then this new position is being added for the
Communications Coordinator.
So you've got a Community Planning Coordinator and a
Communications Coordinator both that would be pretty much new
for FY 03. And, you know, they've been doing the work load right
now without either one of those positions, and so we felt that one of
them would be enough, not both of them for handling this kind of
function. And -- and that's kind of key to a lot of things we looked at.
We looked at what the vacancies are and what have they been
doing with the people that they have currently on board, and then
what is -- what are they asking for now. So we felt looking at those
two positions, that the one -- the new one on the Communications
Coordinator was a little bit soft, and so we recommended not funding
that one.
And -- and I would like to address the building inspectors. We
had some questions on this when we were doing the analysis and --
and we kind of performed our own analysis on the workload. And if
I could direct your attention to page C-52. I would like to just take a
minute to explain what we did and how we calculated the
requirement.
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June 20, 2002
If you'll look at the bottom of the page on C-52, there is a table
that has performance measures on it. And the last two lines are the
ones that I want to draw your attention to. The number of building
inspections conducted each year and the number of investigations per
employee.
And we looked at that as the workload as the number of
inspections and then the workload per person is the bottom line. We
went back -- we heard the analysis about the comparison between
other counties and we felt that a more representative analysis would
be to look at what has this department done in prior years.
So we went all the way back to 1997 to see what the workload
was and what the number of inspections per person has been, and you
-- you can see on the table right there for FY 01, 02 and 03, that it has
gone up, the number of inspections per person.
If you go back and look at 1997, the inspections per person were
5440; '98, 5359; 1999, 5469 and there was a grouping of the -- in the
mid 5,500 per year, per employee. It was historically what they were
doing and then it has recently creeped up.
So we said, what would it look like if we go back to that level of
workload that you had historically performed, and -- and when you
do that calculation and when you divide 164,000 by 5469, you come
up with three new people is what you need.
And so that was our recommendation just looking at the
historical performance. And saying that was a better base line in
comparison perhaps then with other-- yes?
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt
you but did you in your, and I appreciate how you figured it out. I
would base it on that also. But did you factor in the new building
code that's out there and, you know, the drive time might be a little
bit more then it was before?
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June 20, 2002
And the lack of performance that we were getting due to the
large number of people that were out there in the field and past
complaints we've had. This is a problem I got a concern on.
We've had a failure in the fact that we had a number of different
places where the inspection was less than completed. It was rushed
through. Was this all factored in in your recommendation?
MS. VASEY: No. Not in specific quantitative terms. What we
were looking at was how, you know, how it was done in the past,
what was the representative workload in the past and going back to
that level.
So it has not looked at complaints in either time period. You
know, maybe back three years ago there weren't very many
complaints. I don't really know that.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: We -- we get quite a few and they
are based on what happened in the past, people coming in here that
have their variances, because some -- they weren't caught, people that
-- well, we get calls on everything from electrical, plumbing and they
are mad as anything because the inspection wasn't complete enough
to be able to catch that.
And I know of cases, I've heard of it before from even people in
the department where quite often. It's a matter of a drive-up and then
move onto the next place, just a quick courtesy look and then move
on. You know, there was no time for it. They're doing the job but
they are doing it with the resources at hand.
I, frankly, am not happy with everything that we are getting at
this point in time and I'm not faulting them. I'm faulting the fact that
they don't have the tools to be able to do it with. That's -- that's my
concern.
I appreciate where you are coming from and it's a lot of logic
behind what you say but there is some factors into this that I want to
be able to weigh also.
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June 20, 2002
MS. VASEY: Well, one of the things that you are getting out of
this is if you look at the workload in 02, it's 164,000 that they are
planning to do, or I think I heard you say 165, maybe as an updated
figure. And they are planning about the same level of workload in
FY 03. It is the expectation.
And -- and three people gives them a ten percent-increase --
over a ten-percent increase in staff, and we felt like that was a pretty,
you know, fairly significant increase for no -- I mean, that gives you
the quantitative -- the quantitative increase -- I mean, the qualitative
increase.
Because if your work load is staying the same between the two
years and you're increasing the number of people by over ten percent,
then -- then you're getting the qualitative increase right there, they are
going to have more time to spend at each one of these places that they
go through.
And we -- I kind of-- I used a figure of about 248 days a year
and came out with -- with three new people, they would have maybe
21 -- 21 sites to visit in a day. Now, maybe there is something else --CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Can we go back to that one slide
there that showed the comparison? I think it was 29 we were doing.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Mr. Chairman, do you-- when
you finish this discussion, do you have three nods on the Board that
wants to move at this item, because at the end of the day, that's where
it is.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Well, I understand that and -- and
please, what I'm trying to do is justify what I'm doing in my -- my
own case.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, I'm not quarreling that. I
just --
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I understand and I'll be brief. I
understand what you are saying about three nods, but I -- what I --
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June 20, 2002
and I don't want to make comparisons across here. If we had 29
before and we are going to go down to 21, that still puts us way
above the average going across.
For the lack of performance, and I don't know, I'm not to sure
how these people are doing on performance but I do know that what
we are getting is less then desired based on that. I mean -- I mean,
it's an improvement, grant you, but where would it -- it would only
take us down to 21 total if we put on the inspectors? Is that what you
are saying?
MS. VASEY: That was the calculation we did. There may be
something else in it involved.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: And -- and that's going to be able to
take care of it?
MR. PERICO: Janet was right on the number when she said --
excuse me, every year, we added three inspectors over the last few
years and what's happening is we are just staying at that same level of
service. That's exactly what's happening and -- and she hit it right on
the mark.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: So in other words, we're not
improving anything?
MR. PERICO: If we don't do more, we're going to stay at the
same level of service.
MR. SCHMITT: All we are doing is just staying at the same
level of service.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Gentlemen, we -- we've got to
improve this thing somehow. I don't know what the answer is.
MR. PERICO: What we've also got with -- with the new
building code going into effect, as it did in March, it's a lot more
cumbersome then a lot of people realize.
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June 20, 2002
We've got three new schools getting ready to start which we are
going to be doing the inspections on each one of those schools, which
are going to be very time consuming.
MR. SCHMITT: I do want you to know that we picked up the
mission of the schools as well, which we did not have before.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Now I hear you. Now I hear you and
I'm getting a little mad. I'll be honest with you. What you are telling
me is that you are going to maintain the status quo before, even
though we couldn't meet the status quo and perform, we are going to
take on additional jobs and try to still be able to produce something.
MR. SCHMITT: Well, I don't want to leave the impression that
we are not meeting the demand. We're -- we're getting a 24-hour
turnaround. We've also increased productivity because -- and we're
going to come back to you in September with a demonstration.
We funded for the -- not the handheld but they are going to be
all the wireless computerized system where the inspectors will not
now even have to even come in in the morning. They are going to
download from home and leave right from their home to go out to
the job site.
The CBIA or -- has and BESAK have pretty much fully
supported this from the industry prospective, so we are going to have
an increase in productivity from that regard, but the -- the increase
here is basically the sustained level of pro --
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I didn't mean the outburst, but I've
been getting some feedback on what's taking place, and I understand
what the numbers are. Commissioner Coyle.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Just -- just a couple of quick
comments. With respect to the Public Affairs position and the
Community Planning Coordinator, I -- I know what you have in mind
with respect to public affairs. I -- I support that concept.
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June 20, 2002
Janet has raised, I think, a good point. You don't have anybody
in that position now. Why go from zero to two? Can you go from
zero to one and then evaluate how you are dealing with that and then
proceed?
MR. SCHMITT: Commissioner, yes. I'll -- let me explain. I --
I had somebody in the Community Coordinator position. She
resigned. Last week was her last day. And frankly she resigned
because the workload was just overwhelming.
As Mr. Olliffhad mentioned, she was out two and three nights a
week and -- and frankly, that piece of it was when she's -- in the
evening, she's got time in the morning. Developers are trying to get a
hold of her.
She is the principal -- she has acted as the principal point of
contact at these public meetings and when the public wants
information, they come back to her. And -- and I'm desperately
recruiting to fill that position. I'm moving someone in there next
week.
I'm pulling them out of my Current Planning, so this -- I
respectfully, Ms. Vasey, when she said the position wasn't filled, the
position has been filled and it has been filled since October. And I'm
going to put someone in there temporarily into the Community
Coordinator position.
This is just to help prop up that -- that organization, to meet all
the demands placed upon this person from all aspects of it, so -- and -
- and you all know who was in that position and she quit.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. My second question has to
do with the -- the six building inspector positions. I think I
understand what -- what the Members of the Board are saying about
this and where we are likely to go with it, but let -- let me ask you to -
- to take a look at the -- the situation where you are adding six
building inspectors.
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June 20, 2002
COMMISSIONER FIALA:
COMMISSIONER COYLE:
MR. SCHMITT: Well, eight.
inspectors.
COMMISSIONER COYLE:
Eight.
Eight?
One for signs and seven for
Okay.
MR. PERICO: And one contractor's license.
MR. SCHMITT: I'm sorry. One, and seven contactor licenses.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. And -- and you're also
asking for a reinstatement of overtime reductions from the last year.
Now, it seems to me if you've got more people, never mind the
quality issue. If you've got more people, why do we need to pay
more overtime?
MR. PERICO: The overtime, like I say, we have to turn the
stuff around in 24 hours, the jobs have to be turned around in 24
hours. Some of my gentlemen are coming in at 5:30, 6:00 at night
and back out again at 8:00 in the morning.
We will see a down turn, but there again, my goal is to do a -- a
better and more thorough inspection than just, there again, for the
sake of time. And I've always said it right from day one that I'm not
going to compromise a review or inspection for the sake of time. To
me, that's very critical.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I would agree, but-- but I would
also say that you didn't have this money the last fiscal year for -- for
the current fiscal year, you didn't have the overtime money this past
fiscal year.
You are going to get six or more additional inspectors if you -- if
you go with your proposal. I think that having a substantial increase
in staff and still requesting the overtime, I think is excessive.
MR. MUDD: Commissioner, let me help you with that.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay.
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June 20, 2002
MR. MUDD: The plan reviewers that review the plans that
come in are in this area, previously, up until about three months ago,
those gentlemen and ladies were exempt employees. They were not
receiving overtime pay.
To increase the amount of-- to increase the turnaround plan of
plan review, that group of individuals, that group went from an
exempt position catergoried to a non-exempt which means they are
entitled to overtime.
So increased productivity, and to more properly place them in
the HR slotting, they should be, or should have been exempt
individuals, meaning, I mean, non-exempt so they would get paid
overtime. So, I mean, that's one reason this overtime is going to be
effective in FY 03 and has not been in FY 02.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I -- I don't understand that logic at
all. I -- I don't know why you would convert somebody from exempt
to non-exempt merely for the purpose of awarding them overtime.
MR. OLLIFF: It's not because of that. Because legally, you
can't have certain positions -- you have to meet certain criteria in
order to be exempt from overtime and for us legally not to be
required to pay them overtime. These people were incorrectly
categorized. We have to put them in this new category.
And everytime you tweak And impact fee, I'm working these
people day and night trying to keep up with the workload, and so
that's where your overtime budget is going to come from because I
promise, you are going to have some impact fee increases coming
and you're going to see some of those rushes to the door just like we
have over the past year.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. I think as far as the
eight building inspectors go, I -- I -- as long -- I didn't understand that
they weren't coming out of Ad Valorem taxes, that the builders were
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June 20, 2002
paying for them themselves, and as long as -- I know our complaints
here on the Commission have been, number one, poor building
inspections I'm sorry to say, and secondly, not timely at all.
Obviously, these eight positions would correct, or I shouldn't say
obviously, we would hope that they would correct those complaints
and we wouldn't have them anymore. And if the building, I mean, if
the builders want to pay for those inspectors in order to improve this
performance and we don't have to pay for it, the taxpayers don't have
to pay for it, I would consider it.
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, rather than get bogged down
here, I think--
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I understand.
MR. OLLIFF: If we can, maybe we can as we go through, if
there are some Productivity Committee recommendations that we
want to roll up and consider, you know, at wrap up and at the end of
the entire budget, we ought to keep a list of those, but we ought to
just keep moving and decide those --
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I agree with you but before we make
that rule, I would like to give Commissioner Carter a chance to speak.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Very quickly. I respect a great
deal the analysis that was done by productivity and Janet Vasey.
Number crunchers are wonderful.
I really believe in it, however, I'm going to go to the human side
of the enterprise. I'm going to say, how do you measure bum out,
because you keep those people out there too long and you push them
too hard, they become ineffective. I can't put a number on it, but the
toll is excruciating and it causes turnover.
Number two, this is really you get into the first position, you got
some soft costs. I can't tell you what GAF costs you when you do a
lousy job in public relations. How many hours are spent trying to
repair damage because somebody didn't interact in an appropriate
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June 20, 2002
manner with the media. I can't measure it but I can tell you it's
expensive.
And thirdly, the one issue about overtime really is driven by
Federal Wage and Law Administration and that's why the
reclassification triggered that particular request for overtime. So
that's where I am, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Let's go ahead and move on. We are
going to be touching back on this at a later time; isn't that correct?
MR. OLLIFF: The only other point I really wanted to make is
just to -- to highlight for you and this is something you need to keep
in mind. When the Board implemented a much tougher sign
ordinance a couple of years ago, you gave those people who have
existing signs that are out of compliance until fiscal year 2003 in
order to come into compliance.
Fiscal year 2003 is right around the comer and that's what this
budget reflects and you are going to see a great deal of public
heightened interest, if you will.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: That's very politely put.
MR. OLLIFF: In -- in the new sign code, because most of these
people have not done anything with the time that we have given them
and code enforcers are just going to have to go out and start bringing
these signs into compliance.
They are going to be low profile ground-level signs throughout
the community and that's going to be something you are going to deal
with over the course of 2003.
MR. SCHMITT: And the building review has to do the site
analysis and follow up an evaluation. It was once a part-time
position. Now it is a full-time. You need him more. MR. OLLIFF: Right.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. I understand. Let's move on.
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June 20, 2002
MR. SCHMITT: Okay. The next one is addressing the
switchboard records. Mr. Bleu Wallace, Operations Director will
cover that.
MR. WALLACE: For the record, Bleu Wallace. The Operations
Department is a diverse organization. We've got some nine different
functions. And I know that -- and I appreciate the Productivity
Committee taking note that we do need a position.
They have recommended that we hire a technician, not a
supervisor. However, right now, I have, out of 24 bodies, I have ten
direct reports. They report directly to me. And that's for -- for nine
functions. What I want is a -- is a supervisor. We need help in
addressing.
The Productivity Committee recognizes that, but I need a
supervisor to take -- there will be four or less people reporting
directly to me, and if no one knows what the Operation Department
of Community Development does, right now we have the records
room, the filing, the digital conversion of all vertical plans to the
computer system, the switchboard, they handle all the calls
addressing functions, street name changes, graphics, utility of
regulation cable administration.
