Agenda 07/12/2022 Item # 2Ca (BCC Budget Meeting Minutes 06/16/2022)2.0
07/12/2022
COLLIER COUNTY
Board of County Commissioners
Item Number: 2.0
Item Summary: June 16, 2022 BCC Minutes
Meeting Date: 07/12/2022
Prepared by:
Title: Sr. Operations Analyst — County Manager's Office
Name: Geoffrey Willig
07/05/2022 5:58 PM
Submitted by:
Title: Deputy County Manager — County Manager's Office
Name: Amy Patterson
07/05/2022 5:58 PM
Approved By:
Review:
County Manager's Office Geoffrey Willig County Manager Review
Board of County Commissioners Geoffrey Willig Meeting Pending
Completed 07/05/2022 5:59 PM
07/12/2022 9:00 AM
Packet Pg. 18
June 16, 2022
TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
Naples, Florida, June 16, 2022
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County
Commissioners, in and for the County of Collier, and also 4-g as
the Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing bo#w of such
special districts as have been created accordi o nd having
conducted business herein, met on this da t :30 a.m., in BUDGET
SESSION in Building "F" of the ent Complex, East Naples,
Florida, with the following in s present:
Chai William L. McDaniel, Jr.
Rick LoCastro
Burt L. Saunders
Andy Solis
�r Penny Taylor (Telephonically)
ALS SENT:
A y Patterson, Acting County Manager
Finn, OMB Director
Jeffrey A. Klatzkow, County Attorney
Troy Miller, Communications & Customer Relations
Page 1
Notice of Public Meeting
Notice is hereby given that the Board of County Commissioners of Collier County will
conduct Budget Workshops on Thursday, June 16, 2022, and Friday, June 17, 2022, if
necessary, at 9:00 a.m. Workshops will be held in the Boardroom, 3rd Floor, W. Harmon
Turner Building, Collier County Government Center, 3299 Tamiami Trail, Naples,
Florida to hear the following:
• Commissioner Taylor joining telephonically
COLLIER COUNTY GOVERNMENT
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
FY 2023 BUDGET WORKSHOP
June 16, 2022
Thursday, June 16, 2022
9:00 a.m.: Immediately following the Special Meeting for the Hiring of the
County Manager:
General Overview:
Given By OMB Director Ed Finn:
• Budget Guidance
• General Government Operations
• Millage Neutral Operating Tax Rate
• Expanded Service Requests
• Capital Investment/Reserves/Debt
• CRA Funding
• Landscape Maintenance Program
• Countywide Taxable Value
• Stormwater Funding
• Capital Funding/Investment
• FY23 Position Count Changes/Compensation Adjustment
• Net Budget — General Fund
• General Fund Reserves — Debt Management Policy
• MSTD General Fund
• Budget Challenges
Page 1
June 16, 2022
Courts and Related Agencies (State Attorney and Public Defender):
Given By Chuck Rice, Court Administrator for the 20" Judicial: $7.2M Budget;
$4.6M Capital Budget; Recruitment/Retention; Recognizing Circuit Judge Brody;
Recognizing Clerk of Courts' Crystal Kinzel; Problem Solving Courts;
Recognizing Judge Martin; Public Defender's Office Budget Requests; State
Attorney' Office Budget Requests
Growth Management Operations:
Given by Jamie French, GMD Operations Department Head: Ken Kovensky,
Division Director & Rady Edreva, Finance and Operations Manager
• Budget and Division Update
• Enterprise Based Funds Well Established — 90% Self -Funded
• New Construction, Permitting & Inspections Up
• Online Services
• Floodplain Management
• Staffing Efforts/Needs
Public Services:
Given by Tanya Williams, Public Services Department Head, Kim Grant, Division
Director:
• Budget and Division Update
• Host 2.8 million visitors
• Big Corkscrew Island Park
• Domestic Animal Services
Management Offices (Pelican Bay):
Given by Dan Rodriguez, Deputy County Manager:
• Operating Funds and Division Update
• 2241 Current Employee's
• 31 % Over Last Year in Tourist Increase
• New Fire Station/EMS Stations
• IT and Cyber Security
Page 2
June 16, 2022
• Neil Dorrill (PBSD) — MSTBU Update
Transportation:
Given by Trinity Scott Transportation Services Management Department Head,
and Gene Shue, Division Director:
• Budget and Division Update
• Transportation and Stormwater Updates
• Airport Operations Updates
Debt Service:
Given by Ed Finn, OMB Director:
• Debt Service Update
1:00 p.m.: Constitutional Officers
Supervisor of Elections:
Given by Jennifer Edwards, Supervisor of Elections and Melissa Blazier, Deputy
Supervisor of Elections:
• Budget and Elections Updates
Clerk of Courts:
Given by Crystal Kinzel, Clerk of Courts, Raymond Milum, Recording and
Accounting Manager, and Derek Johnssen, Finance Director:
• Budget and Services Update
Sheriff.
Given by Kevin Rambosk, Sheriff:
• Budget and Services Update
• 200,000 priority 1 calls
Page 3
June 16, 2022
• School Safety Conference — Awarding Collier Sheriffs (July)
Other Constitutional Officers requesting to address the BCC
Public Utilities:
Given by George Yilmaz, Department Head; Amia Curry, Director of Water Sewer
Finance and Ed Finn, Facilities Management Director:
• Budget and Services Update
County Attorney:
Given by Jeff Klatzkow, County Attorney:
• Budget Guidelines and Staffing
Board of County Commissioners:
Given by Ed Finn, OMB Director
Public Comments
Becky Kokkinos — Brookside Stormwater Project
Deija Hinojosa — Retaining County Employees, Permitting, and
Public Services
Ashly Jenkins — Retaining Employees and Infrastructure
Commissioner Comments
Commissioner LoCastro — Congratulations to Ms. Patterson and thanks to
staff
Adjourn
Page 4
June 16, 2022
June 16, 2022
MS. PATTERSON: Mr. Chair, you have a live mic.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: You have to hit the right button.
MS. PATTERSON: Yeah, that would help. Start off on the
right foot.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: There we go. As a duly hire WN*,
county manager, you have to hit the right button.
MS. PATTERSON: I've got to practice.
Chairman, Commissioners, you have a live mic. 0
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Good morning, ev dy. And
now we are about to proceed with our workshop f budget.
This is not a time -- for the folks that are e, is is not a time
where this board necessarily makes any decisi s ith regard to our
budget. We receive information, ask our, es ions, and if there are
decisions that are made, those will bye y at an advertised
public hearing where folks have a unity to weigh in,
ultimately, on the decision.
So just to move us alon I do know that Commissioner
Taylor is -- I don't think to take another vote on this to allow
her to participate remotel -- and we do have the technology
available to -- she an raise her hand and let me know that she's
looking to spea Troy can see it, so we will not be just waiting on
Commission ay to say something.
So with t let's proceed on with the next part of our day.
S. PATTERSON: Commissioners, up on the screen we have
the agenda for today. We'll be starting with a general overview
presented by Ed Finn and myself, moving on to the courts, and then
through our various departments and divisions. Then we will start
up at 1:00 p.m. with the constitutional officers, and you can see the
Page 2
June 16, 2022
order there listed.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay.
MS. PATTERSON: So with that, I'm going to move over to the
podium, start with some opening comments, and then hand it on'over
to Ed to get into the real technical parts of the budget.
MR. MILLER: Mr. Chair Commissioner Taylor has h
raised.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Taylo �rgive
me, I didn't see your name pop up, so...
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you. you,
Mr. Chair. I just was unsure whether you di e otion. And
just so you know and for the public to know, vti Mohs surgery
on my face yesterday. So I'm sitting list with you an icepack
on my face; otherwise, I would be ther .
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Ye ow you doing? You and I
talked about that on Tuesday. Arkau doing okay?
COMMISSIONER TAY I'm good. Great. Thank you
very, very much. We h of talented people in Collier County
to do this kind of thing. 11
But as long as I cap# -- as long as -- because I will be asking
questions. I wiKe making comments. I will be representing my
district in thi dget process, so I wanted to make sure that it's
legally ok fo e to do that if we don't take a motion at the
worksho t ow me to do it. Thank you very much.
I MAN McDANIEL: You're welcome. You weren't in
the ro rebut I verified before we went on, just so you know, that we
arevnin the bounds of our purview to be able to do what we're
doing.
So let's go forth and persevere.
MS. PATTERSON: Absolutely.
Commissioners, I would just like to say, and I would be remiss
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June 16, 2022
not to, is it is an honor to be standing here at this podium, but this is
very much Mark Isackson's budget process of the last decade -plus,
and he participated all the way till, essentially, this budget was ready
to go. So a nod to our former OMB director and our former County
Manager, Mark Isackson. Big shoes to fill for Ed and I here
standing at this podium today. I hope we can do him proud.
So you have the budget timeline in front of you. You we
start with budget policy back in February moving to wh e are
today with the budget workshops where we're going about all
the things contained in that budget. You'll hear fr ur various
constitutional officers and your departments a ' i ns throughout
the county.
By the 12th of July at your board me 'n , you'll adopt your
proposed maximum property tax rats ied in FY '23, and Ed,
I'm sure, will touch on this a little
We'll move through August i o eptember for our budget
hearings where the budget wi nalized, and then our TRIM
compliance in October.
So this budget con with the Florida Statutes for our annual
budget; as presented, is.,,balanced. It does provide a flexible planning
tool consistent with our financial and budget philosophy over the last
many years. have sufficient budget to conduct business of
governme tea .t reflects the best efforts of your staff to maintain
and enhanc�ilr levels of service for the benefit of our residents and
visito
QuNbudget approach is conservative, and it allows us to prepare
fo y things like natural disasters, changing economic conditions,
the changing local and state policies, to provide funding for the
desired level of service, and, obviously, to support our capital
projects and our capital infrastructure.
As we all know, we have a very positive economic landscape
June 16, 2022
currently; extremely low unemployment. We have a very high
median home price, not to suggest that that is positive, but it does
reflect the favorable economic conditions.
But moving forward, we have to look at what is going on. We
continue to have above -average permitting. While slightly dow
from this time last year, permitting and activity over in our G
Management Department and Community Development c^ ' ue on
at a very aggressive pace.
You'll hear later from Mr. Finn an explanation o �r taxable
values which are up 13.09 percent for the 11 th co ve year, and
our countywide tax base value is now $118.4 i
Let's talk a little bit about what else is gel n out there. As
we know, we have increasing energy pric in reasing food prices,
we are experiencing an increase in ijifl terest rates are rising.
So these are all things that we're c e e considering and watching
as we move forward and look at t onomic landscape.
And with that, I will han er to Mr. Finn, who's going to
dive into the details of t
MR. FINN: Thank , Ms. Patterson. Congratulations.
Mr. Chairman Copmissioners, Edward Finn, OMB director.
Pleasure to be hXthis morning.
As I kic o if, I'm also going to extend my thanks to
Mr. Isacks n. e's had a steady hand on the financial tiller here for
many year any of the best things that you'll see in this budget in
term easing reserves, modest tax rates, solid planning for
f ital, and a focus on the priorities that I think we all consider
pri i es, that being public safety, transportation, stormwater, are all
a testament to his efforts. And just maybe a little unusual today, I'm
going to, up front, thank staff for their hard work on this budget. It
is a fairly long process. There's a lot asked of staff as they go
through that. The budget office staff themselves were particularly
June 16, 2022
burdened this year, and I want to thank them up front and thank
you -all for your attention to this and your involvement. Thank you
very much.
I'm going to go over some highlights, and we're going to get
through this really fast because I barely have 30 slides here. An
know we're all going to be excited to go through them. se
This first slide kind of outlines our budget guidance. 64get
guidance generally was a tax -neutral policy; that is the e taxes as
the prior years. What that means is for the General that was a
millage rate of 3.5645. Conservation Collier, on e neutral
remains at .25. The unincorporated area tax 1 uch smaller,
dramatically smaller than the General Fund, at
Expanded service requests, the budg ou re going to look at
today does include some critical expa ice requests, a total of
52 new FTEs in a number of imp eas: DAS, Parks, Facilities
Management, Transportation, St ter, Code Enforcement,
Community Development, Etee
'rport, Fleet, and Utilities. Those
total 5.5, and those, as y from the list of important
departments, they are kin in the critical components or critical
sector of our budget. they represent about $5.5 million.
Clerk -- Cle;of Courts has some modest expanded requests as
well that you'll have an opportunity to review.
Agai eNg back to kind of legacy of this budget, we talk
about rese The General Fund reserves have increased again for
man , years. We have a slide going forward. I can show you
the history of that. And the last thing is an important addition to our
capi,�,l -- capital program, our capital reserve increase of $15 million.
Capital expenditures. Capital expenditures embodied in the
budget total $700 million. That is a slight increase over the prior
year, but it is an indication of our commitment to the capital
infrastructure and maintaining continuity with the growth that takes
June 16, 2022
place here in the community.
Debt issuance. The budget itself does not include any specific
debt budgets but, as you know, we have some projects that are going
to require some debt as we move forward through FY '23.
Transportation projects come to mind and the important govern t
operation business park project.
Another major, major component of this budget is add* a
investment in our workforce. There's 10 or $ l l millio �t side for
the next phase of the adjustment to the pay plan and laries of
our employees. The environment we're in, it's all n do to retain
the people we have. As you well know, rec is very, very
difficult. We're hoping that that's going to gi a an opportunity to
address that.
General government operations. e 'llage-neutral operating
tax rate in the General Fund result, 48 million increase in the
funding available to us. That tot a perty tax levy is 421 million.
In the unincorporated area, th al tax rate resulted in $60 million
in tax revenue. That is ifurcated between the -- between
the Transportation Media autification Program and General
Operations. Of th t 60 mil ion, 53- goes to General Operations, and
almost 7- goes t e landscape function.
Millage e tra onservation Collier tax levy resulted in a tax
levy of $2 .6 ion. That is an increase over last year of
$3.4 millio
tional officers expanded requests include two FTEs for
the bier , Inspector General, and recording, and some additional
fUV for our critical -- critical accounting software support.
Those totaled $429,000.
I'm going to go through a couple -- we already talked about the
Phase 2 of the new classification and compensation plan. There's
funding in here for the policy -driven affordable housing initiatives,
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June 16, 2022
funding for -- substantial additional funding for the EMS Department,
and another critical -- critical area is our infrastructure, our ITE
infrastructure and network security. Additional funding to support
stormwater maintenance, that was really reinitiated at the Board's
direction in 2020. N
Continued funding for economic initiatives and policy-d i�
development, including funding for the Golden Gate Golf se
included in the budget as well as the Great Wolf Lodge Qbmic
incentives, realigning the '23 budget when necessary rudent,
transfer dollars to support the industry standard st ter program.
We're moving in that direction. There's an e n funding of
about $2 million overall in the program this ye .
I mentioned earlier that one of our i ' tives here is the
continued capital investment in the jo u . Capital investment
this year includes Sheriffs auto [s' rprint system, additional
two and a half million dollars for r us improvements in Sheriffs
facilities, continued improvegsand
o the transportation network,
stormwater, and the parcility repair to the general
government facilities, bui facilities, funding for the
financial accounting sy$em upgrade, libraries, Golden Gate Golf
Course, as we n Toned earlier, and the Government Operation
Business Par
Also * cl in the budget is funding for the various
CRAs -- CR�p Naples
Economic Development Zones. The Na les
CRA ed by 900,000 to a total of $5.6 million. Our internal
C economic development areas increased by $1.1 million.
terprise operations are a big component to the budget. They
include the Collier County Water/Sewer District and the Solid Waste
Department.
Water user rates in your budget are up 4 percent, and those are
consistent with previously authorized increases.
June 16, 2022
Wastewater rates are up 5 percent; tipping fees, 3.25; waste
collections fees for District 1, mandatory collection are up 2 percent,
and District 2 mandatory collection, 3.2 percent.
If there are any questions as I go along, feel free to sing out.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: They will sing out.
MR. FINN: There you go.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And just to -- just for the public's
edification, the Board has already seen this information.
So, Commissioner Solis -- you asked and now you get to
receive.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yeah. No, hi it s probably
good. I asked you this question when we wer ee ing one on one
about the budget. In terms of the FTEs, tail ed a little bit about
having a deeper bench. And so just t r, the additional FTEs
that we're referring to in the budg not currently open
positions, right? I mean, we're to i about in addition to where we
want to be in terms of staffin e necessary departments, right?
MR. FINN: Yes, s . . 52 positions, memory, those are in
addition to the staffing th rrently exists. Some of those
expanded requests are Nhat we call a hardening of existing contract
employees, and t is a recruitment and retention tool in and of
itself, having an employee versus a contract employee. But
the additio s tN-MS, for instance, are just that; they are additions to
the current
SSIONER SOLIS: Okay. And then also the number
t u ferred to, this almost 6 and -- 6.7 million that's going to the
la pe, the Median Landscape --
MR. FINN: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: -- Fund, that's a slightly lower
number than it's been in the past, right? I kind of remember a 7-,
$8 million number. And I guess my question is, this is a budget
June 16, 2022
hearing, so maybe this isn't quite the place, but it seems to be a
smaller number, and that was, number one, my first question, which
is good, because we've -- we all know we've hemorrhaged money in
that area, and -- is that a smaller number?
MR. FINN: No, sir, it is not a smaller number.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: It's not a smaller number?
MR. FINN: Not in terms of the annual funding, the -
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Oh, the annual fundir*0
MR. FINN: Right, the annual funding. N
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. So it's a e same
number in terms of the annual funding. Wha e n is,
theoretically, a different number?
MR. FINN: That number we looke t would be up that
13 percent that's represented in the inc x base.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: So the amount that's being
transferred is actually going up 13 e ent.
MR. FINN: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER All right. Thank you.
MR. FINN: Very g Appreciate that.
CHAIRMAN McIEL: Hang on. Commissioner
LoCastro. You ened the door.
COMM O R LoCASTRO: Just so I know, so this
budget, ac oss board, everything -- one giant umbrella is going up
13 percentkigWer than what it was in FY '22, correct, or less?
" �: I think if we look at it all in, it's up 6 percent on
the net
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: About 6 percent, okay.
