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Agenda 09/10/2019 Item #2B (6-20-2019 BCC Budget Meeting Minutes)09/10/2019 COLLIER COUNTY Board of County Commissioners Item Number: 2.B Item Summary: June 20, 2019 BCC Budget Workshop Minutes Meeting Date: 09/10/2019 Prepared by: Title: Executive Secretary to County Manager – County Manager's Office Name: MaryJo Brock 07/09/2019 10:11 AM Submitted by: Title: County Manager – County Manager's Office Name: Leo E. Ochs 07/09/2019 10:11 AM Approved By: Review: County Manager's Office MaryJo Brock County Manager Review Completed 07/09/2019 10:10 AM Board of County Commission ers MaryJo Brock Meeting Pending 09/10/2019 9:00 AM 2.B Packet Pg. 20 June 20, 2019 Page 1 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Naples, Florida, June 20, 2019 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners, in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as the Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing board(s) of such special districts as have been created according to law and having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m., in BUDGET SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: William L. McDaniel, Jr. Burt L. Saunders Donna Fiala Andy Solis Penny Taylor ALSO PRESENT: Leo Ochs, County Manager Nick Casalanguida, Deputy County Manager Mark Isackson, OMB Director Jeffrey A. Klatzkow, County Attorney Crystal K. Kinzel, Clerk of the Circuit Court & Comptroller Troy Miller, Communications & Customer Relations June 20, 2019 Page 2 CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Good morning, everybody. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Good morning. Ooh, that sounds like a cold, too. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I'm not seeing the agenda. Do we have a prayer and a pledge like we always do? MR. OCHS: We have a pledge, like we traditionally do at your workshops. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay. Well, then, let's do the pledge. Please all rise. (The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'm glad we don't have to sing. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: You don't have to sing? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, like a Kiwanis club, as you say the -- CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Well, we could do that instead of a prayer. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Have Commissioner Solis lead us. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes. He's got his deep, sexy voice going on this morning. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Good to see all the old familiar faces once again, doesn't it? CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: You may proceed. GENERAL OVERVIEW MR. OCHS: Good morning, Commissioners. And welcome to the Fiscal Year 2020 Board of County Commissioners' Annual Budget Workshop. For the record, I'm your County Manager, Leo Ochs, and it's my pleasure to present the proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2020. June 20, 2019 Page 3 As is our custom, Commissioners, and as you'll see in your agenda and your schedule for today, I'll begin with a brief overview of the proposed budget. You're familiar with the format. I sent the PowerPoint to you earlier in the week. I also had the opportunity, along with Mr. Isackson, to meet with each of you individually. So I won't go over every slide in full detail, but I'll try to hit the highlights. And, of course, we've talked about these earlier in the week. And then when I finish up, obviously, I'll be happy to take any questions or entertain any discussion at that point. Following my brief overview, we'll move into individual operating unit presentations in your County Manager agencies during the morning, along with your courts and judicial operations, and then the afternoon is typically reserved for presentations by your constitutional officers. So with that, Mr. Chairman, with your pleasure, I'll go ahead and begin the overview. Thank you. Commissioners, as I mentioned, you're used to seeing the format in some of these slides, so I'll move quickly. This slide is simply a reminder that we operate annually in a system of integrated planning program execution and performance management and measurement, your annual fiscal plan being just one of a myriad of strategic and operational plans that we work on in conjunction with you every year. The chief among those is your strategic plan, and every service and program and capital investment contained in your proposed FY '20 budget is designed to be either preserve or in some cases enhance one or more of these primary strategic focus areas in your strategic plan. In terms of the budget schedule and the budget timeline, just June 20, 2019 Page 4 some of the highlights more for the audience than for the Board. We begin every March with our budget policy setting where the Board provides guidance to the staff on the primary aspects and components of the budget for the coming year. We, obviously, then prepare that budget based on that guidance and have the workshop here today. Next month at your July 9th board meeting we'll bring to you the proposed maximum property tax rates to be levied in FY '20 and ask you to make a decision on those. Once that decision's made, we provide that information to the property -- excuse me -- to the Property Appraiser, and the TRIM notices go out on August the 24th. That's followed in September when you return with two statutorily required public hearings that ultimately results in the final adoption of the budget on September 19th of this year. So we move into the planning and forecasting for your FY '20 budget. It's always developed in the context of a review of your local economic conditions and the landscape, and for FY 2020 I'm pleased to say that your local economic landscape, in our view, remains relatively healthy and resilient, at least in the near-term forecast as indicated by some of the statistics provided in this slide. I'll highlight just a few. Your countywide taxable value has increased 5.69 percent for the coming fiscal year. That represents eight consecutive years of tax-based growth. That's a good indication of a healthy local economy. Your taxable sales year over year have increased approximately 4 percent. Your state sales tax and state-shared revenues remain steady and are trending in a positive direction. Our median home prices have remained consistent in and around that $400,000 range year over year. The destination visitation in April is up 7.3 percent and remains June 20, 2019 Page 5 strong year over year. New construction permitting and inspection activity is robust and remains strong during 2019 and is anticipated to remain the same next year. Your unemployment rate locally is below the national and the state trends, and that's an indication of a tight labor force. That's both a blessing and a challenge to local businesses and county government. Some of the highlights in budget guidance that was provided by the Board that we'd like to reflect in the FY 2020 proposed budget are reflected on this slide. I know there's a lot of information here. I'll try to rip through it quickly. Essentially, your budget guidance for your property tax supported County Manager operations has been met with some noted exceptions that we'll go through during the day that reflect either service-level enhancements, new capital-facilities impacts, or strategic initiatives provided by this board during the year. Your General Fund remains a millage neutral operating tax rate at $3.56 per thousand dollars of taxable value. Your Unincorporated Area General Fund millage rate remains the same at approximately 81 cents per thousand. Both in your General Fund and your Unincorporated Area General Fund we've made significant increases to your reserve levels in FY '20 as compared to the current fiscal year. We'll talk about the importance of that in just a few minutes. Your budget is well positioned, if the Board pleases at any point during the year to issue new credit, as new initiatives come forward. We have a few expanded service requests and a few increases in proposed FTEs in the coming year's budget. We will get into the details of those in a minute, but they essentially reflect areas where we have new capital projects coming online, and we need to staff June 20, 2019 Page 6 those new facilities. Your budget continues to provide the amount of discretionary resources that we need to make additional investments in our infrastructure, both your stormwater system, your transportation network, your park infrastructure, and other general governmental facilities, and we've got approximately $43 million worth of new money for capital investments in FY 2020 that we'll detail during the morning. We've also incorporated for the first time in your FY 2020 budget a new $5 million set-aside for long-term capital reserves to replace capital facilities, and that's something that we've been looking to do for several years. We've been able this year to begin that for the first time. You recall a few years ago the Board allowed us to begin that type of long-term capital recovery program in your fleet maintenance operation, and it's been very successful in providing a dedicated source of funds to replenish our rolling stock on a year -to-year basis. We have dollars appropriated into this budget for employee compensation adjustment that reflects the change in the annual Consumer Price Index, and we're pleased to report that there will be no health insurance premium increases proposed for the seventh consecutive year. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Mr. Ochs, can you go ahead, again, for the public indicate how that employee compensation is going to work. Because I think it's a credit to your operations as to how you're handling that. MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. Commissioners, instead of making a flat percentage increase across the board, we've recommended a $1,200 increase to base pay for each employee in Fiscal Year '20. We think that's a responsible way to deal with the amount of June 20, 2019 Page 7 money that we have available to address our employee comp ensation. It essentially reflects about an equivalent of a 2.2 percent increase on an average wage. Obviously, employees earning at the lower end of the spectrum will see a higher percentage increase than those that are above the average wage for the agency. So we think that's a way to help those employees that need the most help. Thank you, sir. Commissioners, I want to talk just briefly about Hurricane Irma and the budget impacts that remain fully 20 months after the event. The county has spent, exclusive of our salaries, our soft costs, about $115 million through May 22nd of this year restoring the community from the hurricane. We've received reimbursements for those expenses from both FEMA and our own insurance proceeds totaling about 7 -- excuse me -- $77 million, and your FY -- the remaining expenses are primarily related to clean up of debris in your waterways and canals. So that's the primary work that's left in terms of in the major cleanup initiatives from the hurricane. I'm pleased to tell you that your 2020 budget is flexible enough and programmed appropriately to fund any new natural disaster should it arise, and obviously we hope we don't have the need to do that. Again, quick review of your countywide taxable value trends. As I mentioned, our taxable value has increased for the eighth consecutive year, although you will see that there's been some moderation from the highest annual increase that occurred in Fiscal Year '17. So while the trend is still positive, we need to be cautious and conservative about our approach going forward. Also, your millage rate history for your Unincorporated Area General Fund, you can see that remains at the same level that it's been since Fiscal Year '17 at 0.8069. And, again, that was adjusted in FY '17 to initiate your June 20, 2019 Page 8 completion of your median landscape program, and we'll talk about that in a little bit as well. Some of the highlights from your FY 2020 recommended budget. Again, with a millage rate operating tax rate, that will result in an increase of about $17.8 million in your countywide General Fund. That will take that budget to about $332 million. Your millage neutral unincorporated tax rate remains the same. It will provide approximately $5.3 million to continue your median landscape program exclusively for landscape maintenance at this juncture. And we've talked about that during the year, and we'll get into that in a little bit more detail this morning. As I mentioned you do have some expanded service requests in your County Manager operations totaling about $6 million and 13 new FTEs. The majority of those -- 10 of those are programmed to provide an industry -level standard of stormwater maintenance, and that was a topic of considerable discussion this current fiscal year, and the Board has allowed us to move forward with an industry-level standard of maintenance that will require about $5 million of additional investment and 10 FTE. Your constitutional officers have also requested a series of expanded requests, including ten new FTEs in your Sheriff's Department to address the continuing school resource officer program, three FTEs in the Clerk's agency, and four requested by your Property Appraiser, and they'll detail those this afternoon. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Look up here every once in a while. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I hate to interrupt, but on the school resource officers, obviously there's been a lot of discussion as to who should pay for that. I think we should resolve that issue now if we could. And my view is for the County Commission to go ahead and continue to pay that full amount for this budget year and direct our June 20, 2019 Page 9 staff to continue conversations for our next budget year. And I make this recommendation really based on the fact that we're sort of at the last minute. And I think to avoid the public discussion, the fallout from all of that, it would be wise for us to go ahead and just pay it for this year and then continue those discussions going forward. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I agree. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: How do you feel? COMMISSIONER FIALA: You've forgotten me. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I heard you say "I agree." You're sitting here leaning in the affirmative. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Were we going to have any presentations on that issue? I mean, I'd like to hear what -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I think it would be important to hear the presentation. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Oh, I'm assuming we will. We're not disregarding the presentation of the Sheriff and the discussion with regard to that, but -- COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Okay. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: -- I think the general consensus is to -- for us to maintain that expense. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Sure. I was just looking to -- maybe of a way to avoid the confrontation, but that's okay. COMMISSIONER FIALA: We'll just wait, right? MR. OCHS: Very good. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: That's correct. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. I just wanted to make sure. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes, ma'am. June 20, 2019 Page 10 DEBT SERVICES MR. OCHS: Commissioners, I mentioned one of the primary program enhancements proposed in your FY '20 budget relates to your stormwater program. The program within your General Fund and in your Unincorporated Area General Fund is approximately 13-and-a-half million dollars, which represents a millage equivalent of .15 mills, as we've discussed during the year. That would fund an industry standard maintenance program and provide capital dollars for modest cash-and-carry capital improvements and also the potential to apply some of those proceeds to long-term borrowing that we will bring to you when we're ready to lay out the five -year capital program for your stormwater system. You can see how that 13-and-a-half million dollars lays out in your FY '20 budget in the table on this slide . The amount in reserves, the $2.2 million in reserves can remain there for cash and carry, or it could also be applied as debt service if the Board chooses to get into a financing situation for some of your capital improvements. Speaking of capital, this is a brief list of some of the changes year over year proposed in your General Fund and Unincorporated Area General Fund for your Capital Improvement Program. You'll note a $2.75 million proposed increase in your accounting system upgrades and replacements. Those are your agency-wide financial management systems that support all of your back-office operations. Not only for the County Manager's agency; it's also utilized by the Clerk of Courts. That system's about 10 years old, and we're working in conjunction with the Clerk's Office to evaluate some needs for either upgrades or replacements in FY '20. You'll note the new capacity recovery reserve that I talked about at $5 million is a new appropriation proposed for FY '20. We have June 20, 2019 Page 11 some -- over a million dollars additional going to your regional parks for capital improvements and capital replacement upgrades as well as another million dollars in your transportation capital and your stormwater programs. Also a large -- fairly large increase in your airport capital funds. Those are primarily matching funds to large state and federal grants for expansion of runways in Immokalee and your continued capital improvements in your airports. We talked earlier, Commissioners, about the position changes proposed in your FY '20 budget over FY '19. You can see that we have 13 positions recommended in the Board agency. Ten of those, as I mentioned, are for your enhanced stormwater operations. Then we have three others that we'll detail during your morning presentations. The constitutional officers have 17 expanded requests, as I mentioned earlier, the largest of those being in the Sheriff's Office. We talked about the compensation-adjustment proposal a little earlier. Again, you can see how that lays out at $1,200 flat increase on the base wage for each employee recommended for FY '20. We've also reserved about a half million dollars to make strategic adjustments in some of our pay classifications, primarily at the lower end of the scales. Commissioners, we're seeing increases in minimum wages in the private sector because of the competitiveness of the economy and the tightness in the labor market, and we certainly want to be able to -- be able to attract and retain people in those particular classifications. And we -- and you'll hear this a little bit later from Ms. Leiberg in the morning to tell you a little bit about the landscape of the local labor market and how important it is for us to, in our view, remain competitive for the best talent we can get here to serve our citizens. Health-care program, I mentioned, again, seventh consecutive June 20, 2019 Page 12 year of no premium increase. You have a very actuarially sound group health insurance program led expertly by Mr. Walker and his team. We continue to share expenses 80 percent by the Board, 20 percent by the employees, and that continues to be a good program for us. Your county net budget for FY '20 comes in at about $1.4 billion, and we'll talk briefly about how the money comes in and where it goes. You can see that 28 percent of your revenues are generated through ad valorem taxes. Another 5 percent comes in through your new infrastructure sales tax; that's a new revenue feature. You have 18 percent, and that's that blue slice at the bottom of the pie representing your charges for services. For example, your water and sewer charges, your ambulance fees, your garbage collection fees. About 6 percent of that revenue comes from your beginning year fund balance, what we call our carryforward. That allows us to pay distributions that are due to the Sheriff and other constitutional officers early in the fiscal year before we collect all of the tax revenue for the coming fiscal year. And then where that money goes: About 8 percent of that goes to your general government operations; 20 percent goes to what we describe as public-safety operations, including the Sheriff, EMS, your Code Enforcement, and life-safety codes; 18 percent into the physical environment, including your water/sewer system, your beach renourishment, et cetera; another 8 percent into your transportation program; and a 36 percent reserve in all of your dedicated funds. Commissioner, these are the highlights now of your countywide General Fund. This is the fund that provides revenues for most of the front-facing services in the organization. That General Fund budget proposed for FY '20 is $476 million; represents a 9.2 percent increase from the Fiscal Year 2019 budget. June 20, 2019 Page 13 We'll look at the general pro forma and some of the changes driving that. If you go down to the bottom of the table on the left, you see the total increase from FY '19 is approximately $40 million. If you go up to the two lines just above that and you look at an increase in reserves and an increase in the transfers to the constitutional officers, that makes up about 50 percent of that $40 million increase, and the balance is in the line items that you see here, and we'll highlight those during the morning, particularly those relating to the County Manager operating transfers. On the revenue side, you can see it's primarily driven by property tax revenue and your beginning fund balance. Let's talk about your General Fund reserves for a minute. As you know, and Mr. Isackson continues to highlight for you year over year the importance of your General Fund reserves. These include both your contingency and cash flow reserves in your General Fund. And you can see a significant increase proposed for Fiscal Year '20. The reasons for that are enunciated here briefly in this slide. Not only is your General Fund reserves a big indicator of your credit worthiness -- and we're proud to report that we carry a Triple A credit rating in your investment grade corporate credit -- it's the highest you can get -- and also Triple A revenue bond ratings from Standard and Poor's. Your General Fund reserves helps maintain financial flexibility for you in case you have some unexpected expenses like hurricane expenses or you have strategic investments that come your way during the year like, let's say, a golf course or a fire station or who knows. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Who knows? MR. OCHS: It also projects your beginning cash balance. As we said, you know, we've got requirements under the statute to fund the Sheriff beginning in October of each year, and our revenues from June 20, 2019 Page 14 our collections of property taxes don't fully come in at that point. So we need some beginning fund balance to make sure that we're making those statutory transfers to the Sheriff. It helps you deal with unfunded mandates from the state and federal government as well and provides a reserve for your constitutional officers as well as for your Manager's agency. In terms of your debt, you can see since FY '7, we've worked hard with you to bring down our outstanding principal debt as an organization. And we continue to work on that. You can see that for FY '20 our outstanding principal debt is about $529 million. That's a slight drop from the current year where we've had, for the first time in several years, the issuance of some new debt. You can see the footnote there at the bottom. That represents a $63 million bond issue to support the construction of our new amateur sports and event complex. We also had a special revenue issue of about 76 million in your water and sewer area to move out on your northeast expansion. Your annual debt service -- the principal and interest payments on that debt stays well within and compliant with your debt management policy. The Board set a policy for your debt service not to exceed 13 percent of your total bondable general governmental revenues. For FY '20 you're well within that at approximately 6.6 percent of those revenues. So you have capacity, per your policy, if need be and if the Board desires, to issue additional debt when it makes sense at a strategic level. Your General Fund revenue and expense is outlined here beginning with your revenue sources. You can see that your General Fund remains highly reliant on ad valorem tax revenues. About 70 percent of your General Fund is funded through those tax revenues, another 9 percent is provided through your state sales tax June 20, 2019 Page 15 receipts, and about 3 percent comes from various fines and permits and service charges. Among those revenues -- let's just take a quick look at a few of those. Your ad valorem dollars, due to your increase in countywide taxable value, is up about $17.8 million in Fiscal Year '20 over your current adopted budget. Your state sales taxes are forecasted to remain the same, as are your state-shared revenues. Your gas taxes are up slightly over Fiscal Year '19. They continue to inch up slowly, but we don't expect any significant increase in those trending forward in the future given the fact that they're not indexed and vehicles are becoming more and more fuel efficient, not to menti on some of the alternate sources of power for vehicles like electricity. Your impact fees are projected to increase about three-and-a-half million dollars in FY '20 over what was budgeted in the current fiscal year. That's a positive indicator. And, as I mentioned, your General Fund budget beginning fund balance is about $74 million representing slightly over 18 percent of your forecasted FY 2019 expenses. Briefly, your Unincorporated Area General Fund is about $62.5 million projected in FY 2020. It's a bout a 5.9 percent increase over the current fiscal year. About $5.3 million of that is earmarked for the continuation of your median landscape maintenance program. We've had a lot of discussion this year about the huge spike in the cost of median landscape maintenance and the necessity to dedicate those funds exclusively to the maintenance of our currently installed landscaping, and we'll talk about that when the Growth Management Division gets up here this morning about a few things that we're trying to do to address that issue. The pro forma on your Unincorporated Area General Fund, you'll see on the left-hand expense category we've moved revenues for your new stormwater operation into some new funds to better June 20, 2019 Page 16 track those. And on the right-hand side, again, your primary revenue is ad valorem taxes for your Unincorporated Area General Fund. And, finally, we'll have a representation of a typical residential tax bill for somebody that lives outside of the corporate limits of a municipality. Forty-one percent of that tax bill goes to support the Collier County School District, about 20 percent of it goes to county general government, another 15 to support the operations of the five elected constitutional officers, about 10 percent goes to fund the independent fire control districts, and there's another 9 percent that goes to fund municipal service taxing units that are created by citizens for specific program and service enhancements. We talked earlier. Commissioner Saunders raised the issue of the Collier County school resource officer funding concern. Again, just briefly, the state law that was passed last year required the school districts to provide for the safety of their schools and to provide a school resource or school safety officer in each of the schools in their district. The budget for this year and the Sheriff's budget is about $10.8 million to provide a sworn deputy in each district school and each charter school in Collier County. That is one of three options available in the statute. It happens to be the one that's endorsed by both the school district and the Sheriff. It is the most expensive of the three as well. There's an additional $3 million appropriated this coming year in the Sheriff's budget to add some sworn officers for the school resource program. I'll talk to you about those this afternoon. And we have received in the current fiscal year $1.6 million from the school, which was their state allocation for school resource officer funding. I met yesterday with the Sheriff and the school superintendent. You saw the communication yesterday from the superintendent that we're projecting to receive two-and-a-half million, roughly, from the June 20, 2019 Page 17 school district in FY '20 to offset those costs in the Sheriff's budget. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And that two-and-a-half million comes from the State? MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. That's all categorical funding from the State. So there's not a lot discretion, obviously, on the part of the school district to provide that to the Board. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: But it's a passthrough. MR. OCHS: Yes. Yes, ma'am. And, finally, just, again, some of your continuing budget challenges. We talk each year about the heavy reliance on property tax and state-shared revenues to fund your General Fund. As long as the economy stays healthy, that should sustain us, but we always have to be diligent about what's going on not only locally but at the regional and national level for things outside of your control that would affect our revenue streams. We continue to have to strike that balance between catching up on some of the deferred capital maintenance and replacement, our asset management, while also dealing with about an annual 2 percent growth in county population and the attendant new service demands that that creates for our county government. As I mentioned earlier, we need to remain competitive in the employment market for the talent that we need. And then, finally, we need to continue to monitor the unfunded federal and state mandates that seem to be almost a routine occurrence these days and what kind of impacts those may have on your budget. And that's another reason why we work hard to maintain reserves and give you the flexibility that you need in the budget. Mr. Chairman, that concludes my opening overview. I'd be happy to take some questions, or we could reserve those as we move into the individual operating unit presentations. June 20, 2019 Page 18 CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Nobody's lit up, and I think we're -- you know, we pretty much answered -- or asked the questions as you were going along. MR. OCHS: Very good. Thank you, sir. COURTS AND RELATED AGENCIES MR. ISACKSON: Commissioners, your first presentation will be from our court system. Chuck and the gang. MR. RICE: Morning. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Sit right there in the middle. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I think that's the hot site there. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes, it is. MR. RICE: He's here to protect me. Amira's here to defend me or arrest me. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I think she does the prosecuting. MR. RICE: Sometimes I'm afraid to get in front of the microphone. Commissioner McDaniel, you said something about singing a song. I'm pretty dangerous when it comes to that. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay. MR. RICE: Good morning, Chairman and Commissioners. For the record, my name's Chuck Rice. I'm the Court Administrator here in Collier County. To my left, you have Amira Fox, your State Attorney. MS. FOX: Good morning. MR. RICE: To my right we have Circuit Judge Joe Foster. JUDGE FOSTER: Good morning. MR. RICE: And as always, we want to thank you and Leo and Mark and their staff for your continued support not only through the budget process but throughout the year. June 20, 2019 Page 19 We're here collectively to present a $5.7 million budget. That's a 1 percent increase to the General Fund from last year. It is in compliance; we're a half percent under with no expanded requests. As always, we'd like to put a priority on the highest level of service at the lowest possible cost to the taxpayers. We always try to be aware and optimize our resources that we have. The Court -- I just want to highlight a few things, then we'll turn it over to the Judge and Amira. First off, the Court's been impacted, just like the county has, with Hurricane Irma cases and everything. We faced a 216 percent increase from 2017 to 2018 for contract indebtedness and insurance claims just from Hurricane Irma cases. We're still seeing the filings coming in at a pretty high rate. Everybody says, what's the court system do? Well, the simple answer, I think, is we're there to provide timely and fair justice to everybody, not just represented, but pro se and everybody in the community. And I just want to highlight a few things that we do. You know, we have several diversionary programs that we work with the Sheriff's Department, with the State Attorney's Office, Public Defender's Office. We have a proactive probation department that works closely with the Sheriff and his staff. For example, the other night we had a probation officer go out in the community to check on somebody in their home with a deputy. We confiscated over 50 grams of marijuana, several -- numerous prescription pills, and firearms from one home, and then we obviously arrested him for a violation of probation, and the sheriff's deputy arrested him for the other charges. So we're out there in the community being proactive. You're all aware of our problem-solving courts, and you're involved in that. It's really enlightening for us all to see somebody June 20, 2019 Page 20 come into these problem-solving courts, whether it's veterans court, mental-health court. They're broken; no hope. And you see them go through that with Judge Martin, with the representative from the state attorney, working with David Lawrence, with a public defender there with some consequences and expectations, and you see this broken person that sometimes is facing suicide. And as we all know, addiction just don't face the one person. It affects family members, employers, people in the community. And at the end it at graduation -- I know some of you have been to graduation on drug court, mental-health court, and veterans court, but when you see these people come out with hope and with some expectation and excitement for their lives, it's pretty impressive. You know, unified-family court, we're in the forefront of that here in Collier County. The principal of that is one judge, one family. And when you see a broken family and kids being taken out of homes -- and the goal for the Court, from the Florida Supreme Court, is reunification; to get that family back together. And when you can get them counseling and the proper skills and everything to be a better parent and better family, you see that family come back together, that's a benefit to all of us in this community. That's pretty opening – eye-opening. And that's, you know, a compliment to all of us, including you and Leo and the county for their support. So that's what the courts do in a snapshot. I hope that helps. And, Amira, would you like to make any comments? MS. FOX: Sure. Good morning, Commissioners and County Manager and staff. First of all, I echo Chuck's comments. Thank you so much for your tremendous support of the programs that really are crucial in the criminal justice system. And I can tell you I've been in t he criminal justice system now for almost 30 years, and the difference that the problem-solving courts, the specialty courts have made to the system June 20, 2019 Page 21 are immense. Instead of turning someone back out who's still a terribly bad drug addict or with mental-health issues, we're trying to rehabilitate. It's working. I think it's cut our recidivism rate quite a bit. So I think that the citizens of Collier County are tremendously fortunate to have a commission that is forward thinking enough to have helped us fund these positions, because I can assure you they've made a tremendous difference. So thank you for that. Thank you for your continued support of the State Attorney's Office and everybody in our system here, the court system, and we will try very hard to keep up the good work for you. Thank you. JUDGE FOSTER: And I also would like to echo -- by the way, nice to see you all. On behalf of my colleagues and myself and everybody that works at the courthouse, thank you very much for the tremendous support that we get from the Board of County Commission. We strive every day to have the best courthouse and court facilities in the state, if not in the nation, and without your support we couldn't do nearly what we do, so we very much appreciate it. And, certainly, if you have any questions, we're happy to answer those. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Saunders. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Just a quick question. And thank you for all that you do in reference to these problem-solving courts. And you have a 1 percent increase in your budget. And my question is, do we need to spend more on those problem-solving courts, or are there other areas that are developing around the country, for example, that have other types of judicial programs that might be of value for us to look at? MR. RICE: I think I can speak on the problem-solving courts. I June 20, 2019 Page 22 think we can always -- I know we have the David Lawrence Center back there. We always can use some additional funding. I know we have some grants that require matches from the David Lawrence Center. And, you know, sometimes a grant from the State of Florida is very limited in the scope of the grant itself. So, you know, it's something we can look at as a whole and see what might be the best use of the county's money where the need is but, absolutely, I think there's a need. I just think we've got to get the players together and brainstorm. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: The reason I ask that is I think we actually save money, perhaps, in the jail system and that sort of thing if we have more activity in terms of these problem-solving courts. Commissioner Solis has led the charge on dealing with some mental-health problems, and we've got in our sales tax that referendum; there's, I believe, $20 million -- COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Twenty-five. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: -- $25 million for a facility for dealing -- to continue dealing with the mental-health problems that we have in our jail system. And so my question is: Obviously, we're here to not spend more money than we need to spend, but I think -- and this is an area where we actually save a lot. And so continue thinking in those terms. If you have programs or need additional funding, certainly at our next budget cycle, I think you'll get a warm reception from the Commission in terms of trying to solve those types of issues, especially the mental-health issues. MS. FOX: Thank you, Commissioner. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Solis. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yeah. I just -- thank you for all you're doing, and I'm glad to hear that the treatment courts are June 20, 2019 Page 23 functioning well, and I just want to touch base on the three FTEs I think that we approved, was it last year or the year before, to actually make the treatment courts kind of functional or more functional than we were, and just help with the data collection. That's all going very well, hopefully? MS. FOX: Yes. Commissioner Solis, thank you, and thank you for your support in this area. We were able to make tremendous use of the position that you gave our office, and we hired what we call our specialty court or our problem-solving court coordinator, and she's been able to make our process in the State Attorney's Office much smoother by being able to get more cases in and process them more quickly and get them to conclusion in front of Judge Martin, although sometimes it takes somebody up to two years to get through the Court. But that position, that additional position that you funded, I can say on behalf of the State Attorney's Office, for us last year, we really needed that. We hired an excellent person, and they've been wonderful for helping us process and get more numbers through. Back to what Commissioner Saunders asked in conjunction with what you're stating, we could always use more people, and we would like to see more people going through the problem-solving courts. We are so fortunate here to have the David Lawrence Center. And our problem is -- and it's throughout the circuit, that you have to have the treatment that the people can go to. And, of course, until David Lawrence Center, because of the excellence they provide -- they do a very careful job on every case, and they would have to have the funding to take on more people before we can put more people into the specialty courts. So that position was tremendously helpful. At some point I feel that we'll be coming to you when we get to that stage where we have the treatment provider up to speed. As far as being able to take June 20, 2019 Page 24 more people, I feel that we will be coming to you and asking for more staffing in our problem-solving courts as we're able to put more people into the courts. JUDGE FOSTER: I was going to say, just if I could, on the liaison position with the State Attorney's Office, I'm in felony now, and having the state attorney actually in the courtroom when we're doing the case management conferences talking about folks who are being screened for drug court, mental-health court, veterans court, because they're with me during my case managements, because that position exists, we're able then to better schedule, for our purposes, a time when we'll know they'll be through the process and we'll know one way or the other. And so those cases then will either drop off my docket or we know it's not going to happen, as opposed to in the past it's been you have to keep coming back every four weeks or so until we know for sure one way or the other. Now we're able to coordinate better because the position's there and we have the data and they know what the timing is so that we're not wasting folk's time coming to see me multiple times. When you come back and see me, I know you didn't qualify for the court. Now we're going to proceed on the criminal side, and that's been a tremendous benefit for us. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: And can I just follow up with one thing? And I just wanted to support what Commissioner Saunders pointed out. And we had, I think, last year at our mental -health workshop, we had a gentleman that came and spoke and said that -- told his story that five years before he was introduced into the drug court program, had nothing but a pair of jeans and a T -shirt, and then he shared his story that now five years later he's gone through it, he's got a -- you know, he owned his own car, and I thought that was great. He owned his own house; I thought that was even better. And June 20, 2019 Page 25 then he shared that he had his own business, and he employed 10 people, five of whom he always takes from the treatment courts. I mean, the investment and the return on that investment on that one individual for the community, I think, is -- people need to understand that that is a huge savings in a lot of different ways, and that expands out exponentially when you think about the 10 people he's employing supporting their families and spending money in the community, supporting other people. So thank you for doing what you're doing, and keep up the great work. MS. FOX: Thank you. JUDGE FOSTER: If I could, one other area that I would be remiss if I didn't talk about. One of the other things that happens with the addiction and the mental-health issues with parents is -- and one of the problems we're having in the state as a whole is as the -- particularly the opioid addiction, but as we're having increased addiction in mental health, we need more spaces for the children to be at so that while their parents are working through their issues -- and hopefully we're able to reunite or to reunify -- that's a struggle we're having, because there's been a tremendous increase in the amount of parents who are developing the addictions and those issues. And, obviously, we need to protect the children. And so that's an area I want to make sure that we don't lose sight of as well when we're looking at the big picture. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. You know what, I don't think we ever realized that. Thank you for bringing that out. JUDGE FOSTER: My pleasure. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Let me ask a couple quick questions in reference to the drug court. Obviously, we're in an opioid crisis, and Collier County isn't immune from that. And I'm June 20, 2019 Page 26 kind of curious as to success rates. So you have a certain number of people enter the drug court program. They go through that, and I think you said it takes a couple years to get through all of that. MS. FOX: Yeah. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Do you have any statistics on your success in terms of someone goes through the program, and they stay clean for a certain period of time? They're out of the system. I'm curious as to what your -- MR. RICE: That's what we do, Commissioner. And thank you. That's one of our positions that you granted us, the problem-solving court coordinator. She maintains those statistics. And, currently, just for your information, we have 78 people combined in the mental-health court, drug court, and veteran’s court. Our success rate last year, I believe, is right over 60 percent, which is a little -- I believe a little above the national average. So that's -- COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: If you had -- everyone that would eligible for those three diversion programs, what would be the number? You said there's 78. Are we touching, you know, 10 percent of the potential need or -- MR. RICE: I don't think 10 percent. Ten percent of the people that would qualify? COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: That's what I'm talking about. If you were able to treat, through this court system, everyone that would qualify, what kind of a number would we be talking about? Just a -- MR. RICE: At least double that. MS. FOX: At least double. MR. RICE: I mean, the principle of it is kind of last chance versus jail time, prison time. They can do this, and that prison time is diverted. So, you know, that's a very complex question for me to June 20, 2019 Page 27 answer right off the bat without doing some research. But depending on the cases that are out there, their history, you know, and if they qualify and if the state is willing for them to qualify, but certainly we can probably double that number pretty easily just by maybe changing the parameters if all the players are willing to do that. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: But your success rate is pretty phenomenal -- MS. FOX: Thank you. We're proud of it. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: -- when you consider the population that you're dealing with. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And you should be. Commissioner Taylor. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: With that success rate, what is that based on? Recidivism? What? No recidivism? Recidivism within, what, two years? Five years? MR. RICE: We look at recidivism for the following two years, and then the graduation rate is different from our recidivism rate. So right now we're just hitting that kind of two-year point, so we're at 60 percent, which is pretty good. We look back at the history as we look back at people's priors after they graduate. So we're looking right now at about a two-year period. JUDGE FOSTER: And you're always going to have the potential for recidivism later. But, generally speaking, the folks -- the population we're dealing with, if they've made it two years, there's a really strong potential that that would continue. You're looking three, six, nine months usually is when you start seeing the problems redevelop. Folks get back into the community. They've got the additional stressors if we add in the family and the children and the jobs or the lack of jobs. So, really -- and I don't have the data to be able to definitively say that, but -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: You might have some June 20, 2019 Page 28 experience in the courtroom, sir. JUDGE FOSTER: Yes. But a two-year period of time, you're definitely still going to have some folks who are going to have some blips. But one of the things that's really, really nice about the treatment courts -- and as you all know, when you're going through a process of recovery, there has to be some immediate consequences to your behavior. And when there is an issue when you blow a drug test or whatever, with the drug courts, you're back in within seven days, if not sooner. There's an immediate consequence. There's usually some jail time involved, a chance to refocus on your counseling and so on. That's why they're successful. And as you know in the dependency court where I used to be, it could be a couple months before I would learn that somebody had failed a drug test. I can't correct your behavior in that amount of time. These courts work because there's an immediate, boom, we know you did it. We've got to deal with it. Same thing on my end: You violate your probation, there's an immediate consequence, generally. We're picking you up, and you're coming back to see me about what the problem is. And, you know, whether the treatment courts help you or whatever. But that's why -- that's why these programs are so helpful and so successful. And any of the TV shows and the reality shows and all that, they show it. You develop the relationship with the judge, an d there becomes a disappointment factor. And I don't want to disappoint you, and, Judge, I'm going to make this work, and with some people it does, and we're being successful. Others, they need a little more time. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And help. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And you made a remark that we June 20, 2019 Page 29 need more facilities to house these children -- JUDGE FOSTER: Yeah. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: -- until such time reunification, if it ever takes place. JUDGE FOSTER: Sure. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And we know the foster care situation at home -- the parent home is very difficult in Collier. Are you suggesting another -- gently suggesting another type of care for these children intermediate? JUDGE FOSTER: I'm not suggesting anything particular at this point. Just when Commissioner Saunders says, what is it -- other areas to be looking at, that's an area I'd like us to take a look at. We actually have some great community resources that have developed nonprofits that are helping with help exactly -- basically through the faith community but also greater commission that are going into the homes and helping the parents dealing with some of their issues in the homes so we're not removing the children. And there's been some great interactions that have been created. But, clearly, in the foster care system we don't have enough foster parents in Collier County. The dependency system in the State of Florida, there are times when we were looking for a bed for a particular child who has a troubled past, and there are no beds in the entire state. That's a problem. That's not your problem, but if we're looking at it holistically as a community, perhaps there's some things we could come up with here in Collier County. I didn't have a specific suggestion. I just didn't want that to be something that we didn't look at. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Solis. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yeah, one last question just to follow up. We have no beds in the entire state? JUDGE FOSTER: There are times -- June 20, 2019 Page 30 CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: There are times. JUDGE FOSTER: -- when we are going through the process trying to find a bed for a particular child who has -- there are certain issues for certain children that require extra attention. There are times when they would come before me and we'd be trying to find a placement for the child that is the best therapeutic value, and we are out of beds because we don't have enough of that type of space. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Right. JUDGE FOSTER: And that's -- that's not a -- you know, that's a child with severe emotional or mental-health issues or so on. That's a statewide issue, and that's one that's trying to be addressed at the statewide level. But for our purposes here in Collier County -- COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. JUDGE FOSTER: -- a lot of our kids end up in Lee County or Hendry County while they're going through the foster process or while they're going through the dependency process. That makes it difficult for them to maintain contact with friends, their family. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Sure. JUDGE FOSTER: But that's a different story. And Commissioner Taylor and I have talked a little bit about that, and so -- COMMISSIONER SOLIS: So from the court's perspective, then, what I'm hearing is there's really kind of two bottlenecks. I look at these things in terms of like bottlenecks, is one in relation to the children both on the foster side and on maybe the treatment side, and then the availability of facilities for adults as well. JUDGE FOSTER: Absolutely. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: That's -- the bottleneck is that? JUDGE FOSTER: Uh-huh. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. Thank you. June 20, 2019 Page 31 CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Well, thank you all very much. I mean, I -- in my brief experience with the Public Safety Coordinating Commission and working with you folks for all of those years -- Commissioner Taylor, you brought up an interesting subject, and I'm getting lessons on the rate of recidivism with regard to that, because I used to think repeat customer was a repeat customer, and I'm now learning that there are different leve ls of that as we go. I think there's one concurrence that we can all come to an agreement that there's virtually little to no rehabilitation that comes out of incarceration. So any effort, any correlation that we can have to remove people from the incarceration process is a greater opportunity for us to reach rehabilitation. So the more -- I know for myself -- and there is work that is beginning. The correlation between those that we're able to shift away from incarceration and the expense associated with that -- for you, Chuck, to say 60 percent, that's nice, but if you come back with numbers, dollar-wise, with regard to the associated expenses for the incarceration and then, of course, you can't really accumulate the success stories that Commissioner Solis and others -- there are others that are out there. So I applaud everything that you're doing, and I think hearing from us, at least I know myself personally, that if we can help along the way, that's money well invested for our community on a long-term basis. JUDGE FOSTER: Can I tell you about one other success? The Florida legislature has expanded, again, with juveniles, the diversion programs for juvenile offenders. The Sheriff's Department here has for a long time been very, very proactive on that. We've expanded the number of services available to divert juveniles, first-time offenders, so they don't come to the court system. That's a tremendous program. That's working June 20, 2019 Page 32 very well here. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And that's the feeder to the adult system. You know, we had the symposium several years ago; Commissioner Solis, you and I attended those. And it was all focused on what was going on within our adult system, and little to no activity in the DCF and what was going on with the juvenile side . And that's the direct feeder there. And we learned that there are dire deficiencies in the treatment of adolescents and mental illness and substance abuse just because of the population that we, in fact, have. MR. RICE: I think we're very fortunate also, our Sheriff -- and you may hear of some of these programs this afternoon -- but has numerous reentry programs while people are in jail knowing that 98 percent of our people in jail or prison are coming back to the community. So let's give them the skills to be functional and productive in the community, and our sheriff is very proactive on that with several programs in the jail. It's a nice compliment to him. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Well, thank you. Thank you all very much. MS. FOX: Thank you very much. JUDGE FOSTER: Thank you. GROWTH MANAGEMENT MR. ISACKSON: Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, next on the schedule is Mr. Cohen and the Growth Management Department representatives. MR. COHEN: As our group arrives, I was remarking this morning that either we look like accountants or funeral directors; I'm not sure which. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: It depends on you, sir. June 20, 2019 Page 33 MR. COHEN: I'll have to work on the gray suit for the next time. Good morning, Commissioners, Manager. For the record, I'm Thaddeus Cohen, department head, Growth Management. And on behalf of nearly 597 staff members, it's a pleasure for me to -- and an honor to present and discuss our proposed budget. We feel that a collaborative and creative interaction with the community, business entities, is essential to leverage efficiently our delivery of services to the community, and our fiscal budget of some 298 million highlights what we think we're going to be able to do to enhance our services to the community. We continue to streamline our service delivery through implementation of technology to reduce manual operations and aggressive revamping of other processes to maximize the use of available technology. And through this budget, Development Services, Jamie's team with Matt and Rich Long and Mike Bosi, have been able to reflect these processes and engage the community, keep them informed, and keep our residents informed. And the budget reflects the resources to be able to manage our year over year development activity. The Manager spoke about that earlier. For example, we have a doubling of our commercial permits and multifamily permitting. And, interestingly, last year when we talked, we had 40 percent of our permits coming through the e-permitting process. This past year that's been up to 48 percent. And in May alone it's been 54 percent. So Ken Kovensky and his group that's been very front forward in their business centers have been able to move people from the paper form over to e -permitting, and our budget will allow us to continue to provide those kinds of information and improve our document and review coordination. Our Code Enforcement, as you know -- we've had a chance to June 20, 2019 Page 34 travel around with you, Commissioner Fiala and Commissioner Taylor, and you've been able to see some of the work that we've been able to do, the 28 task forces that have been out there, the 29 meet-and-greets that we've had and, more importantly, the 13 community cleanups. We think that this budget, again, allows us to be able to continue working with the community to address some of the pressing issues that we find. The budget supports our intersection safety improvements through our traffic operations. We're giving special attention. We're starting to wind down the replacement of our existing streetlights, the LED fixtures; that will be completed in this fiscal year. That's one of the programs, when I first got here, that had been the investments that the Manager talks in terms of being able to increase our ability to be able to provide those level of services and keep our arterials moving forward. The design from our Transportation Engineering will be focusing on what I call the far eastern 11 bridges, which will be started and in design currently, and we look forward to being able to put those into production shortly. As the Manager's talked, and we'll touch on a little bit later, our road and bridge asset maintenance keeps pace with past year's funding. And the scenic beautification of our community through our landscape and irrigation program, as you know, staff challenges, and we'll talk about that in a little bit. The repaving and resurfacing program is funded to respond to the strength of growth in our community. So not only are we doing our new capital programs, but we're also maintaining and keeping pace with the funding to be able to do the resurfacing to keep our existing facilities in good shape. You place a high value on the quality and sustainability of our environment. Pollution Control section has garnered state and June 20, 2019 Page 35 regional recognition for meeting the challenges of an ever-changing environment. The rules are changing, as you know, regulation and permitting conditions. We're proud of the fact that one of our staff members is a part of the Governor's team to take a look at the algae issue. So we have a direct connection to how the state's going to be looking at that issue. As you know, we have been, through Amy and others, involved in the sea level rise conversation. I believe at your next meeting Dr. Savarese and Dr. Sheng will be talking again about their modeling and the impacts of sea level rise on our community. We've all been engaged in those kinds of efforts being able to talk in terms of the sustainability. The budgeting reflects, again, our ability to keep pace with some of our partners as they move forward on some of these initiatives. A sustainability and healthy coastal zone has made -- was made more difficult through Irma, but we all know that Gary McAlpin is able to pull some magic in the years that he's been here to be able to move us forward not only with FEMA funding but also being able to work with the Corps of Engineers as he develops that 50-year strategy for how to handle the changing environment. And as we continue to work through, you've recently approved some of those efforts, and our budget will allow us to be able to maintain those initiatives. Collier County is connected to the world through our airports and, as you know, most recently we were to provide you with information of the economic impact that those airports have provided since 2014, and we're proud of the work that's been gone by Jean and Justin in being able to move the airport in a positive direction. Some of the work that will be taking place with the taxiways and to continue moving forward on the construction of the Marco facility, I think, will, again, enhance our ability so that in the next three -year June 20, 2019 Page 36 benchmark we'll be able to show even greater opportunities for economic development through that component of our organization. Some of the challenges -- and I think we want to take a moment to talk in terms of -- as the Manager talked, about our stormwater and kind give you some highlights as to where we believe we are and how we're going to take the dollars that we have and be able to move forward. And I think with technology, we should be able to show that or -- did we hand out our documents? I'm not sure which. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Here comes technology. MR. COHEN: Here comes technology, yes. While that's getting started, as you know, we currently have existing in what's called the Aquatic Maintenance Operation three FTEs. And, again, we appreciate the support that you have provided. And through the Manager's guidance, we've been able to secure an additional 10 FTEs to be able to move forward with our -- excuse me -- eight FTEs inside of our stormwater to be allocated as a dedicated source of a workforce to be able to move our project forward. In addition to those eight -- okay. I think we're close. So that's where we are currently. So in addition to those eight, we're looking at being able to hire eight additional individuals as contract labor to be able to full out two teams in addition to the three individuals that we have currently to help move us towards the industry standard and being able to tackle some of the issues that heretofore have been deferred. So we're excited about that opportunity. I think many of you have met Albert English, who is the new Road Maintenance director. There's been a synergy between his group on the Road Maintenance side, Stormwater, and Amy's side, which is doing the capital component to be able to help move some of these issues forward. June 20, 2019 Page 37 We've had some great conversations with the community. I see that Mr. Estes is here, who's been a very great supporter of our program as we've kind of mapped out for him and others in the community where we think we are currently and how we'll be able to move forward. Next. On the stormwater capital side, these are the projects that are currently funded within our budget. And out of that $4 million, we believe that these are the top priorities that we have that we'll be focusing on, the most critical for replacement in Fiscal '20. As the Manager's indicated and as you see in the budget repo rt, over the summer we're being challenged to work with our partners, so that would be South Florida Water Management District, Public Utilities, the City of Naples and others to be able to -- next slide -- take some of the work that we've identified that are also high priorities. We've got that $2 million in reserve that could also be used as debt funding, and we'll be working with OMB to create that strategy with our partners as to how it is that we can take these additional $8.5 million and see how we can get those funded on top of the 4 million that's currently budgeted to see how we can make our way forward. Next. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: One second. Commissioner Taylor. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: On the stormwater capital projects -- MR. COHEN: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: -- I am continuing to be surprised that Plantation Island rises to the level of Ridge Street and Naples Park. Can you explain that? MR. COHEN: I'm going to reach to my lifeline. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: All our lifeline. June 20, 2019 Page 38 MS. PATTERSON: Good morning. Amy Patterson, for the record, director of Capital Project Planning, which includes stormwater. After Hurricane Irma, Plantation Island was identified as an area with significant issues with drainage, essentially, everything on the island as an impact of Irma. But for years prior, due to lack of maintenance, everything that was on the interior of the island, essentially, has been pulled into the interior ditches. So there's a combination of debris items, household items, as well as an extensive amount of silt that has entered the stormwater system rendering the system, essentially, useless. So we went out originally, as part of the debris mission, to look at what could go on out there if there was any way that we could help as part of that large debris canal or waterway debris removal initiative, but we realized that it was more than that, and also there are some challenges because of the jurisdiction and ownership. So through the legislative process, this was identified as a project for some -- for survey and ultimately dredging as well as debris removal. So the plan is to restore the interior of the island stormwater flows and then turn it back to county maintenance so that we don't have this reoccurring problem. They are facing significant challenges out there, and there were not many paths forward, other than through the legislative process, to have money identified, which requires a match. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Which was 300,000. MS. PATTERSON: Correct. MR. COHEN: Correct. And it's similar to the work that we're doing currently with the City of Naples in which we have an opportunity to partner there as well. And as they're looking at their overall plan for what they will do over the next five -plus years, you know, we're looking at where our dollars will come from in order to June 20, 2019 Page 39 be able to match that kind of opportunity going forward. So that's what we mean by we're looking at partners and seeing where there's an opportunity. Then we jump on that opportunity. The budget is flexible to allow us to do that. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: In this case the partner would be the State of Florida? MS. PATTERSON: That is correct. Now, there may be other opportunities. As I said, we're looking at, from our focus, is the interior of Plantation Island, those interior manmade canals, but we do have some challenges exterior, but that's under the Parks Service, another jurisdiction. So we will look to ensure that when we're able to improve the system on the island that it also doesn't meet challenges when it gets to the perimeter canals and things. So we would be looking for other partners. Rookery is with us on this as well, Rookery Bay. They do have some money from Hurricane Irma. They received a grant and are willing to partner with us. So we'll look to make sure that we're doing a holistic fix rather than just a spot fix essentially. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Then Plantation Island, it's City of Everglades -- CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: No, it's county. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: It's county. So it's unincorporated. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And that brings up the question, curious for me, because you correlated it to -- I'm comparing it to Naples Park and other areas in the urbanized area, and I just was wondering -- when you asked why it had risen to this level of notice, if you will, I was wondering what you meant by that. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: We've heard repeated testimony over the last three years of the flooding -- June 20, 2019 Page 40 CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Right. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: -- to the point where it's flowing into people's houses in Poinciana Village. In Naples Park, of course, that is critical. That's that partnership. They had some serious flooding problems up there but nothing that rose to the level of Ridge Street or Poinciana Village. Poinciana Village is still sort of sitting out there. Now we've got Plantation Island coming in. And it's my understanding it's basically -- except now it's going to start changing. It's basically a winter visitor, basically. I mean, there's a lot of lots. How many are occupied, I don't know. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: We're not going to go there. There's a lot of people that live there. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Year round? CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Year round. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yeah, year round. And, there again, I think, from my definition of why it's risen to the level of it is, it's part of those dire needs that have been set aside for years -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yep. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: -- in the prioritization of how we're spending our money to look at circumstances that have been -- I used to live in Poinciana Village. I mean, you know, we had that discussion about sled riding down in there. I mean, those are low-lying areas that have been neglected for an enormous amount of time. It's the impetus behind the stormwater utility and all of the studies and everything that we went -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Did you hear what he said? Did we all hear this? CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Did we all hear the fact, while I sat down there and voted against that debacle that was brought forward as a utility, it wasn't ever the discussion about the need, was it? June 20, 2019 Page 41 MR. OCHS: No, sir. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: No, sir. It was never a discussion about the need. The need is, in fact, real. How we support the need is the discussion. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: That's right. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: How we prioritize as the leaders of our community with regard to the expenditure of the available funds is the discussion. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: That's right. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Not the need. So the need with Plantation Island has been existent forever. MS. PATTERSON: A very long time. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And I would think that Wilma came through there pretty heavily also. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: It did. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Can you tell me -- because I think some FEMA money was directed there, but I'm not sure. MS. PATTERSON: There may have been assistance granted to them for structural things or things like that. The issue with storm debris and siltation, which we came to learn as part of Hurricane Irma, was that unless you can show that you have responsibility and that you've performed maintenance, FEMA will not give us money to pull debris or silt out of those waterways. And so that positioned Plantation Island in a unique place, because there had been no maintenance. So this puts -- with these activities, it positions us to bring it back under the umbrella of county maintenance and, therefore, in the future, should assistance be needed, positions them then for all different types of federal assistance as well, as well as restoring it to where it has a functional stormwater system, which is obviously the goal. June 20, 2019 Page 42 CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Of course. And it's a layering of multiple municipalities or government entities that have exacerbated a lot of the circumstances of our being able to actually even get in there. MR. COHEN: And what we want to be able to say is on that previous slide when we were talking in terms of the maintenance component that part of what we're looking at through that two man -- well, two individual teams, we also have dollars to be able to contract for other services which will allow us to do a systemwide assessment. And what that will be able to allow us to do is what Amy's talking about, which is to put our eyes on the system, be able to evaluate the condition of the system, move it over to the maintenance side so that we have some rudimentary maintenance occurring so that when we then go to that debris mission we can say through our records, yes, we own it, yes, we've maintained it or, yes, we've owned it, yes, we've put our eyes on it, and that puts us in a better position to be able to get FEMA reimbursement. That's one of the things that she's talking about which is we had our scheme laid out, and one of the issues were, have we ever maintained it? When was the last time we've touched it? And so this assessment aspect of it, I think, will be very important for us only (sic) internally, but also for those funding opportunities in case of disasters, which we hope don't occur. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. So -- CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I'm sorry. I thought you were done. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I'm sorry. One more question. So given that, that we need to have our hands in something, our eyes on something in order to get reimbursement, how does that play with Everglades City when we are -- it's in -- it's in -- not, it's not. No, it's incorporated. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Everglades City is. June 20, 2019 Page 43 COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: So -- MR. COHEN: I don't want to lean too far forward, but what I would say is we have a relationship, for example, currently through Jamie's team with the Building Department. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Correct. MR. COHEN: So we've been able to contract with them to be able to bring folks down to be able to assist Everglades City through the permitting process, and they still handle their Land Development Code regulations, et cetera. So it's kind of a limited sphere in which we have a chance to work. There's a possibility going forward. I don't believe that would be in Fiscal '20, but maybe looking into the out -years as to what relationship that we may want to be able to create with them on some of the issues that they may have at least to create a level of structure, but I would not see us offering that kind of assistance until, you know, '23, '4 or so. I think our immediate focus is being able to get our arms around the things that we kind of don't know that we know and being able to get that sured up before we start to stretch ourselves to lend assistance that's outside of our bailiwick. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And Everglades City's been successful in managing the multiple -- the multiple bureaucracies in order to help what they have going on internally within the incorporated area of Everglades City. They don't have the dire need that Chokoloskee and Plantation -- especially, Plantation Island -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Especially Plantation. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: -- who have been outside the jurisdiction and the bounds of Everglades City proper and part of our responsibility as a county. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Solis. June 20, 2019 Page 44 COMMISSIONER SOLIS: No. I just wanted to congratulate everybody on the Naples Park stormwater improvements and all of that -- CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Amen. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: -- which is such a colossal thing to coordinate and, you know, I feel for the people living there, but it's a messy, messy job, and it's -- I really have to congratulate the staff, because it's -- as messy as it is, I think it's going really, really well -- MS. PATTERSON: Thank you. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: You know, and the numbers of calls and things that I'm getting because of the outreach of the staff and the job they're doing and the communication has really gone down. So congratulations. It's really well done. MR. COHEN: We appreciate that; thank you. On our next piece of technology, I think we can talk in terms of the manager talked about the challenges that we have on our landscaping program. As you know, one of our vendors withdrew. Two of the vendors that we had increased their prices some -- a lot. We'll just leave it there. And we also have some challenges with taking some of those folks and bringing them up to speed as to what it is, our expectations are, your expectation, the community's expectation as to how it is that they need to be able to perform. So what we asked is, is there an opportunity for us to bring a smaller portion of that work back to the county so that we can then supplement what it is that they do. So our proposal is to have a -- it's called a trouble-shooting team inside of the OMB's commitment. We believe it's a strike team -- to be able to have a three-person maintenance, one crew leader, and the associated equipment with that to be able to supplement and to focus on some of the issues that are very forward facing in the community. We've had a chance to ride with Commissioner Fiala and, again, June 20, 2019 Page 45 with Commissioner Taylor, who have pointed out to us some of the areas that need additional help, and we think that by having this group, we would be able to focus them and move them to be able to help supplement the forces that we have currently. Interestingly, our team has started that to the extent that irrigation -- we've been taking some of those pieces because of the contractor's difficulty to be able to keep pace. So we kind of have a predictor as to how we're being able to do that, and we think this group will allow us, over a three-year period, to save just short of a half a million dollars if we're able to pull some of this work inside with a small group. The Manager, as you know, is not in favor of having large in-house staff to be able to bulk up for that, so we believe this is about the right size. There may be a couple of more individuals over time to be able to make at least a dramatic impact in some of the areas that might need it. So that's our thought on how we would be able to adjust to what we find as the market that is driving our prices relatively high currently. We've been in front of the Productivity Committee, as you know, to be able to talk in terms of whether it's design, which we're making some changes, as you know, Commissioner Fiala, to go to a different plant palette that would help with visual compact, will help on the maintenance side, at least what happens in the wintertime when the leaves drop and it doesn't look as bright as it could. Whether it's a grass or plant material, we've talked to some of our neighbors down in Weston, over in Boca Raton. It's chocolate/vanilla; the cost of maintenance is roughly the same. So we feel that we've done a very good job, at least internally, of being able to reflect on the changes that we can make. The outreach: We've gone to other vendors to see if there's June 20, 2019 Page 46 something in our specifications and our process that's been a deterrent for folks to be able to come on board. And having done all of that, we think that this is the route to go is to be able to have a small team to be able to do that supplement. So those were some of the hot topics that we needed to be able to address. What I'd like to say in closing is that -- CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Don't close yet. MR. COHEN: Oh. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I still want to talk about the maintenance aspect. MR. COHEN: Of? CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Maintenance of -- the landscape maintenance. MR. COHEN: Okay. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: What you just were on. Do you want to go first? COMMISSIONER FIALA: You can go first. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay. What I would like to see is some comparison pilot programs with regard to the ongoing maintenance. We talked about design deviations. We talked planning deviations. We talked about different materials to, overall, reduce those costs, because we've watched the cost of the lands -- I'm talking predominantly about the landscape median. I mean, the county owns a lot of other landscaping as well that we have to hire out and take. But I would like to see some cost comparisons, segments of roads. Ms. Smallwood was one of the original designers of our landscape median program, and I met with her, had a conversation with her after one of those hearings. I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: In the city, right? I don't think she was in the county. June 20, 2019 Page 47 CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I can't recall. She just was -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: In the city. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: She was -- I don't remember where she actually did it. But one of the comments that she made to me, and it seems to be flowing, is we spend an enormous amount of money on mulch, and our landscape medians are built like this (indicating). And then it rains. The mulch floats up, floats into our stormwater system, and then we have to buy big trucks to evacuate our stormwater system to continue on with that process. And, actually, her oversimplified answer was stop building them like this and start building them like this so that we have -- when it rains, the mulch runs in, and we can rake it out, and so on. And I think if we did that in a pilot program process where -- especially in some of these new designs that we have coming up in new construction, that we could actually do some comparisons for us going forward to manage the plantings, manage the design, and have some comparative analysis as to what we're actually spending and doing with regard to that. MR. COHEN: And for that we have good news. Two things. One is the size of the mulch, which is what you're talking about. That will be changing. That's the conversations we had with Commissioner Fiala on Tuesday as part of our ride -around so that we can eliminate that, as you say, sliding into the road, and then we have to deal with it from there. The second is we have our segments, and we know what it's costing us through our contract to maintain those segments, and so that's how we know that there's been a, roughly, 77 miles -- $77,000 per mile is where we were when we were doing it, and now it's 100-and-something dollars a mile -- CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Crazy. MR. COHEN: -- thousand dollars a mile for segments, and it's June 20, 2019 Page 48 even higher in some other areas. So we can provide you with that information to show you where we were and where we are currently. The design component, interestingly, I think, there's a couple of segments to that -- no pun intended -- which is some of the plants are becoming more mature, and they're creating sightline issues. So they've been in the system for 15 years or so, and they've grown now so that at those intersections we need to re-think and redo what we may do there. So that's giving us the opportunity, as you're indicating, to do that pilot at those intersections for sightlines to be able to go to a different type of plant other than the -- I'm a city guy, so trees are trees for me. So I'm clearly misspeaking here, but junipers and those other kinds of non-plants that don't have flowers on them. So we're looking at that because we need to address that issue, and I think that what you'll see, quote, as a pilot will be how we start to handle those transitions on those intersections for sight lines. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Well, the rational was -- just so we have some comparison. Now, here's how we've always been doing it and -- MR. COHEN: Right, and here's the change. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: -- the cost associated. And here's some pilots that we've tried. We've tried this and we've done that. And even alternative mulching material, something that's not as bouyant in heavy rains that wouldn't necessarily float up. I know there are pretty strict guidelines from the State with what we have to use or need to use. There are very specific guidelines, and we have to stay along those, but there are allowance even within the State to do that. MR. COHEN: We'll provide that for you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay. Commissioner Fiala, forgive me. June 20, 2019 Page 49 COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. I just -- it was great riding around with you guys and taking a look at the landscaping. And it's interesting to see, as the plants change, and they're still within guidelines, but yet the place is looking good, and we don't have those things that are loaded with bugs and that die a lot. So I'm excited with the new stuff that's coming in, and thank you so much. I'm also very happy to see that we might be going back to staff doing it instead of hiring out. It's costing us so much more money to hire out because they can charge whatever, and we have to pay for it. So I'm hoping that we transition back to having in-house landscaping maintenance. Our people did such a good job, and now we have to deal with, you know, other people and paying a lot more for i t. So I don't know how long it will take us, but I do hope to see us get there to that final goal where we have in-house staff doing a great, great job. That's all. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Now you can go to conclusion. MR. COHEN: Well, finally, again, thank you for the support of the Board. And, again, I'd like to be able to thank the Manager for support of myself and -- again, and the support of the team. The gentlemen and ladies that you see here and their staffs are what makes working at Growth Management so exciting, and we look forward to continuing to doing great things with the budget that we have. MR. SHUE: And before we end, could I make one final plug for the airports -- Thaddeus touched on it briefly. But as he noted, we had that economic impact study, and over the last five years that impact has gone up 30 percent. Over that same five-year period, we've gone from being in the red 3- to 500,000 for as many years as I look back to now this will be the fifth straight year in the black operationally. And the good news there is it doesn't require General Fund support of operations; still June 20, 2019 Page 50 requires General Fund support for grant matches, but we're rapidly getting to the point where I can see within two years we won't even need that support. And that's -- I'll take this much credit. Ninety-nine percent of that goes to the airport staff. You guys have an excellent airport manager in Justin Lobb, and his two lieutenants, Andrew Bennett and Kate Whitson, don't get nearly enough credit for the job they've done over the past five years. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Well, since you brought it up, I want to compliment you. I was at the CRA in Immokalee yesterday and heard that report from Andrew, and then -- I was actually -- there was a really good article in -- I believe it was in the Naples Daily News from the DOT and the report of the economic impact of our municipal airports. And I was -- I want to applaud everything that you have overseen and this board has supported in the expansion and the improvements we've done to the Marco airport, and we're seeing those economic impacts right out of the chute. And then I also heard about the improvements to the north/south runway in Immokalee and the taxiway, and those are all going to be absolute improvements to that airport facility as well, so... MR. SHUE: We're very close to initiating some hangar development in both Marco and Immokalee. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I heard about that. That was a really -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: It was so much fun reading that background and everything. I didn't realize how much money comes into the Immokalee airport from the -- what do they call it? The guys that spray the plants and trees and stuff. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Oh, the crop dusters. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. I was amazed at how much money they pull in. June 20, 2019 Page 51 CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes. COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's a lucrative little business. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Steve Fletcher. Yes, he flies nationally. MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, before we -- before you -- (Simultaneous speakers speaking.) CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: We're not going to -- we're not going to let him go. We have a public speaker. MR. OCHS: Yeah. We usually take public speakers after each major department. MR. CASALANGUIDA: We were just handed one for Mr. Brad Estes for the Growth Management Department. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: We weren't going to let Brad -- we weren't going to let you go before Brad came to speak anyway. Commissioner Taylor made sure of that, so... COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I don't think you're here for any other reason, sir. MR. ESTES: I've tried to -- or try to speak on something that's different than -- what I usually say is we're in terrible shape. It's getting better. We've had stormwater crews in there. We just finished the fourth phase of our swale restoration renovations -- our swale restoration and renovation program, and our ditches have been cleaned out with the exception of our south ditch, which there are some issues with. But I just wanted to stand here and say we're highly supportive of the County Manager's plan. It's needed. It's overdue. Commissioner McDaniel, you're right, it is real. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Amen. MR. ESTES: It is real, and we see it. And keep in mind that some of issues that we have disrupt normal daily activities of our residents because they can't get in and out of the village. And there's June 20, 2019 Page 52 "high water" signs posted on each side of our entrances, which are confusing. I understand what the street department's doing, but it's confusing. So I just want to really thank you. And we consider stormwater, Amy Patterson's group and Mr. English's group, our friends when they show up. They do an excellent job. We watch them dig the swales out, and it is amazing what they do. One of their operators, Matt, is just an expert. We met many on the -- what is it, muck wrecker or something or other. MR. COHEN: The Menzi Muck. MR. ESTES: The Menzi Muck -- is an expert on that; took all the sediment out of our ditches. So we're just really proud to have him there, and we'd like to see more. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Absolutely. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: That's nice. Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Outstanding. Any other questions? MR. COHEN: Thank you, sir. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: At which point we will take a 10-minute break and be back at 10:48. (A brief recess was had.) PUBLIC SERVICES MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, you have a live mic. Up next is your Public Services Department. Mr. Carnell. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: These are the folks with the arrows in their back. These are the front line. MR. OCHS: With a smile on their face. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Have a smile on their face. These are the front line of us to the community. COMMISSIONER FIALA: This is the "people department." June 20, 2019 Page 53 COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yep, the tough one. MR. CARNELL: Would you like to present my budget? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Great presentation. MR. CARNELL: Well, good morning, Commissioners, Mr. Chairman, thank you for your time and attention. Steve Carnell, Public Services Department head. You know most of folks here, and we'll talk a little bit with them as we go this morning. Just briefly on the numbers, our budget requests for next year, we have two main operating funds that we do business out of: The General Fund and the Unincorporated General Fund. And our General Fund budget, all total, is going up about 5 percent next year, and a good deal of that is our new transit contract. We had cost increases in that new contract in the rebidding process, but we're looking forward to that agreement that's now in place. We also are -- we have one expanded service position in our Parks Division, which I'll talk about in just a moment. In the Unincorporated General Fund, we're going up slightly less than 1 percent; very small increase there. I just want to talk briefly about the current fiscal year as we transition into the FY '20 budget. I'm happy to report that University of Florida/IFAS extension team is back in their digs at Immokalee Road by the fairgrounds. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And we like those digs. MR. CARNELL: Yes, you and all your neighbors and constituents, sir, absolutely. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes. MR. CARNELL: Yes. And so we're glad to have them back in. I don't think we want to go through what we went through the past year and a half with IFAS, but I think Twila would tell you some good things came of it. The amazing thing -- this is a credit to her June 20, 2019 Page 54 and her team -- was that we were able to maintain the level of service in terms of programs that the university extension offers and even threw in a little added outreach like everything you want to know about fertilizer but were afraid to ask. We're looking forward to continued growth in the University Extension program, and I should also mention that a good deal of Twila's ability to stay functional and fully operational had to do with some of the people at this table who offered sites at parks, libraries, museums and whatnot, so thank us very much. So with that, we're looking forward to the coming year. Our museum visitation is up and continues to grow very impressively. Seventy percent of our museum patrons are from outside Collier County. That would make them tourists. And we've also seen a -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Would you please repeat that. MR. CARNELL: That would make them tourists. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Would you spell that word. MR. CARNELL: Yes, it starts with a T. The significant source of the increase has been the opening of the Marco Cat exhibit at the Marco Island Museum. Attendance has just gone through the roof there, but we're seeing growth at the other museums as well. At this point, in 2018 we had 75,000 visitors to our museums. As of the end of May, we had 59,000. So I would say we're on track to exceed last year. Very pleased with that. Likewise, our Parks and Rec Division, our summer camp registration is on the rise. We've just had a big breakout this summer. It's like they rediscovered our parks, and we're thrilled. And speaking of parks, we've spent quite a bit of time and money and effort in this past year, nearly $7 million, in trying to refresh our park sites. We've got buildings and parking lots and June 20, 2019 Page 55 things that need to be cleaned up, modernized, and with the help of our facilities team this past year we did what we call makeovers to buildings: Barefoot Beach, Veterans Park, Vineyards, East Naples Community Park, North Collier Regional, Golden Gate Community Park, and Golden Gate Community Center. And we'll be doing more of that in FY '20, which I'll mention in a moment. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: One second. Commissioner Saunders. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Maybe you're going to get to this in a minute, but you did not mention Sugden Park in that list of parks where you've spent time and effort. MR. CARNELL: Yes. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: So is that going to be in your next -- MR. CARNELL: Well, we've done some previous makeover work at Sugden. Barry, what's the immediate plans? MR. WILLIAMS: Yeah. And we are working with Facilities Management on this PM crew, these crews that come to the park. So what they're doing is they're trying to hit all the parks in this short period of time and then come back around. So we anticipate Sugden to continue to get attention and continue to be refurbished. They did a lot of painting on the buildings, existing buildings, but there's still a number of other items. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Yeah. There were a couple things that I thought the county needed to really focus on: The cover at the stadium, because I know you have a lot of programs out there that are beneficial, bring a lot of tourists here. You know, the other thing was the grounds there. I don't think there's any grass there. I think that's all weeds. Now, maybe that's being fixed. I know the irrigation system didn't work, and there was just a lot stuff that June 20, 2019 Page 56 needed to be done there, and I think that that's a park that's kind of unique, and so -- but I wanted to emphasize that, at least from my perspective -- it's not in my district, but I think it's a park that needs a lot of attention. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: It's our county. MR. CARNELL: Okay. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: One second. Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Speaking of attention -- and thank you for mentioning that. Also -- and you've already heard it, but I'll just say it to the public, and that is at the Eagle Lakes Community Park we have a wonderful pool now that the kids can go there and, of course, we've got soccer going there. But to have children come inside for programs, we don't have that. It's still lacking any place where the kids can go inside to get away from lightning or the heat or anything. There's a big room in there, but it doesn't have anything for children to use to function with, to play with, and that's desperately needed. I realize you've put a lot of work into all of the other parks, but I would like to see the children have a place to be able to come inside to, whether they have craft classes or whatever. And there's so many children in that area, and they don't have a park in their own backyard. So anyway -- and I know Steve is working with me on that, and he's saying a few years down the road, and that's -- as far as I'm concerned, that's a few years too long. Anyway, if we could -- instead of resurfacing somebody's parking lot, put that aside two years and get a place for the children to come inside and out of the lightning and heat. Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Taylor. June 20, 2019 Page 57 COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Commissioner Fiala, are you suggesting another building, or can they utilize the build ing there? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, right now that one building that they have, right, there's one big room. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Right. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And I'm suggesting -- well, there's nothing to do in the room. I mean, you can have karate classes, but a place for kids to have rooms and stuff. What I would like to see is I'd like to actually see -- they already have the walls from the building up on the side. Put a roof on it and a back on it, and now you've already got a building, right? And I'd love to see some rooms where kids can go and have craft classes or music classes or something where kids can go inside. Right now the kids can go inside if the weather's bad, but there's nothing to do. And they don't have room to even store things. Like, for instance, if they wanted to store tables or craft supplies, they just don't have a place to do that right now. They have a game room also. It holds about 10 kids. There aren't any really games in there, but there are six computers that the Fiddler's Creek people donated to it, but that's all we have. And so what I'm saying is, let's make it a place where children can go, and -- like the other parks. I think everybody else has an area like that. And I'm just saying give us the same thing as all the other parks have. Thank you. MR. CARNELL: And, Commissioner Fiala, you've stolen my thunder. I'll address that in a few moments. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, good. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Proceed. MR. CARNELL: Okay. Thank you. I'm going to finish up just some comments about where we are currently, and then we'll shift into what we're focused on for next June 20, 2019 Page 58 year. In our library, I wanted to tell you that our circulation and door counts are up. And, you know, there's an old saying that floats around -- that's floating around the Internet that says, "Don't believe everything you read on the Internet," and attributed to Abraham Lincoln. And there's a perception out there that libraries are going away; people aren't reading books, and people aren't buying hard copy books, and that's just not true. And what we're seeing is continued and steady growth in particularly our ebooks. That is our fastest area of growth is the online books, but we're seeing growth this past year particularly with just people coming into our libraries and people checking out old-fashioned books as well. So we're pleased with that. I don't think that's entirely by accident. I think your library director has worked very aggressively and, again, collectively with other people of this team. We've had libraries and parks staging camps at libraries and doing reading programs jointly with each other. And the library worked with our friends at Naples Botanical Gardens on a very clever promotion recently that resulted in a whole wave of new library card registrations. So Tanya is, like, happy and ready to go home. But we are grateful to the folks at Botanical Gardens for participating with that. And, anyway, we're moving forward in the library in the coming year. And then in Domestic Animal Services. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Before you go there, I've had two lights pop up, I assume, during the library discussion. MR. CARNELL: Okay. COMMISSIONER FIALA: When is the library -- and I just have to say, everybody loves the library. And the people that you June 20, 2019 Page 59 hire, first of all, are very, very nice. But they always mentioned -- I've had a few people mention at different times that they really miss the Tai Chi classes that were held there. And whoever -- and I don't know who it was, but they loved her, too. They said she did such a good job. Now, they're handling it over at the parks, and it's a different person. They're saying that -- one of the things they liked about libraries is they could go to the library and then they'd sit around and read afterwards, and it became a community center, and they're hoping that you'll bring that back. So I'm just voicing that. MR. CARNELL: Two thoughts there, Commissioner. One, Commissioner Fiala is referring to what we've done is we are doing introductory Tai Chi classes at South Regional Library and using those to then invite people who want to continue to do -- to take those classes in our parks, which is probably where they best belong. But to your point, we're trying this approach through the summer. We're going to be reevaluating it. And Tanya's been in discussion with the Friends of the Library, and you have some news there. MS. WILLIAMS: I'm currently in discussion -- Tanya Williams, library director, for the record -- in discussion with the Friends of the Library and supporting through, their signature series, Tai Chi because, as you said, Commissioner Fiala, it's been in discussion with some of the former participants that the library is a destination. And, of course, I like the use of that word as a "destination." COMMISSIONER FIALA: Now, say that one more time. MS. WILLIAMS: Destination. They look at the library as a destination. It's not just for the programming, but they stay and they check out books, and it's socialization with peer groups afterwards. So they spend more than just that program time at the library, June 20, 2019 Page 60 and that's what we always hope and want from our patrons to do. But, as Steve said, we were working for the model that fitness programs belong in our parks and rec. They do that best. The library is a gateway. It's an introduction to those types of activities. So we've -- this is a pilot program. It's just started. We're working through it this summer to see how it works, especially with Tai Chi. Tai Chi is one of those programs that can be meditation in motion or it can be exercise. So it kind of walks a line. So we're working to see how best to serve our patrons and address their needs and market and serve our parks and recs as well. So there will be more information forthcoming on that as we work through that. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Taylor. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: So libraries -- and this is not my idea, but I have had discussions with the CRA executive director who's sitting quietly in the back of the room -- about having a traveling library throughout -- on the CRA but specifically Bayshore, and to start bringing books to people, which is an old idea. And I'm not suggesting that you even answer that right now, but I think it would enhance that street extraordinarily, and it will just -- it's would just -- I like that idea a lot. MS. WILLIAMS: I appreciate that comment, Commissioner Taylor. And never doubt that those ideas aren't floating around. We attend various conferences in the state and the nation. Miami-Dade in particular has what they call a technology bus. The idea of a book mobile is not dead. There are a myriad of library systems that still utilize that. And the idea did cross my mind, especially after Irma and what we went through in Everglades City. So I would welcome a conversation -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: That's great. June 20, 2019 Page 61 MS. WILLIAMS: -- with Deborah. That would be great. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you, County Manager, and thank you very much for -- the library now is open past 6 o'clock at night. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And Saturdays. MS. WILLIAMS: And Saturdays. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, that was needed. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And it's a huge difference. It's just wonderful. MR. CARNELL: Thanks. Well, Domestic Animal Services, I want to mention to you there, we continue to have an extraordinarily high live release rate. Well above 90 percent of the animals that come into the shelter get adopted out through our staff or through our rescue groups. And we also have hired a new veterinarian who's just outstanding, and he has increased -- he's extremely productive. He's increased the spay/neuter procedures that are being conducted at the clinic, and he's also implemented monthly vaccination clinics where the public can bring their animals in for low-cost vaccination. So we're very pleased with that. You're going to see a smidgen of both growth in revenue, I think, from that, in the coming year. And so that's kind of what we're involved in in the middle of right now. Now, looking forward to 2020, just some quick things to reference. Our libraries and parks are going to be getting a WiFi upgrade, so our customers at both -- CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Are you going away from DAS? MR. CARNELL: Oh, I am. I can come back. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Don't go away from DAS. Sooner than later we need to enhance our efforts in Immokalee. MR. CARNELL: Yes, sir. June 20, 2019 Page 62 CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: That's direly deficient. The facilities that were in Immokalee two years ago aren't accessible anymore. I rode with you two years ago to talk about a spay/neuter clinic and some enhancements to those facilities in Immokalee, and there's actually been a detraction in the services that are available for the residents of Immokalee. So sooner than later, please help. I mean, we're getting more done, on a perception basis, by not-for-profits and volunteers in the community with regard to Domestic Animal Services than we are by our staff. So ramp it up in Immokalee, please. MR. CARNELL: Yes. And we'll discuss that further. And just to update everybody, we originally had an intention to upgrade service in Immokalee through a joint partnership with the Humane Society to put a mobile clinic. We're talking about mobile books, we were thinking -- we contemplated a mobile animal clinic. And then the Humane Society had the nerve to go ahead and fund the whole thing, so they're doing it themselves. And that was going to be a way of providing more DAS-sponsored services in Immokalee. So Darcy and I are now looking at the next option. We're going to have a conversation with you, Mr. Chairman, and then we'll update the Board as we can in the future on that. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay. Thank you. MR. CARNELL: Okay. In terms of FY '20, we're going to continue moving forward in our Community and Human Services Division with the implementation of the Board-approved housing plan. And we've got some specific things coming up on the immediate radar. You'll remember the Bembridge property off of Santa Barbara that the Board directed us to get proposals for with -- develop partnerships with private developers. We've gotten eight proposals on that property and -- to build either rental or June 20, 2019 Page 63 owner-occupied housing, and we'll be bringing that -- we're going to bring the top three to the Board for your hearing in July. And so we're very excited about that; very pleased with the responses we've gotten. I think we've got a good possibility we may land with somebody we can partner with on that site to develop housing. We also will be moving forward in the fall with developing an affordable housing land trust. We're in the process of contracting or competing that right now, and you'll be seeing something after the break when you come back off your break. And I mentioned the IFAS building. Our Health Department continues to chug along behind the scenes doing their job. Right now Stephanie tells me that her staff is mobilizing -- I don't know if you heard, but there's been a hepatitis outbreak. It has not made it to Collier County, thankfully. But Stephanie and her group are getting ready for that in the event -- if it happens, if we get any reported cases here. MS. VICK: It's in the state; not in our county. MR. CARNELL: It's not reached Collier County yet. Again, you've heard me say before, your Health Department does stuff like this round the clock throughout the year that you and I hardly ever know about. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Right. MR. CARNELL: Just things -- they just take care of it, and things go away that never happen because of them, and they do a great job. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Before you go on, Commissioner Solis has comments. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Well -- and Commissioner Taylor as well. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: She's ahead of you, but she wants to June 20, 2019 Page 64 talk about something else. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. Well, I don't know if we've gotten to the -- or have we gone past the David Lawrence issue, or have we not got there yet? MR. CARNELL: Have not gotten there yet. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And she has to do with transit, so... MR. CARNELL: Okay. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Are we talking about transit? MR. CARNELL: We can if you'd like. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Not yet. We haven't got there yet. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. So it occurs to me, based on the experience this year that we had where there's more demand and we needed to expand, that going forward in the future as we grow somehow we need to figure how to be proactive instead of reactive. And not that you're not doing it, but I just would ask you -- and not right now. You don't have to respond -- that it's not a rainy day fund. It's a future fund; that, yes, this is important, yes, we need to -- because transit doesn't pay for itself. We know that. So we've got -- to me it's a master plan for the future; next 10, 15 years. And where are these routes, and what do we need to do to keep building the economic base in our community? Because that's what I'm concerned about. Really, that's where it's at. It's not -- yeah, it's to go to the grocery store but, boy, oh, boy, if we had high-functioning transit, we solve a lot of challenges for residents in this community. MS. ARNOLD: For the record, Michelle Arnold, Public Transit and Neighborhood Enhancement Division director. We have an initiative coming up to evaluate just that. Our transit development plan, which is our 10-year master plan for transit, we're getting ready to coordinate with the MPO and start that restudy June 20, 2019 Page 65 for the transit. So we are going to engage all of you as a part of that process as stakeholders, so I'll keep you informed of that schedule. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you. That's fine. Thank you very much. MR. CARNELL: Okay. We mentioned a couple of other things. Parks and Recreation, I had mentioned earlier that we are in the process of spending the better part of $7 million on various refreshes and cleanups at parks, and we're going to be doing, as we said, more of the same next year. And the -- we're going to be focused a little more on pools. And, in fact, in my view, the single biggest -- I'll use the word "crisis," if you will, in the parks division right now is our pool maintenance. We really need to move it forward and modernize it and better resource it. And the one expanded service position th at is in my budget is to hire an aquatics manager, somebody who can really become a champion, a focal point for improving our pools. We have five locations with water features now, and most of them have multiple water features. And then, of course, the Big Corkscrew Regional Park's coming online, and it's going to have a pretty significant aquatics center as well. So we feel like this is the time to really get after this. And we're going to be dedicating this individual to develop and update protocols for how we maintain, schedule our maintenance, really go and work with our procurement division on getting better contractor resources for pool maintenance and repair. And so this coming year's going to be a very important developmental year on that front. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Taylor. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: With that, have you considered -- because the city has one pool, correct, River Park, I think that's it. MR. CARNELL: Uh-huh. June 20, 2019 Page 66 COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: But I think -- I think there might be some advantages of economy to see if there's some kind of -- because they are -- we have the pools, but they only have one but, indeed, it's part of it, because a lot of county people use that pool. Perhaps there would be some advantages of working with them on this. Also, I was asked to convey that when the county wants to raise the price per hour of lifeguards that they give city fair notice, because what happens is that flow of going back and forth -- but maybe there's more coordination that could be garnered in this. And, again, that's a suggestion. That's -- MR. CARNELL: No. Thank you for bringing that up. Happy to have that discussion with the city. They're structured a little differently, as you know, at River Park. They don't charge, and they don't have the same revenue issues that we have in terms of targets that we're trying to maintain. But I think your point's well taken. And just for everybody's benefit, you know, when we opened the Eagle Lakes Park last summer, we had kind of a self unintended created crisis in lifeguard demand because we added several pools at one place that needed to be guarded, and there was a shortage. And there's, frankly, a nationwide shortage in lifeguards at the present time. And through the help of our Human Resources Division and our parks team, we have raised the paying wage on lifeguards. And I didn't realize it was affecting the city adversely, but I'm not surprised to hear that, necessarily. We've gave what, about $1.50, $2.00 an hour raise, Barry, I think it was? MR. WILLIAMS: It went up to $13 an hour, yes. MR. CARNELL: And, in addition to that -- in fact, frankly, before that actually took effect, we had instituted a much more aggressive training program where we invite anybody interested in June 20, 2019 Page 67 becoming a lifeguard to come in and get trained typically at Golden Gate, I think is where most of the trainings occur. We have a very dynamic team there that's done a wonderful job with it. And, Commissioner, you should note, to your point, the people that train are not obligated to become lifeguards with us. You can go get -- become a lifeguard anywhere you'd like when you complete the training. And what we've done is waive the fee. We used to charge people to get training, and we've waived that. And it's a potential, we could be training -- one or more of those folks could end up at the city pool. So keep that in mind. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. I'll be sure to convey that. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: The gate swings both ways. My question -- I had a question. Did you get yours answered? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes, yes. Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I know there was an enhanced -- or an increase in Parks and Rec specifically for pool and aquatic maintenance for that, but I had difficulty discerning what we're spending in aggregate on our pool maintenance countywide. And if it's not -- if you can't point the page and chapter, then get it to me later. I just knew it was a large amount, and I knew we increased it. And I wasn't -- I had trouble finding it. I think you do it by park as opposed to an aggregate. MR. WILLIAMS: Commissioner, Barry Williams, Parks and Recreation director. You do have a couple of things in your budget, and we can cull that out for you afterwards and get that to you. But you have -- you know, with the four facilities, one of them is in your General Fund 001, and so you'll find a dollar amount there. Then the other three pools are in your Unincorporated 111. So we'll cull those out and get those to you. June 20, 2019 Page 68 We are putting significant dollars in deferred maintenance of the pools. And so in the capital section, you'll see a couple line items for that. There's about a million dollars that we're recommending for our community parks and 750,000 for Sun-N-Fun. It opened in 2005. It's been around a while, so it's got some needs there, so we're trying to get to those. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay. I would like that to be delineated a little clearer. MR. CARNELL: Okay. We'll be happy to provide that to you. And to Commissioner Solis' earlier question, we have a little over $2.1 million in the budget for the David Lawrence Center for next year out of the General Fund. In addition to that, we anticipate that there will be monies coming from the State of Florida through the State Federal AHCA program. The actual allocations on that have not been fully resolved and settled. And this is usually about September 33rd we get a letter from the state that settles up what the actual numbers are. Scott Burgess is here to speak today, because I know Scott has some concerns beyond the county budget appropriation. And we can hear from Scott when I'm done or whenever, Mr. Chairman, you think would be appropriate. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Are you on David Lawrence now? MR. CARNELL: Yes. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Let's hear from Scott then, please. If you're ready, Mr. Burgess. MR. BURGESS: Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Do you want to speak to him? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: No. MR. BURGESS: I have a couple of slides, and -- CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: He doesn't need a time limit. MR. BURGESS: I don't? Okay. June 20, 2019 Page 69 CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Well, if you get to going on, I'll -- MR. BURGESS: Well, I was going to be really pressured to try to do it in three minutes, but if I have a little bit more time, that would be wonderful. Thank you so much. For the record, I'm Scott Burgess. I'm the CEO of the David Lawrence Center. First I want to say thank you to all the professionals that we work with in Collier County Government as well as to the commissioners for all of the dialogue that we've had across time and the dialogue that we continue to have to meet the needs -- the mental-health and the addiction needs of our community. We are really blessed in Collier County to have leaders in our government that are very sensitive to the se matters not only from a humanistic standpoint but also how mental-health and addictions treatment help the whole community be well, healthy, and safe. And we've enjoyed great partnerships with county government, commissioners, and with the Sheriff's Office and with the school district. Together, I think we're creating a very special system of care for kids and for adults. That having been said, we've got a ways to go as well, and we are trying to really mobilize with a growing need in our community, some of which is based on growing population. We heard that this morning. There's growing population, but there's growing demand and growing need nationally within our state and also within our county. So I like to provide just some reference points across time. This first graphic I've showed you in the past, and it represents the increase in the Baker Acts that are coming from the Sheriff's Office. This is the Sheriff's Office data, and what it demonstrates across time is the increase in the demand on our mental health and our -- mental-health unit and specifically on this graphic. June 20, 2019 Page 70 And what you'll note is in 2008, about 10 years ago, there were about 500 Baker Acts that were being brought to David Lawrence through the Sheriff's Office. Fast forward to the end of 2018, at the end of December 2018, that's over 1,500. So it went from 500 to 1,500, a threefold increase. In addition to that demand, we're having growth and need in all of our different service levels. So everything from in-patient to our 28-day program to our outpatient supports to our community -based supports. So this graphic represents the fact that this last physical year, 2018, we provided 266,000 services. And so the service unit could be a day on our unit; it could be a visit with the doctor; it could be a counseling visit; it could be a home visit with children and with families. I'm not going to go into depth in these slides, just to make sure that we can be brief with our time, but I did provide it to you. The first graphic that I'm -- that's represented here is the growth in our children's unit. And you'll see the baseline year that we used when we started with the workshops the last couple of years was Fiscal Year '11, and you can see that's the yellow line at the bottom. Fast forward to the current fiscal year, that's the blue line. So you'll see where we've grown just in the last few years. The red line at the top is the peak capacity day. So we have just an eight -bed unit at David Lawrence Center for children, and we have -- every month this fiscal year we've had more children on our unit than we actually have had physical beds. We've had to roll out beds and, beyond that, we've actually had to send kids out of our county because we haven't even been able to accommodate them with rollout beds. So we really are in a dire situation with need for more beds in our community, and we're addressing that through the new building that's going to be built with the sales tax initiative, but in real time we're still struggling significantly to meet that demand. June 20, 2019 Page 71 CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Do you have any estimate on any collaborative efforts with any other treatment facilities as well? I know the Health Care Network at one time had talked with me about a joint facility -- northerly portion of the community. MR. BURGESS: Yeah. We have talked with Health Care Network about a regional facility. We believe that the planned facility is going to help relieve things significantly through the sales tax initiative. That will allow us to, essentially, double our capacity on the David Lawrence Center campus, but we do have those active conversations talking about a regional facility, because Lee County, Galisano Children's Hospital, Lee Health, NCH, many folks are seeing this dramatic need, so we do have to continue to plan on something that would be regional with a children's specialty. This is a slide that relates to the adults and the children combined. And, again, I'll just point out very quickly here, that orange line is the peak census day any given month. And you'll see we've got 30 total beds at David Lawrence Center. And, again, every month we've had more than our peak capacity. For example, in September, we had 36 individuals on a 30-bed unit so, of course, that requires that rollout capacity. What I'd like to point out, when we talk about looking at things across time and how it may be of an advantage when we look at how we can all partner together, this is a graphic I got information from the Sheriff's Office. And it talks about what was the average daily census in the jail between the years of 2005 and 2008. And as you'll see, on an average day there were 1,162 individuals in the jail. In 2008 is when things really started to spearhead and ratchet up related to diversion and deflection very intentionally and purposefully in the county, and one of the ways that that started was to train all deputies, law officers related to mental health and addiction and how to essentially try to defer and deflect as much as possible. June 20, 2019 Page 72 Twelve hundred law officers and now fire and EMS personnel have been trained in this regard, which is really nationally unbelievable. I mean, it really is a crown jewel nationally to have that level of participation. And fast forward in those 10 years the Collier County Jail population census is down to 842. So that's 320 less people per day, a 28 percent reduction. So I'm not trying to say that it's an absolute causation, but I think there's certainly a correlation here that we saw the graphic of more people being deferred and deflected into treatment services and us providing more treatment services across a whole array of services, and we're seeing less people in the jail. And we are blessed to hear this morning about the specialty treatment programs that we're working on that's also helping and deflecting individuals. So there is a significant cost savings when you can do that successfully. And I put some just kind of average statistic down at the bottom that are recognized as far as this translating to some significant cost avoidance across time. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Before you go on. Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, thank you. Before -- in the last slide you were talking about how the numbers kept on growing, growing, growing. Can you tell me what you feel? You're the educated guy in this field anyway. Is that mostly caused because of drugs and alcohol? MR. BURGESS: I would say it's actually -- we're seeing both. The increase is both on the mental health and on the addictions side. And a number of people will ask me the question, why do I believe that this is happening? There is a component that in a growing community you're going to have growing issues. Just statistically June 20, 2019 Page 73 speaking, and from a research standpoint, one in four or one in five individuals are going to suffer from a mental-health challenge, one in seven are going to struggle with an addictions challenge. So we just know as our population grows, we're going to have more of these needs. But, quite frankly, there's a lot of data that's demonstrating that these challenges, both mental health and addiction, are growing in our society, nationally, statewide, and locally. Some of that is, I think, attributable to increased awareness. So we recognize this a little bit more, we're talking more about it. The stigma's coming down. More people are seeking support, and that's a really wonderful thing. But I think there's other drivers that we're still trying to fully determine why they're impacting the growth patterns that we're seeing across the country. Sadly, suicide is the second leading cause of death for children in our country. These are astro -- you know, really epidemic-proportion issues. The opioid crisis, of course, is killing more people than motor vehicle accident deaths in our country right now. So these are issues that are being seen everywhere, and we really have to invest into our human service infrastructure to address these issues. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. MR. BURGESS: Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Solis. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Well, I just was going to wait till -- CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Oh, you're going to wait till he's done? COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yes. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay. MR. BURGESS: Okay. I'll just continue forward with a couple -- I've just got a couple extra slides, and then I'll be done and June 20, 2019 Page 74 very happy to answer any questions that you might have. So we were looking at the graphic representation of what's kind of happened across time, so I asked for a snapshot of kind of in real time Calendar Year 2018 from the Sheriff's Office; how many calls are they going out on related to mental-health or addictions-related challenges. And, as you can see, it's significant; 14,617 calls in one year were related to mental illness, suicidal ideation or suicidal potential planning, and also related to drug-related issues. So these are things in real time that are significant in our community. The last thing -- a couple things that I'll point out -- and this is a graphic. So we know -- and I've certainly shared this sad statistic that Florida is the worst funder for mental health and addiction in the country. We're literally 50th out of 50 when you look at per capita spending. In addition to that backdrop, we have a very high uninsured population in Florida and also in Collier County. So the graphic -- the national average is about 9 percent uninsured in the country, and in Florida it's more significant pronounced than that, and in Collier County it's about 17 percent. So we're about double the national average as far as uninsured. So folks literally don't have places to go for support and service. And that's where -- from the state governmental standpoint with the low spend, the number of uninsured, these are really local issues that do require some local response. And we appreciate the partnership that we have with Collier County in this regard, because we literally can't do our work without you. Lastly, just to mention a couple of things, we have the growing demand. We also have an interest in trying to meet that children's unit, the needs for additional beds even in real time. We know the new building is probably going to be at least two years out from planning to construction to build, and we can't have the situation with June 20, 2019 Page 75 kids having to be sent out of county. So we're going to be constructing on our facility within the next several months -- we literally have to build onto the building -- it's the last bit of land that we have to be able to do that -- about $350,000 construction project that is going to allow us to have three more beds. So that will get us from eight beds on the children's unit to 11. So that will be very helpful. So we've got the growing demand -- growing costs. One of the things that was talked about is the increase in staff cost to be able to retain high-quality professionals. That's dramatically gone up for psychiatrists, advanced nurse practitioners, and licensed therapists. So we've got a lot of budget demands. So we have asked for a $290,000 increase, and that would help us offset those costs. It's certainly not going to absorb all of those costs. As I mentioned, just that construction project alone is 330,000, but it will help us with all of our other efforts with getting additional grants, getting additional fundraising dollars, to be able to balance our budget. So with that, I am very happy to answer any questions you might have. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Now you go. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Thank you. And I just want to make sure I understand the numbers. In the budget -- I guess this is a question for Mr. Carnell -- there's a $30,000 increase. That's what's planned in the budget? MR. CARNELL: One-and-a-half percent over the money they got last year. That sounds about right. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay, yeah. It's a 31-, $32,000 increase. And the $290,000 number, is that net of the 30-, or would that be what you're needing for this year as a whole? June 20, 2019 Page 76 MR. BURGESS: We were suggesting that for the year as a whole. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. So the net in terms of the county and the budget would be 260-, additionally, from the 30- that's there? MR. CARNELL: (Nods head.) COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. I would like to see us make a commitment to fund that, and I think Commissioner Saunders raised this a while ago. One, we've heard from the court system; we've heard from the State Attorney's Office. I think we're going to hear the same thing from the Sheriff that these diversionary programs through the court system are working. And that the bottleneck is how much capacity we have. That's -- again, when I started this process a couple years ago of identifying what's the bottleneck, it continues to be -- first, actually, it was a treatment court. That was kind of the immediate issue two years ago. We've solved that. Now the bottleneck kind of gets pushed around, and it's the facility and the funding for how many people we can divert from the jail. And, as I said, the story of the gentleman that came and spoke a couple years ago, that the return on that investment, I think, for the community well exceeds, you know, $260,000, in my opinion. We've -- based on the numbers that were presented, we've saved about $15 million since 2008; granted, not all of that savings was just related to the courts and all that, but I think a significant amount of that would be. So I would like to see us to continue to make the commitment to mental health in Collier County. It's a fiscally responsible thing to do. It saves us money in the long run. I know it's a big commitment, but, you know, the information about the children is just -- I mean, we have to take care of our own children. June 20, 2019 Page 77 So I would like to see if the Board has some -- would show its commitment to this moving forward. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Saunders. STAFF DIRECTION TO FUND $290,000 FOR BUDGET SHORTAGE TO DAVID LAWRENCE CENTER – CONSENSUS COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I would agree with that. I think you need a consensus from the Board on that $290,000 (sic) number, so I would agree with Commissioner Soli s that we should spend that. It's money well spent. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I'm seeing positive head nods in that regard. Yes? Commissioner Taylor? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I'm hesitating. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And the reason is, it's a quarter of a million dollars, and so is that going to be the benchmark going forward, or is this a one-year event? And it's -- to me this is sudden. I think it's a lot of money right now. Not that -- not that you're not -- there's not a need, but in the background we've got states now suing drug companies for opioid addiction. And perhaps the State of Florida is going to step to the plate here. But, clearly, your challenges are, basically, I think -- I'm not there, but I think a lot of that has t o do with opioid challenges. The other issue, which I found fascinating, is that one of the most socialist, "everything is fine, we're taking care of everything" countries in the world is Finland, and yet the rate of depression among their teenagers is as high as in some of the other places in the western world, and that is attributed to screen use. So at some point -- and that's my challenge that I have is, yes, June 20, 2019 Page 78 you were dealing with a real problem, but it's a necessary reaction to what's out there, but how do we handle the things we can prevent? And so -- and please -- MR. BURGESS: Oh, I really appreciate what you're sharing, and I couldn't agree more. We are dealing with a mental -health epidemic in our country and an addiction epidemic. So we're d ealing with that in real time, and that's why these issues are growing and resources are (unintelligible) to grow. Comprehensively, though, we have to look at kind of the upstream to try to work with prevention as well. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes. MR. BURGESS: And like you mentioned, screen time, there's growing neuroscience that's demonstrating that kids on their screens so much, whether it's their cell phone or it's computer, detachment from social interaction, real interpersonal interaction, not doing it behind a screen, these are things that are really driving a lot of challenges. And I believe, actually, we're going to -- we're going to have a tsunami coming our way that we haven't even recognized yet related to screen issues. We had a national expert came in last year and did a presentation on "screen-agers" and a medical doctor who talked about these things. That being said, we're working -- we have been working since the last workshop on putting together a comprehensive strategic plan for mental health and addiction in Collier County, and Commissioner Solis has been very passionate and involved in that process for a number of years. We've got 16 committee members that -- some of which were chosen by you to be on that committee. We've had -- we meet every other week for two hours. We are developing a lot of information, and we're going to come before the county commissioners on October 29th where we'll be June 20, 2019 Page 79 sharing the information about that strategic plan for your review. One of the elements that we have added into that plan is prevention. How can we get more forward thinking in dealing with these issues? So I really appreciate your comment. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And so I guess my question to staff, or it would be to you, is is this additional a -quarter-million-plus, is this going to be the benchmark going forward, and then we increase upon that, or is this a one -time, this is what we need, and we're going to come to you a lot earlier next year if we find that it's increasing exponentially? MR. BURGESS: What I would suggest related to the earlier comments is that we'll likely be -- I think this is the benchmark, and we'll be likely coming forward with the strategic plan with all of those partners to talk about what do we feel the vision for the future needs to be. And my thought in relation to -- in relationship to that, as I stand here, is that it will -- we will be coming forward to talk about what would need to grow as far as our infrastructure around these issues in order for us to realize the outcomes that we want as a community to keep it as well, safe, and healthy as we can. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Solis. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yeah. And if I can, just -- because that's a great question: Is this just going to be the norm? And, you know, I think it's certainly not the way I'm looking at it. I think we could have asked the same question about the support we gave to the drug court and the specialty courts two years ago, but they weren't back here today. So, I mean, the way I'm looking at this is every year giving it a fresh look, because -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: -- the problem is -- the way this problem lays out, I think, we're going to be -- it's a holistic solution June 20, 2019 Page 80 we have to come up with, because otherwise we're just pushing the bottleneck around, and that was one of the things that I learned in that whole year-long process of understanding what the issue really is. So, I mean, I think we need to look at this freshly -- with a fresh set of eyes every year. I think that's why the strategic plan is so important is that we have a roadmap to kind of judge things against. You know, how are we doing. So that's a great question but, you know, I think we need to look at this every year. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Not necessarily use this as the benchmark. It's not an automatic, but it's a considered 10 percent or percentage increase on that -- COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Right. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: -- on that figure. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: And especially in the coming yea rs, because we're going to have this facility coming online. We're going to have to look at this fresh every year, I think -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: -- until we've got some time behind us working on the strategic plan that's developed. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And the thing that I like the most, too, is the adolescent-care improvements are the key to success and prevention. The efforts of prevention are, in my mind, the key to success, keeping people out of treatment and getting ahead of that. So I think we've got sufficient positive head nods to be able to warrant that adjustment. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And, you know, we do have the president of our Senate -- or the majority leader of our Senate is our senator in the state. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Correct. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And this might be an opportunity when we develop our ask for next year to emphasize the June 20, 2019 Page 81 importance of mental health. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Well, it's certainly -- Mr. -- I didn't mean to interrupt, but Mr. Burgess brought it up. He brought it up two years ago. He brought it up again last year. He brought it up again this year. We're 50 in -- (Simultaneous speakers speaking.) CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: -- 50 states in contribution. It's time for -- there are certainly a lot of needs in our state, but we don't need to be last in this area. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Well, I would dare say that when they're talking about building a road down the center of the state, there's probably bigger priorities than that. And I think maybe it's an opportunity for local to start emphasizing what's really important and what's hitting us as a community. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yeah. Well, I think those are all great issues, and also that -- I think if we look back over time that the trend from our legislature is to actually fund less every year in this regard. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: It's not going the other way. (Simultaneous speakers speaking.) MR. BURGESS: It's a race to the bottom. When I got here five years ago, we were 48th. Now we're 50. But to your point also, in the strategic plan we actually added an element in there about raising community awareness and community engagement. So, conceptually, we were very hopeful that the County Commission, the local government, and a number of stakeholders would work with us in an awareness-raising campaign and hopefully an advocacy campaign to try to get more resources dedicated from the state level. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Well, having the mental-health plan that you all are working on is going to be huge with us with both the June 20, 2019 Page 82 state and the federal government. I know my efforts have largely been revolving around getting those monies, and every time I go, they say, what's your mental-health plan say about that? So having that is going to be huge for us as a community going forward. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yeah. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: It will lay out that plan as to how we're going to go. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you, sir. MR. BURGESS: Thank you very much. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Well, having heard that, your guidance in this, I would support this ask. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Well, good. MR. CARNELL: In the interest of time, I'm going to -- I was going to pass out photos of my grandchildren, but I'll pass on that. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Put them on the screen. MR. CARNELL: Just a couple important comments here to leave you with. First off, we're putting out the bids for the Big Corkscrew Island Regional Park Phase 1 tomorrow; thank you, Procurement Division. That will be going on the street. Opening bids in late August and hopefully have a contract back to the Board late September or in October. I've got a few other high-profile projects. It looks like the Governor's going to sign off on funding for Robert's Ranch house restoration. Crossing our fingers. I don't think we've seen the signed bill come out yet, but it's hopeful it's going to pass. And then Michelle is going to be involved in another -- formation of another MSTU, which the Board had already approved, Turkey Bay. And so that will be -- we'll be collecting the funding June 20, 2019 Page 83 this year, advancing the funding, and then recovering it from the residents through that MSTU. And then Darcy's actively engaged with the shelter upgrade at the DAS facility. We're starting forward. We have a design architect under contract, and you'll be hearing more about that in FY '20. But the most important thing for me and the thing that keeps me laying awake at night lately with our budget is the County Manager said earlier this is the dynamic part of the budget we need to talk about. We've got some things that either aren't funded or aren't fully funded, and I'm looking at Commissioner Fiala and the community center expansion. You all are going to be asked on Tuesday whether you want to buy a golf course in Golden Gate; 28, 29 million big ones. That's going to have an effect on how Mr. Williams and I do our capital budgeting, how Ms. Grant does her capital budgeting. So we need to see what happens with that on Tuesday. We also are looking at the prospect -- and we brought this to you previously -- of adding boat trailer parking on Hamilton Avenue in a cooperative with the CRA. We've got that kind of sort of mostly funded, but we're still figuring out the funding on that; don't have a penny of it figured out yet. Part of it's tied to this bigger discussion of all these things that are moving around. We also are bringing to you on Tuesday a master plan for East Naples Community Park, and that's going to be pretty extensive, and we're going to bring it to you in phases. We have the money, based on what we're proposing for the first phase, in the budget for next year. The rest of it is not funded for future years. We'll talk about that on Tuesday. And, again, depending on the feedback we get from the five of you and the direction, that affects kind of these bigger-picture issues in terms of how we spread the money around and make it work. June 20, 2019 Page 84 Commissioner Fiala's talking about the expansion to the Eagle Lakes Community Center. Again, we're not talking about building a new building. We're talking about adding on. We've got very limited space. We may have class for -- we may have to have classes for anorexics there because it's going to be really tight, the room that we're squeezing in there. But to her point, it would give us the opportunity potentially to have a small gymnasium or other type of indoor activity facility. We've been gathering some public input through the Commissioners' town hall meetings and other places. Right now you're looking at north of two-and-a-half million dollars, and I just don't have that in the seat cushions right now available; however, to your point, Commissioner, the Parks director and I have been talking about finding money in the coming-year budget to fund the design and pursue the design in the coming year and then take a look next budget cycle with the Board about funding construction depending on how all this other stuff shakes out. We've also got Big Corkscrew; we've got to open the bids and see how much money we've got in the bank and how much money we may have to borrow to make Phase 1 happen. So a lot of variables moving around there. And then there's another one that is very important but thankfully doesn't require money at the moment, at least not from this board yet. And it's something that Commissioner Saunders and I talked about briefly, and it's an opportunity to further maximum an existing county facility. You may remember in 2008 we opened a new library building in Golden Gate City, and the old library building we entered into a lease agreement with Collier Senior Resources a year later, and they've been there doing a yeoman-like job in terms of servicing the community. They provide just a wide variety of services. And in June 20, 2019 Page 85 kind of the oddity, we actually sublease part of their space from them, so we have a sublease for our own building, which we do for our meals program that Kristi and her staff run, and very successful. A lot of synergy in these programs together. And it's a very strategic location, as you all can imagine. It's right in what I call the heart of Golden Gate City. It's pedestrian/bike access for thousands of folks nearby. And the senior resource center approached me several months ago about the idea of renovating and/or expanding the facility. And just to give you the quick cut-and-dirty version here, we do have some money coming to you on Tuesday. We're going to be bringing forth our HUD action plan for next year, and there is a small amount of money to renovate the existing facility, less than $100,000, but it's to create some funding to create a little more office space and help them better configure their space now. Those of you who have been in there, we have a very popular meals site there. Kristi's staff services about 80 meals a day, and it's very functional, but it's kind of like having lunch in a bowling alley. I mean, it's pretty noisy. And we can do better. I'd like to think we can do better with that meal space. So we've been talking to the Collier Senior Resources. That led to a three-way conversation between staff and them and the Community Foundation of Collier County about trying to come up with a creative way to fund an expansion. And we're looking at the -- and you've -- again, understand the oddity of this. We'd be trying to fundraise in the private sector, the not-for-profit sector to improve a government building. It doesn't sound like a real sexy appeal until you realize the whole story of what's going on here. We've got Collier Senior Resources, we have potentially other not-for-profits that have an interest in there that are bringing services June 20, 2019 Page 86 to the site at the behest of Collier Senior Resources, and then we have a number of government services uses. Not just Kristi, but Tanya's got this library that's 10 years old, that doesn't have a public meeting room, and the original hope was that when this building was occupied by Collier Senior Resources, that the library eventual ly would use it for public meeting space. It's really not equipped to do that right now in its present configuration. But, again, go back and think about where that's located in the middle of Golden Gate City. And I know for a fact there are several not-for-profit groups that have an interest in using that facility either in some limited way or more like what Collier Resource does. And then you've got people sitting next to me who've got interest in that building in terms of some of their service prov ision. So the question becomes, we can renovate it, but we don't know if we can expand it. It's in a PUD that includes the government services center, the Golden Gate -- the newer Golden Gate Library, Golden Gate Community Center. I mean, it's a pretty big PUD there. And the CSR folks had put some estimates together for the cost of expanding it. Potentially 2,500 -- they had two scenarios: 2,500 and 5,000 square feet. And there's numbers that are north of a million dollars that were guesstimated three years ago. So you could imagine by the time we actually go build it what it will cost. It will be more than that. They've got that. But what we haven't done is a full feasibility diligence on this in terms of can we do that. We need to sit down with the good folks at Growth Management and find out if we can do a PUD amendment to allow for the expansion of the space, and we also need to talk this through further with the Community Foundation to where we could partner with them potentially. There's one concept of a 50/50 split on the funding, but then we're fundraising 50 percent. There's another one that's a little more creative where the county June 20, 2019 Page 87 would front the cost and then the endowment created through the Community Foundation on behalf of Collier Senior Resources would repay the county through annual payments, and that would be interest earnings off of the endowment, and eventually that endowment would become the sole property of Collier Senior Resources. So they'd have a foundation to work from in terms of future fundraising and activity. So I think there's a lot of win-win potential here, but at the moment we've got a lot more things to work through. We've got our Facilities Division in there looking at the existing buildings, probably time for a new roof. Maybe looking at re-carpeting and painting. And my thinking is, try to leverage all these things into one plan rather than nickel-and-diming it to death, and -- so the budget doesn't actually have an ask right now for it. We've got some preliminary work that Collier Senior Resources is going to pay for. And what I'd like to suggest to the Board -- and I'm really just asking for some head nods, Mr. Chairman, today -- is to direct the staff to keep working down this path with the idea of bringing you a more complete report with funding options and service options, you know, somewhere in FY '20. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Saunders? COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Just real quickly. I appreciate what you've just said. I've been meeting with those folks for about a year. And the need out in that area is great, and I think you indicated that that location, for senior services, is really an interesting one. I was just looking at an article in the paper. June 15th was World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, and it just kind of jogged my memory in terms of, you know, some of the things that we need to do out there to help provide services to seniors. So I really appreciate it. I hope the Board -- I hope you get at least three head nods to continue June 20, 2019 Page 88 that effort because -- it looks like you do. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: You do. Proceed. MR. CARNELL: Well, unless there's other questions, I'm prepared to quit while I'm ahead. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you. Before we break for lunch, I want to have a discussion. We have a rather zealous schedule that's been put in front of us today, and we haven't hit 50 percent of the -- of the budget items or hearings that were put before us before lunch. And in an effort to best utilize our constitutional officers' time -- and I know some of us have scheduled appointments for Monday's hearings and other appointments for tomorrow afternoon, but how do you -- how do you think about -- rather than -- rather than -- because I don't -- I mean, obviously, I don't want to rush through this, but how do you think about adjusting our schedule and moving the constitutional officers', elections and such, to tomorrow morning? MR. ISACKSON: (Shakes head.) COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I got meetings tomorrow. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Why don't we kind of work through it and see where we are about -- CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Well, I mean, we've got -- and I don't disagree -- well, I'm getting -- Mark's over there shaking his head no. And I'm sorry you did appointments tomorrow, but we were scheduled for two days' worth of hearings on this -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I'm aware of this. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: -- on this budget. And we aren't -- we just got done with public services. Are you going to be lickety-split here, and I'm not -- I'm missing something? MR. OCHS: No, sir. But, you know, in the past few years June 20, 2019 Page 89 we've typically finished up by 3 o'clock in the afternoon on Thursday. Obviously, we'll probably go later than that, but outside of the Sheriff's discussion, the constitutional officers' budgets go fairly quickly. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay. MR. OCHS: And I'm figuring, you know, at the outside, an hour beyond maybe -- CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I was just trying to better utilize our other departments' time and the like. MR. OCHS: If you're asking me, sir, I think we can get through the balance of this this afternoon and provide plenty of time for Board discussion and questions. It may take us till 4:30 or so, but... CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: If you think we can get done today, I'm good with that. MR. OCHS: I do. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I just -- I see other people showing up here that were planning on being -- presenting this morning, and we're getting ready to go to lunch, and then come back for the 1 o'clock constitutionals, and we're not halfway through with our own portion. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: We'll have eaten. We'll be in a better mood. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: That's just deflecting. MR. OCHS: No. I think this morning we went a little bit longer than we traditionally have on the courts and the judicial discussion. That set us back a little bit. But I think we're still okay for the balance of the day to get through this. If not, you can always make that judgment later on this afternoon. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay. With that, we'll be back at 1. MR. OCHS: Thank you. (A luncheon recess was had.) June 20, 2019 Page 90 MR. OCHS: Commissioner, you have a live mic. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everybody. Good to have you back. How was everybody's lunch? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Fine, thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Good. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Well, you know, it could have been a little longer. I could have had a little bit more -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Nap time. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yeah, just a tiny little bit. Maybe a little sweeter -- CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Sorry I asked the question. She could have been halfway done with our budget presentation. MS. EDWARDS: Good afternoon. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Good afternoon. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Good afternoon. SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS MS. EDWARDS: For the record, my name is Jennifer Edwards. I am proud to be your Supervisor of Elections. I'd like to introduce -- of course, you all know Melissa Blazier. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Of course. MS. EDWARDS: She's our chief deputy. And we have Madeline Harper. Madeline is my assistant. She's been with us for four months, and we're real proud of Madeline. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And you drug her in here today right out of the chute. MS. EDWARDS: Yeah. It's part of the experience. MS. HARPER: There you go. MS. EDWARDS: Right. Okay. June 20, 2019 Page 91 The election budget spikes every four years when we conduct a presidential election. We are required by law to conduct the presidential preference primary, which we refer to as the PPP. Florida's PPP is going to be occurring on March 17th, 2020. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Say that one more time. MS. EDWARDS: March 17th. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. But what before it? MS. EDWARDS: The presentation preference primary is required, in a presidential election year, and Florida's presidential preference primary will occur on March 17th. States either have an election to determine the presidential candidate for the parties or they caucus. So in Florida we conduct an election. So that's why our budget is spiking going into next year. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Plus, there will be several referenda questions. MS. EDWARDS: There may be. Depends. You know, you know, there are several citizen initiatives out there, so they may make the ballot. We won't know until after February. So that's our operating budget. Our 301 capital funds, in this year's budget we requested $400,000, and with these funds we will purchase the voting equipment that is actually mandated to be in place in 2020. And that's the equipment that is referred to as the ADA equipment for the visually impaired, and it requires a paper ballot. That's, as I said, mandated for us to have in place. And then looking forward -- and this is for the budget office; we like to keep them apprised of what our needs are going to be. And in the 2021 budget we will be requesting $550,000 to replace the sorter. It's a Pitney Bowes sorter that we use for processing mail ballots, so that's looking forward. And that concludes my comments unless you-all have questions. June 20, 2019 Page 92 CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Question. Did we purchase a sorter a while back, or is this in addition, or is this the first? MS. EDWARDS: We purchased a sorter in 2006. COMMISSIONER FIALA: That is a while back. MS. EDWARDS: And because of age -- right. Because of age, the vendor is actually phasing those out, so we have to replace it. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, okay. Thank you. MS. EDWARDS: Okay. Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: That's all I have. Thank you very much. Good seeing you all. MS. EDWARDS: Thank you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Do we have to approve or anything or just say -- CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: No, this is a workshop. MR. OCHS: It's a workshop, ma'am. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Technically, we're not voting on anything; technically. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Oh, oh. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Technically. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: That was so bad. CLERK OF COURTS CLERK KINZEL: Guidance. Good afternoon, Commissioners. For the record, Crystal Kinzel, Clerk of Courts. How are you? CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: We are. CLERK KINZEL: This afternoon I have with me Derek June 20, 2019 Page 93 Johnssen, who you know. He's the finance director now; and Raymond Milum, who is the accounting manager. And Derek sa id I should introduce him as the brains, because -- MR. JOHNSSEN: Definitely. CLERK KINZEL: -- Raymond actually does prepare the budget numbers for both the court and non-court side of the Clerk's operations. So we bring him along for the details. But I want to start by thanking everyone. I know that you've gotten a lot of accolades this morning, but really want to thank for the last year working with staff, working with the budget office, working with this board. I think we've made a lot of progress. We've strengthened some controls. We have worked together to improve processes and make improvements, and I think you will see some of the fruits of that in just the work that we've been able to do in conjunction with county staff, so we appreciate that . You also heard this morning many of your expansions or new projects, you know about the 420 million sales tax expansions, things that are going on in Collier County. The Clerk works to make sure that both the court side of the house and the non-court side of the house, which is the Board's budget portion, work smoothly and effectively for everyone. Included in our Clerk to the Board operations are -- I didn't want to eliminate anyone. So board minutes and records. We handle the processes for the Value Adjustment Board; satellite services, you pay a portion of those; accounts payable; cash management; your payroll; preparation of all the financial statements and financial reporting that we have in Collier County. We also handle the debt service and management and internal audit functions. So we try to provide a cadre of services to the taxpayers and the Board of County Commissioners, which you fund. We followed the Board's policy on health insurance, the 80/20. June 20, 2019 Page 94 I think the County Manager told you that earlier. And we're also following the County Manager's 1,200 per employee versus a percent increase to help those that are on the lowest level of the salaries to help with the affordability of Collier County. So we're also following that process for pay increases. We represent about .65 of your budget, so it's -- and our percent of the General Fund this year is actually decreasing because you took some hits to the General Fund in other areas. So we are asking for three additional positions. Those are primarily in the finance and accounting functions due to the increased contracts, assets, and the accounts payable functions that we're seeing with the increased activity as we grow. So those are my comments, and we're here for any questions. Raymond will answer all those. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Comments? Questions? Discussion? (No response.) CLERK KINZEL: Thank you very much. It's been a great year, and we look forward to the next one. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: We've only been in business eight minutes. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I know. We're really ripping through it. Commissioner Saunders. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Mr. Chairman, I tried this this morning, but I want to try it again. The 800-pound gorilla in the room is the school resource officers. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Did he just call the Sheriff the 800-pound gorilla? June 20, 2019 Page 95 COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: No, no, no. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: I'm only 180; I'm fit. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: My view is that the county should go ahead and pay for all of the resource officers this budget year. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Right. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: If there are three of us that agree with that -- we have about eight or 10 folks in the audience that are going to want to speak on the issue. I think we ca n short circuit that if there are three of us that agree with that -- or more that agree with that conclusion. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I thought Leo already said this morning that's what we were going to do. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Well, it was kind of put off until now. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Until they're in front of us. So I would agree, sir. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: So would I. I mean -- COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I think that's it then. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: So it's unanimous. MR. CARNELL: Mr. Chairman, you have two speakers, so if you want to have the conversations. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: The young ladies and gentleman with the red shirts, sayonara. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Are you happy? (Applause.) CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: How do you do, sir? SHERIFF SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Good afternoon. Kevin Rambosk, June 20, 2019 Page 96 Collier County Sheriff. Thank you for the opportunity to give you an update and an overview for the budget. As you know, I like to take this few minutes to just recognize the men and women of the Sheriff's Office and give you some highlights of what I think are important. The first and foremost is to thank you for all the support you give to public safety throughout the year. It is very evident in everything we do, and I also want to thank you for wo rking together with you on some of your specific projects, programs, and events throughout the year. I believe it helps to bring all of Collier County together. Like you, the health, safety, and welfare of our residents, our visitors, our schools, our businesses is my primary focus. And over the years, we've created and implemented a mix of programs, philosophies, services that support the demands of Collier County residents and business and yourself. We still track with a philosophy of community safety service, because I believe that when we do that and become more service oriented, we can have more positive outcomes as we look forward to the future both this year -- and our projections go four to five years out; and we worked on those this particular year. We have our leadership team here with us and our finance director. Chief Bloom was not able to be with us today. He's in operations. You probably -- well, you know, he's so tiny you might miss him from being at the table. But Chief Hedberg is with us, our chief counsel; Chief Roberts from corrections; Chief Smith from administration; Chief Spell from community outreach; Chief Williams from our investigative sections. And I have Capital Store here from headquarters in the event that you have some questions. I would like to thank the men and women of the Collier County June 20, 2019 Page 97 Sheriff's Office for an absolutely fabulous and terrific year this year. They have put theirselves out in harm's way more often than not, but their results in that philosophy of "service to others before self" has yielded results that I think you're going to be very, very proud of. We also recognize that working as a community or agency we do not do it by ourselves. And, in fact, working together with residents, businesses, your staff, particularly, that's how we get things accomplished in Collier County. And, particularly, I want to thank the County Manager and his staff. And, you know, we've had some very unique issues this year where we've had the help from your building and code enforcement, from your facilities, from your parks and recreation to enable us to do the programming that we want to do with our young people, and it does make a difference. And so here's some of the differences that we think are important; they're not all. Crime rate down 3.5 percent; down 29.9 percent in the last 10 years. Pretty good -- pretty good numbers; the lowest crime rate of any metropolitan county in the state of Florida. We remain and we want to hold on that, even though we're going to be faced with some challenges. Fatal accidental opioid overdoses. This is a new statistic, and we took it from the first six months of this year to the first six months of 2018, and I'm pleased to tell you that our overdose deaths for accidental are down 56.5 percent. That is a much different direction than most other communities in this country are going. It has to do with a lot of things. We implemented our Narcan program this year. That was after meeting with community representatives, a group of young ladies that met with us to talk about the importance of it; a strong drug enforcement effort that we have that's ongoing; our community drug response team where the task force says you're aware that everybody participates from EMS to the June 20, 2019 Page 98 hospitals to others; overdose mapping so that we can track and prevent the potential for overdoses that I mentioned to you last year and, particularly, that we were the first in the state of Florida to implement. So when you put all this together, we're seeing significant positive outcomes for Collier County. Some of the other things that we do, we had 24,000 volunteer hours saving us more than $600,000. We have a very large volunteer core. We appreciate each of our volunteers that participate throughout the year. We have been recognized -- our Victim and Senior Advocacy Group was recognized nationally for their distinguished victims service program. That, in along with -- you remember our Youth Relations Bureau was recognized nationally last year. We continue to look at ways in which we can be leaders in public safety in every way we can. Our Summer Fest program continues to support tens of thousands of young people and have expanded from the summer programs that we used to do, and now we just go through all year long. We have continued all of that, and we've expanded this year to include Female Empowerment Day for the sixth grade girls which we had not ever done before, so that was a new first. Active shooter training. As you saw a week or two ago, it continues to be a problem. We continue to go out and train. We've done 118 trainings. We have trained 4,000 people in the community; residents, businesses. We're going to continue to do that, and you'll see that's one of the places where I think we should continue to go. As importantly, we have brought all of public safety together, fire rescue, EMS who now have helped us redo our policies and procedures, and they have now committed to go in with us safely to help remove anyone who might be injured, because we learned nationally that because we couldn't get help to people, there were a June 20, 2019 Page 99 lot more fatalities. And I will tell you that working together in that -- with those organizations, that, again, is not something that everyone else in the country is currently doing. We're certainly on the lead with that. We've issued ballistic plates to all of our deputies because we expect them to go to the gunfire. We will not send them without the training and the equipment to do so. We've done a lot more things with active shooter. It's an unfortunate and tragic area that we have to address. I don't believe it's going to stop, but we will be prepared as much as a community can be prepared for. School safety. You've already talked about that. We've met and exceeded the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Act requirements. We did it prior to the law being put in place. And that has been with all of your support throughout the years, so we thank you for that. We've had some significant investigations this year. I'm not going to go through them all but want to look and tell our detectives that they did a fabulous job. We're incorporating more drones in what we do each and every day. We've actually made some enhancements with thermal imaging with spotlight and speaker. And we had just gotten that, and we had a call of a missing 77-year-old man who was then found within -- I believe it was an hour of going missing. Drones, not a complete change from flying aircraft with the ability to rescue people, but a quick, efficient way to reduce costs and increase safety. We are about to go next week with pretrial accreditation. That is the last element of professional accreditation that we need. We have accomplished accreditations in each discipline of law enforcement, corrections, communication. And once we do that, we will either be nationally or state accredited in every discipline. And, of course, what that demonstrates is best standards and practices, June 20, 2019 Page 100 again, with certain recognitions. We've expanded our reintegration programs. We've mentioned that before. As we continue to do that, we've also had opportunities, and we've been asked to participate in the building bridges programs, and that supports community-based treatment moving from jail to facilities. We're going to Washington, D.C., in September, and Chief Roberts and I will sit on that panel and discuss not only what we've been doing but what we can do better in the future and learn from other communities. We continue to focus on growth just like you do. I think that's not going to stop. Traffic safety is going to become one of the primary factors in what we do next year. We had a great seasonal traffic safety plan this year, but we have got to ramp it up. We have seen a slight increase in traffic crashes; about 2 percent. Unfortunately, a more significant increase in countywide fatal crashes. But our citations are up 17 percent, so we are enforcing. But the bottom line with the program that we're going for is that we are going to ask the public to help us and drive correctly, because if we can't get them to drive properly, there's no amount of enforcement that we can provide that's going to change that. But we've got to reduce the number of accidents. We've got to reduce the number of fatalities. And we can do it, but we've all got to participate in doing it. We're going to continue with active shooter training. Deputy safety, we continue to train on that, because that has not changed. Unfortunately, you see those encounters each and every night and every day. I'm going to make sure that everybody's trained and equipped properly. We want to use technology. We will be working with your June 20, 2019 Page 101 Transportation Department and come back to you with information on license plate readers and other video capabilities that we believe that will benefit Collier County and keep us safe and look at all emerging technologies. So we're building a stronger, more effective Collier County each and every day. That is with your help and the help of your staff. We are looking at how law enforcement operates and, you know, there needs to be a balance between tactical capabilities and service philosophy, and that's where every law enforcement agency in the country is headed, and I will tell you that we're there already. We're here in case you have any questions with regard to our operations. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Do you want to go first? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Sure. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Hello. Welcome. First of all, I want to mention one thing, and that was when you were talking about traffic safety, I think it was Penny Taylor that brought up a couple months ago about the red-light runners and the lights (sic) we used to have. And then everybody complained. I didn't know why they were all complaining. If you follow the rules, it never bothers you, you know. But, anyway -- and we took it out. But Penny brought it up, and so maybe we would talk about that at a meeting or something. We could even ask the County Manager to schedule it. It's up to you, though. It was your idea to bring it back. And then -- now, just a little bit of kudos. I was invited to do a tour of the Special Operations Group. There were just about 10 or 12 people in this little tour group. And I don't even know why I was invited, but I went. And I was impressed with everything. I asked the Sheriff, I said, could I bring a tour over there? June 20, 2019 Page 102 And he said, sure. And I said, how many people can I bring? And, they said, well, 40. And I said, I could bring 50. No, 40 would be more manageable. Okay, fine. I sent it out in my little newsletter. It's called The Tidbit, and -- but within hours it was already full, and then we had another 50 on the wait list. So we took the 40 over there, and it was amazing, everything that they saw. And we didn't realize -- we saw the drones, we saw the robots, we saw the motorcycle guys. We saw things that nobody else sees all the time, and you don't even know how that all occurs. It just happens, right? So there were so many people that were disappointed; I asked him if I could bring another group over, and he let me do that, so we had another 40. But one of the things you said -- he comes to talk to the group, tells them how things are going and so forth. And one of the things, the lowest crime rate, of course, in Florida; that was a wonderful thing. But he said that they overheard a prisoner talking to someone else, and the prisoner said, don't go to Collier because they put you in jail there. And I thought, wow, isn't that something? Let that word just pass around. And so I just wanted to tell you that we have a great Sheriff's Office. And I even got some people from Marco to come over onto one of the tours -- because they don't like having the Sheriff. They don't like having to pay for the Sheriff. And I think they could see with their own eyes all of the bells and whistles and all of the things that you need to support a really effective Sheriff's Office that they can't afford to do in the City of Marco Island. So, anyway, from me to you, thank you for a great job well June 20, 2019 Page 103 done. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Solis, you were going to say something. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Well, I'm just going to ask this again, and I'm sure that the Sheriff has thought this through. But I was having breakfast with a retired law enforcement officer from New Jersey. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Well, that's the first problem. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: That's what I said. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: I'm from New Jersey for those that don't know. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Right. And it relates to the issue with the youth relations officers in the schools. And he -- I promised him that I would ask this question. He says that in New Jersey they developed a program with actually bringing in retired police officers, sheriff's deputies, and that that's helped kind of drive the cost down on providing that kind of security. I promised him I'd ask you the question, although I'm sure you've thought about that. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: You know, a couple of answers. We have a lot of volunteers that work very, very well. In the state of Florida, with the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Act, they require certified law enforcement officers. So the ability to have retirees come in, unless they go get fully certified -- you know, we would be able to use them in a lot of other capacities. We just may not be able to use them there. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Well, that kind of flies -- because the conversations I've had are contractors, you know, retired military and/or -- the contract military to actually take on that -- take on that June 20, 2019 Page 104 issue. Because one of the issues -- because you said earlier on that, you know, our officers are trained to go to the -- to go to the shooting, towards the shooting. And have we explored any of that opportunity with contract military? SHERIFF RAMBOSK: We haven't explored contract military, but I would tell you that we probably hire more veterans than any other agency -- law enforcement agency in South Florida, and we're very, very proud of that. So we're utilizing their talents, but we haven't done it on a contract basis. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay. Commissioner Saunders. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I, again, just wanted to thank the Sheriff and all the men and women that work in your agency for keeping us safe. It's the most important function of government, and you do a great job with it, so thank you. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I concur. It's the number-one pillar of our job, and thank you. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Thank you very much. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Mr. Chairman, you have two speakers that still wanted to address the Board. The first speaker is Susan Cone. She'll be followed by Annette Hall. MR. OCHS: Nick, are these law enforcement related? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, Mr. Manager. They're both in reference to the Sheriff's budget and public safety. MS. CONE: Yes, thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Susan Cone, and Naples has been my home for 44 years. I've raised my three children here, and I taught at Pine Ridge Middle School. So as a mother and a grandmother and just simply as a human being, I'm very concerned about the gun violence epidemic in this country; therefore, I have chosen to serve as a volunteer for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. We have, in the short six June 20, 2019 Page 105 years that we were formed after Sandy Hook, become the largest gun violence prevention organization in the United States. We have six million supporters. We have a chapter in every state. We have 33 local groups here in Florida, and we have a very active group here in Naples. We are nonpartisan. Our membership includes Republicans, Democrats, gun owners, non-gun owners. But we think that there are some sensible things that we can do to reduce gun violence, things that have been proven, such as a background check on every gun sale. So those are the kinds of things that we advocate for. The reason that we are here today is because we saw an article in the newspaper about a week or so ago that indicated that the county was not going to continue to fully fund the wonderful partnership that we've had for 44 years between the Sheriff's Office and the school system. And so that concerned us, and that's why we are here. But it sounds as though that in the three months since there was a letter and a meeting about that, that some details have been ironed out. And so I was hoping that that is what I was going to be here to do today was to thank you for figuring out how to continue this wonderful partnership and thank you for continuing to be forward thinking and for making sure that our school system has the very capable resources that they need and that at some point in the future that they don't have to revert to other very dangerous options, as I'm sure you've heard, about the guardian program. So thank you, and we're very grateful for all of your leadership. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Your final speaker is Ms. Annette Hall. MS. HALL: Good afternoon. My name is Annette Hall. I have been a resident of Collier County since 1987. I have been teaching in Collier County Public Schools since 1999. And I am the first vice June 20, 2019 Page 106 president of the Collier County Education Association, also known as the Teacher's Union. And I came here today initially to speak to you to convince you to keep the funding for our school safety, which the Sheriff's Department. And I am so happy that you unanimously agreed to continue that funding. So Mr. Solis, Mrs. Fiala, Mr. McDaniel, Mrs. Taylor, and Mr. Saunders, I thank you very much for that vote. I see that it upholds your principles and your mission for our county. And you are leaving a legacy you can be proud of by continuing to support our students, our schools, and our community. So thank you. And I would also like to thank Sheriff Rambosk and his deputies for the outstanding job they've done in keeping our schools safe, and we look forward to that continued relationship. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you. One more -- yes, sir. You're welcome to -- SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Just one point of clarification for reference. The guardian program doesn't go directly to what your question was about contracting because they have to be hired under a different system. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I understand. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: But that is an available program. I do not support that type of programming. I support full-time gun-carrying law enforcement officers in our schools. But I just wanted to make sure, in case somebody said, well, they have a guardian program, you can use that. That is just a point of clarification. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I understand. Thank you. Do you have a question for -- COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: No. I was just going to say, you know, I'm sure all of us support having licensed law enforcement June 20, 2019 Page 107 in the schools. I think there's been a lot of statistics out about the accuracy of even law enforcement when they're shooting in a tense situation. I think in New York City the hit rate was 18 percent. And so you really have to have trained law enforcement. You can't have -- a guardian program to me makes no sense at all. I think it just creates a much more dangerous situation. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: You're correct; 18 to 25 percent. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: These are folks that are trained and go to the range and do all those thin gs, and they still miss. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Yeah. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: There's a lot of air around those targets. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: There is. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: A lot of other -- CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes. And when somebody's shooting back at you, I'm sure it's an entirely different circumstance. So thank you, sir. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Thank you. ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES MR. ISACKSON: Mr. Chairman, if you don't mind we'll proceed back to the County Manager's side of the house and go with Len Price and the Administrative Services Department. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I thought we were getting rid of that department. MR. OCHS: Oh, now's your chance. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: All right. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Was that a motion? MR. OCHS: Wait, wait, wait. They're the ones that are going to get your chairs ordered in purchasing. June 20, 2019 Page 108 COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Oh, wait. We've got to get our chairs in. MS. PRICE: It will make your meeting go quickly. MR. OCHS: At least wait till you get the chairs. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: It could be a long, long time. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: It's been two-and-a-half years. Now, did I say that? But it has been. MR. OCHS: Yeah. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: But who's counting? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yeah, who's counting? MS. PRICE: Another few hundred thousand dollars for staff, and I can have you those chairs in weeks. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Len Price, Administrative and Emergency Services Administrator, for the record. I'm going to try and be real brief, because I think we had a long morning, and I'm hoping you don't have a lot of questions because we're doing an outstanding job. Much like what you said about Steve Carnell before me, that he's the front face to the public, this department is the front face to the other departments. We're the ones that provide the administration, the support, the background for them to get their job done. And while we're doing that, we're also an enforcement arm for the alphabet soup that we have to follow between federal and state rules. So, oftentimes, we're thought of, I think, as the "department of no," but we like to think of ourselves instead as the department of "keep you out of trouble and keep you out of jail." So I hope that we're doing a good job as far as that goes. In terms of our budget we've asked for a moderate increase this year to just keep us with cost of living. I think we're doing an June 20, 2019 Page 109 outstanding job of utilizing our resources, our automation to keep things moving. You've heard that throughout the agency there's a lot of increase in demand with the surtax. We've got a lot of projects out there. And so, to say the least, we're going to be busy this upcoming year. We were also able to get a little over 50 percent of the FEMA money back and a good portion of our insurance proceeds as well. So while it seemed like it took a while to get all the administration through, now that we have, that's starting to move very quickly, and we're well positioned to be able to take on the future, which I am strongly hoping holds no storms again ever. Let me just share a few of our accomplishments for the year and remind you of some of the things that we do for you and for the other departments as well as the community. Our operations and planning group publishes now not only the Board agenda and workshops but also the TDC, the MPO. We even publish the advisory committee meeting minutes -- say that three times fast -- so that the public has easy access and transparency to the goings-on of the government. Our fleet department is taking care of over 950 vehicles and 2,400 pieces of equipment. And thanks very much to Mark's excellent strategy, we are now positioned that most of our vehicles are in the range that we need them to be. There's just a small portion of backlog that we're still working on. But it puts us in a good place to get our job done and to keep our vehicles available at all times. Information technology, ever changing. A lot of concerns over cyber security that keeps us awake at night, but I think that we're doing everything that we can and continually trying to stay ahead of the technology changes and learning what's going on to keep our computers and our phones operating safely. In Procurement, we have hit record numbers of purchase orders, June 20, 2019 Page 110 contracts, and solicitations; more than we've ever seen in the past. Our Risk Management group is probably our diamond in the rough, an unknown gem. But we talked about not having to increase our health insurance rates for seven years in a row. That didn't happen by accident. That's because of the great planning and the steps that we've taken to address health from a wellness perspective rather than a "get you better" perspective. I think that was the right answer way back. We've implemented it. It's been in place now for about 10 years, and we're really seeing the proceeds of that, as well as our safety program, which keeps our employees safe. And we have rates of injuries that are unparalleled across the United States. Our 311 center is open and operational. I think it brings a new level of customer service to our community. Our Emergency Management has been working nonstop all year long, when you don't see them, to be prepared for hurricane season now. Since we've gotten to this point, Dan Summers has been on the road meeting with HOAs, with civic groups. Any invitation that he gets, he's able to meet to go out and make sure everybody is aware and prepared and ready should something occur again. And I'm proud to say that our EMS system is an accredited system that enjoys a 29 percent cardiac safe rate which, again, is just unparalleled in the industry. County Manager alluded to the fact that our Human Resources director was going to share a little bit more information about the climate for recruitment and retention, and so at this time I'm going to turn the mic over to her to share a few things with you. MS. LEIBERG: Thank you. Good afternoon, Commissioners. Amy Leiberg, your Human Resources Division director. I personally had the opportunity to provide some information about our employment population and the trends that we're experiencing throughout the agency. June 20, 2019 Page 111 As Mr. Ochs shared earlier, many organizations, including county governments, will continue to face challenges in recruiting and retaining talent as the job market remains highly competitive. My objective is to give you a little bit of information about what we're observing across the agency and in the marketplace as the workplace and workforce issues continue to evolve. In 2018 for the first time since the downturn, we -- our employee population surpassed our prerecession levels. In examining our employment demographics, the majority of the county's workforce falls into the entry level or skilled grouping of positions. Those are positions that have an hourly rate starting around 10.50 an hour up to 19.15 an hour. This group comprises 53.2 percent of our employee population, approximately a thousand individuals. And this is also the group where the organization's facing its greatest challenges in hiring and retention. We're routinely competing with other local employers who are looking to hire individuals with the same skill set. In this entry group of employees, entry-level group, we have 183 individuals who will be eligible to retire in five years or fewer, and another 140 in five to 10 years. This is a retirement rate of roughly 32 percent. That's not -- that's not unique to that group. About 32 percent of all employees in the county will be eligible to retire across the agency in that same 10-year period. These percentages provided also don't take into account those that are in the FRS investment plan, so this is just pension -plan members. Turnover across the agency has had a moderate increase over the past few years. We had a rate of 10.8 percent in 2017. It increased to 12.7 percent in 2018. We're finding, though, that entry -level positions tend to have a higher rate of vacancy than the professional June 20, 2019 Page 112 or the executive management titles. We had 450 separations in the last two years in the agency, which is about 25 percent of our population. Those positions with the highest number of exits are our maintenance workers, library assistants, Parks and Recreation assistants, maintenance specialists, and Parks and Recreation program leade rs. Combined, vacancies in these five position titles represent 21 percent of the total turnover for those two years. The top five reasons that employees are citing -- we do exit interviews with all of them as they're leaving the organization. Top five reasons that they cite in their exit interviews are for more money or career advancement opportunities, the work environment, retirement, personal reasons, or moving or relocation out of the area. We're also noting that the average lengths of services for a county employee has been declining as well. We discovered the majority of the employees who left the county in 2017 and 2018 had been here fewer than five years of service at the time that they left. Analyzing workforce trends, Bureau of Labor Statistics provides the median term of employment across the country as 4.2 years. They report the median tenure for workers age 55 to 64 is 10.1 years, while the median for those age 25 to 34 is only 2.8 years per agency. Acquiring new talent to the agency is al so an ongoing challenge. Unemployment rates, as Mr. Ochs talked about earlier today, have dropped significantly. We recruited for 569 full -time, part-time, and temporary positions in 2017. Recruitment numbers increased 13.8 percent the following year to 648 positions in those same recruitment groups. It's taking us longer to fill vacancies. The average time of 73 days in 2018, and that's up from 67 days in 2017. The market's now very favorable for anybody who's seeking a job. We are seeing a decline in the number of applicants for county vacancies. Candidates interested in new jobs often apply to positions June 20, 2019 Page 113 in many organizations at once. With desirable talent and limited supply, if the county does not act quickly, we're finding that individuals have often taken positions in other organizations by the time we extend an employment offer. We're also seeing a new trend that's new across many organizations, and HR's seeing this, called ghosting. And this occurs when a candidate accepts an employment offer, goes through the whole process, agrees to begin work, and doesn't show up for their first day on the job. In the last 24 months, we had 92 candidates in the county who initially accepted an employment offer but subsequently declined that offer because they did some checking, they did some evaluation of the offer, and decided that wasn't going to work for them, or they failed to show for their first day of work. In light of the trends I share today, we continue to focus on ways to engage our staff in the workplace. To develop our talent who our geographically dispersed, we implemented an online management system which we call Collier University. It allows employees to access over 1,700 online classes. The system helps us to convey mandatory training topics to team members. It also includes offerings on business skills, technology, health and wellness, leadership and management, productivity, and customer service. We've also sought to bring courses here on campus that were very costly when we sent people out for those trainings, as they involved not only the cost of the course but the travel expenses to send our employees away to do this. An example of this is the project management professional boot camp. We had two offerings of that in the last year when we've had some very successful folks go on to get their PMP certification. We're acutely aware of market conditions and work diligently to remain on top of the trends. Our total-rewards group is regularly June 20, 2019 Page 114 serving the external market against our point positions, and we recently employed some new tools to gather information to use for workforce analysis. We're striving to educate our employees about what FRS provides for them and saving for retirement. We bring knowledgeable representatives on site on a regular basis to have those meetings, and they're almost always -- meetings are almost also full. Our years of service recognition, the values and practice program, Employee of the Month, and Supervisor of the Year continue to be widely used and appreciated by our staff. As a direction of the County Manager, Human Resources Division is performing position reviews primarily for positions in that skilled entry-level group. If market conditions warrant, pay ranges and staff pay are being updated so the county can remain competitive. We recognize that we'll continue to be challenged in finding skilled individuals to fill county vacancies at all levels. Flexibility and adaptability and hiring retention practice will continue to be critical in sustaining the county's workforce into the future. That's all I have to provide to you. Thank you. And I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Go ahead. You don't have to hit your button. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Hmm? CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Go ahead. You don't have to hit your button. You're the first one. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. You know, for a few years now we've been saying jobs, jobs, jobs. We need more jobs. I don't think we need that so much as employees, employees, employe es, and we need trained employees. We need hard-working employees who can fill some of these vacancies. June 20, 2019 Page 115 But they continue to create jobs instead, and people -- it seems that there are more and more jobs that go unfilled. I know at the county we have quite a few openings, as you were mentioning. The Sheriff's Office also has quite a few openings. And hospitals have quite a few openings. Everybody's got plenty of openings. And right now there's places all over the place that are for rent. So they can't say they can't find anything to rent now because they're there. Of course, in the summertime they always are, and so this is the time to get it, in the summertime. But I don't know what we're going to do about filling -- you can't create new people. I don't know what we're going to do. But you're right about we have to pay them a little bit more, and then we have to retain them. Yeah, once we've trained them, then we don't want them to leave. That's a problem for us; us commissioners. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: It's a problem out there at large. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Anybody else have any questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Outstanding. MS. PRICE: Commissioner, thank you very much for your continued support, and we will continue to try and provide the best level of service we can. PUBLIC UTILITIES MR. ISACKSON: Mr. Chairman, next up is Mr. Yilmaz and the Public Utilities Department. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I told Len I could use a little of the "make you better" right now to keep me well. I could use both. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Good afternoon, everybody. MR. BELLONE: Good afternoon. June 20, 2019 Page 116 DR. YILMAZ: Good afternoon, Commissioners. For the record, George Yilmaz, Collier County Public Utilities department head. Our team is here to summarize/highlight the proposed 2020 budget, and our directors are here to answer any questions you may have specific to their divisions and operations. I'm very pleased to report for a large enterprise fund and large General Fund operations, we have met your budget guidance, and we are positioned to continue to provide quality essential services 24/7/365. With that, I'm going to have our Joe Bellone, CFO for our department, will give you a brief presentation, about 90 seconds. MR. BELLONE: Thank you, George. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Ninety second; go. MR. BELLONE: It goes. Get the stopwatch. Thank you, Commissioners. Good afternoon, for the record, Joe Bellone. I'm the director of financial operations for the Public Utilities Department. Commissioners, as you know, Public Utilities Department is comprised of three very distinct operations. The first is the Collier County Water/Sewer District, which is an Enterprise Fund; Solid and Hazardous Waste Management Division, also an Enterprise Fund; and then General Fund operation is facilities -- Facilities Maintenance Division. Those enterprise funds receive revenues that are fees for services, and they have to be sufficient to do three major things. One is they need to be sufficient to provide support for 24/7/365, as Dr. Yilmaz mentioned, regulatory agency compliant operations. Those revenues have to be sufficient to provide critical capital repair and rehabilitation programs for some aging infrastructure, and for the water/sewer district, in particular, they really have to be sufficient to June 20, 2019 Page 117 meet all debt obligations in accordance with the bond covenants. The good news is we've got the demand to do that, Commissioners. The utility is on track to meet -- to break records, production records, 9.6 billion gallons of water this year, which is also our budget for next year. We also set a peak for a daily demand record. That was in excess of 34.4 million this past season; that was in March. One-day demand, 34.4 million gallons. That surpasses any preseason peak -- prerecession peak back in the early 2000s, as you remember the race to get more water. Overall, the Public Utilities Department combined has an operating, a capital, and a debt budget of 451 -and-a-half million dollar. So, Commissioners, we prepared presentations for each of those three businesses, and we can present them to you now unless you have any specific questions you want to address at this point. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: That was longer than 90 seconds. Just saying. MR. BELLONE: The court reporter asked me to slow down, so... Okay. Then, we'll continue. Thanks. Amia Curry will address the water/sewer budget for next year. MS. CURRY: Thank you, Joe. Good afternoon, Commissioners. For the record, Amia Curry, financial and operational support manager. Thanks to your approval of the Collier County Water/Sewer District user rate study in July 2018, user rates will generate sufficient revenues to cover the costs to operate and maintain the utility, meet all debt service obligations, and fund the capital repair and rehabilitation program. The capital program is allocated by risk-based prioritization to ensure that the most critical infrastructure receives the rehabilitation June 20, 2019 Page 118 and maintenance necessary to meet the operational an d compliance requirements. Proposed funding for FY '20 is 60.5 million and gets after 13 percent of the infrastructure categorized as read. Residual effects of Hurricane Irma do continue. The water and wastewater capital funds loaned 40.7 million to the debris recovery mission, of which 34.4 approximately has been repaid. At the beginning of 2020, outstanding debt will approximate $254 million, including bonds for the initial northeast infrastructure regional expansion. Debt service of 22.8 million is fully funded, and no new debt is programmed for FY '20. The water/sewer district has merited a Triple A bond rating from Fitch since 2014, and in March of 2019 Moody's upgraded our bond rating to Triple A as well. Unrestricted reserves represent 51 days of operating and capital funds, and the water/sewer district FY '20 proposed budget is revenue centric and meets the Board-approved budget guidelines. Kari Hodgson, the Solid and Hazardous Waste Management director, will provide the budget highlights for her division. MS. HODGSON: Thank you, Amia. Good afternoon, Commissioners. For the record, Kari Hodgson, director division -- sorry -- director of the Division of Solid and Hazardous Waste Management Program. I'd like to thank you for your continued support with renewal of the franchise agreement renewal. I appreciate the opportunity to present the fiscal year 2020 budget, as the proposed budget complies with the federal, state, and local regulations as they relate to the solid and hazardous waste collection and disposal and continue to increase the public awareness of the importance of the recycling data as well as waste diversion. As Amia mentioned, Hurricane Irma continues to impact the June 20, 2019 Page 119 budget. And as explained in the budget package, however, the division continues to maintain fiscally sound measures in order to ensure that we're prepared should a weather event occur, including up to Category 3 dry storm. In accordance with your guidance, the reserves comply with the budget policy, including $7.4 million in restricted reserves, increasing the TIF fees and rate resolution by the approved CPI as well as a residential annual assessment increase by 2 percent. The capital improvement plan is funded with $2.3 million in order to ensure compliance with recycle centers as well as fund any infrastructure at the Resource Recovery Business Park. With that, that concludes the solid waste portion of this presentation of the Public Works Division. Do you have any questions? CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: How many collections a day do you do? MS. HODGSON: Over a thousand. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Over a thousand a day. MS. HODGSON: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Outstanding. MS. HODGSON: With that being said, if there's no more questions, I'd like to introduce Mr. Daniel Rodriguez. MR. RODRIGUEZ: Good afternoon, Commissioners. For the record, Dan Rodriguez, your department deputy head. First of all, I'd like to take just a quick moment to thank you, the residents, and the County Manager's Office for the surtax, because these are truly exciting times for us because of all the new projects and programs that we get to execute. And we are resourced with this budget to not only get after the capital improvements but also our operating budget. And as you heard earlier by Steve Carnell, we're getting after those parks and June 20, 2019 Page 120 those buildings, the libraries, the museums, to make sure that we have classy facilities that our residents and visitors deserve here in Collier County. It truly is the best place to live, work, and play, and we want those facilities to reflect that. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Damon Grant, our newest director of Facilities Management, to give you some highlights of Facilities Management. MR. GRANT: Thank you, Dan. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Commissioners. For the record, Damon Grant, Facilities Management Division director. As you know, Facilities Management procures, secures, maintains, and constructs facilities for this Board of County Commissioners and the other constitutional offices. We remain dedicated to providing secure, clean, and comfortable facilities. And this year we're happy to report our total net operating division budget for Fiscal Year 2020 is 16.7l million of which 15.7 million is funded by the General Fund, with the balance coming from fees for services provided. This year's proposed 2020 Capital Improvement Program of 4 million will focus on HVAC and roofing improvements, general building repairs, life-safety enhancements, building envelope improvements, as well as ADA and asset management program development. The Facilities Management Division 2020 proposed budget meets the Board-approved budget guidelines of 1 percent increase -- 1.5 percent increase over the prior year's approved budget, and we're here with staff to answer any questions you may have. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Good. DR. YILMAZ: Commissioners, that completes our team presentation. And we appreciate your continued policy guidance, and we thank our County Manager and our executive officers for June 20, 2019 Page 121 continued support and meet your adjustments. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. MANAGEMENT OFFICES MR. ISACKSON: Mr. Chairman, we'll go next to our management offices. Mr. Callahan, Mr. Dorrill, Mr. Wert. Who else is out there? MR. OCHS: Ms. Forester. MR. ISACKSON: Okay. Bring them up. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Jack Wert? CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Jack's here. MR. CALLAHAN: Commissioners, for the record, Sean Callahan, your executive director of Corporate Business Operations. I'm joined up here by my colleagues, your CRA director of both your Bayshore and Immokalee CRAs, Debrah Forester; your tourism and CVB director, Jack Wert; and then Ms. Lisa Jacob, who is the operations manager -- acting operations manager for the Pelican Bay Services Division. So I wanted -- CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Neil went to lunch? MS. JACOB: He will be here soon. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay. MR. CALLAHAN: He's on the way, we're told. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: He's at a restaurant serving slower than you. Neil Dorrill. MR. CALLAHAN: So I want to take you through just very brief highlights through each of these divisions in the FY '20 budget, if you'd indulge me. June 20, 2019 Page 122 In the tourism realm, we continue to see strong support for our tourism industry. We continue to see steady improvement in our TDT collections each year, and that's focused on not only a leisure market, but in the FY '20 budget, you'll also see our continued investment into the other legs of the stool with the Tourism Division, especially with the ongoing construction for the sports and the special events complex of which you'll see open in June 2020 hopefully. We're currently negotiating the management contract for that facility. And then the arts and culture strategic plan that kicked off this week. So not only are we continuing our focus on promoting the leisure market in our tourism and CVB, but we're always looking at other activity-based markets to continue to diversify our findi ngs for those areas. In business and economic development, which has been the discussion over the past year, we're continuing to work with our partner organizations; the Chamber, the Alliance. And as you know, based on your direction back in April, we'll be assuming the operation of the accelerator program with our county staff starting July 1st. Funds will be available in two new Economic Development Zone areas. The I-75 interchange, No. 9, and then the Golden Gate Economic Development Zone will both have funding in FY '20, and we look forward to working with the Board to start to utilize those funds to bring projects forward to continue economic development in the county. And then we're working in tandem with our other county departments to develop a capital stack and utilize the different funding opportunities that are out there. Be it opportunity zones or the Board-created economic development zones, our CRAs with the TIF funding, and trying to get better coordination throughout our county departments to promote those activities. June 20, 2019 Page 123 As I mentioned, we will be assuming the accelerator program July 1st. We've done that with our existing business and economic development staff moving over to operate the Naples Accelerator. We've used another vacancy in the County Manager's Office operations to hire Mr. Ahmed El, who I think most of you are familiar with who's been out at the Culinary Accelerator in Immokalee to continue those operations out there. Impressive guy. We're glad he's joining our team to keep that forward. In our CRAs, the Bayshore CRA, you saw the redevelopment plan recently approved. We're continuing to work to prioritize those infrastructure projects that were outlined in that plan. Based on your guidance of the TIF only being available for another 11 years, we'll continue to work with the folks on that advisory board and members of that community to prioritize infrastructure projects, including finding parking solutions in the Bayshore area, which I know has been not only a concern but a directed priority from the Board. And then you'll see a redevelopment plan update for our Immokalee CRA scheduled in this upcoming budget in FY '20. So we're hoping to bring you next year, based on your guidance back in May, an update to our Immokalee CRA plan. And Bayshore, an exciting project that we'll have under construction in FY '20 are the improvements to both Thomasson Drive and Hamilton Avenue, who you heard from Mr. Steve Carnell earlier today, we're working with our Parks Department to try to implement some -- and formalize some of the boat trailer parking that's been sort of unformal down on Hamilton, but how can we incorporate that into our construction plans to expand capacity at Bayview Park which, as you know, is a very popular site to launch your boat into the gulf. And then Immokalee in your FY '20 budget, you have some design funding for critical stormwater improvements down at the June 20, 2019 Page 124 Lake Trafford west end that will allow some ongoing needs and sidewalk projects and other infrastructure that's sorely needed in that area of the community. And then, as directed back at your May meeting -- at your May 8th meeting, I believe, the Bayshore CRA is actually scheduled to move on the government center campus next month, so they'll be here in Building F starting next month, and we're happy to have them here. Corporate compliance and internal review group, that's your group that has been tasked with implementing a set of internal controls throughout the agency based on the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations framework. So best practices, fraud reduction, and then a system of internal controls that gives us reasonable insurance that we're -- our agency objectives are going to be completed. We're finishing the last seven divisions. We should have those all done by the end of this fiscal year. We're looking forward to reporting back on that with some exciting reporting that we're implementing on a process improvement valuations to actually try to quantify some of the different improvements that we've made through that program. So we look forward to bringing that back to you. And our team, the internal controls team, is actually in the process of a two-day workshop with themselves to do some strategic planning on how we'll move into the next phase of that program. I had the opportunity to speak to most of you individually or the County Manager about an impending reorganization that we're going to be doing at the County Manager's Office level. We've identified fiscal and operations staff through each of our subsequent divisions that we have in the management offices. We'll be bringing them into a centralized finance and operations group that's going to give us a better management view of these offices, allow us to respond to June 20, 2019 Page 125 Board matters more quickly, and just give us a better use for how we team up and utilize the different resources that are throughout the CRAs, tourism, and economic development as a whole. They work towards specialization of those employees so that we don't have one person trying to do multiple tasks somewhere, whereas, I think we can find some efficiencies in that group. We're doing all of that without adding new employees to this division and actually saving you some money through operations for that year. Pelican Bay. Mr. Dorrill is not here. I actually do have a short presentation that I believe the Deputy County Manager's going to fill in surrounding some of the different capital projects that they're going to be ongoing until the Pelican Bay Services Division. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Good afternoon. This presentation was given to the Pelican Bay Services Division with Mr. Dorrill and myself. It's been an ongoing conversation with the Services Division about their level of service and what they want to accomplish. So they're going to take on a pretty aggressive capital program to redo their sidewalks as well as some of their drainage systems, lake banks, and the berm along U.S. 41. So the proposal that was put forward probably almost a year ago and then walked together and finalized just ahead of this budget was presented to them, and they approved it unanimously. So the county in this proposal would submit $500,000 a year for the period of 10 years to the Services Division to offset and cover some of the debt that they want to incur for some of the improvements they want to do. Originally, this was tied to sidewalks. In talking to the boss, County Manager, and what we experienced, as Commissioner Solis knows, with the drainage system in Pelican Bay and who owns it and June 20, 2019 Page 126 where it is, we tied this proposal so that it mergers not only sidewalk obligations, but drainage obligations with the Services Division. So in this proposal the county would maintain maintenance of the roads and the pipes under the roads, and then the Services Division would take over the sidewalks and the drainage between the roads. So I'm going to blow through four or five slides, and it will give you a brief explanation. The exchange is about 8,000 linear feet of drainage systems, and it will include some funding over the period of 10 years for some debt service that's there. And they have got a sidewalk project that's approximately budgeted, or estimated $6.2 million. Some of these costs will help offset these costs as well, too; submittal of the other funds, 500,000 a year. We explained to the Pelican Bay Services Division that their expectation for the way they maintain sidewalks and what they expected the county to do was very different than what we're doing across the county and why we would not totally fund that sidewalk enhancements to what they expect. And I think they understood that. We showed pictures of what's in Immokalee, Naples Manor, different places within the county. Currently, the county manages about 51,000 feet of pipe, linear pipe, that's there. PBSD does 34,000. In this transfer, about 8,000 linear feet will go to the Services division to be maintained by them. And what we've delineated as that termination point is the junction boxes, and it's a little better explained in this graphic here. So you can see the road on your left. The green lines are what the county would maintain and the junction box itself, but the orange line would be transferred to the Services Division. For obvious reasons, they'll do a better job of working with the community that's there and taking care of the issues between the two. June 20, 2019 Page 127 CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Didn't we have somebody who was at Pelican Bay that -- didn't we have somebody come before us a while ago with an issue that -- the collapse of a pipe or something was causing issues with their porch? I remember somebody. MR. OCHS: Yes, sir; absolutely. MR. CASALANGUIDA: It's part of the hurricane, sir. Mr. Lane, I believe. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Lane, yeah. MR. CASALANGUIDA: And I believe we've addressed that. So in this transaction, the county up to -- for a period of 10 years provide 500,000 and then $20,000 in perpetuity for some of the ADA connections to the sidewalks back to the county network. The way this is structured is that we'll bring a resolution to the Board on July 9th. County Attorney's working with Lisa to put that on the agenda. We'll memorialize that in the budget book. And after the 10-year payment, the county would cease to contribute that $500,000, and those drainage lines between the buildings would then be managed by the Service Division. So while upfront it's a decent chunk of money -- I used the word "perpetuity" at their presentation -- that going forward these drainage lines are to be maintained by the Service Divisions in perpetuity, and they understood that. So hopefully that expresses what we intend to do, and if you have any questions... MR. OCHS: Nick, if you don't mind, let's just talk about source of funds from the Services Division so the Board understands how that would work. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yeah. They do an ERU assessment, and so they base it on an equivalent residential unit for both the residents that are there and the commercial that's there. So I believe, Lisa, they presented the ERU dollar amount increase of what would June 20, 2019 Page 128 be included into issue the debt. And, again, all representing agencies were there, and it was the first time something was approved unanimously by them. So that's a special assessment. So what we would put in the resolution is that these obligations would be part of that ERU assessment. And if they needed to increase it to cover these assets, it would be done through that ERU assessment process. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I have a question. You said that you guys will -- the CRA will be locating their offices in this building. Where you going to locate? MR. CALLAHAN: On the first floor, ma'am, is where we're planning. It's where the CAT system is currently right next to the security desk down on the first floor. We'll be transitioning the Public Transit and Neighborhood Enhancement Group out to the Radio Road facility that just recently came online. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, okay. MR. CALLAHAN: And that's actually allowed us free up some space not only for the CRA, but also for the operations group that I talked about that we're creating through this reorganization. So we'll have everybody here on campus, which is what the Board directed, and I think it will be a positive thing. It will save some money for CRA over the next few years. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Our Board directed you to come over here? MR. OCHS: Yes, ma'am. MR. CALLAHAN: Yes, ma'am. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I have a question. And if you don't mind just -- would you give me a little more information with regard to the reorg on the accelerators. I know we're positioning to take them over in operations as of July 1st. What happened -- what is happening to the existing staff with regard to those? Are we going to June 20, 2019 Page 129 continue to -- because I went -- you know, at Board -- I think it was the Board's direction. Maybe it was my instigation. I went and met with FGCU last week, Dr. Timur, Dr. K; can't say her last name. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Timur. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Dr. Timur, I met with her, and then Dr. K, who is the director of the entrepreneurial educational portion. MR. CALLAHAN: I think Kauanui, sir, but I may be saying that wrong. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Say that again. Kauanui. Yes, Dr. K. And it was a very good meeting, and they've got very much an interest in assisting with our Naples Accelerator, but I haven't heard, organizationally, what our plan is as of yet other than to -- other than to take it over. MR. CALLAHAN: So existing staff -- as you know, the accelerators are currently staffed by the staff of Economic Incubators. So we've retained their staff that has been out at the Immokalee facility. With regards to the staff that's currently at the Naples Accelerator, they've all found employment in the private sector. Also, as a way to save money, we've re-purposed; our business and economic development staff will be moving over there to operate that facility. So we've had some initial meetings with Dr. Timur, Dr. Mike Rollo, and they actually went and talked to Dr. K recently, and we've got a followup meeting with them tomorrow. But that was per -- the Board direction on April 23rd was to continue to explore ways that we could partner with FGCU. We've kicked around a lot of different ideas with them, including using some of their faculty to add value to that facility. We've talked about the fact that participants in the Naples Accelerator need to have some type of a strengthened program, be it June 20, 2019 Page 130 maybe a curriculum to make sure that we're actually treating businesses that come through that facility as an accelerator should and not just people that are staying there for good. So I think FGCU's definitely interested in helping us develop some of that. And then as far as the facility goes, FGCU has had some needs as far as space here in Collier County. Dr. Martinez's indicated to the County Manager, I believe, that he'd like to have a stronger presence here, so we're exploring all of those different things with FGCU in regards to the Naples accelerator. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: So, basically, the intent is to continue to keep the Naples Accelerator functioning in some form or fashion for at least another year. MR. OCHS: Yes, sir, in partnership -- hopefully a continuing and growing partnership with Florida Gulf Coast University and the other educational institutions here in Collier County. That's the intent, sir. And we'd do that at a significantly reduced cost. All of the contract services that EII was paying for for their back office, accounting and payroll and auditing work, obviously, now is part of your operation. We absorbed that through Sean's group. So that's the intent. And I would -- one more thing. On the position out in the Culinary Accelerator that we want to take on, we're not adding an FTE to your budget. We've re-purposed an existing vacancy to allow that gentleman to join the staff. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Ahmed. MR. OCHS: Ahmed, right. MR. CALLAHAN: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Taylor. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Oh, I was just going to say that June seems to be the watershed month to this whole plan. Budgets come in. FGCU will understand more of what their needs are. But June 20, 2019 Page 131 clearly for several months in my communication with Dr. Martin there has been a clear interest to move into Collier County, and the accelerator fits the glove very nicely. So we'll see what happens. But it's -- there's still a lot -- still a few balls in the air. MR. CALLAHAN: Yes, ma'am. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Now, you're going -- just to make sure I understand what you just said, we're still going to keep the accelerator in Immokalee, right? MR. CALLAHAN: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And the accelerator here is still going to be Kraft Road? MR. CALLAHAN: For the time being, yes, ma'am, it will be. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And then after that -- after the time being, where does it move? MR. CALLAHAN: We're currently exploring if there's more feasible facilities to put an operation like that in, and I hope to have a better answer for you in the future. We're currently looking at that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: An existing facility that the county owns, you mean? MR. CALLAHAN: It could potentially be. Yeah, I think we're looking at all options. Of course, we'd love to -- like we've done with some of the other organizations that lease throughout the agency, we'd love to try to bring them into county space. There's a lot of different moving pieces over the next year that might allow us to do that, so we're definitely exploring it. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Any other questions? Did you enjoy your lunch? MR. DORRILL: I didn't have lunch. And I spent 20 years running up and down these stairs, and it's been a long time since I've sprinted up the stairs the way that I just did. June 20, 2019 Page 132 COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: It took you an hour and 17 minutes to come up the stairs? COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I wouldn't call that a sprint. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: We're good to have -- and we enjoyed the presentation. Nick did a really good job, and we like what's going on there, so -- MR. DORRILL: Again, my apologies. But it's two years worth of work, a great deal of help from the County Manager's executive office just because there has never been really a model as to how to finance replacement infrastructure that had originally been built with bonds. And so we would not be here had it not been for a great deal of support by the manager and also by the deputy. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Good. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Anything else? (No response.) CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Outstanding. Thank you very much. MR. DORRILL: Thank you very much. COUNTY ATTORNEY MR. ISACKSON: Mr. Chairman, that leaves your budget and the County Attorney's budget for a brief brief. I'm going to say that. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: You had to say it once, didn't you? MR. ISACKSON: I'll let Jeff go over his component, and I'll make a couple of comments on the Board's budget. MR. KLATZKOW: Thank you, Commissioners. Jeff Klatzkow, Collier County attorney. We're within budget this year; slightly below Board direction. I've got the pleasure of leading six other attorneys. They primarily June 20, 2019 Page 133 work with the County Manager's staff. And, you know, every day it's a pleasure. You have no idea how much caring there is in this county by the staff for the county, and every day people are just looking for a better way to serve the people of Collier County, and it's just a pleasure working in that environment. I do most of my work for the Board. My people do most of the work with the County Manager's people. And we consider ourselves very, very fortunate. I mean, it's a fortunate business to be in for an attorney for having clients like we have. I'm here to answer any questions. COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Great job. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Thank you. MR. KLATZKOW: Thank you. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS MR. ISACKSON: Commissioners, with regard to the Board's budget, the component that you actually control is pretty much in compliance. It's the one control that's a little out of whack. There's two components that fall under the Board's budget, and they're called other general governmental expenses. It's things like the Naples CRA. It's property insurance. It's general overhead costs that get budgeted for purposes of the General Fund and the Incorporated Area General Fund. What I did this year was shift most of the planned phone replacement for the General Fund and in the Unincorporated General Fund to this other GNA account, which is about a million one. So that's why you see your other GNA up substantially. And I did that because I can account for it better in one particular location rather than having it spread out, frankly, amongst several different June 20, 2019 Page 134 appropriation areas within the General Fund. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I wondered about that. I looked at this and said, what did we do? And I was going to -- who's going to interview us and who's going to talk to us about our budget? And it's you. MR. OCHS: He's the one. MR. ISACKSON: You can blame me for that one. Anyway, it's a one-time charge right now, but it's, in my view, better where it's located, so... And that's all I have, Commissioners. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: But we didn't really follow the County Manager's budget guidance, did we? MR. ISACKSON: Well, you're a very small cost center. You've got predominantly employee costs, so it's -- that's almost -- if you read -- we said in the County Manager's letter that when you add one-and-a-half percent guidance and you knew that the cost of living was 2.9 percent and you knew that your cost of living adjustment, on average, was going to be 2.2 percent -- so it's actually -- you actually had to make cuts in certain areas in order to meet that guidance. So it's awful tough sometimes in certain smaller cost centers to do that. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I thought it was the Chairman's expensive dinners with his clients. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Could have been, yes. Potentially. MR. OCHS: And you haven't even received the bill yet for the chairs. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Oh, gosh. The chairs. Really? MR. OCHS: Don't forget. MR. ISACKSON: That's all I have, Commissioners. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: That's it. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Does anybody have any other questions of our own budget? June 20, 2019 Page 135 COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I'd just like to compliment staff, County Manager, and Chief Financial Officer and all our directors here. It's so clear and so -- it's just -- you do so much work, and it really pays off with -- and you can see it in the presentations. Thank you very much. MR. OCHS: No, thank you, Commissioners. Without the guidance that we get from you every March, it would be impossible to put this document together, and I think the tools and the opportunities that you've given us through those policy meetings allows us to stand a fighting chance at all the important things that we've got to provide to the citizens. So thank you. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: So it's obvious I was a little overzealous in wanting to adjust the schedule. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: You can still come back tomorrow. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: We're going to be here. I'm going to be here, so... COMMISSIONER FIALA: Did you notice how Leo was just quietly -- you could see he wasn't even breaking a sweat or anything. Just said, well, we're usually out of here by 3:00, 3:30. CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: We're even before the court reporter's break. So if there's nothing else to do, we're adjourned. MR. OCHS: Thank you. ******* June 20, 2019 Page 136 BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL ____________________________________ WILLIAM L. McDANIEL, JR., CHAIRMAN ATTEST: CRYSTAL K. KINZEL, CLERK ___________________________ These minutes approved by the Board on _____________________, as presented ______________ or as corrected _____________. TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF U.S. LEGAL SUPPORT, INC., BY TERRI LEWIS, COURT REPORTER AND NOTARY PUBLIC.