We do all the HR coordination for the division, and most
recently, the TDC function. I only have two supervisors in-house. I
need a third.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Mr. Wallace, just a question. Are
you allowing for the fact that you are going to be hiring a director for
the TDC?
MR. WALLACE: This has nothing to do with the Tourist
Development or the Tourism Manager. That's a completely separate
function. This has to do with addressing. They have a back log.
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June 20, 2002
MR. SCHMITT: This is street number, they assign these street
numbers, street names, all the other activities in coordinating the
emergency services and they all are associated with the addressing.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Just a quick question. I need to
ask Bleu this question. Could you establish a lead person in your
group, a group leader where you may bring in a technician but a
group leader functions in that -- in that area for a differential?
MR. WALLACE: Sir, I'm doing that now. I've given one of the
individuals a five-percent bump just to keep the boat afloat, but we
need the additional body, and I need an additional supervisor over--
that will give me three supervisors over 24 people.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: And that controls five for seven?
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I would like to go to Janet Vasey
there.
MS. VASEY: Just one -- one quick comment on that. We felt
the position was justified based on the workload and that 48 of the --
if you look at the table on page C-53, the performance measure.
The middle one there says number of on-site checks for
addressing, and it's 76 this year and going up to 95. And this year, 48
of 76 site visits will not be made due to personnel shortages. And
they said with the implementation of GIS, they'll be falling farther
behind.
So when we talked about this position in the Productivity
Committee, we said, we don't need a supervisor, you know, sitting
back at the office.
We need more people out in the field doing the addressing. And
that was the rationale behind our recommendation.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's a good --
MR. WALLACE: May I respond?
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Of course.
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June 20, 2002
MR. WALLACE: Once we get a supervisor in place, that, we
hope will come from someone within and move up, that will free up
another position and that lower position, the newest one that is filled,
that will end up being the field person to do the -- the necessary field
checks. And by the way, that's up to 60 now that we are behind.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I -- I concur. Any questions or--
well, we are going to hear about it again later on on this. What do we
have next here?
MR. OLLIFF: Michael.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: That concludes the Community
Development that is fee-supported and I think we had agreed
previous to that that it might be an appropriate break point.
We have some small Special Revenue Funds that we can get
through quickly. Then this afternoon, we still have a fairly large
agenda ahead of us.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Why don't we break now and then --
and then we'll come back and finish that at the end. One hour for
lunch. We'll be back here at 1:30.
(Whereupon, a one-hour lunch was taken and the meeting
continued as follows:)
MR. SCHMITT: Mr. Smykowski?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes. We are on page C-59. There are a
few miscellaneous Special Revenue Funds, such as the Museum,
Guardianship, et cetera that Ms. Stone will walk through quickly and
then we'll shift gears and head into our Utility and Solid Waste
Funds.
MS. STONE: Good afternoon, Commissioners. Wynona Stone
for the record. You'll see the Miscellaneous Revenue Funds we have
listed on the page, prior page, they are mostly for specified purposes.
There are some Ad Valorem consequences that I'll walk through
when we go through these.
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June 20, 2002
The Museum Fund, you already addressed under TDC with the
$900 expanded transfer from the Tourist Development Council.
That's 19 percent of the two-percent tourist tax.
The Golden Gate Community Center has a transfer from Fund
111, the unincorporated area, so we are going to discuss that
tomorrow. The Adoption Awareness Vehicle Tags are -- are our
county's share of the Choose Life License Plate Funds for the sales of
those license plates, and those are used for assisting counseling for
women who intend to give their children up for adoption.
The Public Guardianship Fund provides indigent incapacitated
adults with Guardianship Services, and this is primarily funded with
filing fees and a transfer from the General Fund. The transfer from
the General Fund for FY 03 has decreased drastically to $12,700
from $83,000.
The Teen Court Program was previously funded and this year is
funded under the General Fund. For next year we have set up its own
fund. It will be having court cost fees coming in to fund that
program. And I believe you are all familiar. You have attended
some of those teen court sessions.
The Records Modernization Program is to keep the clerks
information official records system maintained and updated as
needed.
MS. USHER: Hi. My name is Susan Usher from the Budget
Office. The Wireless 911 Program and the E911 Program are two
programs that are fee-supported. The -- you pay fifty cents for your
wireless cellular phones and fifty cents per month on your regular
land line phone lines and these fees support the operation, education
and capital improvements to maintain the 911 Communications
Center.
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June 20, 2002
MR. SMYKOWSKI: We had previously adopted the fee
approximately in the last two months relative to the fee for the
upcoming fiscal year.
MS. STONE: Any questions on any of those Special Funds?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: With that, we'll move to your Enterprise
Fund Tab.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Hold on. Before you go too far, is
there anything that's going to show me where this Ad Valorem
Property Tax Allocation of $329,600 is going to go?
MS. STONE: Yes, sir. I have some sheets that I can distribute
that shows you the -- the break-down on that. I don't have them all
with me right now.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. That would -- that would
be very helpful. Thank you.
MS. STONE: I can basically tell you, the Personal Services are
split. There is an agreement about the split but did you want to
discuss that tomorrow?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes. We'll address the Golden Gate
Community Center. Ms. Ramsey will be there talking about parks
and since that is funded by a transfer from 111, I think it's probably
more appropriate to address it on a comprehensive basis with Ms.
Ramsey tomorrow morning and we'll be sure to do that.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I know that the Productivity
Committee had some comments or questions. Did you want to do
that now or did you wait until tomorrow morning? What would be
appropriate2 You tell me, Janet.
MS. VASEY: The main one we had on that, on Golden Gate
had to do with the point of sale, automated systems in public services
so -- and it was related to our recommendation in that area so I can
deal with it tomorrow if you would like.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. Thank you.
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June 20, 2002
MR. SMYKOWSKI: With that, we are moving into Pubic
Utilities, the water and sewer and Mr. Greenwald, we'll turn it over to
you and the utilities staff. E-2, there is a -- there is a Macro
Summary of both the Utilities and Solid Waste Funds combined.
But on E-2-2 and 3, there is a Fund Summary for the Water and
Sewer Districts so you see both the revenues and expenses for water
waste water and the entire county water, sewer and water district
operation. That's probably a better basis to work from.
MR. GREENWALD: Good afternoon. Randy Greenwald for
the record. As Mike stated, the County Water Sewer Operating Fund
408 is on page E-2-2 and E-2-3.
The total request for 03 is $66,978,900. It's for Public Utilities
Administration, Financial Operations, Public Utilities Engineering,
Water Administration and Waste Water Administration.
All of the these departments are all funded from User Fees.
There are no Ad Valorem Funds that support these programs. With
that, I'll turn it over to Jim Deloney, the Public Utilities Administrator
and his staff.
MR. DELONEY: Thank you, Randy. For the record, I'm Jim
Deloney. I'm your Public Utilities Administrator. Good morning --
or good afternoon. It's a great time to begin my services as
administrator with today's budget workshop and I thank you very
much for the opportunity to be here and this great job.
The FY 03 division budget is consistent with sustaining reliable
public utilities infrastructure and services. In particular, it supports
across functional efforts that were briefed earlier by the Deputy
County Manager and Assistant County Managers.
The Board's direction on Water Reliability Plans, the Florida
Department of Environmental Protection consent orders and the
water and waste water master plans that this Board adopted in
November/December of last year.
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June 20, 2002
The budget provides for a total staffing level of 345 full-time
team members. The total FY 03 Public Utilities Division Budget is
approximately $248 million dollars, consisting of an operating budget
of approximately $118 million dollars and a capital budget of $130
million dollars.
Through the management of thirteen fund types and consisting
of 49 cost centers, all funded solely from Enterprise Funds that is
user and Impact Fees. I have with me today all the Public Utilities
Division Department Directors, who in turn will present an overview
of their independent -- or their individual department budgets.
Other than your questions to me, I would now like to ask Tom
Wides, Public Utilities Operations Director to present the overall
division of organizational structure with our proposed transfers
followed by an overview of the Public Utilities Administration and
Operations Department Budgets. He would then be followed in turn
by other division department directors.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. What is it that you are going
to represent to us? Are we just going to go through their part of the
budget?
MR. DELONEY: Yes, sir. Each of them will come-- would
provide you a snapshot of their part of the total utilities budget
generally by fund site, so it works to organize that way and appears to
the best way to proceed with the presentation this morning -- or this
afternoon.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. Thank you.
MR. DELONEY: Is that okay?
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: It sounds fine. Is there is nothing
from the Commission, please proceed.
MR. DELONEY: All right. Tom?
MR. WIDES: Commissioner, good afternoon. Again, for the
record, Tom Wides, Operations Director for Public Utilities. If I
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June 20, 2002
may, I would like to take you initially to the page E-6 which is the
Public Utilities Administration page, and I would like to speak to you
just for a few minutes here about the mission and the Expanded
Services related to this department.
This -- the mission of this department is basically to policy -- to
set policy and implement -- to ensure implementation of the policy
along with the overall leadership and support of the water, waste
water, solid waste, pollution control, engineering and beachery
nourishment activities.
It has four full-time equivalents in the position, including the
administrator of the division. There are no Expanded Services in this
-- in this department referred here. Any -- may I ask -- answer any
questions for you?
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Can I go back to E-2, Funding
Sources Utility User Fees. We -- we dramatically increased the fees
this past year. I -- I don't see a substantial increase in revenue from
last year to the new fiscal year. Can you explain that to me?
MR. WIDES: Yes, Commissioner. We did, in fact, increase
User Fees from last year to this year. They became effective in April,
on April 1st of this year.
I would like to characterize that and remind everyone that, in
fact, what we did with the User Fees was, in fact, put a series of block
-- or a block structure series in place where we tried to keep the lower
blocks very close to a zero increase in cost to the customer.
We ramped that up as we got into the higher usage levels. And,
in fact, what we're -- we're early in the process here. We haven't seen
much of the revenue impact.
We looked back in our estimate here, looked back at what we
had seen so far to date. We also looked back at our rate studies to see
what they anticipated and we're very -- being very careful at this
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June 20, 2002
point in time in terms of the planning year, trying to be very
conservative as to where this revenue will end up.
So, yes, in answer to your question, the revenues are not
showing a dramatic increase. We're being conservative. As we move
out of the planning cycle and see the actual activities, we'll be able to
adjust our plans in terms of reducing any anticipated debt and, in fact,
relying on the user fee site.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: How about the--
MR. MUDD: Commissioner, if I can interject. Jim Mudd, for
the record for just a second, one piece that he missed. The whole
intent of the inverted scale was to reduce consumption, so we're
hoping to get decreased amounts on -- on the user side, therefore,
there won't -- their bills have pretty much come in the same, but they
are using less water, okay?
In particular, the stuff that's outside the home use, and that's
what the inverted scale was to do is watering outside for landscaping
and -- and pool use and things to get people to be a little bit more
prudent with that valuable resource.
In -- in his increase, and yes, there is an increase that's there in
that -- those particular figures for growth for new hookups, because
that would be an additional revenue that would come on.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I saw some information in here
concerning water production. Can you review that for me? What I'm
trying to determine is -- is what is the change in water produced
versus the change in revenue?
MR. WIDES: I believe -- and let me check, if I can, with our
water department folks, Commissioner.
MR. OLLIFF: Look on page E-15 of your budget. You will see
in your performance measure the total water produced in billions of
gallons.
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June 20, 2002
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. So we are having a nine
percent increase in water produced and we had a relatively large
increase in the rate structure, but we're showing four and a half
percent increase in revenues.
MR. WIDES: Commissioner, again, we don't necessarily
anticipate, although we are going to be using more water, we don't
anticipate a large increase at that upper end where you'll really have
the rate increases start to kick in.
In those upper blocks, which is where the rate increases really
are kicking in, we don't expect that to be our area of increase. As you
bring more building on, we're going to expect more conservation,
okay, and you are going to be having more water use at the lower end
of those blocks. That's what we are anticipating at this point.
MR. OLLIFF: Bottom line here is it's a very conservative
revenue projection.
MR. DELONEY: I've got your concern though that we don't
undershoot these revenues and with the changes that came about in
April which you have heard discussed by the Deputy County
Manager.
Mr. Wides, I've got the facts if you want to take a look at those
revenues to see if there is an adjustment that is appropriate for the
final budget. I've got it.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Now, just -- just -- just for
clarification.
MR. DELONEY: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I understand the expenses in this
department are paid for with User Fees. They're not coming out of
Ad Valorem property taxes, okay? So I do understand that.
I'm -- I'm just concerned about how we are going about the
budgeting process and I'd like to make sure it's as accurate as
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June 20, 2002
possible, whether it's completely paid with User Fees or whether it is
coming out of Ad Valorem property taxes.
MR. OLLIFF: And I think the time to really ask that question
again is Fiscal Year 03, is each and every time these guys are in front
of you with something where they want to borrow money in order to
build something.
Because the amount that you borrow will be less based on the
amount of revenue that you are collecting during the year, and that's
something that we'll need to keep on top of and if-- if the revenue
projections start to creep up higher, then you ought to be borrowing
less, and paying less interest.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Can we talk about Landfill
Fees? Is this an appropriate time?
MR. DELONEY: We are going to have George up here in a
minute who is going to talk about Solid Waste Funds. Can we defer
to him, Mr. Henning? Is that okay with you? We'll get him up here
and we'll do it.
MR. SCHMITT: Okay. What page, Tom?
MR. WIDES: Commissioners, if I can move you page E-7. I
would like to also at the same time, early this morning, I had passed
to you a copy of the Public Utilities Organization chart. I believe it's
in a plastic fold-in. And if I could take you momentarily to page four
of that chart. It will also be portrayed up here on the visualizer.
It's a little bit difficult to see and I apologize for that, but the
intent here is along the lines of where we basically had some, what
I'll call some redeployment of staff or re-alignment of staff within the
division.
And what we have done is we have added eight individuals into
the utility billing area, and when I say add, they have been likewise
subtracted from the sub -- Solid Waste Department.
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June 20, 2002
These are customer service -- generally, customer service folks
and what we are trying to do here is really to optimize and centralize
the customer service focus so that we can minimize additional staff
additions, and that's all contained basically on page four of that
organization chart. It revolves around the red highlighted areas.
Those are -- those are the team members that, in fact, have
moved into this department from another department within the
division. This is really the only substantial change that we've made
in the division. And, you know, I've included the other pages here
for you, however, the others we won't address today unless you have
questions.
Let me, just for a few moments here, take you back to page E-7
on the budget books. The mission of this operation's department is --
is very strongly fiscal or financially oriented.
It's basically the fiscal assessment and guidance to the public
utilities operations expenditure projects It includes the management
of the state-revolving fund loans that we can use in some cases for
our capital projects, financial analysis of various special projects and
the ongoing assessment and need for external debt financing.
There are other very important activities going on here also.
One I would like to note in particular is the -- on the page E-8, you
will see that one of our significant responsibilities within the
department is the utility building and customer service function that I
just referenced to you from the organization chart. That is primarily
contained on that page.
And it's basically, again, billing for water and waste water
customers and also the maintenance of the mandatory assessments for
the solid waste customers and, of course, we have approximately
today, 47,000 water and waste water customers.