Even though I know we're all going to be guilty of sort of asking
questions sort of out of order, this is about budget. I just want to go
on the record. Six point seven million for landscape's a lot of
money, and it's great. We do some great things with it. We also
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June 16, 2022
have misused it at times. We sat in here in a meeting several months
ago that we want to make sure we're reaching out to other
organizations who can really help us spend that money or guide us
more appropriately, and one is the Botanical Garden. I spent half a
day with them, and when I met with their CEO, she said, gosh,
could really help you guys. That's not really the conversatio+
here, so I'll just end it there.
But whoever's watching in the staff that gets contr Zhis
money, it's not just approving the budget, but it's abo king sure
that every year we spent these taxpayer dollars wi I always say,
there's no such thing as county money; it's tax e of ars.
And I agree with Commissioner Solis, yo ow, 6.7 can buy a
lot of landscape. It could also buy a lot qAunk and put it in the
wrong spot if we don't do it properly. ow a lot of people are
watching. We've got, you know, �, folks in the room here.
But the people, then, that when e e this room get control of this
money and start to spend it, le ' waste it. And we've been guilty
of doing that in certain -- in times.
But -- okay. But go back to my original question, like you
said, the overall -- I'll jVt repeat it again. The overall budget, if we
had to just say much has it all gone collectively as an average,
you said abo o --
MR. I 6.7.
COM IONER LoCASTRO: Six point seven, okay.
Yep.
oo'� we talk about the landscape maintenance program, we
have to keep in mind that the investment in landscape is -- while
it -- obviously, it can be characterized differently than the investment
in roads or stormwater infrastructure or buildings, nonetheless, it is
an investment, and it does need to be maintained. To a great extent,
that's what we're looking at when we look at that funding is the
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June 16, 2022
maintenance.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Well -- and that's my biggest
concern. You can plant a beautiful tree, but then if in the budget we
don't have irrigation, cutting it, trimming it, and all that -- but I'll also
just say, just as an aside -- and I think we all agree here. When
talk about a deep bench, I don't know about the other commis s
but, you know, Ed spent I don't know much time in my offi ou
literally can grill this man on anything, and he has the a
So I know we've got the right guy overseeing th get. He
has a calculator with fresh batteries. He's got pen at are
sharpened. And I just want to say, Ed, how i re d was with
how we went through this budget, you know, i instaking detail,
some stuff that we're going to get to later how impressed I was
with your knowledge just right off tie our head, so thank you.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: rl�,' g? I can ask him
anything. Yeah, when's it goin t nand how much?
COMMISSIONER LoC : He'll tell you.
MR. FINN: It's go in soon, and it's going to rain a lot.
COMMISSIONER ASTRO: Fifty percent chance.
CHAIRMAN McI�►A IEL: All right. Let's proceed on.
MR. FINNfAll right. Commissioner, thank you for that. I'm
a little emba�but thank you nonetheless.
This Na�ovides kind of a historical look at the increase in tax
rates. Wh ind of interesting about this year, the increase this
year ' i 13 percent range for both the General Fund shown on
t - nd side and the unincorporated area shown on the
rig - and side. What's interesting is if we go back to '07 before the
crash, we had very, very substantial increases in our tax rate, and
those were followed by a pretty dramatic drop-off. And in the
middle of these charts you'll see a similar trend that occurred in the
' 17 area where we had a 10 percent increase, and that was followed
Page 12
June 16, 2022
by a pretty significant drop-off in the value after that. When we look
at this year's increase in value, we fully anticipate those rates to -- the
rate of growth to drop off going forward. The state has suggested
that going forward the rate of increase will be limited or more likely
to be in the 5 to 7 percent range rather than the size increase that
we're looking at this year. �+
Next slide gives you a sense of the millage rate histo
the -- again, on the left-hand side is the General Fund. e eneral
Fund millage has been the same millage rate at 3.564 13 years
now. Similarly, the Unincorporated Area Genera , or Fund
111, side has been at .8069 for seven years. i
n ly, the uptick
in that rate in '17 coincided with the earmark f tat roadway median
maintenance money.
This slide just gives you a sense erall funding for the
stormwater program. What's im ere is that this is up
2.1 million over the prior year. v
e
l
This is -- a little difficult d this chart, but this gives you a
sense of the capital fund' ing out of the General Fund and the
Unincorporated Area Gn Fund. For '23 in particular you'll
see -- I'll just hit a coupe highlights. The Sheriffs automated
fingerprint system t the top. The Sheriffs facility improvements
and renovati s �xt line down, going oin down a little further, I'm
seeing GOBP ing, General Operation Business Park funding,
about $5 m' ; golf course funding of 7 million; an uptick in the
capita4 s e of 15 million. A little further towards the bottom,
tr motion capital funding totaling $14 million. And while we
ju to ed about stormwater in this chart, you'll see stormwater is the
best part of $8 million.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And I just want to exemplify a
comment that he breezed over, and that's the uptick in capital
improvements, capital funding. It's not just an uptick. It's a direly
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June 16, 2022
needed past due appropriation to our reserves for capital assets,
maintenance, and replacement, way past due. And it's up from five,
from three years ago, to 15, and still more to come.
I mean, we're in the final stages of our data entry with regard to
our aggregate amount of assets. We're pushing 2 billion, with a
pushing $2 billion worth of assets, and we have to start budge * r
the ultimate replacement and then, therein, the maintenance s we
go along. O
So just -- he breezed straight over it just as an u but it's a
pretty happy uptick as far as I'm concerned. It's - ere you go.
Thank you, Ed.
MR. FINN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. t ave me an
opening. I will take a moment on that. heme running through
this budget is, in fact, a substantial, si cv, and a focused
attention to our capital investment of om a maintenance side and
new facilities that are necessary.
CHAIRMAN McDANI hank you. I've got a couple of
lights up here. So first Isio,er LoCastro, then Commissioner
Saunders.
MR. FINN: Yes,,*ir.
COMMIS kpo-lce
R LoCASTRO: Sheriff Rambosk, sir, this
county funds and Sheriff s Office, and I hope you feel that
way. I hope 're happy with what you see in the budget. When
we see so tragedy happening across the country, I just want to
say thank y for what you do. And speaking for all of us here, we
fund our Sheriff s Office. We're proud of what you do. We want to
make sure you have every single thing you need at your disposal, and
you've really used a sharpened pencil to make sure money isn't
wasted. Thank you. I hope you're sitting here pleased with what
we're doing as a county to support our men and women in blue.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: He is. He's going to get to say
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June 16, 2022
that twice.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: I know you've got time at the
podium later.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I was just going to say, remember
all that for this afternoon.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Saunders.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Thank you. s 0
I'm just curious, in terms of the capital projects ??you've got
listed here, the 80 million in total, how much of thoQ'Sftom the
one -cent sales tax? 'N "
MR. FINN: That's a good question. Th le-- the funds we're
looking at here are all from the General F o Fund 111. The
sales tax is a different program. That k*@VT
yhd 318, and that
essentially was established at 420 XONall in. That program is
still ongoing, but that is not refle ere.
COMMISSIONER SA S: None of that's contained in
this chart, but we will be dl% sAing that, I assume, at some point?
MR. FINN: Yes, it is for sure in the budget, so we can look at
that, yes.
COMMISS ER SAUNDERS: All right. Thank you.
MR. F ou're very welcome.
Commissi r Solis had kind of asked a question about the
position couil%' This sheet gives us another chance to look at those
positi4aounts and where they're going. The column entitled
"c I are, in fact, positions that the Board has reviewed on a
ca -case basis so far this year and has authorized those. The
expanded column for '23 are the 52, 54 including the modest request
from the Clerk, all in, that are added -- additive to the current position
count going into the '23 budget.
This slide just gives the Board a sense of the magnitude of the
Page 15
June 16, 2022
compensation adjustment that's embodied in the reserves contained in
this budget. I've said before that it's really a critical component of
our ability to recruit and retain personnel, but it is an important thing.
That's going to be coming forward in the near future to the Board for
consideration and finalization. N
The management of our health insurance program is one
those quiet successes that forms the foundation of our finan
stability here. The ratio of 80 percent employee -- em e to
20 percent employee cost is going to continue. This sents the
10th consecutive year of no premium increase. T ram is
appropriately funded and reserved, as are all in a ce programs,
and it's a tribute both to the previous managem nt and Mr. Walker
over the years running, really, a phenome operation.
This chart kind of gets to the qe the county's total
budget. You can see there the ne - is the net budget after
netting it for internal transfers and gs that really don't count, is
$1.8 billion, and that represen .7 percent increase over the prior
year.
We're getting down t ' . I told you we had, what, 40, 50
slides?
CHAIRMI cDANIEL: You said 30.
MR. F 're at 22. We're doing well.
Gene 1 FINhighlights, total budget is $613 million. That is
kind of con rnt with the tax value increase, 13.7 percent increase.
Tih
rt shows you kind of the year-to-year delta, so that
w b he comparing -- straight comparison of '22 to '23 . The
to crease looking at it this way in property tax is $48 million.
So that revenue side of the house is shown on the right side of the
chart.
On the left-hand side is where those funds have been utilized in
the budget. We looked at the chart a little bit earlier showing the
Page 16
June 16, 2022
$20 million increase in capital funding, and that is, by far, the
largest -- largest line on the left-hand side of the chart.
The other -- the other way to look at this comparison would be
the delta or the change from the Board -approved policy -- the policy
that was approved in February compared to where we are today, d
that delta on the revenue side is about $38 million, and where t
funds were utilized is shown on the left-hand side of the chap
terms of the increases relative to policy. C
General Fund reserves, I'd kind of given you a 1' review of
that. General Fund reserves are one of those maj ess stories
that quietly props up our financial house. If ack to the
2010/2011, you can see that the amount of res v s in the General
Fund were woefully inadequate. They c ted problems both in
terms of beginning of the year cash flo . id not do us any favors
with the rating agencies, and it di c vide sufficient capacity to
deal with natural disasters. Wh compare where we were then
to where we are today, all I c is thank you. Thank you for
your foresight. Thank y t r. Isackson as well.
This is a little chart o by these reserves are so important.
Clearly, the reserves co,ptribute to our financial stability. They are
the core general,,g vernment cash flow engine. They protect our
beginning ca4f*�alalltes. They fund unforeseen mandates and
emergenci ss,, n ural and manmade, and they fund constitutional
officer resh;
IoQjalkou a quick example -- there's a bunch of words on this
p he long and the short of it is when Hurricane Irma hit, our
de collection cost was $62 million. We paid out $48 million to
ven ors quickly. Our first FEMA check, our first rebate from the
federal government came in 10 months later, and it was $9.8 million.
That means that the difference between 62 million and 9.8 was
funded by cash in-house. Some time later, a year and a half later, the
Page 17
June 16, 2022
second check came in at 34 million. So you can see the requirement
to carry -- to cash carry a natural disaster, a major natural disaster, is,
in fact, a real -- real and present concern on the financial side.
This is a little chart of our outstanding principal debt. You can
see that, again, from '08 through ' 18, there was major refinancin
saving us both interest and paying down our principal debt.
then, with the need to continue on with our capital program ebt
has come up -- come up a little bit more, but it's still we i hin our
capacity.
This slide basically indicates that the debt th t -- that we
just looked at represents 5.9 percent of our bo eneral
government revenues. Our policy -driven cap n at is 13 percent.
So we are comfortably, comfortably with' hat cap.
These slides -- don't have to spin f time talking about
them, but generally they show po 'd1nds in all our core revenue
sources. Gas taxes, impact fees c ue to be solid. General Fund
carryforward continues to be That is partially driven by
revenues that are slightly, an we thought as well as that
reserve that we talked abo
The Unincorporat0 Area General Fund is the other important
general govern t fund that supports programs in the
unincorporat ea Road maintenance, landscape operations,
Zoning, a C Planning, Code Enforcement, natural resources,
communit s, and substantial capital transfers. This fund, too,
we h e crease in reserves of almost $700,000.
Fu ZIVis a similar chart to the one we looked at in the General
hich is showing you the delta year over year to the prior year.
The growth in this fund overall on the revenue side is $7.1 million.
Relative to policy, that same delta is 5.2. And as I had noted before
on the left-hand side of the chart, it gives you an indication of where
those funds were actually distributed in the budget.
I
June 16, 2022
I'll quickly go over some of the budget challenges that continue
to exist and, in all likelihood, is going to exist as long as I'm here.
Significant reliance on property taxes does not provide the kind
of flexibility that we'd all like in our revenue sources and how our
operations are funded. Nonetheless, combined with our diligent
evaluation of the other revenue sources, it certainly is a workase
l�l�+
solution. Certainly in an environment of rising -- rising tax4lues, it
allows us to do that, but at the same time those rising tays aes
translate into additional demand for services. N
So our goal is to reach a point where those tw s are
balanced, which is why when those tax value we need to,
essentially, make sure that we take the funding n ed in order to
provide the level of service that's requireqAr,the growth that's
driving those tax increases.
Continued conversation abo - ified revenue structure. Of
course, balancing competing prior for capital, asset management,
expanding service delivery, n gram initiatives will continue to
pose a challenge to your, ment team. We need to monitor
continue the state tendencysp shift programs to us without funding
sources. *#*
Future cap' burden in the unincorporated area has the
potential to a litt e bit worse in the event the communication
services to is ded. And, of course, the balance and need for
reserve ro , growth in operations with the future asset
man and replacements in mind.
with that, our agenda starts off with the courts. And if
. R'ce could step up with his team and introduce them.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Ed, just real quick question
while they're getting ready. Is there anything still sitting out there
from FEMA from Irma? And I know that might sound crazy, but
sometimes, you know, there's something that we're still negotiating
Page 19
June 16, 2022
with them, and oftentimes sometimes after a Hurricane Katrina
checks are still coming in from different agencies. Is there anything
that we are hoping for, expecting either from FEMA or other
agencies, or we're done with Irma?
MR. FINN: Well, Commissioner, when you said hope, it e
me hope.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Yeah. Is there so_ ing
that's still a possibility because -- O
MR. FINN: We're always hoping for more mo Hope is
always --
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: But i er o ethir that
we're actually -- that we actually filed for that d 't get paid that's
still a possibility or no?
MR. FINN: In order to provide a good question [sic],
let me circle back and be -- and give
COMMISSIONER LoCAST O�You don't know that -- Bill I
stand corrected. A(:� ;
CHAIRMAN McDA Z That's two.
COMMISSIONER Lo ASTRO: That's two.
CHAIRMAN McDA IEL: He was ambiguous on the --
COMMISS ER LoCASTRO: No, because sometimes there
are some wei in s. And I was -- just more of a hypothetical,
because if her omething sitting out there, I was just curious what
we would 'th it.
a: If I'm forced to give an answer, I'm going to tell
you that, yes, I'm sure there are some dribs and drabs that are still
coming in. I don't know if it's material, which is why I wanted to
double-check.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Okay. I think that's worth
addressing at one of our future County Commission meetings. It's
nothing that has a tight timeline but, you know --
Page 20
June 16, 2022
MR. FINN: Happy to do it.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO:
be something of significance. Thanks.
MR. FINN: Thank you, sir.
-- I'm just curious. It could
COURTS AND RELATED AGENCIES (STATE ATTO
AND PUBLIC DEFENDER)
v
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay. Good mo
MS. FOX: Good morning.
MR. RICE: Okay. Good morning, Mr. a Commissioners.
For the record, my name's Chuck Rice. I'm th c u administrator
here in Collier County.
I'd like to make some introductJo '11 start from the right
at the table and work our way to t Representing the public
defender, we have Ashlie Bogner. her left we have State
Attorney Amira Fox.
MS. FOX: Good �1.
MR. RICE: And to plifeeltr left we have Sheriff Kevin Rambosk.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Good morning.
CHAIRM cDANIEL: You jumped in here just so you
can do this t 'c .
SHE IF MBOSK: Yes.
MR. I'd also --you talked about a deep bench. Well,
I'd lik t t recognize three people that are really our starters in the
court m, and our court system wouldn't run without them, and
th sitting in the front row. We'll start from left to right, your left
to right. Carrie Hickson's our director of operations, Debbie
Morevic (phonetic) is our director of our civil division, and Jeff
Nichols is our criminal division director. And let me tell you,
without them, the courts would not function as smoothly as we do.
Page 21
June 16, 2022
And talk about the people doing the heavy lifting; it's certainly them
and not me, so...
With that being said, we're here to present a $7.2 million budget.
Budget compliant as far as operating expenses. I believe with Ed's
eraser he marked out a few things. So he sharpens his pencil, b e
has a big eraser, too, sometimes. We also have about a $4.6 i n
capital budget.
With that being said, we thank the Commissioners *Q
county and the budget office, Ed, Lauren, Susan, for ontinued
support in helping this process.
And we're all faced with the same challe s recruitment and
retention. That's an ongoing thing that I think re all faced with,
but I do want to highlight some of the po ves. I don't want to go
on the negatives. And then I'll turr�it the people at the table
there.
First off, one of our -- I'd like o ecognize our Circuit Judge
Brodie. She received a very r uished William Hoeveler
Judicial Award which re strength of character, service, and
competence. That's thro ut the state.
Also, Clerk KinzeLI know is in the back. I'd like to -- the
Supreme Court lorida has recognized her and her staff for being
the first in th t to o come up and have the first uniform case
reporting to nd running. While other clerk's agencies
throughout tate made excuses, asked the Supreme Court for
exte o er and her staff dug right in and got it done along with
tDebbie Morevic, our civil division director. So great job
'Shannon McFee, our circuit judge, has truancy court up and
running; a great thing for the community. When these students
aren't going to school, the school can reach out to the courts and get
them in front of a judge. And it's a lot like our problem -solving
Page 22
June 16, 2022
courts. We try to get the proper resources to the parents and
whatever they need to try to get them -- their kids in school. And it
has a little bit of teeth in it, so it's a great thing for the community.
As you know -- Troy, if you would put that up, the
problem -solving court. Thank you.
You always like to hear about our problem -solving coui h
consist of our drug court, our mental health court, and our ans
court. O
If you would, Troy, go to the next slide. Thank 1A
Just to give you some data, our drug court for ' ast year
endingJune 30th we had 66 participants wit r anon rate of
� p p
70 percent. For our mental health court, 51 p i ipants; a
graduation rate of 74 percent. Our veter court, seven
participants; graduation rate, 100 pelc
I'd also like to recognize Jud n -- if you go to the next
slide, please -- for the second time e ived a mentor courtship from
a national association, which e only nine across the United
States that receive these mein wards. This is the second time that
we received that. And that. not only a nice compliment to Judge
Martin, but the Sheriff Department, the State Attorney's Office,
David Lawrenc nter, all the stakeholders make this work.