Finally, in terms of expanded services, we have one FTE in
fiscal support for customer service in the amount of $43,800. You'll
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see that at the bottom of page E-9. And we have $13,900 for the
information technology network infrastructure on South Horseshoe
Drive where our utility billing offices are located.
And that's primarily to improve the phone switching in that area
to enhance our customer service capabilities. And those are the
major activities of that department today. If you have any questions,
please.
At that point, Commissioners, we'll move into the Public
Utilities Engineering Department and Roy Anderson, our
Engineering Director will join us to comment on their mission and
activities.
MR. ANDERSON: Good afternoon, Commissioners. For the
record, Roy Anderson, Director of Public Utilities Engineering. I
would refer you to pages E- 10 and E- 11 of the budget package
wherein our Public Utilities Engineering Department Budget is
described.
The mission of our department is to implement and manage the
utilities infrastructure projects for Collier County in a timely, cost
effective and quality manner. Secondarily, we participate proactively
in county planning and ensure that infrastructure requirements are in
place in advance of the development projects that come along. Also,
we provide a technical support to the Utilities Operations Division,
namely water and waste water.
The department is involved-- is divided into six program areas,
administration, project management, planning, geographic
information systems, supervisory control and data acquisition
functions and construction and engineering and inspection functions.
In FY 02, we were authorized to add seven new positions to our
group, however, due to the 90-day hiring hold and the time needed,
the lag time needed to advertise in national publications to -- to get
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June 20, 2002
well-qualified people, there was a lag and therefore, these essential
positions are now being filled as we speak.
For example, the -- the supervisory control and data acquisition
manager is now in place. He started this week and we're close to
hiring the GIS analyst. We have completed interviews and he'll be
starting most likely in the next month. And the remaining five will
be interviewed over the next -- next month.
The justification for our new positions are that the two engineers
that we're requesting are needed to build more master planning and
strategic planning capability in-house and to identify the
infrastructure requirements which should be placed on developers
before their projects are approved by the county.
The GIS analyst will prepare the utility data layers for the
county-wide GIS system and he will oversee document imaging for
our records drawings. The three, construction, engineering and
inspection positions will build our in-house capability to ensure that
our considerable volume of construction projects are being built and
inspected in a quality and timely fashion. That completes my
statement.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: The CIE's or CEI's?
MR. ANDERSON: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Three people, $200,00. Is that
uniforms or something extra?
MR. DELONEY: Sir, actually those positions were approved
last year. We are moving out on those hirings right now, and when
you think in terms of new, it's to ensure that you understood that the
positions that were vacant within the division are vacant only because
of the hiring lag with the requirements with regard to that. That cost,
it appears to be reasonable on it's face with the data I have available
today.
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June 20, 2002
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah. I'm not really
questioning the positions. I'm questioning the dollar amount.
MR. DELONEY: Sir, I can come back to you with the
specifics, but on their face, they would be scheduled positions and
that would be fully burden labor consistent with county policy, in that
budget. If we've missed it, I'll get back to you and --
MR. OLLIFF: That should include total cost, which when you
calculate the benefits package on top of the standard salary puts those
salaried positions somewhere around the low 40's for all three of
those positions.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, if we're talking about five
positions it works out to be $150,000 a piece if I'm looking at the
same thing, Mr. Henning.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right. Exactly. Does that
include vehicles?
MR. WIDES: Commissioners, if I may? Tom Wides for the
record again. That includes, when we say fully loaded in this case,
this includes PC's, this includes equipment, such as vehicles, if
appropriate for the individual. It is -- It is everything related to the
position, not just the salary and benefits.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. What I'm looking for,
specifics is are we talking three vehicles, three laptops, sets of
uniforms; those types of things.
MR. DELONEY: Yes, sir.
MR. WIDES: We can provide you with that information,
Commissioner.
MR. OLLIFF: And only because that's in your current year
budget is that detail not available to you.
MR. WIDES: That was, in fact, discussed in last year's budget
and we actually laid that out, but we can provide that.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: All right. Sorry. I forgot.
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June 20, 2002
MR. WIDES: No. I don't mean to say it that way. It was
brought forward--
COMMISSIONER FIALA: You didn't remember.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. I just wanted to clarify for my
own understanding. These positions that were from last year, they
are paid out of User Fees; correct?
MR. DELONEY: Yes, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And the Operating Funds that you
asked us to restore, those are also paid out of User Fees?
MR. DELONEY: Yes, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER FIALA:
straight in my head. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER COYLE:
Okay. I just wanted to get that
I do have one question.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Of course. Commissioner Coyle.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I -- I can't make sense out of most
of what we are doing here today, but the -- the way we are going
through it is very, very confusing, but I'm not going to try to change
that. All right?
I am concerned about Ad Valorem property tax of $1,407,500
into public utilities. Now, what I'm trying to figure out is where does
that go and how do we spend it?
MR. OLLIFF: Where are you?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Green sheet, E-2.
MR. WIDES: Yes. I believe the Commissioner is back on E-2.
That is related to the Pollution Control Department. That is the
funding for the Pollution Control Department costs. And, again, you
did hear pollution control this morning, only because it was part of
the 100 Series Funds, but, in fact, that Pollution Control Department
is part of the Public Utilities Division.
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So when you see this wrap-up, you are seeing all the -- all of the
divisional-related costs. That segment is related to Pollution Control.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Are we going to be talking about
that in more detail?
MR. DELONEY: Ray Smith was here earlier. In fact, he was
the lead off batter here on today's session. That is -- but we would be
more than happy to answer any questions you have.
MR. OLLIFF: That is that special voter-approved Pollution
Control Fund monies that -- that's being levied at about .04 mills, I
believe. They've got a tenth of a mill cap on there and you reviewed
that with Ray Smith this morning.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: This is an MSTD of some kind?
MR. OLLIFF: Yeah. Yes. That was a voter-approved tax.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. All right.
MR. MUDD: And, Commissioners, the reason Pollution
Control is in utilities besides the location where there lab was and--
and supervisory control of the unit, there is a lot of similarities in
their lab with the water lab and the waste water lab and we -- we have
'been able to grab some efficiencies.
Instead of having some samples that went from water and waste
water, they have been able to get pollution control to do them and pay
them for them, so it's more fee per service kind of things that you
were talking to Mr. Deloney about this morning. As far as the
direction is concerned with pollution control, so it made a lot of sense
to put them there, and that's the only Ad Valorem piece in public
utilities.
COMMISSIONER COYLE:
MR. WIDES: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER COYLE:
as MSTD on these reports.
MR. DELONEY:
And that is an MSTD?
It might be helpful if we label that
All right, sir. We'll do that.
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June 20, 2002
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Please, continue.
MR. DELONEY: Okay. If you have any other questions for
Roy? Pam?
MS. LUBEY: Good afternoon, Commissioners. I'm Pam Lubey,
Water Distribution Manager and I'm pinch hitting today for Paul, our
water director who is out of town.
The expanded requests we have before you today have been
reviewed in light of the Water Department's mission statement, which
is to provide effective management and operation of the county's
water-owned district facilities and provide a safe a reliable drinking
water supply in a cost effective manner for our customers.
There are a total of 94 team members currently working to
accomplish this mission. The department is broken down into four
functional areas that Included administration, water production, water
distribution and laboratory services.
There are 15 expanded requests being presented for your
approval today. Four of the requests come from the water and
administration area and are all related to providing our customers
with the tools to promote water conservation. We feel that this
especially timely given the recent passing on the Irrigation Ordinance
in March and the addition of the rate increase that took effect in
April.
The total cost for this request was $50,000 for all four items.
The first request in the distribution section is for one additional team
member to assist with the GIS effort. This position will begin to take
the resources that we have collected over the last two years in the
field and take that data and begin to use it in a real live fashion.
The second request is to provide equipment to establish a safer
and more efficient maintenance and traffic plan, as distribution
employees frequently must work on congested roadways. This will
help provide a more safer driving environment for the public as well
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June 20, 2002
as more safety for your employees. We did consult with the Risk
Management staff in developing this program.
The water production area has several requests also on the table
today. The first of those requests is for updated security systems at
both your north and south regional water treatment plants. The
request will provide for motion detectors, sirens, cameras and
enhanced front gate access control.
Recently, we have been informed by the federal government that
all water facilities must perform a security assessment and these are
items which they will be looking for. The total of that request is for
$275,000. The other share of our expanded request today --
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Hold on just a minute, please.
What -- what page are we on? MR. DELONEY: E-4.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you.
MS. LUBEY: The line share today, $766,000 is for the
operation of the new South Plant, which is coming on line in January
of 03. That will provide for the addition of employees to staff this
facility, as well as for the electrical and chemicals to operate it for the
nine months that it will be in operation next year. The staffing level
will be minimal and will provide for one person per shift, per day.
In addition, the North Plant is requesting funds to complete the
testing of Injection Well Number One. This is a test that must be
performed once every five years to ensure the integrity of the ASR
well. Failure to complete this test will -- will make the well unusable
according to the state.
The water laboratory has one expanded request for testing of the
new wells that will come on line in the South Regional Water
Treatment Plant at Hawthorne Well Field. The testing is a series of
chemical and biological analyses that are a regulatory requirement
prior to placing a public drinking water well into service.
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June 20, 2002
The final group of expanded services is to restore funds that
were removed during the budget reductions that were imposed in
January of this year, and the total amount of this request is for
$22,700, and these will restore funds for other contractual services
and training.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. I was wondering, by the
operating budget that was reduced, I notice you have requested to add
that back in, but if you have been able to get a long without that all
year, why would you need it restored?
MR. WIDES: Commissioner, if I may.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- instead of going into next year's?
MR. DELONEY: Yes, ma'am. I understand your question.
Tom.
MR. WIDES: Commissioner, there is two things happening
here. First off, the -- the costs that are being requested to be restored
is -- is not the full amount that was, in fact, reduced earlier in the
year.
And, secondly, to directly answer your question, in fact, there
will be an executive summary in front of you for this next board
meeting on Tuesday that will, in fact, ask-- request additional
funding to get the Water Department through the balance of the year.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, because of these reductions?
MR. WIDES: Part, yes. Partially, in direct, partially due to the
budget reductions that we took and partially due to some of the
operational difficulties we experienced earlier in this -- in the year.
But these are relatively a very small portion of what we're requesting.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you. Ms. Libby, on top
of E-4 you have, for the new water treatment plant, five positions;
correct?
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June 20, 2002
MS. LUBEY: Yes.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And in your requested
$766,000 for five positions --
MS. LUBEY: That also includes all the chemical and electrical
costs to run that facility for the nine months it will be in operation. It
will come on line in January of 03 and that will provide all costs to
run that facility for the next nine months, not just the employment
side.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Is there a reason why
we lumped together supplies and-- and employees?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Commissioner, that is one decision
package. You have to operate that facility -- obviously, it's more than
merely the staffing. It's the total cost, so it's -- it's grouped together
because that frankly, is -- is one decision.
You don't have the option of hiring the people and not having
the chemicals and electricity as -- as a separate component.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, let me take it a point
further. We already built the plant, so it's a no brainer that we have to
hire them. The only question I have is, what is the employee costs
versus the -- the supply costs?
MR. WIDES: Commissioner, we can provide you with that
information. That is -- we have that break down. We just
summarized it here for--
MR. GREENWALD: Randy Greenwald. It's $233,600 for the
employees for the five positions. That includes salaries and the
benefits packages.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay.
MR. OLLIFF: We tried to show you what is the phase-in cost
for that new plant, and the plant will start on a given date that's
midway through the year and so we wanted to let you know when
you flip the switch on the plant what our estimation is, what your
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June 20, 2002
total operating costs are going to be for that plant expansion from that
point for the rest of the year, recognizing that the full year's cost will
be slightly higher than it is in the Fiscal Year 04 Budget.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: One more question. And this
came up just recently. We wanted redundancy in our plants with the
wells and the motors and things like that. Has that been
implemented?
MS. LUBEY: Yes, Commissioner. We have started to
implement those items, and you will also be seeing some funding in
the capital program side because a lot of those are one-time costs, so
you will be seeing them in the facility rehab capital project. That will
be coming before you, I think in the next item up.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Once we finish with the waste water
budget, we will immediately go to the water and Sewer Capital
Projects that are funded either by User Fees or Impact Fees and you'll
see the whole comprehensive list of projects that are planned for the
upcoming budget year.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you.
MR. WEISS: Joe Weiss, Board of Director. I wanted to briefly
go over the waste Water Department's mission statement and tell you
about our programs. I'll be speaking from page E-5 in here in your
handout.
The mission of the Collier County Waste Water Department is
to sustain public trust and protect human health in our environment
by providing a waste water collection and treatment service to our
customers in a safe, effective and efficient manner that exceeds our
customer's expectations.
We strive to provide a beneficial reused product back to our
community that meets and exceeds all federal and state regulations.
We are divided into five different sections of the department. The
biggest program we have is operation and maintenance at two
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June 20, 2002
regional waste water treatment facilities that provide a capacity of 26
million gallons per day, maximum month.
We provide analytical laboratory support for process control and
State FDEP compliance. We provide industrial pretreatment program
to protect our infrastructure and to make sure there are no pollutants
in our sewer system that might be harmful to the waste water
treatment system.
We operate and maintain a waste water collections system of
over 750 miles of force main and gravity mains, over 650 waste
water pumping stations with over 47,000 connections. That covers
an area of 75 square miles.
Our programs in waste water collections include rehabilitation
of sewer lines and -- and wet wells and manholes, TV monitoring and
sealing cleaning and flushing the sewer lines, pump maintenance
repair, preventive maintenance and the odor control program.
We also operate and maintain a reclaimed water system that
averages over 4.2 billion gallons distribution to 26 bulk and
pressurized customers. We have a locate department now that has
over 30,000 locates per year and also they maintain our GIS Mapping
Department.
Under the Administration Department, we have a program of
safety and training that meets all federal and state regulations, revised
an upper mobility program for our employees to enhance job
performance and job satisfaction.
On page E-5, a budget handout we right now presently have 124
full-time team members. We are requesting two additional
employees in this next fiscal year budget, two maintenance
specialists.
They will be in the Waste Water Collection Department and
they will be on a program to enhance our cleaning and flushing of
sewer lines, and this is a new program that we are working on.
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June 20, 2002
It's not really new to us, but the federal -- there is federal
legislation that's going to require a flushing system in the future to be
permitted just like a waste water plant, and anytime you have a waste
water spill, you are subject to fines.
And the Waste Water Department, right now, cleans
approximately thirty miles per year of-- of mains and to maintain
industry standards, we need to flush and maintain about 125 miles per
year of sewer mains.
This will be two employees who do nothing but full-time
cleaning and flushing of sewer lines, and to do that they need a truck,
the truck is $162,500. This truck is a large piece of equipment. It has
a water tank and jet cleaning equipment along with a vacuum system
to clean out sewers. This is needed to maintain a level of service that
will be required by the federal government.
In our -- we also request in the Collections Department to
reinstate $314,800 from the Fiscal Operating Budget from last year.
We project that we will have a shortfall. We tried our best to have a
reduction, but in the area that we are looking at, we are going to have
a shortfall and have to come back before the budget revision this
summer.
And this money will come in the area of other contractual
services, utility parts, utility repairs and electricity. In the Stake and
Locate Department we are asking for a vehicle. This vehicle will be
used by our GIS technician to use to go out and verify GIS mapping
coordinates. The North County Water Recreation Facility, we are
asking for a utility van to be used by our Instrumentation Department.
In the past, we have contracted out our instrumentational
electrical repair and we have now this fiscal year hired our own
instrumentation technicians and this vehicle would be used to
transport equipment and parts throughout the facility in our reclaimed
water water system for these employees.
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June 20, 2002
We are asking for a $15,000 forklift. This will be used piece of
equipment to be used for loading chemicals for our belt filter presses.
We are also asking to reinstate in the north county facility $108,000
and this is an area also in contracted services and utility repairs.
The North County Plant as you know has been expanded by a
five millions gallons and we have really never the opportunity to take
down the old facility and do repairs.
The South County Facility, we are asking for a $25,000
analyzer. That's called a nutrient analyzer. This is kind of a system
that's used to analyze for nitrates, nitride and ammonia. It's kind of
an indicator of how well you are doing as far as supplying oxygen to
the facility to save energy costs.
And the last expanded item we have is $25,000 for the South
County facility to enhance the entrance road and parking area at the
front of the Warrant Street area. This will help in the safety around
the areas.
There is a baseball park there and they are parked along the
street. We need to enhance that area to get those cars in a parking
area and get them off-- off of Warren Street.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. I'm sure you did a cost
analysis to find out whether it was cheaper to hire out for the
employee or hire an employee and then outfit him with the truck and
all of the desks and computers and everything he needs, but I -- I
would love to know what the cost savings was to bring an in-house
rather than to -- rather than to --
MR. WEISS: We can get that information for you. The out of
house contracted charges is $75 per hour, plus parts and materials, so
we think there is a significant'savings. We've done that at the south
plant as well as the north plant as well.
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June 20, 2002
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Uh-huh. I would like to be able to
see it I think.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Where would we find information
like this in that budget? Where would we find the contract costs that
you have spent in prior years?
MR. WEISS: It would be under Other Contracted Services.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: And where would I find that?
MR. WIDES: Commissioner, in this presentation, we-- we've
really summed that all up as part of the operating expenses in the
individual areas. We have detailed accounts within our financial
management systems that we are able to track budget versus actual
on the individual types of expenditures.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, it -- Commissioner Fiala has
asked a good question. You -- you are bringing something in-house.
Is there a corresponding reduction in the external contract costs, and
if so, where would I see that?
MR. WIDES: Basic -- you would see it in a shift from expenses
related -- operating expenses in -- out of there and shift into personnel
related costs, and you would see some offsetting costs within
operating expenses.
Bottom line, if you come from outside, and you have costs that
you are incurring from the outside, it's going to tend to be in the
operating expense area. As you bring that cost inside, some of it may
be to purchase a vehicle which would be capital costs, some may be
other supply costs that would -- that would be offsetting to some
degree in the operating expenses, and then some would shift to the
personnel costs.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: But we have nothing that will tell
us where that is?
MR. WIDES: Not -- not in front of you today.
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June 20, 2002
MR. DELONEY: In the details, we can provide you that in the
formulated budget.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Are we going to get to that level at
any point in time in this process?
MR. OLLIFF: No, sir. And, Commissioner, just to help you on
it, on an 800 million dollar budget, if I were to get you that level of
information, it would be in stacks of computer printouts that
big(indicating,) and you would spend all year going through the
budget.
And so we've got to roll the budget up to some level that's
manageable for you, and the policy level board and -- and yet at a
detail enough that we think we're trying to provide you the level of
information that you need.
I understand that there are probably some public information
oppommities that are here, because we are providing you some things
that are saving us some money on some hands, and are less costly on
contracted services, and a lot of what we're doing makes good sense
and it's hard to squeeze the good sense out of the format that we have
provided you.
We'll try and go back through and scrub and provide the Board a
list of cost savings and reduction things that this budget provides for.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: If-- if it's easier for you, it would
be good just to take the Expanded Services that you are requesting
and have an offsetting benefit, cost benefit of some kind. I don't
know if you can do that.
Some of them, I suspect, would be very hard to identify, but
certainly when you are no longer contracting out a service, you
should be able to show a cost benefit.
MR. OLLIFF: We can show the comparable cost of-- of what
we would pay using other options and we can do that on a number of
these expanded service requests.
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June 20, 2002
I would ask that you give the budget staff and your operating
staff probably the balance of the summer to try and put that together
for you so that by September and you come back and you wrap up the
budget, we can show you all of that.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay.
MR. MUDD: Jim Mudd for the record, just because it seems to
be a -- just a point of confusion of what was said. Commissioner
Fiala asked, have you done a cost benefit analysis versus going in-
house versus contracting out. And Joe basically gave the going rate
that would cost to get J.C. Drainfields or whatever to come in here
with a factor truck in order to do that in that process.
The reason that this factor truck and the two crew members are
in here is because Joe has a federal mandate now that he has to flush
a certain number of miles of lines now, the total number that he's got,
and we -- with this new requirement, we haven't been able to do 30
miles in a year and the new requirement is to do about 125.
And so this is for a new requirement that's brought to the county
in order to satisfy some regulations that are coming to the county in
this next year as far as number of lines in our sewer system that need
to be flushed. Did I miss anything, Joe.'?
MR. DELONEY: Any other questions for Joe.9 Thank you, Joe.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Carter.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I can understand Commissioner
Coyle's concerns. ! think probably what you are suggesting by
showing the comparisons, looking for the cost benefit analysis is if
you could find some of those block areas, pull that together and
incorporate it. It gives the comparison. It makes it easier to make the
assessment.
I've asked for those many times. When they get through with it,
they prove that what they did was most cost effective. But for public
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June 20, 2002
information, I think it's just a good opportunity to show certain areas
to demonstrate that we have done due diligence.
MR. DELONEY: Yes, sir. I understand your intent. Susan is
now -- we're going to take you -- we are now going to shift into cap
projects real quick here.
MS. USHER: If you wouldn't mind turning to page E-22. This
page addresses the debt services requirements for the utilities. This
fund was established to administer an account for the debt that the
Utilities Department has acquired.
All the debt that's being reviewed on this page has been
previously approved by the Board at various times. There are
basically four main revenue sources in this fund. There are User Fees
to help pay off debt. That's Water and Sewer User Fees. Impact fees.
You have assessments and then you also have interest earnings
that help pay off these debts. If I can focus your attention near the
bottom of the page, I list out the bonds that we will be making
principal and interest payments on as well as the loans.
And the anticipated -- well, commercial paper that we'll be
drawing on shortly. And we're anticipating paying 17.3 million
dollars in principal and interest payments next year from those four
revenue sources. If you don't have any questions, I'll move on from
that.
If you would please turn to page E-23, this is a summary of all
the water capital projects, the Utilities Department is looking for. On
the extreme righthand side of the page, you have three columns. The
first column is Impact Fees. All these capital projects under the
heading Fiscal Year 03 Budget, Impact Fees, Fund 111, these
projects will be funded out of Water Impact Fees.
And right next -- the middle column is -- those capital projects
would be funded out of User fees. There is a total of 45 million
dollars worth of capital projects. To go -- just to give you a brief
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June 20, 2002
overview on the impact fee projects, Utility Department plans on
buying basically three pieces of land.
Two pieces of land are going to go to the two new water plants
that the master plan had laid out that we needed to start looking at
building. And there is also some well field expansions.
Along with that, we have some new water mains that will be
laid, about 12 million dollars worth. And then we are completing the
South County Water Plant. We're also going to start on the next
expansion on the South County Water Plant in the amount of two
million dollars. Impact Fees pay for growth related items and that's
what you are seeing in that first column.
In User Fees in Fund 412 these capital projects are being paid
out of Water User Fees. This is for the repair, replacement,
maintenance, capital type items of the existing facilities.
We have quite a few relocates as our Transportation Department
widens the roads. We are going to be moving our water pipes over so
that they don't go underneath pavement and that will be paid out of
User Fees.
Also, we have some modifications over in the North County
Water Plant. And then we have other miscellaneous-type projects,
one of them being the automated meter reader system install where
instead of picking up the lid and reading the meter, there is a way --
there is new technology that we have not that will -- you can read the
meters in the vehicle while driving down the street. If you have any
questions?
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Questions?
MR. OLLIFF: One of the things I wanted to point out--
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I'm sorry. If we could, please, we --
we do have a question. Ms. Vasey, could I ask you to go to this
microphone over here(indicating.)
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June 20, 2002
MS. VASEY: Janet Vasey for the record. I just wanted to bring
to your attention, in the capital project, you are borrowing about 70
million dollars this year and right now, on page E-22, it shows, under
loans, Commercial Paper, the 5 million -- there's a total of $5,300,000
and it shows User Fees.
In our conversations between Productivity and the Utilities, we
asked about how that was going to be split because if-- if the user --
if User Fee Construction is borrowing the money, then they should be
paying the debt -- the debt payment. And if Impact Fees are -- are
using the money, then they should be paying.
And the response on that was that in FY 03, they were going to
be charging all the debt service to User Fees and then making an
adjustment in Fiscal Year 04 because they don't know exactly yet
how they are going to split, you know, how much money each one of
these funds is going to be borrowing from the 70 million.
And it was our recommendation that -- that whatever amount is
borrowed in FY 03, that -- that fund be charged in FY 03 for -- for
the amount of the debt service rather than, perhaps having a situation
where the User Fee pays the Debt Service for things that should be
paid for by the Impact Fee. And that was our recommendation.
COMMISSIONER HENN1NG: It makes a lot of sense.
MR. DELONEY: We'll do that. The challenge is -- is collateral
for debt. The Impact Fees, User Fees, you go to the bank on this one
to borrow and get the best rate. Okay? Because the bank is stable.
And say I'm going to go to the bank and I'm going to get this much in
User Fees. I know it. I know who my connections are. I know what
the rates going to be.
Impact Fees, terrible. You can make some good projections but
the bank likes that steady income, and in order for us to borrow the
capital and to get the most favorable interest rate, therefore that's our
technique. So she's right. In the instate, we've got to make sure we
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June 20, 2002
make the right account pay for borrowing those funds or reimbursing
those funds.
And just when we make that adjustment is going to be the
timing with regard to what we know. But when we have a
recommendation, we endorse it.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Simply said, can you pay back that
fund from the Impact Fees?
MR. WIDES: Yes. We will, in the end, Commissioner, we will
use Impact Fees to pay off the debt.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Does that satisfy the --
MS. VASEY: Yes. We just wanted to be that in the Fiscal Year
03 you will ultimately know what amount of charges are made to
each on of these accounts, and so you can accurately project that --
that amount of debt service in FY 03 rather then waiting until FY 04,
and that's what we wanted.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you very much, Janet.
MS. VASEY: Thank you.
MR. DELONEY: This is good stuff to hear this from them
because, you know, it just keeps us on our toes with regard to good
business.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: There is no way on God's earth I
would have caught that myself. I could have read this over a
thousand times. Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Just a fast question. I noticed Land
Acquisition for the new North Treatment Plant, you've put four
million dollars aside for Land Acquisition? That's pretty expensive
land, hey?
MR. SCHMITT: Yes. That is out in the Orange Tree area and
that is a 200 acre parcel and that's the estimate from Real Properties.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay.
Page 13 8
June 20, 2002
MR. OLLIFF: The only other thing I really wanted to point out
on this particular page, Mr. Chairman, was there was a question that
had come up before from Commissioner Henning about redundancies
and issues and -- and two things I wanted to make a point about, there
is a two million dollar line item here for an expansion to the South
County Water Treatment Plant.
And I did not want you to think that as soon as we got done
expanding it, we were going to turn around and expand it again for --
for two million dollars. What we are doing there is providing two
additional raw water wells to the well field for the South County
Plant and that is one of those redundancy measures that the Board
was looking for, and that protects you from well failure and also
allows you to take certain wells off line and be able to service them in
the interim, especially during the summer months when you may not
have to draw as much. So it's just better planning and that's what that
two million dollars is for.
MR. OLLIFF: Susan, was there anything else on this page?
MS. USHER: Okay. If you want to flip to page E-26, actually,
E-26, E-27. These are the waste water capital projects. Again, in the
far righthand side of the page, in the first column is the Impact Fees.
These are the projects that we are looking for funding out of Impact
Fees.
And the middle column is for User Fees, for a total of 78 million
dollars worth of capital projects. Out of Impact Fees, again, we have
to pay for growth related type items. We are looking at buying land
for a new waste water treatment facility.
As for a biosolid facility, we're constructing new sewer lines,
constructing new affluent lines and some other miscellaneous type
projects. And then in the other column is Fund 414. That's out of
Sewer User Fees.
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June 20, 2002
Again, there are quite a few relocates, relocating sewer lines and
affluent lines is the major portion of this budget. And that's all I
have.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. Let's stop and take a
short break.
MR. MUDD: The one thing we need to do just to make sure the
Board knows, is -- is -- and I want to talk about this a little bit, Roy,
about the reclaimed water ASR, because we know we -- it's been a
controversial issue with the city in a prior joint meeting and some --
we -- we have got our boring samples back. Everything looks okay.
There is an item in the waste water budget for next year that we
are going to continue to proceed with permitting and to go for that
well, because we've since seen everything and you'll get a report on
that process, but I wanted to make sure that you know it's in this
budget.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: All right. We'll take a short break
and let the stenographer rest her weary fingers.
(Whereupon, a short break was taken and the meeting continued
as follows:)
MR. GREENWALD: Okay. Randy Greenwald for the record.
Next is the Goodland Water District for Fund 441. It's on page E-31.
The Goodland Water District is to ensure cost effective management
of the Goodland Water District's 29 and to provide the residents of
the Goodland Water District with safe and reliable service.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: What page is it?
MR. GREENWALD: It's page E-31. I'm sorry. It's funded from
water revenue interests and assessments. There are no Ad Valorem
Funds to support this program. The FY 03 budget has no expanded
services and merely continues the current services that are already in
place right now. If there are any questions, I'll try to answer them.
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June 20, 2002
Okay. If not, we'll go on to solid waste. Solid Waste starts on
page E-31-1. Solid waste Funds are comprised of Solid Waste
Disposal Fund 470. The Solid Waste Landfill Closure Fund 471,
Solid Waste Disposal Grants Fund 472 and Mandatory Trash
Collection Fund 473. The Solid Waste FY 03 budget of $7,971,900
is funded primarily from Landfill Fees, Mandatory Collection Fees,
Franchise Fees and Transfer Stations Fees.
As -- as the other Public Utilities Funds are, there are no Ad
Valorem Funds to support these programs at all. It's all strictly the
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yes.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I thought you had a question.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, I do of a -- of an increase
in the fees, it that due to growth and CPI? Is there anything else in
there?