And I'd' s lik to finish with, you know, we're still facing a
backlog fo C D, but we were the only -- one of the few, I should
say, to be s 'udicial systems that never shut down court during the
pande And that is -- I mean, thanks to the cooperation and
cotlabo ion from the Public Defender, State Attorney's Office, the
She's Department, and the Clerk's Office.
You know, the Sheriff s Department has done a lot in the jail
helping us with paperwork, stuff they didn't have to do, not required
to do, but they do it anyhow. The clerks, a lot of things they didn't
have to do, but they did it anyhow. So thank you all for that.
Page 23
June 16, 2022
I would like -- Judge Foster, our administrative judge, is usually
here. He was here. He'd like me to apologize. He had to go to
court, but he thanks you always for your support and apologizes for
having to cut out.
With that being said, I'll turn it over. We'll start to your let*),
with the Public Defender's Office. Ashley.
MS. BOGNER: Hi. Good morning, County Commiss ers.
I'd just like to say thank you for your time and consider_t0of our
budget request this morning. We certainly appreciaZ your
continued support of our agency and entire judicia �m. If you
have any questions, we are happy to answer t
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Be car 1 w at you ask for. So
far nobody's lit up.
MS. BOGNER: Hey.
MR. RICE: And then we a e ur State Attorney, Amira Fox.
MS. FOX: Thank you. k you, Commissioners. Good
morning.
CHAIRMAN McDA L: Good morning. Good morning.
MS. FOX: I'm sure you'll see on your paperwork here that we
are making a lit it of an unusual request this morning for us.
We're usuall t a ing for large increases, but this budget year we
are asking or e increase.
We ha me increase in our IT expenses for ransomware and
an me storage. That's due to body cameras, which we
tr sly support and appreciate, but it does cost us more in
sto We also had a slight increase in electric.
But the main increase in our ask is an amount of $249,100 to
staff a felony narcotics and vice unit in Collier County. And the
reason for this is twofold. Number one, thank you so much for your
funding for us of our problem -solving courts. As you can see,
Page 24
June 16, 2022
they're tremendously successful. You already know this. Collier
County has the lowest crime rate in the entire state of Florida.
There's a reason for that. It's because of the great support of law
enforcement -- our great support of law enforcement and our great
law enforcement that we have here, and I'll address that in just o
moment.
But there is a reason for that. It's because you fund us h the
problem -solving courts, and they work. We treat peop Ove try to
get them better. We stop the revolving door of the j hat we
found over time is that it really is a twofold proce d I want to
just, here, give a gigantic shout -out to Sheriff v ambosk who
has joined me here during my presentation in s o , and I support
him tremendously this afternoon ahead o e or his presentation
because there's a reason you have tl�e 1 ime rate, and he's
sitting right here beside me.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: you going to come back this
afternoon when he's up, too?
MS. FOX: I'm saying Znbw, Commissioner.
I have death penalty motions this afternoon in Lee County, so I
want to get that in ow,#
But the Sh is sitting beside me in support of my ask for a
narcotics and 1 e u it because we've modeled our new circuit -wide
task force, whi is called Net Force, our narcotics enforcement task
force, after heriff, Sheriff Rambosk's narcotics unit which
showed, i y opinion, the rest of us how to do a large-scale
long-term drug trafficking investigation that works its way up the
ladder and gets to the kingpin of drug distribution, and that helps all
of us.
So you have to have it on both sides. You have to have the
treatment courts helping those who are using and become addicted,
but you also have to have on the front end the interdiction of drug
Page 25
June 16, 2022
trafficking, which, very unfortunately, we see and goes through our
community particularly with the advent of fentanyl into the mix.
So what I'm asking for is I would like in the State Attorney's
Office to form a circuit -wide approach to vice and narcotics, and I
would like you -all to help me do that. That would be by one
assistant state attorney assigned to the unit within our felony i n
here in Collier, one investigator, and one support staff, and
would work on Collier County cases, both those that co at of the
Sheriffs Office or the police departments here that ar ollier that
are outside of our Net Force operations but also th at are inside
of our Net Force operations.
And we have arrested over the course of, two large-scale Net
Force investigations, during the first one, A bigtime drug traffickers
here in Collier, and last time severat d ickers in Collier.
And I would like very much, e to just focus on those
cases with a dedicated unit. We' eady started it in Lee County.
The County Commission ther nd us for three assistant state
attorneys, an investigato support staff. That county,
g pop obviously, has a little biulation, so we needed a few more
ASAs, but I think it's f* here to ask for one assistant state attorney,
an investigator, a support staff.
So that i e c x of our additional ask. And I very much
appreciate he Rambosk being here in support, and we could not
have done ithout his partnership. In fact, he's been my role
model for ing this, so I thank him for doing this tremendously.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Oh, no. All right.
So good morning, Commissioners.
Nes, I am a big part of the problem in providing persons for the
State Attorney, our great State Attorney, the best in the state of
Florida as far as I'm concerned. And all of the individuals here from
the Public Defender, to the Clerk, to the court system, you know, we
Page 26
June 16, 2022
have a very unique circumstance in Collier County in that -- and I
know you know this. Everybody works together for a common goal,
and we have the best results. And this afternoon I am going to give
you some incredible results for crime and safety in Collier County.
So I'm here to support each of these groups because, withou
them, we couldn't do our job. �+
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Absolutely.
Commissioner LoCastro has a question. p
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Yeah. Well,�anted to
add that Ms. Fox and Sheriff Rambosk and I all se the Public
Safety Coordinating Council, and so some of a u're going to
hear today is abbreviated. In our meetings we a really deep dive,
and I can't tell you just how proud I am a ur results, how you have
supported those with evidence. Thjy' st sort of numbers on a
slide. We'll gloss over some thin quickly here, but as you
know, we meet regularly.
And so the things you're i for to plus up, to beef up, and
then the stats that you're go*n be briefing here today are just a
small little snippet of what e do on that council, which is a much
larger group of people �pom the David Lawrence Center, more people
from your staff, Nnte
ox.
So I just to echo there's much more behind the brevity
that you're of o hear today, and that council is a big part of where
we all wor'ether.
t to say as an aside, Sheriff Rambosk educated me a
lonrthe
, well before I ever even ran for County Commissioner.
It'seriffsDepartment. It's the Sheriffs Office. And he
explained to me in great detail why that is. So I always think of you
whenever I misspeak. But am I correct, right? I'm correct, right?
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Yes, sir, you are correct.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Yes, sir. So you were an
Page 27
June 16, 2022
incredible teacher and mentor because I thought, well, why isn't it
Sheriffs Department? And there's a reason for that. And if you
don't know the reason, ask Sheriff Rambosk, and he'll teach you.
But thank you, sir.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Solis.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yeah, just thank you for all ' e
doing and, certainly, I mean, for me, personally, I think that request
makes sense, total sense to me. But I was wondering whether or not just -- if sor VSP3y s going
to provide a little more information about the prob olving courts.
And I don't want to start asking questions if t �ff -- if you're
going to cover any of that, because the only qu st on I had -- and I'll
just throw it out now -- was I think the la resentation we had, the
recidivism rate was incredibly low i1i t�t -- so, I mean, that
seems to be part of the great succyou-all are having with that.
Is it still that way?
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: 1 is that way. I don't have the
current numbers, becaus 't prepared to discuss that right now.
But, again, you know, the estment that you -all make, and
particularly the investnq�ppnt that you've made in mental health in
leading that cha and the treatment courts, the outcome of those
has always b n o ive.
And, ou w, Janeice Martin, Doctor -- Dr. Martin. I call her
Dr. Martin. ge Martin is leading the effort in that. So -- but I
will them and bring them back this afternoon.
MISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. Well, thank you. It's -- it
re s -- we are lucky that we have -- well, I shouldn't say "luck,"
because luck has nothing to do with it. But the cooperation that
everybody continues to show in terms of the problem -solving courts
is just fantastic, and so thanks for everything you're doing and how
you're doing it, because that really makes it work.
I
June 16, 2022
MS. FOX: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Saunders.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Thank you. I've got a
couple questions and comments first with the Public Defender's
Office. Public Defender's offices around the country are typica
way underfunded. You haven't indicated any particular prob I
want to make sure that your office is properly funded. I as e
from the fact that you haven't complained that your offs is
satisfactorily funded.
MS. BOGNER: We are very happy with w have. As
you will see, we do have two increases in our u ,one for salaries
for our staff funded by Collier County due to r e tion as well as
some legislative increases from the state, our other request is for
our IT department.
COMMISSIONER SAUND kay. I certainly have no
problems with the increases that asking for. I just want to be
sure that you weren't being sh you're getting what you need.
MS. BOGNER: Y is request, we are, yes.
COMMISSIONER UNDERS : Okay. And then in terms of
one of the comments t* the State Attorney had made concerning the
fact that we hav e lowest crime rate in the state, I don't know that
that word rea et out that much. I'm going to try to make sure
that it doe obviously, there's no accident to that. You
have -- we great law enforcement. So I want to thank you for
high l' hat statistic. I'd ask you where Lee County is in terms
of ems istic, but I won't do that. The important thing is Collier
County has the lowest crime rate in the state, and that's what's really
important to me.
MS. FOX: Commissioner Saunders, if I can say it, it's
something I boast about frequently, because it's actually -- if you take
the five counties of the 20th Judicial Circuit which, of course also
Page 29
June 16, 2022
include Lee, Charlotte, Hendry, and Glade Counties, that five -county
area has the lowest crime rate in the entire state of Florida, our circuit
does. I mean, it's just, like you -all said earlier, a team effort and just
terrific law enforcement, and we're really proud of that.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And thank you for that.\
And then just for Sheriff Rambosk, a couple things. We've
always funded your budget I think pretty much to 100 percAtQf
what you generally asked for. 0
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Yes, absolutely.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And we'v no hesitation
doing that, and we'll have no hesitation in doi thi W.
Obviously, keeping our folks safe from crime 1 t e -- has to be the
most important function of government.
So this afternoon I'm going to qs u e questions about
school safety, so I just wanted to to that. With some of the
recent school shootings, some fol nervous, and I know Collier
County has taken the lead in 1 sure that our schools are safe.
So this afternoon if you co cus a little bit on that, not so much
for the Commission, but f he people that are going to be listening,
because I know th t a lot o parents read about what's happening
around the coun and it's -- it causes a lot of concern, but I don't
believe we h e that problem here in Collier. And so spend some
time later is moon kind of elaborating on what you do and how
effective y e in keeping our children safe.
irman, that's all I had. I just wanted to indicate that I'm
f ortive of the budget for all three of the folks that are here
to
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Well, I appreciate that. I
appreciate everything that you're doing for our community, all of
you, all the way across the board.
The effort that's been put into the court system to assist with that
Page 30
June 16, 2022
reduction in recidivism is spades in regard to benefits for our
community. Commissioner LoCastro's serving with you as our
representative now, and I know the Sheriff and I have had this
conversation. There's little to no rehabilitation that comes with
incarceration, and our efforts that are put into in advance to take
people out of the system and reduce that recidivism is key to s
in allowing us to have the budgetary flexibility to be able t
assets where they need to be put in order to help contin ®your
great work.
So from me to you, from a community to yo you.
MS. FOX: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And CommZiner Solis has come
in and went out and come in and went ou ice.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Ode estion. Just in terms
of the funding that we provided in t for -- I think it's -- it was
three FTEs at the beginning for ea -- the court system, the State
Attorney's Office and the Pub ender's Office to run, essentially,
that problem -solving co you see that -- obviously, you
haven't asked for anythin e in that regard, but I'm just wondering,
do you see -- do you have enough for the future for the next few
years? I mean, ow you don't have a crystal ball, but I just want
to make sure w tever support that you need in that regard you're
getting be us is such a successful program.
MS. Thank you, Commissioner Solis. It is a
trem successful program, and we appreciate that funding.
W e the Public Defender, asking for some cost -of -living pay
eq ' to equate with the state cost of living and pay equity and
minimum wage positions for those three positions that you do fund.
We do not see for this upcoming budget year that we need
additional staff there. We very much need the additional staff on the
other side of it, the interdiction, so we can follow through and really
Page 31
June 16, 2022
get results on the cases where we arrest the drug traffickers that are
leading to all the people who need drug court, mental health court,
sometimes veterans treatment court.
So we see it as actually benefiting those treatment courts asking
for the positions in a slightly different way this time.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. �+
MS. FOX: But thank you so much for that question.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: And I would just jump in say, for
the future it is our goal and our objective to give the Attorney
much more work in the treatment courts.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Outstandin n you, Chris
[sic].
MR. RICE: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Tha you, by the way.
Thank you very much. �,
All right. We're going to tra ion now to Growth
Management. Do you want t a quick court reporter's break
before we -- or how you do' erri?
MS. PATTERSON: aybe we can take the break after
Community Development -- Growth Management/Community
Development.
GROWT M GEMENT OPERATIONS
4XL�&: Very good. We'll bring up Growth management
and Community Development, Mr. French, Mr. Kovensky,
Ms. Edreva.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And then we'll take a court
reporter's break after Growth Management's presentation.
MR. FINN: Thank you. Very good, sir.
MR. FRENCH: Commissioners, good morning.
Page 32
June 16, 2022
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Good morning, good morning.
There you go.
MR. FRENCH: I put the -- our more senior, smarter staff on
the right because they are simply amazing.
For the record, my name's Jamie French. I'm your departm t
head for Growth Management and Community Development. lbw
First, thank you for giving me the opportunity to Conti- to
serve you. Congratulations to our new county manager, ad we
honestly look forward to serving to the betterment of mmunity.
So we are a -- we're very lucky to be here today.
Some high-level overview of Growth M en . Our
Growth Management Department is currently 1 st year we were
six, so we talk about efficiencies. We ar SFview
ently comprised of
five division directors: Building Plan and inspections
headed up by Rich Long; Code E ent, Mr. Ossorio, Mike
Ossorio; Development and Revie s. Jaime Cook; Operations and
Regulatory Management, and ord should be added, Financial
Operations and Regulato gement, and that's headed up by Mr.
Kovensky; and, of course, r Zoning Director, Mike Bosi.
The development services budget is approximately $76 million
primarily funde enterprise -based funds. Those are dollars we
collect. We a e a ery, very limited dependence on the taxpayer
General F d. ur budget is comprised of about a 90 percent
Enterprise ; 10 percent, as Mr. Finn identified, which goes
towa e Enforcement and our long-range planning efforts.
e sections funded by the General Fund have met the budget
gu a ce outlined in the County Manager's Office and by the Board
of County Commissioners. Reserves in our Enterprise Funds are
well established, as business does continue to be consistent over the
previous years.
Our reserves include the appropriate allowances for fees prepaid
Page 33
June 16, 2022
for future services owed. So in other words, when we collect the fee
up front, or throughout that process, sometimes that development or
that permit can go on for years. And we have an obligation by
statute to carry out all of those services without the ability to collect
any additional dollars.
So currently we've identified those, because we look at
those -- from an accounting point of view, that is a liability &g*nst
our books. Those are services owed, money collected, so+ e have
allocated those, and with Mr. Finn and Mr. Isackson Former County
Manager Isackson's help over the years, we have s . e roughly
about eight- and- a -half million dollars for futu e es that we owe
to this community and to the property owners evelopers.
For the last two years the county has ocessed better than
58,000 building permits annually. W e to experience a high
volume of new construction through d t incorporated Collier
County. And to give you some exr ples, one- and two-family
growth. nn
So for the period of J'Rt O)f 020 through May of 2021, we saw
about 3,700 new single -fa ' y homes. That same time period only
from '21 to '22, it vas abouf 3,800. It's only about a 2 percent
increase, which 6 ly falls in line to what we're seeing in the overall
population o grWWth of about two -and -a -half percent per year
from our 1 t c us; however, with the changes in floodplain
manageme , mplexities in the Florida Building Code, new
legislatio ardening of homes, it has required an additional number
o pections by state statute.
'NOW so how that would reflect is that same time period from
June of'20 to May of'21, we were roughly about 261,000
inspections.
In June of 2021 through May of 2022, we rose to 304 thousand
inspections, '855. It's almost 305- inspections. That's better than a
Page 34
June 16, 2022
17 percent increase that we saw just in inspection activity. Now, this
is not reinspection. These are required inspections in order to move
those structures forward.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I was going to say, you weren't
padding your numbers because you're having to go back out agar r
anything, were you? �+
MR. FRENCH: Sir, we don't have the luxury of staff. ou
keep us lean and mean, and we appreciate that. O
To meet the continued rising demand and chan state
requirements, recently you -- and we thank you fo -- you
recently approved nine new enterprise-funde o addressing
permitting demands on March 8th of 2022. I a ition to the
additional FTEs, staff continues to work r time. We strategically
support alternative contract labor frQ a approved contracts, and
these really lend itself to a staff a ion program as well as
temporary staffing agenciesetw
and I' oing to highlight, short-term
solution. We've been dfor about five years.
And, roughly, weere between 60 and 70 temporary
or staff -augmented servie last five years we've run these
numbers, and it's been Vgood program, but it does enable us to
have -- if we seee, ip in the economy, it allows us to cut back that
service so it o ectsrour bench.
And i remember during the recession, when
Mr. Casala a and I laid off about 140 employees, it was a tough
time. lieve we've strategically placed ourself to where we've
go by reserve budget, we can support our core values, we can
su o our bench, and if we have to we will reduce this level of
service by cutting back these staff -augmentation -type efforts.
We continue to evaluate the change in the community and
market demands to ensure appropriate long-term solutions and best
position us to maintain our statutorily required expectations. We
Page 35
June 16, 2022
continue to offer 100 percent online services. Now, we're still very
busy on North Horseshoe, as well as our other locations. We still
see a great deal of walk-in service, because many clients want to have
that interaction, and we continue to offer that.
And our 100 -- and our online solutions, just so you know, t!g�
also include the most recent Board -adopted short-term vacati r
registration program. So whether it's your Building Depa t,
Planning and Zoning, and Development Services review O
participating in a build back after a major event, vide ections
that we rolled out about two years ago, and they're great, or a
water heater replacement in a condominium, o used on
improving the customer's experience.