MR. JAMAS: The increase and the fees as far as tipping go due
to CPI adjustments annually based on the contractual arrangements
we do have.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: There is nothing else in there
then; correct?
MR. JAMAS: There is nothing else for the next year. We are
thinking about for the Tipping Fees for residential garbage.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: And there are no expanded services here.
The mandatory rates as reflected at the bottom of E-31-1 that reflect
that. They will remain at $127.27 both in the Immokalee Disposal
Area, District One and the -- and the Naples Service Area, District
Two.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I have no further questions.
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June 20, 2002
MR. MUDD: Now, Commissioners, the reason that there is no
mandatory fee increase -- this is Jim Mudd for the record, there is no
mandatory increase is because the residential folks have really been
doing a lot better in the recycling, so what's going in recycling isn't
going across the scales when those trucks go across, so the CPI has
been offset basically by the efforts of the citizens in the recycling side
of the house as far as George is concerned, and that's the reason why
there isn't that --
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: So what you are saying, Mr. Mudd,
is that there is a reward for being a good citizen and recycling?
MR. MUDD: Yes, sir, there is. I just wanted to make sure that
we got that on the record, sir.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Page E-31-1, FY 01/02 Forecast is
29.9. We're going to a total budget for 02/03 of 47.9. What is that
large increase due to?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: The difference between the budget and
forecast is the large Reserve in the Solid Waste Fund 470 for the
eventual-- for long-term disposal issues, as well as in the landfill
closure, there is 5.6 million dollars. That is all budgeted in Reserve so
it's -- it's not anticipated to actually be expended.
MR. OLLIFF: So in other words, what -- you budget the reserve
because it's a reserve that you carry from year to year to year, because
you are required to set aside monies according to DEP in order to be
able to close that landfill. They need to know you've got enough
money in reserve to be able to close the landfill in an environmentally
safe way. So we carry that reserve money.
So while it's budgeted this year, the forecast, if you'll look at the
forecast column for Fiscal Year 02, you'll see the budget is 45, the
forecast is 29. We again budget the reserve again next year so that
the budget again is 47. ! will promise you that the reserve -- or the
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June 20, 2002
actual forecast will be back in that 29 to 30 million dollar range
again.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: You lost me. I'm sorry. What
page are you on?
MR. OLLIFF: I'm sorry. I'm on page E-31-1, at the top.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Will you go over that one
more time?
MR. OLLIFF: Yes, sir. If you look at the second column of the
adopted budget for 01/02, you'll see at the bottom there is a total of
45 million dollars.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yes.
MR. OLLIFF: The next column is a forecast of what we
actually forecast we are going to spend in Fiscal Year 01/02 and it's
only 29.9. And that's because we don't spend the reserve. We carry
the reserve.
And so next year you'll see the budget go up again at 47.9
because we are again going to budget the reserve, but you're not
going to spend it in Fiscal Year 03 either, so your actuals in Fiscal
Year 02 will be back around that 29 to 30 million range.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Now show me where the reserve
is accumulated. What page is that on? E-337
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: This reserve has to be big enough to
cover about what, 30 years of monitoring maintenance of the gas
resource from the landfill; is that correct?
MR. JAMAS: For the record, Joe Jamas of Waste. Reserves
have combination of future projects, such as landfill closures, such as
Reserves for our landfill gas energy, Reserves for Contingency
Contract have to do as well as General Reserves for the general
operations which is about five or six percent as required by the law.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Fiala.
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June 20, 2002
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. I've been wanting to talk to
you about reserves, not just you, but everybody about reserves. Why
don't we put reserves into one pot?
MR. OLLIFF: No, ma'am. You do not want to combine your
funds. You have statutory reasons why you have to have your funds
separated so that you can track them and make sure that for the rate
payers in this case, you can show them exactly where their monies
went, that they are accumulating their interest and we are keeping
their interest in their funds. Financially, you need to keep these funds
all separated. In fact --
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yeah. You're required to in the case of
MSTU's. It's mandated that, you know, if people tax themselves for a
specific reason, they are paying Ad Valorem taxes in a very narrow
segment -- in a small concentrated area and that money by ordinance
is restricted to the use for which it was initially created, same thing
with the Community Development Fund, which is exclusively funded
by Building Permit Fees and Planning Fees.
You cannot spend that money generically in other parts of the
county, so each separate pot, there is either restrictions due to law or
accounting requirements, Impact Fees, for instance, have to be spent
solely for Road Impact Fees for roadway and growth related roadway
improvements. You can't use it for utilities or--
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, I would understand you
couldn't use it, but I -- I didn't realize there were statutes and
ordinances, so my question is answered. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Tell me where the total reserve is
shown in these budgets. A total, not the annual allocation reserve,
but the total existing reserve. What is that?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Across all funds?
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June 20, 2002
COMMISSIONER COYLE: No. No. No. I'm sorry. Just take
solid waste.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Page E-33, the last line before total
appropriations, it says Reserves.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: So that's $11,594,2007
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Was the reserves for the adopted
budget of FY 01/02, and we are contributing another $104,449,800 to
that in our budgeted Fiscal Year for 02/03; is that what you are
saying?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: No. In 02/03, you only have $1,449,800
due to a clean cover contract for 9.1 million dollars, which is the
large increase in the operating expense side within this fund.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: So -- so you are telling me then
that the difference between the amount of money we actually spent in
FY 01 or expect to spend, is 19 million dollars, will go to 30 million
this next fiscal year but that the difference of 11 million dollars will
go into reserves; is that correct?
MR. OLLIFF: What we are telling you is you have carded a
reserve last year to this year. You are going to spend that reserve
money in Fiscal Year 03. That reserve money of $11,594,000 in the
01/02 budget is in essence moving up to the operating expense line
that jumps from 13 million to 21 million. If you're following me, the
operating expense line in 01/02 is $13,791,000.
If you follow that over to the 02/03 budget, it becomes a 21
million dollar number, so you are spending a significant portion of
your reserves there. You are also spending a significant portion of
your reserves in your capital projects outlay one which goes in Fiscal
Year 01/02 from $615,000.
In 02/03 it goes to $5,736,000, so you are actually spending
money in 03 and a lot of that is for ourselves, one and two restoration
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June 20, 2002
in order to create that additional capacity at the landfill, it was our
intermediate plant that you approved on top of the hill, and
restoration of the -- the gun range, pulling the lead out of that old gun
range there as well.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Now, does that include the reserve
for eventual closure of the landfill?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: No, sir. That's a separate fund. That's on
page E-34.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: And we'll get to that later, right?
MR. OLLIFF: We'll get to that right now. That's the fund where
I believe Janet and the Productivity Committee had a
recommendation and we can probably cover that right now if you
would like to. Janet can maybe explain the rationale behind the
Committee's recommendation and then we can respond.
MS. VASEY: Janet Vasey for the record. If you'll look at page
E-34, under the reserve line, this is what you have for ultimate
landfill closure, and it's $5,680,000. Our analysis is based pretty
much on what was in the comprehensive financial plan for 2001 and
on the page that deals with the solid waste disposal, it shows a
landfill long-term liability of three million, about $3,600,000 just to
round it for you.
And so it's our analysis that there is an excess two million
dollars in this fund. You are required by law to -- to identify your
total liability in the comprehensive annual financial plan-- or
financial report.
And yet you've got in the landfill now $5,680,000, so basically
what we are saying is this is excess. It cannot be used for roads. It
would have to, if you -- if you decided that you decided that you
didn't want to leave it in this fund, you would transfer it back to one
of the other Landfills Funds and you could either have the Trash
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June 20, 2002
Collection Fees reduced or use it to absorb some of your costs in -- in
landfill operations.
MR. WIDES: Commissioners, for the record again, Mr. Tom
Wides. I -- I agree with Ms. Vasey. It is -- we will continue to look at
this landfill closure cost. This does move every year. It's readjusted
every year, partially based on the expected life of the landfill.
We are as you know, right in the middle of the studies of how to
remediate the landfill, how to look for alternatives for our -- our solid
waste. So we will continue to look at that but again, from a
conservative position, I would be hesitant to draw monies out of there
right now and then end up pulling them right back in a year or two
later based on the expected life of the landfill.
So she, Ms. Vasey, has a very good point. It's something we
have to continue to monitor.
MS. VASEY: There is one other aspect to this and that is it
could very well be that the landfill closure cost could be in the five
million dollar range, but we are looking at what our liability is as a
county versus what the landfill operators liability is and we are only
responsible for about 60 some percent of the total liability.
And perhaps that's where we have some of the difference, but
we would be happy to work with them and see what we've got and
bring it back with a binded joint agreement, if we can, by September
or whenever you would like us to do that for the budget.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: We can always adjust this budget
even in September; correct? MR. WIDES: Yes.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: We can go down. We just can't go
up. Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And I would love the idea of taking
that two million right now, when the prices for the land that we need
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June 20, 2002
for roads are at this level than then in a couple more years. Can't --
you can't use that to switch it over to --
MR. WIDES: No. I'm sorry, Commissioner.
MS. VASEY: I wish we could, but no.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, wishful thinking. Thank you.
MR. DELONEY: We will work with Janet before budget time
and see if we've got the right number with regard to our obligations
and what's prescribed within the consolidated annual financial report
that we have to provide and see if we've got that number right closer
to right then what we -- and we have a pretty big margin there. We'll
sort it out.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: But when that -- when that does
come through, you will furnish all of us copies, right? MR. DELONEY: Yes, sir, we will.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: I'm making a comprehensive list as we go
through for wrap-up items that we will either address in the process
quickly, if we can, or certainly the balance would be addressed by
certainly by the public hearing time and we would expect staff
response for each of the individual items outlined.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Yeah. So we are talking this
particular item would be coming before September. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Just for my information, what is
the possible use of the money if you can pull it out of reserves?
MR. DELONEY: You could roll it into Operating Funds with
some -- some relief or to your other Reserve Funds that you have
within the -- what would be the 470 series accounts. That's the only
place we can put this money.
Again, though -- excuse me, Tom, again, bottom line, I'm not
sure we want to do that. And when we -- when we do come back,
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June 20, 2002
we'll make sure that we give you the right recommendation with
regard to Reserve Fund Balances and then talk to you in terms of
where we might place these funds within the context of Solid Waste
Funds.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Carter.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: If we could reduce it, could it go
to a fund for Capital Expenditures for the future? I don't like putting
money into operating areas.
You get that false sense of security and then you turn around and
Whammo, some other board is going to end up with a huge increase
and you are going to have them dancing out there 15 miles deep.
So I would rather put it to capital. That way it's good utilization
for whatever we end up doing in an expanded project.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: That is correct. This is a one-time
revenue source, so if you had a one-time project that would be an
appropriate use, that would be my preference to lowering the rates
with a one-time revenue because once that revenue source dries up,
you do the roller coaster with the rates and I wouldn't like to see that.
It never makes the customer happy.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA:
That's for sure.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: No.
went down, but they --
COMMISSIONER COYLE:
here.
MR. SMYKOWSKI:
level and--
They forget about the years when it
Set the rates high and keep them
We want to set the rates at an appropriate
MR. DELONEY: I understand your intent, sir. I've got it.
MR. GREENWALD: One thing that has changed over the last
few years though, is we no longer will be collecting interest due to
Dwight Brock taking the interest, so that is one of the things that have
driven it up to that height right now.
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June 20, 2002
I looked back, I think it was '94 or '95 and it was only in the
three to three and a half million dollar range, I believe and the interest
has driven it up to the five millions dollars, so -- so that will not go
up anymore.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: To move this along, just one
question. The commercial recycling, from my experience and
George and I have talked about this, there is certain areas in the
county that we have a high turnover of residents and the recycling
days on a street that is five blocks long, I might see two recycle bins
out there.
We can use some of this campaign money for recycling to the
residential side of it, I think. You know, even though that we are
doing a good job over there in the residential, I think we can do a
better job in the residential recycling.
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, unless there are any other
questions on solid waste, I think we are ready to go on into Internal
Service Funds. Gentleman, thank you.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Commissioners, on page F-2 is a
summary of the Internal Service Funds that are in operation in Collier
County. Internal Service Funds are used to provide services from one
county department to another.
In this case, we have five currently active funds, three of which
are Self Insurance Funds, the property and casualty, which is
obviously for property claims.
Mr. Olliff indicated we were experiencing large increases post
September 1 lth and also due to, frankly, he also showed a number of
new buildings that are being, either were constructed or are being
constructed obviously as the county continues to grow.
And as you open new facilities, you have to insure those
facilities as well, so you're -- you have compounding effects of rate
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June 20, 2002
increase as well as continued growth in new facilities coming on line
compounding that problem.
The second fund is a Group Health and Life Insurance Fund to
pay for Employee Health Insurance claims, and that includes all
constitutional officers with the exception of the Sheriff, who has his
own self-insurance program for health insurance.
We have a Worker's Compensation Self-insurance Fund,
obviously, to pay claims relative to injuries on the job, worker's
compensation.
Again, these Self-insurance Funds are funded through billings to
user departments to pay for those claims as well as -- through the
actuarial studies, we are required to have as a Self-insurance Fund an
appropriate level of reserves to pay for those future claim liability
that we may have.
There is also two fleet-related operations. One is Fleet
Management, which is for the repair of the county vehicles, and there
is a Motor Pool Capital Recovery Fund that is used for motor pool
cars, for the eventual replacement of the motor pool cars. It's a
sinking fund so that at the appropriate time, you have sufficient cash.
You buy a car today. You make equal installments over the next
seven years to pay for the eventual replacement of that vehicle
thereby allowing sufficient cash accumulated over time so that you
avoid, A, any spikes in the -- in the budget due to any given year
where you may have an extra-ordinary number of-- of vehicles to be
replaced, and it's just a good sound business practice.
This year, talking about the spikes in that regard and you are
replacing, I think, six ambulances and refurbishing seven
ambulances. As a component of that, obviously that's an
extraordinary expense, and with ambulances, the replacement
ambulances are not allowed to be funded from Impact Fees.
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June 20, 2002
So you would not want to have a million and a half to two
million dollars spike in the General Fund in the given year, so that's
why that program was established. Mr. Walker is here. He is the risk
manager for the county. The director of employee services.
I'm sure he would be happy to entertain any questions you may
have. In addition, there is one expanded service request that's
outlined on page F-3 for an additional customer service
representative.
MR. WALKER: Good afternoon. My name is Jeff Walker,
Employee Services Director. I would be glad to answer any
questions you might have or go into more detail on these programs if
you would like.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: This customer service
representative, what are they going to be doing in a day?
MR. WALKER: The customer service representative will be
working in the employee services center at the customer service
counter. They will be supporting a couple of different functions.
One of those functions will be the front end human resources
operations functions for applicants and folks who walk in the door
needing customer service, telephone work, that sort of thing. They
will also be supporting the occupational health program.
We have an occupational health nurse who works in the medical
clinic down there who does many functions for us, including
handling worker compensation claims, doing pre-employment
physicals and drug testing and things of that nature. For example, in
the month of May, he did approximately 100 physicals. That saves
the county quite a lot of money, but he does not have any clerical
support whatsoever.
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June 20, 2002
So what we are going to try to do is bring this position in to
provide clerical support to the occupational health program as well as
provide clerical support, customer service support to the front.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Are we reimbursed from our
insurance?
MR. WALKER: No. Actually this is a direct offset of costs. In
other words, when we treat employees in-house, there is no bill that
goes to insurance. The difference is really, it would have been billed
to an insurance carrier and what it costs us to do that service in-
house. And typically, that's going to save you in the neighborhood of
50 to 60 percent.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I would like to continue on.
The occupational therapist who does these hundred physicals, is there
any paperwork involved in it?
MR. WALKER: Yeah. There is a tremendous amount of
paperwork. There are initial visits that have to be documented and
have to be -- those transactions have to be kept there for a follow-up
visit.
For example, if you have a worker's compensation claim that
comes through the door, usually there will be more than one visit, so
they are doing initial work with that person in terms of scheduling, in
terms of filing and paperwork, as well as follow-up visits. But-- and
-- and the same thing with pre-employment physicals and things of
that nature.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. So this assistant is
going to be doing paperwork for the occupational therapist?
MR. WALKER: That, as well as customer service work for the
customer service operation section as well.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right. I'm just trying to get a
handle on it of what this person's duties are and what are they going
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June 20, 2002
to be doing during the day. If we -- you are doing 100 physicals a
month --
MR. WALKER: Well, it's not every month, but May was
especially heavy.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: How much work is detailed in
doing the paperwork for one person having a physical?
MR. WALKER: Well, what typically happens is when an
individual is hired, a request is made to -- to bring that person on
board and the physical has to be scheduled with that person.
They have to come into the office and complete a series of
paperwork in order to actually bring them on board and then they
actually go down the hall and get their physical. It's sort of the end
process of the hiring.
COMMISSIONER HENN1NG: So at the end of the physical, is
there any paperwork that needs to be done?
MR. WALKER: At the end of the physical, there are records
that have to be maintained on that person because we have records
that are set aside for that individual that establish base lines for us for
workers' compensation purposes, as well as hiring purposes, because
we may find things in the physical that are -- that might cause us to
say they are not fit for that position.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: So about 15 minutes out of the
day, this person is going to do the filing for the physicals?
MR. WALKER: Well, I wouldn't say that but that's not their
only duty. They will also, in addition to supporting the occupational
health program, be supporting the customers that come through the
door into the human resources department and -- and those are quite
numerous.
We have lots of walk-ins. We have lots of telephone calls, lots
of customer service work that needs support and so it's a dual
function.
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June 20, 2002
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: How do you handle that now?
MR. WALKER: It's -- it's very difficult. We've actually been
bringing job bankers in to help us support that program. We have job
bankers in there to help us get the filing done, that sort of thing. We
will bring them in and take them off from time to time, but what we
find is that the volumes that xve are seeing are increasing
dramatically.
MS. BARCLAHEIMER: I'd like to also add, Joanne
Barclaheimer(phonetic) Administrator for Admin Services. This
person will also help with the quality of the applications that we're
receiving right now. Many applicants come in. They are not sure
what they are qualified to apply for.
We get incomplete applications. This causes us a lot of follow-
up work that can be avoided if we have a customer service person in
the front area assisting people with -- with their applications.
In addition to the clinic, the occupational nurse is not only doing
the pre-employment physicals, drug testing, the workmen comp
triage. Just to give you an idea of the numbers, we have one person,
who since October has handled 33 personal medical claims in the
clinic that would have otherwise been done by a private physician,
181 pre-employment physicals and 33 worker's comp claims, which
can be very expensive if they go out to an outside physician.
And right now, the nurse is doing the filing, doing their notes,
taking care of the paperwork instead of performing functions that
they are trained to do.
MR. WALKER: And what this will do is allow that health care
professional to be able to hand off a lot of clerical functions that they
are having to take on now. What we would like to do is begin to
exploit that clinic even more by doing other health care activities.
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June 20, 2002
For example, we would like at some point to be able to offer
physicals to our employees through that clinic which is savings for
the county, things of that nature, where those health care
professionals are being utilized more effectively then they are in a
clerical capacity.
MS. BARCLAHEIMER: We are also seeing an increase in the
clerical side of the occupational nurse's job with baseline testing that
we have started and Jeff can talk about those details? But we have
been bringing in a lot of the employees to establish baselines as far as
hearing, sight and other wellness issues so that we can monitor what
the effects of their jobs are. That is pretty extensive paperwork and
follow-up to establish the baseline and then test them annually. Jeff,
do you want to add to that?
MR. WALKER: That's correct. I mean, the occupational health
nurse, in addition to doing workman's compensation and pre-
employment physicals, is also doing audiometric testing, sparametry
testing, hearing testing, vision testing.
These are recurrent testings that have to be done on employees
in the field. For example, in your water and your Waste Water
Department. Those folks who wear protective masks, SEBA
equipment, that sort of thing, have to be fitted and tested on an annual
basis, and that's what this occupational health nurse is doing.
That saves us a tremendous amount of money as opposed to
sending them out. And -- and we feel like that we can better utilize
the program and exploit it more effectively be taking some of the
clerical functions of his shoulders.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. Just --just so that I
understand this correctly. Right now this nurse handles all of her
clerical, you want a position to handle the clerical. That's what it's
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June 20, 2002
for, right? .And she is so busy that she can't handle the clerical herself
right now?
MS. BARCLAHEIMER: That's correct.
MR. WALKER: He.
MS. BARCALHEIMER: Yeah, he, Gary Troy. Okay. He is
handling his paperwork as well as his duties as a registered nurse.
What that means is that the amount of paperwork effects the number
of employees that he can treat in the clinic. He has to do the
paperwork. That's mandated.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And he treats them just for
employee -- employee, like, evaluations and drug testing and so forth;
is that--
MS. BARCLAHEIMER: There are several things. There are
pre-employment physicals so when somebody is being hired --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: But he doesn't do the physical, does
he?
MS. BARCLAHEIMER: Yes. He does the pre-employment
physical and a preliminary drug screen. And then for existing
employees, he does workman's comp triage.
So if we have a workman's comp issue out in the field, they
come to him first, he assesses them and a number of other things.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: The reason I have been pursuing
this is, you know, I -- I -- I don't work in the department, obviously,
so I -- I just think you do a fine job and then I didn't know.
If you had this extra position for, like, answering -- I get-- gee, I
hate to say this on the record, but I get calls here and there from
people who have submitted an application and never hear a response,
never have a return letter and -- and they never know what -- what
their position is or if they are going to -- if they are even being
considered.
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June 20, 2002
If it was a help to that area, because it seems you are
overstressed there, I could understand it, and that was the point of my
questioning.
MR. WALKER: Well, those areas are interrelated, because
particularly in the hiring process, the scheduling, for example,
physicals goes through the operations section of the HR Department.
And so one of tl,.e duties of this position is while they will work
at the customer service area, they are providing customer service to
our employees and our potential employees in that they will help our
new hires in terms of getting us physicals scheduled.
It will help our employees in terms of scheduling the worker's
compensation visits. They will schedule our employees in terms of
all those other types of tests that we talked about and handle the
clerical support as well as providing clerical support to the operations
section.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: I don't have any questions here.
I think we spent $35,000 on this discussion. I think they are all great
questions. I'm satisfied.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Should we move on?
MR. OLLIFF: I think we probably need to deal with the one
Productivity Committee recommendation on the fleet services
reserve.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes. That's on page F-8. In your handout
is the motor-pool Capital Recovery Fund. Previously in my opening
remarks we talked about the established case, a Sinking Fund where
if you had a vehicle that was lasting seven years, you would pay for
the up front cost and over seven years, put -- put that money into a
Sinking Fund, so that at the end of the seven-year period, you had
enough cash to replace that vehicle on hand without having to have
budgetary spikes due to a number of vehicles coming on line.
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June 20, 2002
The Productivity Committee had actually, previously raised this
issue a couple of years ago. We changed the system from a pure cash
base to a modified cash base funding system. With the annual
contribution for replacement vehicles being equal to either the total
amount of the vehicles, the cost of the vehicles that were planned to
be replaced within the subsequent fiscal year or the average of
planned expenditures over the next five years, whichever were
greater. That was the compromised position.
The Productivity Committee, there is a-- a large reserve in the
Motor Pool Capital Recovery Fund of which staff recently had a
preliminary or a feasibility study done by Disney and Associates.
We've talked for a number of years about moving the County Barn
Operation to the landfill.
Obviously the landfill is tied up in Rural Fringe and Growth
Management Issues, so we looked at stop get measures, what we are
going to do in the interim.
And the feasibility study identified that once Roden Bridge
moves out of the County Barn facility, that would provide enough
space for both the current Fleet Management Operation as well as
ultimately the Sherit~t~s Fleet Operation, which is currently in a leased
facility.
I believe it's on Arnold Avenue in the Industrial Park, so that
would free them up fi'om their existing lease which, long-term, we
need to be doing anyway to -- based on the costs of those facilities so,
and so we have $700,000 in design money taking some of those
accumulated reserve funds that we had obligated for a new -- or we
had identified as being set aside for a new fleet facility to do that
design now that we have that feasibility study, they've evaluated
whether or not the Sheriff's Operation could fit into that facility now
that Roden Bridge is gone.
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June 20, 2002
Joanne, I don't know if there is anything else to add relative to
the feasibility study or--
MS. BARCLAHEIMER: Just that the first thing the feasibility
study looked at was -- is the existing building worth investing in.
And the answer was no, that putting any additional funds into the
existing structure was not effective or efficient because the building
is too old and too dilapidated. It needs to be raised.
And then based on that assumption, the architects and engineers
looked at the ability to fit both the Sheriff and the Board's Fleet
Management Operations at that facility. They can. They will allow
us to co-share many -- many aspects of the operation, like the fuel
center, the wash rack.
And just to give you an idea of what the Sheriff is paying in
lease payments, it's around $80,000 a year. There is a three percent
escalation clause, so if you were to look at them being in a facility for
20 years, you would be looking at 2.4 million in lease payments, in
expense versus something we own.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Why don't we call Ms. Vasey and
ask her for what the Productivity Committee recommends.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Can you identify the estimated costs
though from the feasibility so the -- of planned joined facility?
MS. BARCLAHEMIER: The estimated probably costs are 8.3
million. That is for design, construction, site work, permitting;
everything needed to locate both -- both operations in a new facility
that would last at least 20 years expected --
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Well, what would be the break even
point? You can wait on that.
MS. BARCLAHEIMER: I have to --
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Yeah. Go ahead and figure that out
while we wait on Janet.
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June 20, 2002
MS. BARCLAHEIMER: I had every other number calculated,
but--
MS. VASEY: Janet Vasey for the record. Our analysis for the
motor pool capital recovery account is that there is three million
dollars there that we could withdraw and use -- and put the money
back to the customers that paid it in. Originally, this money was
collected for the purchase of vehicles, not for the building or the
facility.
And-- and through some changes in the process, the money was
-- has been accumulated and is there and is available. It has recently
been identified to be used for a facility but that was not its original
intent. I just wanted you to understand that it was really to purchase
vehicles.
We looked at where that money came from and got a lot of
information from Dan, and -- and it was -- it's our recommendation
that you put that money back to the accounts that it came from.
If you do that, you'll get a million eight that either go into the --
the General Fund which is nearly a million dollars or transportation
related funds.
So you could get a million eight out of it, $600,000 would go
into the Unincorporated General Fund and about $500,000 would go
back into Community Development. And those numbers were really
good until the interest from the clerk got removed, so I -- I have to
tell you that those would have to be invested. We couldn't keep up
with all the changes.
Our -- our reasoning here is it's better use for the money to go
ahead and -- and put it into the roads now because we need it now for
road construction and it has benefit to those other accounts.
The way to finance this, we think, would be to get a loan for the
construction of the building and then this is a what we call an Internal
Service Fund and one of the things that an Internal Service Fund does
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June 20, 2002
best is accumulate costs and then bill out on an hourly rate, so along
with the -- the costs of labor and materials and working on the cars,
you would have a cost of debt service on the loan.
And it could go out as an hourly rate and then everybody pays
their share, the utilities, the vehicles, they pay theirs out of the Utility
Fund. The Sheriff and -- and a good part of the County Managers
vehicles would be paid out of 001.
You know, Community Development would pay out of 113. So
it -- it allocates the total cost of not only the work that's being
performed, but the cost of the building that is done with the loan.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: True cost of doing business.
MS. VASEY: Exactly.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: True cost accounting.
MS. VASEY: Exactly.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Why isn't it a good idea? You can
speak candidly.
MS. BARCLAHEIMER: One of the issues when you have a --
a one-time revenue source, we are always hesitant to offset operating
costs because it artificially lowers your operating costs and then you
will see spikes in the following year.
We are looking at about $591,000 of that money is in billings
that would be avoided next year that could stay back in the variety of
funds. $700,000 of it, though, we have allocated for the design of the
facility. We would have to come up with some financing mechanism
for that.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I guess the next question would be
what -- did you figure the break even point on that, by the way?
MS. BARCLAHEIMER: Yeah. I'll tell you how we figured it.
We looked at the cost of the facility being 8.3 million. We backed
out what was available in the Capital Recovery Fund Reserve and
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June 20, 2002
said we would finance that over 20 years. Including the cost of the
financing, it would add approximately ten dollars to our labor rate.
We would go from a $53 an hour labor rate to a $63 labor rate,
so we spread it out over the 20 year useful life of the building.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Yeah. I didn't get an answer to the
question I was looking for, but, Commissioner Henning, maybe you
can ask it differently.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Here's how you can get the user
to pay for it. This is just part of how you do business is what Ms.
Vasey is bringing up. I -- a person going out from Community
Development doing inspections. Those fees are paid by -- by the
permit; correct?
MS. VASEY: Yes.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: So all those costs related to it
should be passed on to that use, and that's all I think that Ms. Vasey is
saying is true cost accounting for each -- each department.
MS. BARCLAHEIMER: And that will still take place under the
scenario that we presented to you. The building is 8.3 million
expected cost. What's available in reserve will not offset the cost
totally, so we will still be financing over a 20-year period and passing
that cost onto the user through the labor rate.
So those people who use the facility over the 20 years will pay a
labor rate that is carrying that -- the burden of the facility.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Then if they are going to do that,
why do you need so much money up front to pay for the building?
Of course, some of it is for the design. I understand that, but
wouldn't that --
MR. OLLIFF: The--
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: -- money also be dedicated? I'm
sorry, Tom.
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June 20, 2002
MR. OLLIFF: The only thing we -- we are almost arguing
about the same thing, because the monies were collected from the
user department to begin with. We all agree that the building ought
to be paid for my the user departments.
The only thing that we are arguing about is it doesn't make a lot
of sense for us to return the money all back this year and then rum
around and bill them for it again down the road. Why not borrow
less by taking the three millions dollars I've got.