Our Code Enforcement Division re s ommitted to life
safety and the well-being of our cord rough education,
cooperation, and compliance. &
The team continues to cond mmunity meetings,
educational meet and greets, c nity cleanups with, of course, our
partners over at Solid W,O.
Our Floodplain Management group within the Building Division
is paid for by the Building Division within this Enterprise Fund. It's
committed to m ' aining the county's CRA Class 5 rating. We are
only one of a RV ss-5-rated communities in the entire country.
We maint 'n o 70,000 in force NFIP flood insurance policies.
That classi rating gives the constituent a 25 percent discount off
markedrat We do that for the community at no charge.
7000 -- we're No. 2 to Miami -Dade, by the way, and
we ecognized in the country. And, by the way, we are better than
90 percent special flood hazard area. We're the only Class 5
community in the country that holds that status with that level of
special flood hazard area. So we've very proud of the efforts that
we've initiated over the last few years. They've paid off for our
Page 36
June 16, 2022
community. So that equates to more than $8 million in savings, as I
said before, over 70,000 policies.
In January of 2021, the Heritage Bay Government Center, which
is our fourth satellite office, was open for business providing for a
walk-in -- walk-in customer service, which provides also permitt
and plan review needs. Same thing that we offer at our Nort
Horseshoe location.
As a result of staffing this new location and contin rowth
and demand, we've programmed in four Enterprise F positions
to staff this office, and that's identified within you et.
Additionally, staff has programmed in t e . r ode
Enforcement inspectors that will be dedicated or ing nights and
weekends. The Sheriff and I just had a c versation about this.
Fingers crossed. The focus is prim�ri Code Enforcement
concerns, but it will have enhance edge and training on
property maintenance, amplified s violations, and short-term
rental registration violations.
Our budget is adequaftl�70zed to accommodate upcoming
land -use activities, including current and future studies, peer reviews,
master plan implementations, and, of course, LDC amendments.
There havelb en no requests or approved increases in any of our
fees since 20 I�tead our Growth Management and Community
�Y g Y
Developm nt artment -- and I don't want to brag too much about
this, but w ' dually continued to implement fee decreases.
e things that I'm so proud to say, Mr. Kovensky sitting
to i t, he's much like me. We're both certified in lean six
si not black belts. But Ken is also -- he's also worked for major
companies like M&M Mars, Johnson & Johnson. He was an SAP
programmer. My former life, this is what I did. We look at
efficiencies.
So, Commissioner LoCastro, thank you. When you talk about
Page 37
June 16, 2022
finding efficiencies and taking that sterling model type of approach,
we're on board, and we've been doing that for years. So we're very
proud that Mr. Isackson was able, as well as Mr. Ochs and
Mr. Casalanguida over the years, has been able to support us with
that, so we're appreciative of that, and it works.
The industry continues to provide us with challenges. 1 ,
as labor has become scarce, as well as materials, we start to costs
rise. People need permits faster, or they need to get m 'nto their
home. We recognize our place in this economy. W gnize that
we've got -- let's say 10 percent of your local GDP ' acted by
development, contractors, your do-it-yourself r upply houses,
and we also recognize that it represents about ercent of your
workforce in this county. Now, that's ju direct impact.
The indirect impact, the residual c e also recognize that,
because that takes money out of my. We saw this during
the recession. We're very mind o at in all of our decisions.
But we're also very mindful t are a regulatory body, so we are
neither for or against de v nt. You entrust us. The State of
Florida through the Builds Code, the Community Planning Act,
they identify what our jeb is. We're simply focused on customer
service.
We rem 'n co itted to the resiliency and long-term protection
of our nat al built resources, of our environment, through
profession nning efforts, application of existing code, and
well- o -out approaches to unique environmental and economic
NAank you for your time this morning. Mr. Kovensky -- Ken,
Rady, and I are here to answer any of your questions.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: You're not going to let them speak.
MR. FRENCH: And so you know --
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: She's over there hitting the panic
June 16, 2022
button.
MR. FRENCH: -- Commissioner LoCastro earlier said
recognize talent. Mr. Kovensky -- I met Mr. Kovensky working for
Dan Summers making copies at the EOC. He was a job banker
during Hurricane Charley.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Wow. \Vs,+
MR. FRENCH: And I don't know what I did, but
Mr. Kovensky, like many of us, we started at the botto O
and -- started in the records room with me. And we're believers
that if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. o we
have -- I've really had the pleasure to call Ke t t colleague but
a friend for many years, and he will -- he will y keep me honest.
And not that I need much help with that, I'll tell you, he and Rady
are great.
So, Ken, anything? �,
COMMISSIONER LoCAS Ken told us a whole bunch of
different things about you. o n't feel the same way.
MR. FRENCH: W n't put them on the record, Boss.
MR. KOVENSKY: . French is way too kind. Just to set the
record straight, I was, i9rprevious life, a program/software developer,
many years ago king for both private and public entities. I was
not a super-d S programmer, in case anybody's looking for
one right w; t was a minor part of my resume.
But I enjoyed the road, along with Mr. French, and I was
lucky to pick up Rady Edreva as my -- first as a senior budget
a st, d then she was promoted to the manager of financial
op onal support, and she has been my right-hand woman along
the road and really kept us on the straight and narrow. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Outstanding. Thank you.
Thank you, Rady.
Commissioner LoCastro.
Page 39
June 16, 2022
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Okay. Let's get into the nuts
and bolts of some things. So we've got a big lovefest going on. We
all love each other. Amy's great. She's going to do fantastic.
Let's talk numbers. Mr. French, you and I had talked about
FTEs and the challenges that your department has. FTEs are gr
We can approve a thousand FTEs right now, but warm bodie+
what matter. How many empty slots do you have in Grow
Management right now that are still not filled? O
MR. FRENCH: I would defer to Mr. Kovensk use he's
also our HR rep.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Okay.
MR. KOVENSKY: We monitor this we 1 We currently
have about 30 positions that are vacant o f 2 6 that are approved.
We also, as Mr. French alluded to, 4av s g presence of
temporary staffing agencies whic ween 60 and 70 positions at
any given time, but we are alwa s o ing for more temporary staff.
It's a revolving door with that P. It's difficult to keep them long
term, and we are consta esting more resumes to fill positions.
COMMISSIONER ASTRO: I remember, Jamie, last time
you and I spoke when vye attended a different meeting at the
Horseshoe, and omised you that we would -- we would have HR a
little bit -- a 1 or focused on your department, because in some of
those case wh you have empty FTEs, empty slots, you actually
have peopl lying for the jobs but also it takes time to interview
and things required.
qW1ast I talked to Mr. Rodriguez -- and I don't want to be
pu people on the spot, but we're here to talk about budget -- I
was told you were getting that help from the HR office, that you were
getting either some dedicated help or just more air speed or whatever,
but one of the things that we talked about -- and we're not here to
keep anything a secret -- you have 30 empty slots in a department
June 16, 2022
that we really want to make sure is fully staffed. We don't want you
just hiring whoever walks through the door.
But one of the things you had told me when we really had an
honest conversation is, hey, in some of those empty slots, we actually
have had people that have applied. It's just hard to drop everyth
to get to those resumes, to interview those folks, and do all of t
Have you gotten more help since that time, and are we dig
through some of those applications?
Because we want to make sure we don't lose supef s who go,
wow, you know, I applied to this job for Collier C in Growth
Management, never heard back. Now I wor r x, so don't
bother calling me. We suffer that here at the a ty at times, you
know. Social media's full with "come wqAfor the county; we're
hiring like crazy."
We have a few departments t t�, of people have
applied -- and, you know, this isn' thing different than other
companies. But we want to tter, faster, cheaper, smarter here
at the county.
Has anything improv since the last time that we discussed?
And if it has or hasn't, )jou now, we're here to help and figure out
how we can bes e our staff. So, you know, saying that we've got
FTEs and e slo or whatnot, if we also have a stack of resumes
and you've,.got erstars here that, you know, can obviously wade
through th t you also have a really big job, you know, tell us
honestly h we can help you, or tell us that we are -- we have done
sometkiNg different, you know, in the last few months since we
spoke.
MR. FRENCH: I certainly appreciate that, Commissioner
LoCastro, and I believe -- and you and I did have conversation after
the DSAC meeting you attended. And so your Development
Services Advisory Committee brings this up to me all the time
Page 41
June 16, 2022
because they're also -- it's interesting, because not only are they
seeking for staff, but so are we. And typically what we find is after
we train somebody, it's the industry that hires away from us. So then
they turn around and say, well, why don't you have enough staff.
Well, stop hiring them. Well, we can't do that.
I would tell you this: So Ms. Lyberg and I have had a
of conversations. And Ken really is -- just so I correct the rd,
he's our liaison. We have a centralized process. No O
other -- directors don't have necessarily conversation hiring, all
fleet, all budget, it all goes through Ken's office. is our
centralized point of contact, and that informat' t Ken
gathers -- and he's tracking that for a reason b se he reports on
g g � p
this to the Development Services Adviso ommittee.
But to answer your question, yes, a ecently occurred is
that we've been able to really hav � ood conversation and
recognize that some of these positi n , we may have minimum
qualifications that may be mo what the state requires. So
we're conflicted in a way e the State of Florida continues to
rise to the level of expecta to acquire certain licenses.
You had a recessiop. hat happened during your recession?
Well, I know Awappened is that I stopped hearing the Cam Tech
Constructionommercials on the radio. It's because the
industry s ' fteN People got out of construction, and they went into a
different li work.
here was no vocational effort because there was no
in And outside of Theo Etzel with Continued Air at the time,
only cause he funded it was the only reason why vo-tech could
probably afford to continue on with that program, because there was
some industry contribution.
And the rest of the industry -- because we've had this
conversation with CBIA. And now we're all sitting back across the
Page 42
June 16, 2022
country saying, we don't have more young men and women that are
interested in this because it's only taught at a handful of schools to go
for a construction management degree.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Let me ask you this: Are
you sitting on a lot less resumes and applications now than you e
three months ago? I mean, we always have empty seats, and �+
rather see nobody hired than the wrong person, so I'm not h ust
saying start filling seats. But when you and I spoke yo 0, you
know, we have people that are applying for these job that's
when, you know, I met with Mr. Rodriguez. I thi en spoke
with Ms. Lyberg and said, you know, let's so s ' t little bit
more help to Growth Management, and then I a to d that we had.
So I just want to make sure that, you ow, we're not sitting on a
bunch of applications of superstars tha e ut to be hired away
from these other companies becauZ;�t. idn't have the time or the
people to do the interviews andSpplications
So it's really a simple
question: Are you sitting on now than you were
three or four months ago I
MR. FRENCH: I w d tell you this, is that the County
Manager's Office has dptlicated focus, as well as Ms. Lyberg, to
reducing -- not ssarily -- they still have to meet the minimum
qualification -
CO I NER LoCASTRO: Right.
MR. CH: -- but looking at alternative approaches to look
how elate that experience into what we do in Growth
elrent. And it's been a good move, and we've recently seen
so ccesses with that.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Okay.
MR. FRENCH: And so we think -- we know we're on the right
track. We're going to continue to push, because we recognize our
impact on the community, whether it be the homeowner or whether it
Page 43
June 16, 2022
be the current resident or the new resident or the new business or the
current business. We recognize that we've got to get these seats
filled. So the answer is, sir, we only see fewer resumes because
there's fewer people applying.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Oh, absolutely. But we d
a much deeper conversation -- okay. But you've answered
question.
My second question deals with Code Enforcement. Qu know,
that's an important part -- all the pieces of your departm,Q are
important. But, correct me if I'm inferring this in,tly. So
you're increasing Code Enforcement b 6.9 n r fiscal Year
y g y p
2023? That's the financial plus -up across the o d in different
areas? I mean, I'm sitting here looking a e c art. So do simple
math for me here; is that correct?
MR. FRENCH: Two emplo , for senior investigators to
be able to -- because the Board ha a number of conversations,
and also with the new rental eat9is�e
tion process, we struggle in the
evenings and on weeken we've got 26 officers to cover the
entire county. 11
COMMISSIONEI.�oLoCASTRO: Well --
MR. FRE So this would bump us up by two
investigators.
CO I NER LoCASTRO: So what I would leave you
with is mu e Chief Butcher came in here, you know, at one of
the c .oner meetings and said, wow, I need some more FTEs.
Y u are very fluid, really a moving target. Through the year so
m h has changed; you just outlined it and said, you know, how
Code Enforcement -- other things are being added and whatnot. So
as your mission statement starts to change or just your workload,
don't be shy about talking to this commission. Code Enforcement is
a big heavy -lifting piece that often we get a lot of complaints on, and
June 16, 2022
then sometimes it's, hey, I only have so many people or whatever.
don't think we'll ever please anyone.
But, you know, if you need the help from HR, if you need the
help in the way of FTEs or funding, don't be shy about it. And it
doesn't have to be a once -a -year ask. I mean, you can come inj
at any time and say, you know, we've done a deep dive, and a �-b
lot has changed in the last three months, or we lost some reAey
people. O
I
But, you know, we want -- like you said, if cust �ervice is
paramount, this is one part of your department an ously, I don't
have to tell you that where, you know, we eit h great customer
service, or we don't, and also it provides a ve portant mission for
the -- for our county to make sure that weAlp ave, you know,
sloppy things all over the county thit driving by and we're
wondering why, you know, we're Nv�g charge of it.
So I'm very impressed with t ay that your department is run.
I liked everything that I read i But you and I have had a lot of
one-on-one conversation . , you know, I speak for the whole
board when I say we wan make sure, much like the way we
promised Sheriff Rambpsk, and are delivering, if and when you need
something, if ap ations are sitting here, if we're losing good people
who are wal ou he door because they're getting, you know, a
15 percent bu working for another company, please talk with us
on a regulais or, you know, obviously, work through the County
Man ell.
e're here to, you know, fully support you all, because
w ere on paper is a lot of heavy lifting of what's right about the
county but sometimes what can go wrong in a hurry.
So I'm glad to hear that -- I did hear correct from Mr. Rodriguez
that we have done something different --
MR. FRENCH: We have.
Page 45
June 16, 2022
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: -- more accelerated support
to you. That was my key, you know, desire. And so if that
changes, you let us know.
MR. FRENCH: Most certainly. And, look, we really have got
a wonderful working relationship with Amy Lyberg and her tea
We recognize that there's increased demand across the Mana '
agency, and much like the County Attorney's Office or the i f s
Office, we value those partnerships because, really, the dZur
support services. We can't do the job without them, e really do
appreciate them, and we appreciate your kind wor
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Than o .
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissio yr aunders.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: nk you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. French, I want to talk a little t Code Enforcement as
well. We're all out in the commu 't d probably -- there are two
or three things that I hear from all eetings I have. One is
complaints about noise, anoth mplaints about traffic, and the
other was Code Enforce
You can't do anythin out traffic other than not issuing any
more building permits Vid, obviously, you can't do that. So I want
to focus with you on Code Enforcement. I know you have the two
FTEs. How y people do you have in Code Enforcement now?
And forgi e m you said that in your statements, but I don't recall
the numbe eople you have in Code Enforcement right now.
VENSKY: We have 40 full-time employees in Code
E� ent.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I'm sorry; 40?
MR. KOVENSKY: Forty.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: How many of those 40 are
out in the field doing inspections and responding to complaints?
MR. FRENCH: With job bank staff, it could fluctuate, but
Page 46
June 16, 2022
we're right at about 26 for the entire county.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: All right. And if you go
back, say, just before the economic problems in 2008/2009, prior to
that, do you have any idea how many Code Enforcement folks you
had out in the field? I'm just trying to get kind of a sense of wlist
we are compared to
MR. KOVENSKY: I think the high number prior to t4
recession was 48 or 49. O
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: That were a in --
MR. KOVENSKY: No, in Code Enforceme
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I don tat you have
enough -- even with the two FTEs, that you ha e n ugh folks out in
the field, because that really is becoming number -- not the
number -one complaint, because traffic. , but I hear it
everywhere. People are concerned about -- you know, there are a lot
of neighbor disputes as well, and v6viously, can't get into
disputes between neighbors. t ere are a lot of code enforcement
types of issues that are raised stantly.
And so I know you've got two FTEs here. Give that a little bit
more thought as w go rough the process. If you need more than
that, then I thi t the Board probably would be supportive of that.
You jus 'n ica d that you have, I think, 26 in the field now,
and at one of ' time you had 40. So we have a much greater
population , and so maybe we need to increase that number.
NCH: And so you know commissioners, I'd be remiss
if I didn't say, so your Code Enforcement office also processes all of
your Domestic Animal Services complaints as well as your park
ranger complaints. Your Hearing Examiner is -- that contract is
administered -- your Hearing Examiner, that is -- I just want to
reiterate that we are their staff. So we use -- we review, we process,
and we take to trial, with County Attorney's Office, all of their
Page 47
June 16, 2022
complaints or violations that they may have as well. So we're a very
centralized function that does support, as well as Public Utilities; they
also have their own Code Enforcement group for those type of
violations that exist.
So it's -- the 14 that we may have in office, it's not just wor
on the 26 in the field. It's also supporting the rest of the cou
well.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: My concern is thamber of
people that are out in the field, especially on weekends and in
evenings.
MR. FRENCH: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: You o , you may be
where you need to be, but over the next c le months, as we're
going through the final approval of Jhe , if you need more, then
I'd like to know that.
MR. FRENCH: We'll wor i Mr. Finn and Ms. Patterson.
CHAIRMAN McDANI es, I agree. I think we ought to
have that discussion at sorft 4e, maybe even have some discussion
by Board direction as to tl'spfficacy of our code enforcement. We
all know that there complaint driven and by no means virtually
proactive. We y d them out to take care of a violation of an illegal
rental circumstance in Golden Gate Estates, and they drive by 50
violations that I see when I'm on my way that they don't stop and talk
to folks ab6?,*I
we want to work with our residents and let them know
w les, in fact, are. Maybe we can -- maybe we can move
ov to a little bit more of a proactive stance and get more efficacy
as we go, so...
Commissioner Taylor, and then Commissioner Solis.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you very much. One, I
echo both Commissioner Saunders' and our chairman's comments on
June 16, 2022
the number of Code Enforcement folks -- employees we have in the
community. I think as we grow, I think there's nothing that would
be more important in terms of a quality of life to make sure that codes
are being followed. They're there for a reason. I don't need to tell
you that, Mr. French. And I am very supportive of you looking a
way of becoming more proactive rather than reactive. �+
Also, we did have a fairly direct discussion the other out
the fines that we charge with Code Enforcement cases. ot
asking you to comment on them now, but I am conce hat there
may be more inequity in that, because if you are a rprise Fund,
your Code Enforcement officers, I believe, M r h, are funded
from the amount of fines you take in; is that co e t .
MR. FRENCH: No, ma'am. They General Fund. That
does not show as a revenue source iyit roup. That is -- next
to Comprehensive Planning effort t�i, ' the only General Fund
activity that exists within our or a ion.
CHAIRMAN McDANI would be a direct conflict.
COMMISSIONER Okay.
COMMISSIONER ASTRO: It says it right here.
CHAIRMAN McI.-.)*A IEL: Yeah.
COMMISSI6NER TAYLOR: It would be a conflict?
CHAIRMYN McDANIEL: Yeah. Think about having
funding c in an officer who is administering a fine. That
would o a way to not be a happy circumstance.
NCH: So much like we do -- I'm sorry.
MISSIONER TAYLOR: No, go ahead, please.
R. FRENCH: So much like we do in the Enterprise Fund, the
rationale behind having a centralized financial process -- so Rich
Long, your building director, they don't see any additional funds.
That's all monitored by Mr. Kovensky and Mr. Finn and their staff, as
well as the County Manager's Office and my office with regards to
June 16, 2022
making sure that the directors focus on what their job is and not on
the money.
So Mr. Ossorio and his crew or his department -- I'm
sorry -- division, they are not -- they don't receive additional dollars.
You set the budget, and so -- as to whether or not -- and the Boar
determines the fine.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: You good, Commissioney or?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you. And n - no,
not yet. One more question.
Mr. French, you are, I consider, a statewide e on flood
issues and flood insurance. And I'm not aski o stray beyond
14
what you feel comfortable with. But as we m forward with the
action by the state, what are the things w ve to look forward to?
What can you tell our community we ook forward to in
terms of the ability for -- to obtain c, ' surance?
MR. FRENCH: Thank yo m. And I know that you've
been very involved with the stAeNbeing done by FGCU and
Dr. Savarese. Ziy
So in April of this ye the federal government instituted what
they called Risk Ratin4.0, and what -- Risk Rating 2.0, it's an equity
approach to flooisurance policies.
And so f&t1ler than looking at what the base flood elevation is of
a structure in c parison to what it should be, that's where the rate
was identi Now it's based off of location to water, location to
storm f construction. And so -- and my conversation most
re n the last few weeks with a gentleman named Jim Judge
rK fFannie Mae we're starting to see an insurance gap, meaning
that flood insurance policies are more than doubling, and so that's
why we're very happy to be a classified rating because at least it
offers some relief. But we believe that as these flood insurance
policies start to renew, you as a board will hear people -- it will move
Page 50
June 16, 2022
from hurricane and fire and theft protection to what are now -- there's
a -- there's a really big impact on what the cost to insure a structure
is, especially if it is below the base flood elevation.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Solis.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Very quickly. I heard the r
of 44 FTEs currently in Code Enforcement.
MR. KOVENSKY: Total number is 40. O
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Forty.
MR. KOVENSKY: We're asking for two in
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: You're askimore. But,
J
again, I just want to make sure I understand wlYtiat number means.
That's -- 40 is the number of FTE positio hat you have funding for.
So what is the staffing level? And if I en I just want to make
sure that I understand. Because vft &I out the numbers of FTEs,
but that's not necessarily how m n ople you currently have
employed, right?
MR. KOVENSKY: c� nforcement is traditionally almost
fully staffed.
COMMISSIONEI�oS LIS: Okay.
MR. KOVk KY: They've had several vacancies in the last
several mont I uld say there's two or three that just began
working f C Enforcement.
COM IONER SOLIS: Okay.
VENSKY: And they only have one or two vacancies
ri that are being actively recruited.
MMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay. Well, that's important,
okay.
And then I think this idea of having more coverage on nights
and weekends -- I mean, I get the same complaints, and with the
advent of short-term rentals and things, it's becoming more of an
Page 51
June 16, 2022
issue, certainly in District 2.
But in terms of the sound complaints, right, and noise, does the
staff, especially the ones on nights and weekends, are they going to
have whatever technology they need handy to be able to make
decisions on the spot?
MR. FRENCH: Thank you, Commissioner. Yes, sir, thQ'
why we're asking for senior staff versus entry level. So we4 Quld
use current existing staff. We would offer them the op ity to
move into that night -weekend shift. They would be trai ,ed and
certified in taking sound readings --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Okay.
MR. FRENCH: -- as well as --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: But the ave the sound reading
machines.
MR. FRENCH: Absolutely,, ely. So if there was a --
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: y. I just want to make sure
that you've got --
MR. FRENCH: Y
COMMISSIONER IS: -- in terms of the equipment, what
you need.
MR. FRE Yes, sir.
COMM O R SOLIS: Okay.
MR. O SKY: And I'd like to add also that within the
Code En ent budget this year we have a capital item to
purc dditional noise meter.
MISSIONER SOLIS: Okay.
AIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner LoCastro.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Just, lastly, every department
has empty spots as people turn over. I think I heard you say you
have 30 vacancies right now, more or less. I would like you to keep
us updated at how you're chipping away at that. You know, 30
Page 52
June 16, 2022
might not sound like a big number. It sounds like a huge number to
me, especially with the importance of your department.
Anybody that thinks it's just sort of business as usual -- imagine
if you had those 30 people today, 30 experts, you know, that walked
through the door today. So we want to help you get that.
MR. FRENCH: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: And so, there again echo,
we don't -- we're not just hiring the first person that wal 'n the door.
Like I say, I'd rather have nobody in the seat than the g person.
But I'd like some sort of an update for us, an even just be
an email from our County Manager saying, y e latest
update from Growth Management is in the last 0 days they filled 10
of those 30 slots. We really need to put io ity on that, because
every one of those positions is criticalof those are people that
could be out in the field and things ' at.
So I agree with Commission is; FTEs doesn't mean people.
And if you've got 30 FTEs th Awooking for bodies right now, get
that word out. Much li�010 oing in affordable housing, you
know, let's start advertising aggressively the positions, the salary, the
benefits. And if you ale getting a lot of applications and you're kind
of, I don't want ay sitting on them, but haven't had the time or,
you know, H n 1p a little bit more, then let's increase that air
speed as w ILause, you know, I'd like to hear that we're chipping
away at tha number and getting those people out into the field or
in th ' s or to work in a department that is just -- is so critical
to - ou know, the care and feeding of this county.
R. FRENCH: We appreciate that. And just as a final note
from staff, I just want to recognize our continued partnerships with
our Facilities Management. We're very, very lucky to have the
partnership that we have with Ed Finn who's been heading up
Facilities as well. We don't brag, but I'm going to take just a second
Page 53
June 16, 2022
to brag about our staff. Pickleball, water park, Great Wolf
Lodge -- Great Wolf Lodge, there's only 19 in the country. There's
none in Florida. It's 535,000 square feet under air with six
swimming pools. There's nothing been built like that in the state of
Florida.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Ever.
MR. FRENCH: And our staff has to figure it out.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: We will. 0
MR. FRENCH: Where Uline is being built, an o our
darndest, and we do a bad job at not bragging. B ike to take
the opportunity, because we try to stay off yo a hat's our
goal. We want to continue to instill the confi n e in both you, the
g
Manager's Office, and our County Attorn so Lt you don't have to
get those complaints, and we recogrliz u do, and that's why
we're so dedicated when you do g0t tke , or the concerns or the
invite to a community. v
So thank you, and thank Ppwr staff for being able to do what
they do to support this cwvz
CHAIRMAN McDA L: Yes, thank you.
Commissioner Saunders has one more question.
COMMIS S ER SAUNDERS : Just one more quick
question. T ues .on is going to have 17 parts, but it's only one
question. 'm plying with the rules of --
CHA N McDANIEL: Did you see that camera swing
right ce when I went like this (indicating)?
MISSIONER SAUNDERS: You've got the 40 openings.
Ar using contract employees to kind of fill those gaps? The
question really is, in terms of processing applications, doing
inspections -- I know you do those very quickly, and I'm assuming
that even though you have 40 positions that are open -- or was it
30 -- yeah, whatever that number was, about 10 percent, about 30
Page 54
June 16, 2022
positions, I'm assuming that a lot of the workload that those folks
would have is filled with contract workers; is that accurate or totally
inaccurate?
MR. FRENCH: So we augment -- whether or not the position
would be filled or not, there's still the need to have the contract
service. �+
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Right. 'V
MR. FRENCH: So when we go down -- when we' awn 20,
15, we're down 15. As Ken mentioned, we're consta ooking to
add on. But in the interim, if we had a hard-to-fil ' ion that we
had to use one of these contract services, abs e
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I just a t to make sure that
the services are being provided even thou there are open positions.
MR. KOVENSKY: And Cody ent right now has
about -- they average between six, t temporary staff from the
agency. And just so you're aware ny of these temporary staffing
people do eventually get hire 'me by the county, so that's what
happened with Code Enforce eft as well as just recently.
COMMISSIONER SA�JNDERS : And I would make one
comment to our new CWnty Manager. Obviously you've heard
from all of us th ode Enforcement's important, so I know that a lot
of those ulti de 'sions come across your desk. But we're all
interested' i m 'ng sure that Code Enforcement gets what it needs
in this Dro
c
TERSON: Understood, and we'll work with the folks
at nity Development to make that analysis.
AIRMAN McDANIEL: All right. Thank you very, very
muc .
MR. FRENCH: Thank you for your time.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: We are going to now take a court
reporter's break and be back at -- nine minutes, 11:20.
Page 55
June 16, 2022
(A brief recess was had from 11:11 a.m. to 11:20 a.m.)
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Good afternoon -- it's still good
morning. If we keep going on at the pace we're on, it will be this
afternoon. And I'm going to say out loud that the constitutionals are
a time -certain starting at 1:00. So for whatever departments we n't
get to between now and then, we'll move you to the end after l
constitutionals, so...
MS. PATTERSON: We're prepared to pick up th a little
bit here.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay.
MR. FINN: Yes, sir. Very good.
PUBLIC SERVICES A
MS. PATTERSON: Next orb agenda today is Public
Services Department: Ms. Willia s. Grant, Mr. Newman, and
Ms. Lopez.
MS. WILLIAMS: orning, Commissioners. For the
record, Tanya Williams, ye4r Public Services Department head.
And it's a ple sure to speak with you this morning -- we are still
in the morning - arding all the wonderful services that your
Public Servic ivxsions provide and touch on some of our budget
highlights.
With my right, I have our financial and operations
directory� Kim Grant, along with Jeff Newman and Maggie Lopez, our
fi n and operations managers.
ommissioners, we've met your budget guidance, including
mee ing debt service obligations and maintaining healthy reserve
levels where needed. We also very much appreciate the cooperation
and coordination with our partners in the Office of Management and
Budget and the County Manager's Office and supporting our
Page 56
June 16, 2022
operations and consideration of several expanded requests to allow us
to meet key service levels.
In Fiscal Year '23, the department will continue to provide a
wide variety of high -quality public services to all of our residents and
visitors of the county. Some highlights include planning to host ver
2.8 million visitors to our parks, libraries, and museums. An lt
will also expand or park's offerings this year with the first f ear of
Big Corkscrew Island Regional Park featuring aquatics 'ng
fields, amenities, as well as complete dozens of capit intenance
projects throughout our parks, museum, and libra ities.
Additionally, the public services will co u serve our
community by maintaining a stellar animal 1-i- -e re ease rate of over
95 percent and enforcing our animal ordi ce, by delivering quality
agricultural programming in concert wersity of Florida, via
assisting over 3,000 veterans and endence in completing
their benefit claims with the Vet r dministration, and by
partnering with the Florida D ent of Health to support a vital
and healthy community.
Here in Public Servi our focus every single day is on
improving the quality of life for our residents and visitors. And I
can confidently ure you that we will continue to do so even with
the challenge e a face as, we've already discussed today,
increasing e g costs, staffing shortages, and in meeting the
customaril expectations of our citizens.
is point in time, I'm available and my staffs available
fqo (N* estions you may have.
,CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you for all you do. I don't
have any questions. Does the -- you know, you're an integral part of
the frontline. There, again, there were none, now there are two.
You're our frontline for our community. And I really appreciate the
efforts that you folks are putting forth in that regard, and that's from
Page 57
June 16, 2022
me to you.
Commissioner LoCastro.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: You know, sometimes our
questions here are really just to -- I don't want to say just to go on the
record, but as Commissioner Saunders had said, a lot of people a
watching, and so sometimes what's in our head or what we 4t�aabout in private doesn't get heard, and then people say, wel�66nder
this. 0
A big piece of your department is DAS, Domes 4arin
imal
Services. I know in the interest of time -- and we' plenty of
discussions -- they need to continue to be on r a really big
way. I mean, you and I recently traded some ils with a long list
of things that have gotten done under your4fajdership and previously
under Mr. Rodriguez, which are greet. never please
everybody. But that area of our at piece of your big, big
puzzle here, you know, please kee i ight at the top of your list.
And much like I said to ench -- and I think I'm speaking
for us all here -- if you n ething, don't wait for a big special
meeting. You know, go ur County Manager and say what you
need, come talk to us, iyihatever the right protocol is.
But DAS n s a lot of care and feeding and -- because you
have so man lun eers there, you have so many fresh sets of eyes
that all thi k t have the answers to everything, and sometimes
they're a lit t off base, but the amount of feedback we get, much
like orcement, is ginormous.
y exact words to you in a recent email is, everything I've
ju t you has merit. I mean, I took out all the stuff that was very
personalized. But when people start saying, this is what's
happening, this is what's not happening and whatnot -- so, you know,
please continue to keep us informed as to what you may need or what
you're not getting or things you're telling us are coming, the X-ray
June 16, 2022
machine's final getting the software it needs and all those things that
we've conversed about, if it's not happening, then, you know, let's
regroup and figure out why.
And I can't stress this enough, but you personally being as
visible as you can at their big meetings -- you don't have to sit do
there, you know, and walk the dogs or whatnot. But when t e
their big, big meetings, Mr. Rodriguez made that a point to ere,
and people were just flabbergasted. I showed up at so eting,
and they're like, we don't ever remember a commissi eing here.
It does mean a lot if you're our eyes and our en they have
big board meetings so that you're there to rep n e county but
also to bring us back information as well. So a s one piece of a
huge Parks and Rec and everything like t ut I just wanted to
mention that. All of us are very focus,,A
S AS and really care
about what's happening down the r e want to make sure we're
not operating on a shoestring bu t -- you know, what a lot of
volunteers tell me they comm ear from leadership down there,
well, it's at the county, b^ on't have money for it. We have
money, and we know whISPr priorities are. We don't want to be
throwing money at .ust squeaky wheels. We want to throw money at
priorities.
So let u ow hen those things are not getting taken care of,
and please ee is, you know, very high on your list to continue to
improve th eration down there. And I know you are.
ou.
WILLIAMS: Thank you, Commissioner LoCastro.
o, DAS is a critical need, and it is getting mine as well as
Ov 's staffs utmost attention. They have all of our attention and,
actually, all of our resources right at this moment.
HR, Amy Lyberg and her team, have been working with us to
help hopefully alleviate some of the staffing issues that we're seeing.
Page 59
June 16, 2022
So we're guardedly optimistic as we continue to move forward.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Saunders.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Thank you.
I want to focus on parks for just a quick moment. First of ZS
I
want to thank you and your staff for the presentations you ma 01
the Productivity Committee dealing with parks. That was o
their major focus points for this whole year, and they're Ong back
with a report at our next meeting on June 28th outlin' veral
suggestions that they have such as more 311 signa ngs that will
help get repairs and things in the parks more - e more quickly
and fixed more quickly.
So I just want to make sure that you' Cof their report and that
you'll -- part of your operations will so . orporate what they're
looking at. The Board -- hopeful tC, oard of Commissioners will
approve that report at our next me i
And the reason that I'mes�nqg for just a moment on parks is
that that's probably one o
t visible functions of government
where people really internd if the bathrooms aren't clean and
that sort of thing, e heiit. I know you hear about it.
But it soun like they were literally -- there were a lot of
repairs that n to made in different places. I'll give one
example: _A b dwalk that partially -- was partially closed because
of the need epairs, and it was partially closed for over a year.
This he Productivity Committee is trying to do is make sure
t u alerted to those needs as quickly as possible and that
th a process to repair that. So I know that you're working on
that. I just wanted to focus for a moment on that, because we have a
lot of people that, as you said, interact with our park system.
MS. WILLIAMS: Thank you, Commissioner.
Yes. And staff and I both look forward to the presentation at
June 16, 2022
the June 28th BCC meeting from the Productivity Committee. It
was a really good group of men and women to get to know. I think
we've developed a very good working relationship with the
Productivity Committee now, and I look forward to their
recommendations and then us putting them into play with the Bo d's
support. So thank you. �+
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: It's an appropriate time tcbng up,
too, our eyes and ears are our community, and if you se ething
that's going on that you think is government related, It's easy.
Dial it. Nine times out of 10 you get a real body, al people
help you with the circumstance and/or point o w s, in fact, going
on.
So with that, thank you very much.
MR. FINN: Very good. Thalik much.
Mr. Chairman, if I could, if I eg a favor, a little change in
the order. Would it suit you if ught up the County Manager's
Offices right now? If you do d.
CHAIRMAN McDAI I don't think it matters which order
we're in. We have a published order, but I'm fine with that. And I
know that Neil's here, Vd we want to get him in and out as well, so
thank you.
MS. PA RNON: As well as Chief Butcher, so we can let
them go. _�N`
R CHA` N McDANIEL: Sure.
Thank you. Mr. Rodriguez and Mr. Dorrill will
p ire budgets and provide a brief presentation.
R. RODRIGUEZ: Good morning, Commissioners. Thank
you for the opportunity.