And putting it towards the capital project, and if the project is 50
million dollars, whatever it is, then I only have to borrow 47 and
charge that back to the departments, because it's the same
departments who contributed to this reserve that I'm going to tum
around and bill for the reserve.
So I just -- I don't understand the exercise in retuming the
money and then turning around and billing them back for it again in
the future.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Can we make our decision on this
when -- this is coming back to us when, tomorrow or the next day?
MR. OLLIFF: We can certainly put this on a wrap-up list and
then have a discussion about it at the end.
MS. VASEY: I do have one issue on that. It isn't exactly
equitable the things were collected. It was collected as I said from --
it was for vehicle purchase through the Motor Pool Fund.
And the fleet management account actually services all of your
vehicles, but the motor pool capital recovery was not buying all of
your vehicles.
It was not buying utility vehicles. It wasn't buying about half of
your vehicles, so there is money in there from some of the people and
no money from utilities.
It's not an equitable kind of thing, and the reason that we were
trying to give the money back was so that you would have a million
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June 20, 2002
eight for roads, and one other thing, you are often hearing that this
offsetting revenue is a problem because you kept it in the accounts
where it was originally.
You know, you put this money back and reduce a tax rate or
something like that and that creates problems in future years, but
you've always got things happening in a given year, and -- and there
shouldn't always be a resistance to lowering the tax rate.
I mean, you just -- there will be other reasons next year that you
could lower it, too. It doesn't always have to be that you would have
spikes and things like that.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: We're talking about using this money
in the roads that we save from what I understand.
MS. VASEY: Right. And that's the million eight but I think
what thcy were referring to on the -- the offsetting revenues and
having spikes and things was like in the Unincorporated General
Fund and perhaps Community Development.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I understand that. Let me make one
suggestion and then we can continue this or else bring it up at the
wrap-up after we've though about it. You need $700,000 for the
design study.
MS. BARCALHEIMER: Correct.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: How about if we dedicated that to it
and returned the rest of it back in such a way they could be used
towards roads?
MR. OLLIFF: Why don't you let us work with Janet on splitting
the baby and bring you back a recommendation at wrap-up.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. Does that sound good so we
can move on?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: The other concern long term is what it's
going to do to you fleet rate adding a $10.00 an hour charge to your
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June 20, 2002
fleet rate, the next recommendation will be, your fleet rate is too
high, you should outsource fleet management because --
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Yeah. Let's get it all down on paper
so we can actually see it what it looks like. MS. VASEY: Okay.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I think that for a wrap-up; do you
agree? Thank you.
MR. OLLIFF: Mike, where to?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Susan is going to lead us through capital.
We are going to talk about impact fees-supported capital such as
parks, libraries, and we are also going to talk about road funding.
MS. USHER: If you can turn to your capital section in your
book on page H-2. The first Impact Fee Fund that we'll be reviewing
is the EMS Impact Fee Fund.
On H-2 is the Impact Fee Fund on H-3 is EMS Capital. You
have two funds in front of you because the first project we are going
to talk about in the Impact Fee Fund is the Grey Oaks Station.
That station is being shared with not just only EMS, but will be
shared with two fire districts. The money that the fire districts have
given to us is in a separate fund and that's on page H-3 in Fund
Number 351.
That money is segregated so that we can track interest earnings
on that n~oney. The contract we have with the Fire Department, state
that we need an interest earnings rate on their money while in our
possession need to be returned back to the Fire Departments.
The two Fire Departments that are participating in this
constru,:tion project is East Naples Fire Department and North
Naples Fire Department. This project in total, the Grey Oaks Station
is just ever a 3.3 million dollar project.
If you look on page H-2 under Grey Oaks, the EMS portion, the
Impact Fee is $1,115,900 and the balance will paid by the two fire
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June 20, 2002
stations. And you can see their total on H-3 under capital projects.
That's the $2,231,800.
The next project in EMS is the East Naples Substation -- EMS
Station. That -- that facility is being funded one hundred percent out
of Impact Fee Funds, and that's a 1.5 million dollar project. The next
project is the EMS Service -- excuse me, the Emergency Service
Complex.
Tl:e $500,000 is for some preliminary design of that complex.
That complex will be located on the corner of Davis and Santa
Barbara, actually, right next door to the East Naples Substation.
And finally, $50,000 is needed for some equipment for Hazmat.
If you have -- do you have any questions?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: None from me.
MS. USHER: Okay.
CIIAIRMAN COLETTA: Please, proceed.
MS. USHER: If you would please turn to page H-5. This is the
Ochop~e Fire Control District Impact Fee Fund. They do not have
any projects --
MX. OLLIFF: Unless there are any questions on this one --
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah. Let's skip that.
MS. USHER: Okay. H-6 is the Isles of Capri Impact Fee Fund.
C:tAIRMAN COLETTA: Keep moving.
MS. USHER: They -- okay. On H-7, is the Library Impact Fee
Fund. They are requesting $60,000 in addition to what was funded
this year for the hnmokalee Branch Library Expansion. The project
this year xvas budgeted at $680,000. Half of that was paid from a
state grant we received.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Questions? No questions?
MS. USHER: Okay. If you would like to turn to page H-8, this
is the total page of all the Impact Fee Funds within the Parks and
Recreation Department.
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June 20, 2002
There is one active Impact Fee Fund and the other three that are
noted are Impact Fee Funds that are in the process of collapsing. The
biggest project here is the North Regional Park. That's a 41 million
dollar project.
You can see that on the top of the page and if you look near the
bottom of the page, there is a 35 million dollar bond that we are
looking at securing so that we can construct the North Regional Park.
Other projects are -- and Tom had noted, the Golden Gate
Community Center Improvement for $900,000. We also have some -
- an elementary school out on Everglades Boulevard. We're just
upgrading the -- the sports area for $800,000.
We also have the 951 Boat Ramp Expansion for $250,000. Part
of that is being paid out of Impact Fees. On Monday, you'll see
another portion being paid out of Florida Boater Improvement
Monies, so this is only partially funded by Impact Fee Funds. And
then the rest of the items are various field upgrades and park
improvements.
hnpact Fee Funds can only be paid for growth-related items, not
for repair, replacement, maintenance-type items.
MR. OLLIi~F: And for some reason, because they are wildly
popular, I'm going to point out that we are building a second dog park
in your system out on a property we own on Manatee Road. We have
one at Veteran's Community Park off of Immokalee Road and I, for
the life of me, can't understand why it's so popular.
But it -- it was just oven'un by people just bringing their dogs
there so we are going to try and duplicate that at the south end.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Do you think you can negotiate with
the City of Naples to use Lowdermilk Park for a doggie beach?
MR. OLLIFF: I think maybe you could send the commissioner
from that district back to City Council to see if he wanted to --
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June 20, 2002
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: SOMETHING, Commissioner
Coyle.
MR. OLLIFF: The other thing I would point out is you do see a
couple of school projects in here and that is just a continuation of our
effort to try and -- and quit duplicating efforts in areas where there
are schools located that we can partnership with the school and
provide lights and maintenance on some of their facilities and
upgrade their facilities slightly, then we get access and the public gets
access to those athletic fields, basketball and all of their sports
facilities after school hours, so it's a good partnership in a lot of these
areas.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Is this restricted just to certain
schools or are all schools supposed to be open for this?
MR. OLLIFF: We have that agreement with the Collier County
School Board, so it goes to all schools, but we are selecting schools
in certain areas where we don't have parks or the neighborhoods have
a long, long way to go to get to some of our parks.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Yeah. For years now I've been going
down to Oakridge? Is that the one on 951 down at the --
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: And I was told years ago by the
principal that I could use that along with anybody that wanted to, the
tennis court. Quite often the gate is closed and I just open it and
drive in. I've been doing it now for like eight years. No one has ever
challenged me.
I mean, the trooper lives right there I've drove in and used it, but
I have never seen another person using this. In other words, here is a
resource that if you know about it -- and now I'm sharing my secret
with the whole world. That was smart. Now I'm going to get hell
from my wife tonight when I get home. That's for sure.
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June 20, 2002
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Why don't you take a picture of
yourself playing tennis and we'll put it on the website and put a little
caption where it says, Please join me.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Yeah. Make it a video clip. You
ought to see me in motion.
MR. OLLIFF: If you'll remember that picture of President
Clinton jogging, I think you will refrain from any of that.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Just a fast question. While Marla is
here, have they finished that bathroom on Marco Island yet?
MS. RAMSEY: We're anticipating July 15th to have the total
punchout done on it.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: What does total punchout mean?
MS. RAMSEY: Oh, everything from making sure that there is
no dents and the painted over areas that's been scratched and --
MR. OLLIFF: And it will be done.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. Thank you.
MS. RAMSEY: Marla Ramsey, Parks and Recreation Director.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Seriously, all joking aside, I -- I don't
like these services that are available only to the select few that are
aware of them. I mean, it's -- if it's there -- I'm sorry.
MR. OLLIFF: Unless we have a specific agreement for that
school --
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Oh, I'm sorry. When I asked, I
thought you were saying --
MR. OLLIFF: We can have access to all of them if we want to
partnership with any of these particular schools, but in that particular
case, we've not gone in and made the agreement with -- for that
school where we have lighted the place and we're taking in the
maintenance and taking on the responsibility after hours.
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June 20, 2002
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Oh, I see. In other words, you would
actually have to have a person on site?
MR. OLLIFF: No. But we do execute a separate agreement and
then the responsibility for the after hours public use then shifts to
Collier County, and in a lot of these cases, they do have the fences
and they do secure their sites in what they call remote areas where
they don't have presence and we don't have an agreement with them.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Well, I talk to you more about it
later.
MR. OLLIFF: Okay.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And -- and while you are talking
about schools, you have the East Naples Middle. Is that in response
to my -- my concerns about the lighting and -- and the people playing
the soccer out there, but no lights?
MS. RAMSEY: That's a request from a number of different
areas. There was -- a number of years ago, we looked at that facility
but there wasn't enough parking to allow us to utilize it in the
evening.
They have recently made an agreement with the church that's
alongside to attain some additional land and put in some additional
parking. When they do that, that would then allow us to be able to
come in and light the soccer and the softball field there.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: So that's what this money is for?
MS. RAMSEY: That's correct.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I don't think there are any other
questions. Thank you. A wonderful presensation.
MS. USHER: We can start going over transportation. That's on
H- 15. This is the Transportation Engineering Department. Fund 313
is the Gas Tax Fund.
And there, we do fund some operational expenditures for the
engineers in real property personnel that are there to help acquire
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June 20, 2002
land easements and land purchases. And then we also fund road
projects from this fund.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Could we take about a five-minute
break?
(Whereupon, a five-minute break was taken and the meeting
continued as follows:)
MS. USHER: Okay. If you would turn to page H-15. This is
the Transportation Gas Tax Fund, Fund 313. In the Gas Tax Fund
we finance the engineers in real property specialists that help us with
our road projects.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Did we -- did we skip H-147 I
think we did.
MS. USHER: I don't have 14 on mine. Oh, okay. Fourteen is --
I wanted to go over what --
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You want to go through the
supporting document and come back?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, I see. Okay. I'm sorry. Okay.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I got confused, too.
MS. USHER: Gas Taxes, they pay for the engineers and real
property specialists. They -- that are used to help acquire the land
that we need when we expand our roads. We also fund our Capital
Projects out of Gas Taxes, which you can see on page H-15, the
$101,459,900.
We also pay some money to the General Fund for indirect
service charge. We also transfer money over to make debt service
payments. We are also contributing money to the GIS project. This
is the second and final year that we are paying for the implementation
of GIS.
And we're also transferring money over to Fund 101, which is
the Road and Bridge Maintenance Fund. Then we also have reserves.
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June 20, 2002
On page H-14 is their expanded requests. It's a total of $383,100 and
this is for the concurrency management program.
The Transportation Department is requesting two positions for
this, and also $200,000 for Planning Consultant Fees. Since this is a
new program that they are taking in-house, they need time to get it up
and running, so that's why we have some outside consultant fees
helping us facilitate to get to our goals. They also need a new vehicle
to accomplish this.
MR. MUDD: Let me help on this just a little bit,
Commissioners, to help you on the concurrency thing and explain it
just -- you did a good job, so I'm just going to give you a little more
detail because Norm is not here right now.
The senior planner, he's going to need somebody that's in-house
that's basically going to make sure that what's being submitted from
the Development Community and the road system that he's got has
got real-time concurrency.
It's okay to do it once a year because you're just looking at it
once a year, but we're talking about looking at it every day in that
process.
Plus, the concurrency system, if it's different or it's demenymous
we're asking -- we're asking the Development Community or that
commercial person that wants to build a building to come in with a
pretty detailed traffic plan in order to show where that traffic would
be -- that they could move it someplace else to avoid a certain stretch
of road that was -- was having a problem as far as its capacity versus
-- it's -- it's basically car total against the voluminous capacity.
The data base administrator -- right now, we have six -- we have
six permanent traffic count stations of which two -- two are being
actively used and -- and the data is being looked at. It wasn't until
three or four months ago that Norman, and maybe because he was
new and didn't have the -- the institutional knowledge, knew that we
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June 20, 2002
had four additional permanent stations out there. And guess what?
We haven't been reading that data.
And so we are going at it one station at a time to -- to get those
back online and in this budget request, there is another four
permanent, and it's not necessarily here.
It's in 111 and we'll talk about that tomorrow, I think. We -- we
have an additional request for four permanent count stations. That
will bring the county's total to ten. Right now we are only actively
using two.
And so we are doing spot surveys. We have a requirement to go
in there for 24-hour periods of time, four times a year during different
quarters, and we do that at 200 different locations, so we've got some
good sampling techniques that are out there but we need to increase
our permanent stations.
And I'll give you a comparison. Lee County has got 37
permanent count stations and it's a smaller county, and I'm not saying
that's right and neither is Norman.
But I will tell you, two isn't right, and I think at ten, we're
getting closer to where we need to be if we are going to have a real-
time concurrency system that's got some good hard numbers being --
being looked at 365 days a year, 366 on leap year. And we need that
data person to be on-line.
The $200,000 for consultant fee, Norm is worried, and rightfully
so, that -- that he is going to get rushes by -- by the Development
Community when -- just like we saw when we had a new building
code, we got rushed with certain permits and certain developments.
Just like we talked about at our last board meeting when we
talked about the three roads that were in moratorium, do we give
them a 20-day grace period or not. Ten, it would automatically
happen as the Board discussed it, because that's administrative time
to get it up to DCA and to Tallahassee to get an approval. We -- we
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June 20, 2002
talked about that the last Board meeting, but during that period of
time, you get input.
And that input comes to you in a mad rush versus at a slow
steady pace and -- and what this consultant fee is for, those peak
periods so he could -- could get over those and bring a consultant on
instead of bringing on a full-time employee during those particular
times. And again, it's a new system and that's his best guess.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning.
COMMISSIONER HENNING:
is a position just like Don Scott?
MR. MUDD: Except-- yes, sir.