As you know, the Executive Management offices of the County
Manager manages certain divisions directly. And over the last
year -and -a -half, they've been successful in managing -- some of those
Page 61
June 16, 2022
offices include, obviously, our Office of the County Manager; our
corporate and compliance internal review section certification; the
Office of Management and Budget which, by the way, continues to
do an outstanding job to get you a great budget; the grants and
compliance section; the impact fee administration; as well as Peli n
Bay Services; tourism; economic development; Community
Redevelopment Agencies, including your CRAs for ImmokMe and
Bayshore; as well as the Emergency Management Servi hich
also includes the EMS division, which is one of your st divisions
under the County Manager's Office. A total of ab 0
employees.
Behind the scenes there are those 500 em o ees doing great
work day in and day out and, fortunately unfortunately, they
couldn't be here in the chambers beta size, but that's okay.
If I could just give you some ts, we'll start with Fleet
Management Division. We hav of the best -run Fleet
Management Divisions in the f Florida, if not the nation,
thanks to Dan Croft, wh ' with our county government over 15
years, a retired lieutenant nel, also a five bronze star awardee, if
you didn't know th t, from ietnam.
But we conratons.
'e to run one of the most efficient Fleet
Management He's asking for two expanded employees,
which pro abl ould have came to him several years ago because
of the dow of our vehicles. It's running about two weeks for
som ent, depending on the equipment. And as you know,
t is all of our divisions, whether it's utilities, Parks and
Re e tion. For without those tools, we can't get our job done.
So one of the emphasis of Mark Isackson, as well as Amy
Patterson and the other team members, is to really look at the needs
and demands of the divisions and get those met.
In addition, Fleet Management is experiencing increased costs,
Page 62
June 16, 2022
as we all know. Some of the commodities are increasing due to
inflation. There's a -- the parts are budgeted at about $2.5 million.
There's an 18 percent increase in our parts expenses, and the budgets
reflect that as well.
As you know, the county purchases fuel. We purchase abo
1.5 million gallons a year. That's been $8 million worth off l�
We were budgeted at $4. That is going to increase to 5, an will
increase our annual budget by about $1.5 million. 01%
In addition to that, we're buying 93 vehicles. T al cost of
those vehicles are estimated at $5.2 million. We ne of the best
recovery programs in the county government t tarted back in
the mid '90s, and that's where you have the rec fund so that you
can put money aside by division so that y ca replace that vehicle
on a regular cycle. That cycle's bade ost of the vehicle, the
age, and also the value. And you se three components in
there, we have some of the highes v es when we go to sell our
vehicles thanks greatly to San rrera, your purchasing director,
for all her great work to t auctions online in a professional
hand as well.
So with that, 'ust aAVord of caution: Some of those vehicles,
especially the h -duty ones, are going to take up to 18 months to
get and recei st e to demand, so it's interesting.
On a oth ood note, your Risk Management Division, well
run by Jef er and his teams of professionals who through the
year a ally saved the county millions and millions of dollars.
7yto give you a good example, your health care has been the
sa r the last 10 years. That's phenomenal. That has something
to do greatly with his ability to negotiate with his adjusters but, also,
this health program that he rolled out several years ago, it, literally,
saves lives, county employee lives, but also gets us to the doctor and
gets our annual inspection [sic], so that's a great thing.
Page 63
June 16, 2022
In addition to that, his property rate insurance increased
only -- just below 1 percent. That's tremendous. For all county
facilities, the assets that we have, to get that minimal increase is good
when you're seeing across the board, as the Chairman stated in our
last meeting, property insurance rates continue to skyrocket.
With that, Human Resources, they continue to do a very
job, excellent job. Just to add to Commissioner LoCastro'
comments as well in answer to the question that was as �ey're
doing a lot of work to get employees in here. Curre our county
government, we have about 2,231 employees. W about 230
vacancies. That's about a 10.7 percent vacan ra ompared to
the national average, we're probably below. t n e industry,
that's not a terrible number, but for us it's because every vacant
position is a level of service that we.c
What has Human Resources rll�i the last four months?
Thanks to Amy's support, Mark Is on's direction, we fast track
applications. They've increa t advertisement for positions.
They've adjusted the qua n slightly for education and
experience so that we can ake advantage of some more local talent as
well as employees that are here, and it seems to be working. What
we need to do a ter job is breakdown those silos so that
communicati bout those deficiencies and things like that come to
your Cou ger's Office, and we can effect change
immediate d we're working on that.
that, let's go on. My apologies, Paul could not make
it e had a personal issue pop up, but he sends his regards.
HCusl wanted to pass on some information about the tourist
development group. Year to date the visitors have exceeded
1.1 million visitors. That's a 10 percent increase over last year. The
economic impact is exceeding $2.1 billion. That's 31 percent over
the previous year as well. In the context of us coming out of the
June 16, 2022
COVID pandemic and whatnot, that's tremendous news. And thanks
to the guidance by the Board and whatnot to facilitate businesses here
in Collier County.
Also, the tourist development tax collections is $37.3 million.
That's a 42 percent increase over the previous year.
With that, thanks to Commissioner Saunders as well as
Commissioner Taylor; you both recommended and wanted us to have
an emphasis on sports management here in Collier Cou4
Government to capitalize on the sports complex, whi are doing.
With Amy's help, we are in the process of re -class osition.
That will come to you on the 28th for your re ' w, rt er guidance.
But this is a good example of where we're max' zing existing
positions. We're not asking for addition T s. We're taking an
existing one, reclassifying that to give cialty so that we have a
coordinated effort throughout Col ' my on sports events so that
we don't schedule every event on c5 ain weekend or a holiday
weekend but, more important hat we can spread out over the
year, and then also allow ents here in Collier County in their
leagues to participate as at the sports complex at a fair rate that's
reasonable as well. So
.*we're excited that -- a sports director, yes.
One of my orite divisions is the EMS division because they
truly save liv n a aily basis. Thanks to Tabatha and her team
and your s p n the April 12th budget, you've added 12 FTEs to
that divisio , d in this budget we're adding another 14. The 12,
obvi ere to fill the shortage that we've had for several years,
at 'Nve years.
'Yut I have to make comment, a special remark, special thanks to
the paramedics that work the frontline because they've been working
under some very tough conditions. Many of them have been
working mandatory overtime, and they have been sacrificing time
with their families. And the County Manager's Office, including
Page 65
June 16, 2022
Amy, Mark, as well as the Commissioners, heard that cry, and now
we have them staffed.
So the 14 positions for next years, seven FTE/paramedics for
East Naples, and also seven for the De Soto and Golden Gate new
fire stations coming online.
So with that, another division I would like to highlight is your IT
division. Thanks to Jeff Dunham, he's done a tremendous .ob over
the last nine months to really restructure IT. It has bec e
more -- there's been more emphasis on customer service t also
cybersecurity and infrastructure. To that point, $tanage
rave a $5.7
thousand -- I'm sorry -- 5.7 -- $5,700 investm w servers, data
space, and they're also bringing on new softwa and help
prevent cybersecurity issues.
What I like about IT that I've see ast nine months, not
only the staff they're bringing on and t, ' new director, but they're
being very proactive in helping t c e that up, so we're excited
about that.
If I could mention a sports complex. We're adding an
FTE, and that is for an ac tant. As you know, we have a great
relationship with the Clerk, and she has a keen eye, especially on that
contract. So we want to make sure we put some more muscle there
to make sure the invoices and the contracts that we're dealing
with with the s s complex pass with flying colors, and we're
excited abou�*at position.
ith that, I'll turn it over to Neil if you have anything you'd
li -
R. DORRILL: Just very briefly, and I'll start by
congratulating Ms. Lyberg [sic]. She becomes the loth County
Manager of Collier County in the last 100 years.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Patterson.
MR. DORRILL: I've talked to her during the break. And the
June 16, 2022
fifth member of my staff who went on to become either a city or a
county manager.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: It's the other Amy. Amy
Patterson.
MR. DORRILL: I'm sorry, Patterson. I was right behind y
earlier. ZN
lz�
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Amy, during the bi6� we
made a couple of changes. We move fast now. We in ast.
MS. PATTERSON: That's okay. Amy Lyberg be really
happy, I'm sure.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: No, s w ddt.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Amy Lyber s t e back hitting
the panic button.
MR. DORRILL: No, I'm con�n She's the second
bullet point for me today. S�tl
Amy becomes only the loth Manager in the history of
the county, following Harmo er, who was the Collier family's
civil engineer, who beca first county manager after a period
where he was the county ineer. Collier County has a wonderful
reputation for being a sable and progressive county throughout the
state. I'm equaVy roud that your other two internal candidates were
also of art dmistration man ears others. So
p �, Y Y
con2ratula ion o all of them.
GettinVTIY GIs. Lyberg and as it relates to the Pelican Bay
Serv-WVision, thank you for the courage of seeing the Evergreen
St ugh. In some ways, Pelican Bay Services Division is like
a Ive government. I will tell you three-quarters of my employees
are immigrant groundskeepers who have benefited greatly as a result
of your seeing that through with your Human Resource Department,
and I will thank you in advance for Phase 2.
Having said that, I will tell you, as you know, two sources of
Page 67
June 16, 2022
income, both ad valorem taxes and also a non -ad valorem special
assessment. Our non -ad valorem special assessment is increasing
substantially next year for several reasons, the first of which is the
heavy labor costs that we have and those that benefited as a result of
the study.
We had been burning cash. Because I have a very soph' ed
advisory board -- my chairman is a former finance executiv< t
PepsiCo. I also have Verizon executives and other Fo e 00
executives, and I have the general manager of the Na rande
Hotel. I have the general manager of the Club at n Bay, and I
have the chief operating officer of the Waters' s. I say all of
that to say they're a very sophisticated board wV041rPend a great deal
of time on balance sheets and profit and lqsjqr statement and
revenue and expense reports. They v rilled down into those
details.
So we've been burning off ca he past year they were not
happy with the amount of the orward that was there. They
wanted to spend that bef t raised new taxes.
For the coming year assessment will be $873. That
represents about a 12 month or $146-a-year increase. The board
is very comfort with that because they continue to reserve funds
for their own e ch nourishment that they pay for in those areas
that are no eli e for tourist taxes and, in addition, have adopted a
pretty aggr s e capital campaign schedule, not the least of which
just i t rtlIV, now; a $7 million capital project to replace all of the
p in the community that are about 40 years old and, in
a ' i n, have undertaken to replace the operations and maintenance
facility and ongoing issues with very expensive street signage and
streetlighting. You know, they have upscale architectural -style poles
and features. Used some FEMA funds to enhance the wind
mitigation of replacement features that are there. So big personnel
June 16, 2022
burden.
Reserving cash for future beach renourishment work following a
beach renourishment project this year. Very intensive work at Clam
Pass. And we may cut more Floratam sod than anybody on the
planet. And so interesting community; well represented by you
advisory board there. �+
I should also tell you that one of the things we'll be loat,
we were astounded when we received the assessed value fs®r m
Mr. Coldings -- Mr. Colding. There's another flash
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Boy, oh, boy.
MR. DORRILL: Mr. Skinner's -- I live iu_th#�
Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yeah, all'do. I just -- I
actually sat with Wade yesterday inj e, just so you know.
MR. DORRILL: No. I kn ell. Were you at the
farmers market?
CHAIRMAN McDANI o, sir.
MR. DORRILL: Alm $700 million increase in assessed
value over the prior year; $8.4 billion in assessed value, almost an
8 percent increase. W;#had forecasted 3-and-a-half percent based
off some prelim' numbers.
That get e t y second and final point. We also have a
revenue sit am sociated with ad valorem taxes, and I think we need
to take alit rder look at that, given what is, honestly, a windfall
that rred, a one-time windfall, almost 9 percent increase in
a alues in one year. I've never seen anything quite like that.
d so our Budget and Finance Committee will drill down in
that, I would think, over the winter, and you may actually see them
promote some long-term millage-neutral or millage reductions going
forward given this big pop of value increase that really caught us off
guard.
June 16, 2022
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you.
Commissioner Taylor, you want to go first?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Mr. Chair, that was from the
previous presentation. I have nothing to add to this conversation
right now. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Oh, forgive me. Okay. I'm
sorry, Commissioner Taylor. I didn't realize you wanted toAsWak
the last time. You just came up on my screen here for blic
Service. Is that where I'm at? No, the Manager's O Forgive
me.
Commissioner LoCastro.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Thank o .
One of the things I wanted to say ab Amy Patterson -- well,
you sort of brought it up -- is it wasi't ago that some on this
board almost made the mistake of e ng internal candidates
compete. So I'm glad that we ha ange of heart, and we got an
extremely strong candidate in y here. So I just wanted to add
that.
Mr. Rodriguez, out o the 93 vehicles, how many of those
vehicles are -- they're not 93 added vehicles. Some are replacing
older vehicles. you have any kind of guesstimate as to -- so what
is the delta? e adding 25 additional vehicles, or are those 93
replacing o I'm just trying to understand how much we're
growin b icles, which we need to, but I don't want it to be sort
of an ' er number. Ninety-three is a lot, but I bet a lot of
t - d here's our superstar right here.
ank you for your military service, too. I got a chance to meet
you early in my tenure here. What can you tell me? Just short
version.
MR. CROFT: Commissioner, this is -- for the record, Dan
Croft, Fleet Management director.
Page 70
June 16, 2022
All 93 of those vehicles and pieces of equipment are
replacement.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Okay.
MR. CROFT: All replacement.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: So the delta is zero. e
just getting newer vehicles. �+
MR. CROFT: That is correct, on that number.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Okay. &sn
MR. CROFT: There are a few that are in the divbudgets
out there that are growth vehicles that are going -- �re in their
budgets.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Okay.
MR. CROFT: I don't have an exact un of that right now,
because I haven't seen all of their bud
COMMISSIONER LoCAST ay. And I know some of
the vehicles, they give us increase c ability because they're
replacing old ones that can't d uch and whatnot. So, you know,
that answers that.
When it comes to fir 'stricts, we've already had some
discussions, so I'll eep tha brief. We have serious neglect in
District 1, long ql4qdue upgrades in our fire -- I visited three of the
firehouses. n't e redundant, because we've had meetings. But
I want to on record saying I want to continue our aggressive
talks. An alize that it's a partnership between the fire
Comm' . rs and the fire chiefs, and there's all this, you know, very
c 1, .c ed leadership, organizational chart of who's in chart of
w But the bottom line is, I visited three fire stations in District 1
that would be appalled to bring anybody through.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: This isn't about the fire district.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: I know, but it is part of, you
know, what falls under your umbrella. So I just want to continue,
Page 71
June 16, 2022
you know, those talks.
Lastly, when it comes to the sports complex, this just goes
without saying. It's great the augmentation that the county's doing,
but we also hired a contractor. So I would just be remiss if I didn't
say, let's make sure we're holding them to every single, you kno
dollar that we're paying them and that they have a big bulk of 1
responsibility that the taxpayers are funding to run that spo
complex and that we're not filling in the gaps with, you 0, county
FTEs and additional staff. It's a team effort, no ques ' but --
MR. RODRIGUEZ: Absolutely. And, tha ,
Commissioner LoCastro. And like you and t o oard
members, everybody has their eyes on the a omplex, wants it to
be successful. And with this accountant, get into some more
enforcement of the contract to have pe ce-based contracting
with them, and we are holding the A�c, ntable, and it will
be -- there will be more accountab i coming down the road.
Back to the fire stations, pointed out, and --
COMMISSIONER RO: I mean, I'm not remiss. It's
part of your package here, ' ht, that you're talking about? Fire
districts is includk
MR. RODZ: There are, because the county's
responsible 2an
ining some of these fire stations; it's a
partnershi my and I both heard you loud and clear. And over
the summe a parallel front, working with Facilities, Parks, and
all of er facilities, we'll make sure that those fire stations,
E ' ons where they're shared, they get the best service and get
th p to par that are --
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: We've done a lot of repair.
It's time for work. And I realize we don't put a shovel in the ground
tomorrow, but if you don't get it into the budget for replacement and
you keep kicking the can with paint, wallpaper, and replacing a roof,
Page 72
June 16, 2022
that's why you have a fire station, I think it's 21, that EMS and fire is
sharing that is grossly undersized and sits on a lot that has plenty of
room for expansion.
So it's a different conversation, but it's part of your presentation
here, and it's a main focus of mine, and all the commissioners up
here, but I can only speak for District 1. And we've been ne . lei d
in that area for a while, or just maybe just haven't put enou
attention on it. But thank you.
MR. RODRIGUEZ: And that attention's going 4@ me also
from the work order system that Ed Finn and Jam iams are
going to roll out. It's similar to the one that t sportation is
rolling out. And that's where you get that visi ili y hat
Commissioner Saunders is looking for an ommissioner McDaniel
as well. So we'll get there pretty q-qic0-;�
COMMISSIONER LoCAST Thank you.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: missioner Saunders.
COMMISSIONER SA S: Just a clarification, because
Commissioner LoCastro ed Marco Island, and they have their
own fire service.
MR. RODRIGUE� Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And they --didn't they just --
COMMI,S,SIONER LoCASTRO:
COMLAINER SAUNDERS:
mentioned
SSIONER LoCASTRO:
I didn't mention Marco.
Oh, I thought you
No, I was talking about the
t ' district I that I visited and just --
MMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I was confused. I just
wanted to make sure that we weren't.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: No.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Well -- and the point of
Page 73
June 16, 2022
clarification, just as you know, there's -- we share space with the fire
departments along the way, but as is important is the budgetary
constraints and maneuvers of the individual fire districts in
relationship to our participation and our exposure for things that may
or may not have been taken care of from a budgetary standpoint.
MR. RODRIGUEZ: Absolutely.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Well, they have soork
to do. O
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: So having said all j.I didn't
mean to interrupt you there. Its just I -- there's m that than just
us throwing money at maintenance.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: I will st add, hearing there's
no delta in vehicle increases, great. You ow, we need what we
need. But to Commissioner Saunders' 1 bout boots on the
ground and getting folks out there, me , that's another one that if in
the future, you know, you're sittin e and you're short a vehicle
here or there, we're the people t k to. County Manager is the
office to speak with.
So, you know, hearin Vt e 93 number, I knew that that wasn't 93
additional vehicles, and hearing that the delta's actually zero, so it
improved the ne ess of our vehicles. But if we do need to increase
our fleet sop e c get out there or we've had -- you know, this
county's n t sh ' ing; it's growing. Then don't be shy about asking
for that be� you know, all the right people that can't you know,
y g p p ,
transp mselves around the county isn't mission
accom ' hment.
R. CROFT: Yeah. As I said, Commissioner, there are some
expanded vehicles that are budgeted in the different divisions out
there, and I just don't have a count of them right now.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Okay.
MR. CROFT: But they're in their budgets, and we will be
Page 74
June 16, 2022
looking at those and ordering those.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Thank you, sir.
MR. CROFT: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you. Thank you, both
very, very much.
MR. RODRIGUEZ: Thank you. �+
MR. MILLER: Mr. Chair --
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Troy, I'm not doing public
comment individually. The advertised public comment i,s at the end
of our entire workshop. I'm -- we're not going to in
public
comment at each one of the divisions. I saw i up twice, and
I took it away twice, so...
MR. MILLER: Thank you, sir.
TRANSPORTATION MANAGER
ERVICES
v
MR. FINN: Mr. Chai it pleases the Board, the next
group up would be the T ation Management Services,
Ms. Scott and Mr. Shue.,
MS. SCOTT: Do I get kudos if I get out before lunch?
CHAIRM cDANIEL: Four minutes. Go.
MS. SC ood morning.
With e ration from the Growth Management Department,
we focus o tinuing our coordination efforts with Mr. French and
his t
i that, I'm Trinity Scott, the Transportation Management
Se s department head. This department encompasses five
divisions: Capital Project Planning, inclusive of our Stormwater
Management and Coastal Zone; Road Maintenance Division;
Transportation Engineering and Construction Management;
Operations Support, which also includes the county's three airports;
Page 75
June 16, 2022
and over the last year we welcomed Public Transit and Neighborhood
Enhancement back to the Transportation Department.
PT&E oversees multiple municipal services taxing units and
both the fixed route and para transit systems.
With me today I have Mr. Gene Shue, our Director of \Vt4,
Operations Support.
Transportation Management services department curr204
employs just under 300 staff members who dedicate theirO
professional lives to supporting the vision of this boa directed by
our County Manager.
Our funding sources are very diverse bet e il'zing tourist
development funds, grants, ad valorem, gas to s, i pact fees, as
well as the infrastructure sales surtax. T ' supports our roughly
$289 million total budget which break o $97 million in
operating and $192 million of cap'
In this budget we have requ e t ree additional staff members
to be added to our team. The 's a maintenance specialist within
our Traffic Operations s i hey will be able to perform locates
for our fiber-optic networ at's critical for our continued operations
of our traffic management center. Without that fiber-optic network,
I would not be able to stop Commissioner McDaniel at every traffic
light.
CHA McDANIEL: I have a big truck.
MS. : We know.
AN McDANIEL: And I tried to get Tabatha Butcher
to one of those little thingies that will turn the light green
w incoming up to it, but she won't do it.
MS. SCOTT: Well, sir, you can get one, but you can't program
it without me.
The second is an inspector for our stormwater section of road
maintenance. And as you will remember, during our recent
Page 76
June 16, 2022
workshop, I advised that stormwater is where it's at, and that's where
this employee will be.
Our Capital Project planning team has been working to recover
several critical ditches such as the Goodlette-Frank Road ditch,
corporate flight, and the new Freedom Park bypass, to name a fe
These areas are critical to the overall stormwater manage en se
system, and continued maintenance and upkeep are imperat' to
maintain water quality and flood control. O
The third and final expanded request is for a line4e for the
Marco Island Executive Airport. The new termin lity was a
significant expansion over the previous facilit s 1 4a,, the recently
completed addition of 11 commercial hangar i ties constructed by
a private entity.
With the completion of these irpp e ts, we are seeing
increases in activity at the airport. example, our fuel sales are
up 50 percent since we opened the terminal building. This line
technician is critical for conti afe and efficient airport
operations.
We prioritize mainte ce activities by utilizing our county's
award -winning asset management team. We're continuing on the
prior year's effort f carrying forward an aggressive stormwater
capital ro r whi includes partnering with both the City of
p p g p g Y
Naples and Co r County Public Utilities to leverage our funds for
cohesive pr s. And as discussed at the last Metropolitan
Planni anization meeting, an additional value add that we are
i o ing is planning for future sidewalks for these projects and
in rating them into the design to ensure that our improvements
today do not preclude the construction of sidewalks in the future.
These projects include Palm River, West Goodlette Phase 2, and the
Brookside area of Harbor and Holiday Lane.
We're going to continue to prepare several other major capital
Page 77
June 16, 2022
projects for construction, such as Pine Ridge Road, Airport Road, and
Collier Boulevard, while continuing a variety of bridge projects,
intersection improvements, roadway enhancements, and bus stops.
And, in fact, this year Public Transit and Neighborhood Enhancement
will procure and install infrastructure to support the county's firs
all -electric Collier Area Transit bus. �+
The department's strategic focus remains on preservin r
infrastructure as we respond to this growth period wher e emand
for new capital project execution is accelerated.
The department continues to anticipate challe uch as
supply chain delays, project cost inflation, an s sed labor force;
however, we will continue to focus on scrutini n bids, diligently
managing our contractors, and maintain t' t fiscal controls which
have allowed many of our capital pr�oj e completed early and
under budget.
All the divisions have met th b get guidance outlined by
County Manager's Office and ard.
And with that, I'll c e comments, and Mr. Shue and I are
here for questions. One * ute over.
CHAIRMAN Mcl.)A IEL: That's all right. We won't dock
your pay. You' oing an amazing job. I can't -- I know my
colleagues sh,e�thi opinion, but you have stepped in and just done
an ai
Thank you.
McDANIEL: You and yours. Again, there's
292 people over there that you're going like this with, and thank you
to oth. I mean, all of us have had positive -- had positive
circumstances happen because of you and yours; you and yours.
Commissioner Taylor, I jumped in front of her, but I just wanted
to say that.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you very much.
I
June 16, 2022
One question, Ms. Scott. If you could please repeat in detail the
stormwater description for the Brookside. The neighbors are very
concerned. I wrote an email yesterday talking about Harbor Lane,
and they need specifics. So if you could do that right now, I'd
appreciate it, and just get it on the record, the streets involved wi
the stormwater improvements of Brookside. Thank you.
se
MS. SCOTT: Yes, ma'am. That is within Brookside-:
Specifically we've been working on Harbor and Holida QN1e within
the Brookside area. We are partnering with the City ples
Public Utilities to also upgrade the utilities within t ea, just as
we do with many of our other stormwater pro' ts, ell as
workingvery closely with the neighborhood 1� e and to
ry Y g
installation of a sidewalk and as well as a ent request from the
neighborhood for us to go back and�se ould get other utilities
such as Florida Power and Light a o cast on board with also,
perhaps, relocating the infrastruct s ile we have the roadway
opened up.
So we are going ba doing that at the request of the
community. And const n is anticipated for the next fiscal year.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you.
CHAIRM cDANIEL: And I'm going to say it out loud:
We're not in h day. I mean, we have all day and tomorrow
appropriat d f ese budget hearings, so I don't want anybody to
misconstru at we're going on here. So I just stated early that we
are going o at 1:00 with the constitutionals as advertised, and
w 11 bring back the rest afterwards.
any other questions for Transportation?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you again, both of you.
MS. SCOTT: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: All right.
Page 79
June 16, 2022
MR. FINN: Ready to go on?
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Well, I don't know. I want to talk
to my colleagues and see if they want to have a leisurely lunch and
come back and wrap up the rest after we're done with the
constitutionals or if you want to work on here a little bit until --
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: I mean if we broke no�� d
then we started at 1:00 with the constitutionals, it just seeme that
sort of makes sense. 0
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: How do you all feaut that?
Commissioners Solis?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: That's fine.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Saunders? o you want to keep
working, or do you want to grab a bite?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDEP�S: 1 way. I really don't
have a preference. Whatever, Mr. an, you want to do is fine
by me.
CHAIRMAN McDANI ho do we have next?
MR. FINN: Next 1 the Public Utilities Department.
CHAIRMAN McDA L: That's going to be a minute, I
would imagine.
MR. FINN- kay. Well, if I could ask Dr. Yilmaz and
Ms. Curry to o e . Very good.
CHA McDANIEL: Do you want to --
MS. RSON: Or if your preference is you want to knock
out anot e mall one before we go to lunch.
IRMAN McDANIEL: Let's do that. Because we're
go o have some questions for you. We're going to have some
questions for you. Let's do one more, and then will take lunch break.
How about that?
DEBT SERVICES
0- .1
June 16, 2022
MS. PATTERSON: Next up would be Debt Service, so that
will be a good one to end with before lunch.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: That would be a great one.
MS. PATTERSON: Sorry. I'm giving Mr. Finn a run heZsoy
juggle his things here by changing order constantly. Apolog*
MR. FINN: Appreciate it.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And you can just do it right from
there, Ed, if you want to.
MR. FINN: I appreciate that. Thank you, s'
Thank you, Amy.
Debt Service. We touched on Debt Sery e little bit earlier in
the overview. We're in a good position t service wide. We
talked about the capacity.
In 2010, when Mr. Isackson the county budget director,
he focused a lot of attention on th t portfolio. In 2008, the total
portfolio was $788 million in al debt. Today that amount is
644-. That's a reductio t $144 million, and that includes
issuing about $216 millio debt during that period as well.
In FY '23, the all -in de t service on an annual basis is
$66.5 million. the utilities side -- so that would be all -in. That
would be bot t e enterprise debt and the governmental debt. On the
utilities si e it bout 25 million. On the general government side,
it's about $ illion.
rage all -in net interest across the portfolio has dropped
fr cent in '08 to about 3 percent today; substantial, substantial
sa And as I had mentioned before, I'll mention it again, we're
well within our 13 percent policy cap on debt. We're well positioned
to deal with the challenges we have coming up in '23, including
funding, funding for some transportation network issues, as well as
some of the major, major -- setting us up with major projects going
I
June 16, 2022
into the future; the Go BP (phonetic) job, and any other jobs that may
come along.
So right now we're working on resolutions to get us -- get us
sufficient capacity on commercial paper to deal with these funding
issues that haven't reached the economic quantity to allow us to to
bonding, that allow us to accumulate that on the commercial p ,
and then set us up to go to a bond when we have somethin that's
properly sized.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay.
MR. FINN: So if there are no questions --
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: I hav uestion. So
you were saying under Mr. Isackson, you kno e ad debt headed
in the right direction. It dropped, you kn , by a significant
amount. What's your master plan tQ 1 � continue to go in that
direction? I mean, barring any urKot*es&n -- you know, I mean,
there's always things that have a it the wrong direction because of
unforeseen emergencies. Bu would you say, Mr. Finn, is, you
know, our master plan? ' e sitting here a year from now and
we have nothing that pop up and surprised us, what do you
foresee is our trac ? o
MR. FINK• 'm going to try to give you a thoughtful answer.
When it com d t funding in government, there's two primary
schools of ho t. One school of thought is pay for it now. You
burden the nt users of that service for facilities that are going to
be in r 30 years; that is a philosophy that exists. There's
another philosophy, and that says you bond the money so that as
peVIare using or benefiting from those, they're paying for it
incrementally --
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Absolutely.
MR. FINN: -- and the next incremental user is paying their
share of it as it comes along.
I
June 16, 2022
My philosophy is a little bit of both. I suspect that as we deal
with the transportation projects that are coming out and some of the
other things that we need to get done, including some of the
replacement of assets, I suspect that our total debt is going to grow a
little bit, but it's going to stay well within our capacity to handle d
well within the Board's policy on debt.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Yeah. And that's
wanted to hear. I mean, everybody up here understand carry
debt for a variety of reasons. It's not a negative thin^ u don't
always brag about, like, oh, we paid for it all now t zero. But
you said exactly what I was hoping to hear, w h e're in the
sweet spot. You know, we're managing it pro er y, so it will shift a
little bit here and there, but we do it for pecific reason. So
okay. I appreciate it. That's what I d to hear.
MR. FINN: And I appreciate tllt estion. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTA Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN McDANI ery good.
MR. FINN: Very go
CHAIRMAN McDA L: All right. Let's go have a bite to
eat. We'll be backat 1:00.
MR. FINN• hank you, sir.
(A lunc re ess was had from 12:08 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.)
CHA McDANIEL: You had your back to me when I
was beatin thrgavel.
ATTERSON: I know. I was distracted. You have
a -- Commissioners and Chair, you have a live mic.
N�1AIRMAN McDANIEL: Good afternoon, everybody.
Good afternoon, good afternoon. I think we're going to -- we are, as
advertised, going to go to our constitutional officers, and the first one
is?
I - •
June 16, 2022
SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS
MR. FINN: Yes, sir. The first one would be Supervisor of
Elections.
MS. EDWARDS: Good afternoon. N
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL. Good afternoon. How ab
smile? You were looking -- you got your -- okay, okay. is
better. There's the Jennifer we all know and love. 0
MS. EDWARDS: For the record, my name is Jeer
Edwards. I am honored to serve as the Superviso elections for
Collier County. And to my left is Melissa Bl 'e . She is the chief
deputy of the elections office.
You have seen the packet for our bu t. Just a high-level
explanation: Our budget has increase imately
$6009000 -- and two things: We have eneral election in this
budget and, as you know, general �tions have higher turnout. So
we'll have more workers and&ind
upplies, et cetera. And I want to brag and you that in the 2020 general
election, we had a 90 percV turnout, the largest in the state. So
we're hopeful that will happen again, that we'll have a larger turnout.
The other t�kg that we've done in this budget is we
implemented new pay plan that the County Manager's Office
implemen d. d thank you for that.
So th e my two comments. Do you have any questions?
esponse.)
IRMAN McDANIEL: Commissioner Taylor, is she back
w�i% ?
. MILLER: I do not -- yes, but she does not have her hand
raised.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay.
MR. FINN: Mr. Chairman, if I may, I don't know if -- I'm
June 16, 2022
hoping all the board members have had an opportunity to visit
Ms. Edwards' building. Ms. Edwards' building is one of the nicer
buildings in our inventory, and if you haven't been there, I would
urge you to get an invitation and make your way over there.
MS. EDWARDS: Thank you. And we are so proud of ou
facility, and thank you, all.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Absolutely.
MS. EDWARDS: Thank you. O
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you. Than for all that
you do. Good luck. I'll be seeing you soon.
MS. EDWARDS: Yes. Thank you fo in i ing to serve
as the chair of the upcoming canvassing board.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I'm the air. I thought the judge
was the chair.
MS. EDWARDS: Well, that, . He is the chair. But
because you're chair of this -- v
CHAIRMAN McDANI m the chair of this -- I'm the chair
here.
MS. EDWARDS: -- this esteemed board.
CHAIRMAN McI)►A IEL: You scared me. I thought I was
going to have to in charge of that one, too.
MS. ED R The chair of the Board of County
Commissionneer
CHAN McDANIEL: And I am now certified to
reco per signatures.
AqEDWARDS: Oh, good.
AIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes. I got my little --
MS. EDWARDS: You got your certificate?
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes.
MS. EDWARDS: That's important.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Did you do that yet?
I '
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June 16, 2022
MS. EDWARDS: And thank you, Commissioner Saunders.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I'm almost there.
MS. EDWARDS: Well, I haven't completed it either, but I
will.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I was just waiting for yo to
finish it before I did mine. �+
MS. EDWARDS: Oh, okay. Well, I will. But thankA u for
being willing to be the alternate, Commissioner Saunde
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes.
MS. EDWARDS: And I believe we have C sioner
LoCastro --
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: I was i g o say, what --
MS. EDWARDS: --as an alternate
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Ilav ne yours yet?
COMMISSIONER LoCAST , the training?
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL:
COMMISSIONER LoCAV'ItO: I'm close.
CHAIRMAN McD
Yeah.
Thank you, ma'am.
Thank you, both. N MS. EDWARDS: oThank you very much.
CHAIRMIN cDANIEL: Yes.
CLERK O,
T
: Mr. Chairman, the next constitutional up is
Ms. Kinzel, Clerk of the Circuit Court. She'll be accompanied by
Rallond Milum and Derek Johnssen.
MS. KINZEL: Good afternoon. Thank you. A little bit
closer. Thank you for the opportunity.
I want to start out by saying thank you to the county staff, the
budget office, as usual but, most importantly, all department heads.
0 i •
June 16, 2022
I want to congratulate Ms. Patterson, and I want to look forward to a
great working relationship with this board and the staff. I think in
the most recent months it's been exceptional. And I don't want to
jinx it, so I'll stop with that. But I look forward to working with
everyone. I think that staff is enthused and encouraged to do
improvements, and we're willing to work with you and help tl
anything they need to have done. �\
For this year's budget, as with the Supervisor of El 'o s, we
provided you a rather large book of all the detail of o rations
and our requests. While the Clerk's Office is 216S ons total for
2023, this board funds with your transfer onl o ose positions.
There are 118 positions non -court, but the Cle s ice provides the
funding through fees and fines for the Re ding Department mostly,
but we offset the costs that would cqm Board as a transfer
amount with those earned revenu
We are asking for two additi a positions. One of those is
with our Inspector General O Back in 2008, our office had an
in -the -field construction racting person that tried to validate
and go to some of the larg roj ects and validate the progress on
those projects for financial statement purposes. We have not had
that lately, and ink it's sorely missing from our operational
process to m e ur hat the financial statements are as good as they
should or oul . So I would like to add that one.
And t so one of the positions is for the recording function.
We'r . g 55,000 pages per month in recording. So when you
h t the permitting and the processing and you heard -- and
yo ' ell aware of the growth in Collier County -- all of that goes
through our office.
And one of the things I wanted to do, not so much for you,
because I think all of you probably do appreciate or understand what
the Clerk does, but much of the public does not. And following all
I
June 16, 2022
these other departments is kind of a great opportunity to bring that
out, because your Clerk's Office is kind of the backroom, so to speak,
of all of the operations. We serve as your Clerk to the Board. We
handle your minutes and records. We handle the processing for the
Value Adjustment Board processes. We pay all the bills for the
county. We do the investment according to your investment
We prepare all the debt and financial reporting for the fina
statements of the county. O
Derek's office in finance, we've handled those -- thing, the
custody of cash. We do all the bank reconciliatio e do all
those backroom accounting services through a u ting staff.