Planning-- senior planner, this
Except Don Scott is the
Director of Planning. This person's only job would be to manage the
full-time concurrency system for-- for transportation.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: The data administrator? Can't
we have a -- can't that be a supervisor's position instead of an
administrator?
MR. MUDD: No. It's not an administrator position. Let's call it
a -- a data base technician if you would like. It's not like an
administrator like Norm or Public Utilities Administrator.
This is somebody that is just going to administer -- maybe this is
just a bad choice of words as far as the position. It's not that way.
This person is running the data, gathering the data base.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: The salary looks like it's an
administrative position.
MR. MUDD: Again, that's a fully burdened salary that sits
there, so you are talking about not only the salary, but you are also
talking about the benefits, life insurance and all those other things
that go along with it.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Data base Administrator, I read
as $17,400. That's what I see down here under-- on page H-17. I
guess, years ago we would have called it a clerical position.
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June 20, 2002
COMMISSIONER FIALA:
COMMISSIONER CARTER: 89.9?
wrong page.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: No, that's right.
They wrote it here for 89.9.
Well, maybe I'm on the
75.7 is the personal
service expense and then you have operating rolled into that which
comes to a total expanded request associated with that position,
computers and all for 89.9.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: So it's a fully-funded position
with equipment--
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: -- everything, regardless who
was there?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Why don't we hear from Ms. Vasey
and then go from there, because I personally thought this was an
excellent idea when it was explained to me before, and I would like
to find out why it isn't.
MS. VASEY: Actually, we think it's an excellent idea too. We
are not at all opposed to it. What it is is the checkbook accounting,
but it's a lot more expensive than a checkbook.
But, you know, that's what the cost of doing business is because
it's a complicated program to handle all the different capacities on the
roads and everything.
But our issue is the funding source. If you'll look at page H-16,
we have gas taxes are being used as the funding source on this, which
is basically, you know, road money. And we're saying that this
should not be funded by gas taxes, it should be funded by
Community Development Services, Permits and Fees.
And the rationale here is, currently, when somebody from
Community Development brings a PUD in or something to be
reviewed by transportation, there is a reimbursement for that. And
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June 20, 2002
that's -- and this system is now going to be the automated system that
will do that in a lot more detail and a lot more, you know, a lot better,
but it's still the same function.
The reason we have this data base system is to support new
development, and since it supports new development, we think that
Community Development Permits and Fees should pay for it and
that's growth paying for growth, so it's not an issue with the --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: It sounds good to me.
MR. OLLIFF: I don't want to interrupt but I think we would
wholeheartedly agree and we'll go take a look and see if we can't
squeeze that out of the CDES budget.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: Mr. Olliff, didn't we -- we made
a transfer of positions out of-- out of the Planning Services over to
Transportation and you're right, we lost the funding source through
fees to go to the other side --
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Good work.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Good point, yeah.
MS. VASEY: All right. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I just have one question on
page 20. Part of the way down Logan Boulevard, Pine Ridge Road to
Vanderbilt. I believe that should be Vanderbilt to Immokalee.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: What page are you on, please?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Page 20.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: About what line?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I'm down to number, project
number 60166.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA:
COMMISSIONER FIALA:
These don't fall in numerical order.
Right about in here(indicating.)
COMMISSIONER HENNING: A third of the way down.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Logan Boulevard.
Page 177
June 20, 2002
MR. OLLIFF: Okay. We'll double check that. You are saying it
needs to be from Pine Ridge to Immokalee?
Immokalee, yes.
COMMISSIONER HENNING:
MR. OLLIFF: Okay.
COMMISSIONER HENNING:
going --
It needs to be from Vanderbilt
MR. OLLIFF: Vanderbilt to Immokalee, right?
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Good catch. Anything else?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah, this CR-29 for the city of
Choco. Just kidding.
MS. USHER: We would like to go to page H-18 through H-19.
This is the recap of the Transportation Road Projects. This includes
gas tax along with impact fee funds. A lot of our road projects are
being funded by one -- more than one source.
It's not unusual to have a road project in gas tax and then maybe
one or two Impact Fee Funds, so it was easier to review these road
projects as a total instead of by pieces. But if you want to see it by
pieces, then on H-20, H-21, you can see the different pieces to come
up to this total that's on H-18 through H-19.
The spread sheet is in the order, in descending order of what
budget needs for 03, the top projects being Immokalee Road for 27.5
million, six-laning it from US 41 to 1-75. Right now there is design
work on it and I believe this is construction costs. Oh, and then
inspection. I'm sorry.
The next project is Immokalee Road. It's County Road 951
through 43rd Avenue Northeast. Again, that project is under -- in
design right now and the 25.3 million being requested for next year is
construction and inspection.
And then we have the four-laning of the Vanderbilt Beach Road.
It -- from Airport Road to 951. Again, we are currently in design
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June 20, 2002
with that and wetre anticipating construction costs and Inspection
Fees in the amount of 24.4 million.
And then the last large project would be the Goodlette Road
four-laning from Pine Ridge Road to Vanderbilt. Again, we're in the
design phase and the Construction and Inspection Fees are
somewhere in the neighborhood of 14.6 million. We do -- we are
funding this -- helping us to fund this with a bond issue.
We estimate if you go to page H-19 near the bottom, you'll see
bond proceeds of $147,618,000. We are expecting that we'll need to
issue a bond in that dollar amount to fund the projects that are being
listed.
We also have some grants coming in. About 12.2 million
dollars, the two largest ones being reimbursement for the Livingston
Road and a TOPS Grant from the State for the overpass Golden Gate
Parkway overpassing Airport Road at that intersection.
We anticipate that -- transportation is in an Impact Fee Review
right now. It will be coming to you before the year end is out with
their new Impact Fee rates. We don't -- at the time preparing this
budget, we didn't know exactly how much those rates would go up,
but you can see that this year we anticipate collecting 17.3 million
dollars of Impact Fees and next year we are anticipating 25.5 million
dollars.
But we'll have to wait until the study comes forward and -- and
you review that before we determine how much the rate will go up,
and then, gas taxes we have estimated about 16.8 million dollars.
And that is your Transportation Fund. Do you have any questions?
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: No. Please, proceed.
MS. USHER: Okay. And our last fund is the Correction
Facility Impact Fee.
MR. OLLIFF: Susan, before we do that, I want to talk a little bit
from a big picture prospective about Transportation Construction
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June 20, 2002
Funding. And I think the Board has seen the five-year plan graph
that shows the need for Ad Valorem subsidy in your transportation
construction budget in order to balance your Transportation Fund
over the next five years.
And I just -- I want to spend just a moment so that the Board is
clear in terms of what we are proposing. What we have done this
year and what our proposal is for the five-year plan, to try and make
sure that there is not a feeling that we need to -- to really jump in and
create some -- some huge reserves or anything in order to be able to
fund the transportation needs.
Now, I will tell you in fairness, this is based on the current
adopted five-year road plan, and as long as the Board or the MPO is
not throwing in a bunch of additional projects to this, it is fairly
manageable given the proposal that we've got for you here.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: Quick-- for the record, Michael
Smykowski. This shows the five-year road funding plan as it
currently exists. In the FY 03 year, you see there is 8.9 million
dollars of General Fund support to the road program.
That includes three million dollars in transportation maintenance
that was previously funded by gas taxes based on the adopted Road
Transportation Plan. We are using one hundred percent of the gas
taxes for road construction effort.
In addition, the estimated Debt Service on the bonds was 5.9, so
the 5.9 plus the three represents the -- the first year commitment in
terms of General Fund support of the Road Program.
The key note here, it jumps from 8.9 to 12.5 in 04 but then the
quantum leapage, you would have to make is actually between Fiscal
Years 04 and 05. You go from 12.5 to 23.1 in a single year, so you're
looking at almost an 11 million dollar jump and obviously, that
would eat up a substantial amount of the available new revenue
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June 20,2002
assuming you're on a continued upward growth trend in terms of
assessed evaluation.
Therefore, the opportunity exists if you were to try to smooth
that by taking a little bigger bite of the apple in Fiscal Year 04 to
soften the magnitude of the leap between years 04 and 05, and I did
some quick calculations yesterday in an attempt to smooth that.
Essentially, you would be moving what this shows is if you took
a slightly bigger bite in Fiscal Year 04, instead of 12.5 million, if you
up that to, like, 16.8, obviously the leap then from 16.8 to 24 is only
eight million dollars as opposed to almost eleven,
So by taking a bigger chunk up front, it softens the need for
borrowing more later, and also in those years when you ran out of
bonding capacity, we were using Commercial Paper under the
existing program to soften the out years and you see that was fairly
consistent at about 30 million dollars a year.
If you put more money into the Road Program in the early years,
you would have less of a need for that smoothing in the out years and
you would actually lessen your burden over Fiscal Years seven
through nine. So there is an opportunity that exists obviously, and
then I think it's not inconsistent with what the Productivity
Committee was looking at in terms of finding additional dollars early
on in the process for roads.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: May I make a suggestion that we
might want to keep our minds open on this. When we get through,
and we set the value of what we want to spend in each part of the
budget, that's it. We can only go down in September; is that correct?
MR. OLLIFF: That's absolutely correct, sir.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Then I suggest we set something
right now of about 25 million dollars instead of 16, with the idea that
we may find that money and if we have to adjust in September -- and
then that -- this place could be the catch all for anything that we save
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June 20, 2002
or any additional monies we come up with. In other words, 16 is
what you've got down here; is that correct? Am I looking at this
right?
MS. SMYKOWSKI: That's in Fiscal Year 04 that you would
have a larger bite in Fiscal Year 04. You are going from 12.5 to 16.8.
COMMISSIONER CARTER: That will be next year's
discussion, sir.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. Well, I -- I realize that, but
what I'm saying is if we -- if we are all conservative in setting the --
the number for roads, I think that's contrary to what this commission
is all about.
We made a commitment and that commitment is that our roads
are top priority, so if we --if we get the number up there in the roads
we can always adjust it back down or move the numbers around to be
able to move money into that if there is a possibility we find more,
rather than locking ourselves in at a low number.
MR. OLLIFF: You don't lock yourself into anything during this
process except for the millage rate, and the millage rate will generate
the full amount of revenue that you've got in your budget so that if
you want to make some adjustments and put more in roads down the
road, you can do that.
All we were trying to show you with this is if the Board
unofficially were to at least think about and establish a policy where
this year we were carving off somewhere about 30 percent or so,
maybe up to 40 percent of the growth money that comes from your
Ad Valorem taxes and put it towards Road Construction. You've got
to remember that this amount of money is built in next year.
So the amount of new money that you have to raise is only the
difference between this bar and this bar, so the amount of new money
that you are going to need in Fiscal Year 04 is only going to be about
seven to eight million dollars as opposed to the full 16.8, and the next
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June 20, 2002
year then you need again only to raise the difference which would be
about another eight million dollars.
And if the property tax increases continue as they have over the
last two decades at a fairly reasonable rate, what we are showing you
is that you can manage to offset and -- and balance your five-year
transportation capital need by simply carving off a dedicated
percentage of you Ad Valorem Tax Growth.
Now, recognize that of your total Ad Valorem budget, then you
are going to be dedicating nine million dollars of it in Fiscal Year 03,
you'll be spending 16.8 million General Fund dollars.
In 04, you'll be spending 24.4, so in a pure dollar sense, you are
going to be spending a significant amount of Ad Valorem tax money
for the first time ever to build roadways in this community. But we
are telling you there is a way to get there without crippling yourself
too badly if you sort of set that policy up front.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: We remain at millage neutral? I
mean, I'm speaking for myself. That's where I'm headed, millage
neutral. By just moving things around, maybe taking out of other
pockets that we can dedicate the money to this road situation, we can
still remain at millage neutral?
MR. OLLIFF: What it means is you will have less money to be
able to spend on your Ad Valorem Departments growth because you
will be spending it for road construction, and that's sort of what we
said all along.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah.
MR. OLLIFF: But you can do it. What it means is, for instance,
this year, you had a 17 percent property value increase that netted
you 22 million dollars Ad Valorem money. You took nine million
dollars off the top for road construction.
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June 20, 2002
That means that in another year, under a millage neutral budget,
you would have had 22 million dollars for Expanded Services this
year. This year you have 13 million dollars for Expanded Services.
So you will have less to be able to spend on Expanded Services
in the future, but, yes, you can stay within millage neutral and have a
fairly regular growth rate within your departments.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: The-- this doesn't include the
44 million dollar shortfall that we have identified the needs; correct,
in the five-year?
MR. OLLIFF: That is the shortfall. We are -- oh, the four
additional roads the MPO just added in?
MS. USHER: No, the landscaping.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: You're talking about the landscaping.
MR. OLLIFF: No.
MS. SMYKOWSKI: That was not part of the Board Policy
Direction relative to the Road Funding Plan. It excluded those.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Correct. And then the four
road projects that we're going to improve --or approve for a five-year
transportation, that's not included in that; correct?
MR. SMYKOWSKI: That is not included in there either, but we
-- we -- in the five-year road program, we were fairly conservative on
the Impact Fee estimates. We assume 14 million in the current year
and then we actually dropped it down to eleven, and obviously, if you
are looking at a major road impact fee increase as a result of the study
that's currently under way, obviously, that will take a bite out of those
new projects that are -- are entering the fray as well.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Okay. Please continue.
MR. OLLIFF: Okay. Susan? Sorry for that little side trip but I
thought it was important.
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June 20, 2002
MS. USHER: Okay. If you would like to turn to page H-22.
This is a correctional facility Impact Fee Fund. Major project that we
will be building next year, we are in design right now and we'll be
building next year is the Naples Jail Space Expansion.
Right now, we have designs. We have hired an architect to
design the project, and the construction is estimated to be somewhere
in the neighborhood of 34.2 million dollars. Because we are building
the facility right next to the existing facility, part of that cost -- let me
back up.
We're funding this project with a bond issue and the bond issue
will be paid back with primarily from Impact Fee Funds, but because
part of this project is to renovate the old jail, where the new jail is
going to meet, 83 percent of the bond proceeds -- bond debt service
cost will be paid out of Impact Fee Funds and the balance will be
paid out of Ad Valorem.
MR. OLLIFF: Any questions there?
MS. USHER: That's it.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: We're done for today.
MR. OLLIFF: That concludes the today's agenda. Mr.
Chairman, we appreciate your indulgence and your patience. We will
see you here bright and early tomorrow morning.
MR. SMYKOWSKI: And tomorrow we will be talking
exclusively Ad Valorem tax-supported either in the Unincorporated
Area or on a County-wide basis through the General Fund.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Great. Looking forward to
it.
(Whereupon, the meeting was concluded.)
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June 20, 2002
There being no further business for the good of the County, the
meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair- Time: 4:40 p.m.
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX
OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF
SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS
CONTROL
JAMES COLETTA, CHAIRMAN
.:':~' DW,:IGH~ E. BROCK, CLERK
Attest as to Chairman'S
sf~ature o~15.
These minutes approved by the Board on .,~aw./o.a,,,~, as
presented :/' or as corrected
Page 186