We also do audit, and -- but the Clerk to t e oard is only one of
about the third of our processes because, ou heard initially this
morning, the courts. So the Clerk to t s, while you don't
fund those positions, we fund wit e -- and at the end I will
make a request -- but we service t urts by all the evidence
retention, custody of all their s, evidence. We process all the
docket information, all tl s. We handle all their fines, fees,
and remit to the state. So those processes are another great portion
of the Clerk's Office. e
Then in ad ' ' n, as I mentioned, the recording function. We're
the keeper of or going back to 1923 when the county was
created.
One o things that we want to do moving forward is the back
recor a or back scanning of all of those records. Right now our
ren go back in recording to about 1981. Prospectively, when we
we le to scan and make them available digitally, we were able to
try to go back to 1923 and, as you can imagine, that's an incredible
task.
So we have procured an external company to come and assist us
with that back scanning and indexing to make the records even more
June 16, 2022
available historically online.
But we have a pretty robust website. We will be launching that
this summer, a redo of the website, to give more information to the
public and help them be able to access as much as we possibly can
electronically.
Two other major component projects that I have to mention, as
they're meeting right now regarding the -- I want to say -- u Te of
our SAP financial systems, and that impacts all of your
everything countywide. We have had to upgrade th,qA44k platform
as well as we will be adding functionality, includi ore I ever
retire, time and attendance. While we have a st o time and
attendance, we certainly can upgrade that and v more data and
information to track individual time, give ur managers better tools
to manage, we're really looking forNyar, 1, I can't say they're
looking forward to the implement 'c hey'll stab me for that,
because it is a monumental task.
As you can imagine, eac ur departments has financial
statements, whether it be estic Animal Services, the libraries,
Utilities, all of that feeds our main financial system, which is
SAP, so that we can prepare the financial information and reporting
for you, for the k and the Board.
The oth ns i utionals also prepare their financial information
and submi tha , nd we consolidate all of that to the award -winning
financial st ents that you see each year.
e want to improve, I mentioned that. One of the other
t e jury system. The jury system has, unfortunately, been
an ted. You may or may not be aware; the courts want to add
two additional courtrooms. That is a good opportunity to better
serve our jurors as they come into the building. We've been working
with staff to improve the parking situation within the parking garage.
We're working with them to improve signage for the people coming
01 M
June 16, 2022
to this campus, but mostly we're going to improve their accessibility
to the information, whether they're being called, filling out forms.
They can do all of that before they ever get here, and then we will be
able to manage those jurors, we think, more efficiently.
And as Chuck Rice pointed out, we are one of the very fewN
counties in the state of Florida, we did not shut our offices du i�v
COVID. Because of e-filing and e-recording, our office st open
and was very robust in our activity with the things thatvu e hanging
hands and could be done remotely. N
So those are the things to kind of update ;r;
ere we are
and what we're doing and what we're asking. Request
The transfer is an increase of 768000 in rimarilprimarily
due to the pay plan. And I do also want k8kank you. Obviously,
we were behind market considerably. lowed the pay plan as
initiated by the county. We did n orate funds for Phase 2,
but the budget office is aware of t t nd we will certainly work with
them to minimize the impact er we can with what we need to
do from the pay plan an our people current.
We are experiencing same lack of staff as everyone else.
The pay plan did help..#We have 15 new employees starting within
the next two we so it has enhanced our ability to recruit. As with
other depart 's s tements, obviously, they're new people, so you
have all th se ing elements for everything that we do from
accounting urts. The majority of our vacancies are in courts
right
hat will be the last thing I would please ask your support.
I be coming back for lobby assistance. Right now Collier
County is a donor county. There are about 22 counties in the state of
Florida that help support the rest -- out of the 67. We routinely
contribute over a million dollars. And that sounds, oh, great, we're
making great money, but they continue to cut our budget here locally
June 16, 2022
even though we are the fastest growing -- one of the five fastest in
cost of living, we need a new legislative construct for the distribution
of wealth.
We have things that we need to do here in Collier County with
the court funds that we generate and we earn, and right now they
reduce our budget and force us to send additional money that '
distributed to other counties.
I don't know how those counties operate. I do kn t t we've
tried to be lean and mean, as they say. We have red ur court
staff by almost half. Again, not a funding issue o other than the
service to our community. We need to keep 1 i C unty's funds
at Collier County.
I've made that known to our legislati de egation over the last
couple of years hoping that somethilig u e approved by the
legislature, but we're in the third y you're seeing
significant -- we had 22 clerks stat e change. A lot of it is due to
the budget and our inability to e doing what we need to do to
serve the public with the of funds that they've been giving us.
And it's particularly frustr ' g to me to continue to earn sufficient
funds and submit a balaced budget and have it reduced so that our
revenues go els ere.
So any yo can support with that, I really would appreciate
it, and the p nity to just make that public, because a lot of
people don erstand our funding sources and how we operate.
that, we're here for questions. I shouldn't ask that,
t heard everyone else that said "are there any questions?"
go h m, but go ahead.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: You're correct.
MS. KINZEL: Go ahead.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Just when you -- as a suggestion,
one of the things I would like to really see happen -- the accountants
Page 91
June 16, 2022
in the room will understand -- debits on the left and credits on the
right. Establish a credit system so that when a contribution comes
from one county to another, there's a mechanism of some sort of a
debt instrument to be able to pay that back when future revenues
come to that municipality. Not to discuss it today. Just debits Z*N'l
the left; credits on the right. And we'll talk further.
Commissioner LoCastro. 'V
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: A couple questiok and
comments. So based on your last comment about how we donate
money to other counties that possibly the inferenc ejis maybe
they're not as efficient, so we're getting penali can we help
you with that? So it's one thing to just say, w y o k for your support.
You have it. So what can we do, specifi y?
MS. KINZEL: Primarily, I wou work with John
Mullins on the legislative approach, an e're also looking at several
of the clerks. Obviously, the ma'ority of the donor clerks -- we're
not in the worst situation. W about 1.2 million over the last
year, but Orange County, -f�r mple, contributes 11 million, and
they have told her to go ba* to her commissioners for funding.
And she said, wait..#how can I go back to my taxpayers and my
commissioners ask for money when you're taking 11 million of
ours?
SolSoll ha some other clerks on board, but it will primarily be
through a 1 ative action of the restructuring of the Clerk of Courts
Corp n that was established by the legislature so that they do not
s
ave a contention regarding the -- without getting into the
wee s, but there's some statutory -- there's some statutory language
that requires every clerk, each clerk in each county, to provide a
balanced budget. That's not occurring, obviously.
We are supplementing other people's balanced budgets, and
Page 92
June 16, 2022
while we've lived within all of the reductions that we've received over
past years since Article V, it is now harmful --
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Okay.
MS. KINZEL: -- to support our courts.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Well, keep us posted on t.
I mean, Mr. Mullins represents us with a very strong position
Tallahassee. So as you're making progress or if you get fe c
otherwise, I know that all of us would be interested in h that.
Like you said, your office sort of does a whole of
different -- sometimes what seems like totally unr things. I
just want to tell you -- and it's not necessarily at to the budget,
but just to get it on the record here. I think on o the things that you
provide all of us as commissioners is real strong, fresh set of eyes
to the agenda before every Board of ommissioner meeting.
And I know that I just really appr e deep dive that you do, the
questions that you type on there f to consider and whatnot.
That's very valuable. So I w y continue that.
I was really -- I don' o say encouraged. I'd say I was
impressed by the last time u and I spoke, and I said how are things
going with, you know, our current leadership in the County
Manager's Offic And you were very complimentary of making
some headw s e things that maybe over the years stalled or
fell on de ea r you were the last office to be called, or you were
never calle ou were very complimentary about, you know, both
Ms. and Mr. Rodriguez in saying that, you know, that the
re 'p is really -- has really connected in a way that maybe it
ha 't efore.
So, you know, we look for that to continue and to, you know,
utilize the expertise we have of your team and their team to, you
know, make us all better. But, you know, you provide a very
important service to all of us, and I would hope that our County
Page 93
June 16, 2022
Manager's Office would see the value in that and, by your words in
my office, that -- I don't want to say "for once it's happening," but
you said a lot of positive things that certainly I liked hearing. So
thank you.
MS. KINZEL: Well, thank you. And I initially started th
summary for our own use so that we would be able to track; �+
track everything that we need to track that was happening i
county, but then I thought, why am I not sharing that an aring it
with management? We've made great headway in e * ulling
some items and digging deeper, making sure that omes to you
is probably the best we can get it. It may not ea a we never
have a comment to you as a commissioner, bu e ainly I think it's
built the relationship that we're trying to onstructive, not critical.
And the same with our audits; any a not to be gotcha or
critical. It is to identify where w l I d to do better. And so I
hope it's taken that way. I think i s ow. And so I look forward to
making great improvements. ank you for the comments.
COMMISSIONER RO: Sure.
MS. KINZEL: An n't take that credit. As I said, I want to
thank my staff. These ouys are great. They've been doing this for a
long, long time; ears, 24 years.
MR. JO S Twenty-five.
MS. IN Twenty-five years. I've been with the Sheriff
and here 3 - e years. So we do have a good history. And if
peopill
nt to access that information, really, we welcome that.
A qlast thing I'll leave you -- I gave each one of you a PAFR.
his is to compliment the Finance Department. This is the
first one produced by our county. It is a public -- Public Annual
Financial Report -- or popular -- Popular Annual Financial Report.
I'll get the acronym. It is to bring down all that we do and the
massive numbers and everything that we -- hopefully in a way that
June 16, 2022
the citizens can see very clearly what we are doing on their behalf.
So as the first one, I welcome any comments. We've asked that
also of the public, and we hope to continue that, and we also hope to
get the GFOA award for standards, because we try to benchmark
everything that we do with our budget and with our financial
statements type of accreditation.
We have been awarded on the court side, again that ynit
fund, but I have to brag a little bit, as Chuck Rice IndicZ
r parand
thank him very much for that. Working together with o tners,
we were the first county in the state to be able to t, uniform
case reporting required by the legislature, so t 's th Collier.
And, again, with that cut court budget, we wer a e to do that.
The legislature seems to continue to e us every type of
project data transparency and, of coWr auses system changes
for all 67 clerks in the state. So I z�, the legislative committee
with the association. I think I'm ur other committees this time,
including budget. So I'm wo rom the inside out to try to
remedy some of our shortfall , tb make sure that Collier stays
stronger in what we're doing.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you.
MS. KINZ Thank you.
CHAI cDANIEL: Appreciate you all coming.
MR. � Very good, Mr. Chairman.
�'-01-
N -
R. FINN: Sheriff Rambosk and his team are up next.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Good afternoon.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Good afternoon, sir.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Thank you for the opportunity to be
here and give you our annual update of highlights and, more
Page 95
June 16, 2022
importantly, talk about the budget for the future.
Now, this morning, as I was listening to you talk about the
community and what goes into that, it's important that we, as well as
you, are a part of the health, general welfare, and quality of life of
Collier County. And we talked a little bit about your support fo w
enforcement. And I am going to recognize you and thank yo+
the years of support that you have given us, but I always do t.
So, in fact, you have never wavered in your strong rt for
law enforcement to keep our citizens safe. That's cr* ' y important
for everyone in this community to understand, bec e can't do it
without your support, without the community u rt. So in light
of that, I'm going to award and recognize each f ou with an
identification badge and a coin thanking y for your support.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Ijo hat?
COMMISSIONER LoCAST an I pull over speeders with
that, Colonel Bloom? Is that --
COLONEL BLOOM: 1�L��:�
COMMISSIONER kICUTRO: I want to know what the
authority is with this badN Can I do anything?
COMMISSIONEI�SAUNDERS: More importantly, can we
avoid getting tic ?
CHAI cDANIEL: How nice.
CO I NER SAUNDERS : Thank you.
CHA N McDANIEL: I was actually looking -- I was
look* ur star on your lapel today, and I was like, how nice.
MISSIONER LoCASTRO: Deputy Sheriff LoCastro.
As n as I walk out this door, I'll be looking for all of you out on
U.S. 41, starting with you, Bloom. Thank you, sir.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Yes.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: All right. So a point of clarification
with that.
June 16, 2022
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: That's probably good.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Everybody wants one. By accepting
that, obviously you are accepting to work always and live within the
law and the Constitution, which I know you do. So, no, don't whip it
out if you get pulled over. You could try.
I'd like to thank the new County Manager and welcome her,
although she has been here for a long time and providing a lof.Qf
great support to us and to this community. O
I want to thank Mark Isackson who has donAingtoleteachof
us job for
us up until this point and, really, each and every nt of the
county -- because we work with all of them, a
tremendous amount of programming. And I' g
them know, without their help we would 16be able to do the safety
prevention programming in this com_ mu at we are able to do, so
we thank you for that. '
Most importantly, I want to t each and every member of the
Collier County Sheriffs Offic heir outstanding work, their
professionalism, their co �nate their courageous acts. I want
p g
to recognize them for putt g -- them putting their lives on the line
each and every day.
And to giv a just one example of that, as we were sitting in
here this mo received a call of a suicidal subject inside a
Walmart 'th eapon slicing themselves up. They responded,
they did ev eescalation action that they could in a matter of
seconds, a rtunately, because it was in progress, and they were
a o take that person into protective custody without further injury
to Nm or deputies.
That is a testament to everything they do each and every day,
and I thank them for it, personally. And this is my opportunity to
thank our members in public on the record, and I'm doing that this
morning.
Page 97
June 16, 2022
I brought with us some of our members today, and I'd like to
recognize them. Colonel Bloom is with us, Chief Spell, Chief
Middlebrook, Director Estes, and Director Driscoll.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Did Esties draw the short straw
back there? What's up with that?
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: We ran out of seats, but we all
who's in charge.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Agreed. O
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Well, both Stepha$d.
ara are in
charge.
You know, our duty is simple and straigreserve
and protect the lives, property, and constitutio es of all
persons. That's it.
So you might then ask, well, of ay f, so how well have
you done? Crime and safety is pad t. You've made it that
way. Our community expects it t�ay. And in 2021, again, we
have the lowest recorded cri in our history. Moreover, 2021
versus 2020, we were do percent in Part 1 UCR crimes.
That is a fabulous place to , and that is a credit to all of our
members and this community working together to hold down crime,
because we all Atogether.
Now, thjelrk t00,1ast year UCR will be in place, so we're going
out with a an retty much. But we are looking at -- not we.
Nationally, are looking at a new system called NIBRS. It's a
Nationa met -based Reporting System. It is going to increase the
number of incidents that are reviewed, recorded, and reported. So
frorVhis day forward, we're going to maintain the old UCR system,
but we're going to get into the NIBR system. And, by the way, like
almost everything else we do, we've been working with FDLE at the
state level, and we were the only agency to be compliant with NIBRS
this coming year, because it was supposed to be put in place this year.
June 16, 2022
Nobody else is there. And, in fact, they're referring agencies to call
us to find out what the system's all about.
We're all learning, because it is very, very different, and -- but
we're going to keep both of those systems in place just so that we
know where we're at.
This year we implemented a new unified policing strate e
colonel leads that effort. And we had already expanded wA e
look at, and we included traffic besides, because we hav N an
interest in traffic safety.
So, you know, our deputies engage in heroic ch and every
day. And if you look at the last 12 to 18 mo is is how we
keep our records, they were directly involved i o er 100 actions that
saved lives of people who live in our co nity from drowning to
overdosing, traumatic emergency eve use for heart attack.
And you already know that Collie is a heart -safe community
that was put in place by Dr. Tob r &NMS years and years ago.
That pays for itself over and o d over. And, you know, we
wouldn't be able to do w o unless we had a fabulous EMS
system and fire rescue su , because they are there with us on
each and every one of those calls.
In this past r, I've recognized 24 people with command
recognitions, wit team work awards, but probably one of the
more imp an wards is called the gallantry star, and I've awarded
10 of them ear, and it's for deputies who distinguish themselves
in the duty with their courage in the face of personal hazard to
save s NNeone else's life.
V
ey are not given out very often, but in this particular time, we
have gone into submerged vehicles; we have gone into burning
buildings. We don't want to do that; fire rescue's supposed to do
that. But when there's a life to be saved, they are going to go in.
They have and they will.
June 16, 2022
So we've received many, many other awards and recognitions
I'm not even going to go over, but I'll tell you from state, local, and
national records, as we've mentioned to you over the years, we
continue to be a leader in law enforcement and corrections
throughout the state and the nation. I can tell you that. I speak �*th
the National Sheriffs Association around the country as well
around the state, and with your support and the talent we h we
have grown into an organization that I will put up again nn -- any
in the nation right here in Collier County.
We often get asked, well, you know, do you st practices?
Absolutely, we do. In fact, we have seven a agencies and
commissions that review policies, procedures importantly,
p p p y,
practice, how you do it from the national he state level. And we
believe in it, we've been doing it fo ;a e, and we continue to
increase it. L.
Two of the things that have b e ecognized recently is there
was a mock prison riot in Meat
'Ile. And our corrections team
won it. So that demonse're equipping, training, and that
we have the most professile to respond to emergencies.
Our tactical teams..vent out and won first place and second place
up at MacDill orce Base on tactical emergency response. It's a
statewide co ey won first and second place. That's how
talented y r ties in this community are.
Well, about those who respond each and every day? Well,
last y4041most 200,000 calls of a Priority 1 or 2 were responded to
b deputies. A Priority 1 or 2 is in -progress crimes, medical
enNWncies, suicidal persons. So each and every deputy that's out
there is contributing to the safety of this community and responding
in a way that you would be proud. And I will tell you that I am
completely proud of the way they respond.
So there's one more, and it really has to do with school safety.
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June 16, 2022
And it's not yet an overview yet, because I have a little bit of that, but
the largest school safety conference in the nation will be held in
Orlando in July, and the School Safety Advocacy Council will be
there, and they are going to award the Collier County Sheriffs Office
the award of excellence for their innovative, unique, and effectiv
threat management program.
So I just wanted to read to you what they said rather t114� at
we said. Here is the statement. The Collier County S s Office
is leading the way when it comes to school safety initiate s, and
their program is a model for law enforcement acro nation to
learn from and to incorporate into their own s o o ence
prevention initiatives, the School Safety Advo } c ouncil. That is
a fabulous recognition.
But, you know, the more impoVa aPf all of that is doing
everything in our power to preven � nt of any kind occurring,
particularly on our school groun s nd there are a lot of things that
we do with that. Our Youth ns deputies work it each and
every day, and they do a ely fabulous job. So we'll be
accepting that award in a weeks, and we are very proud to accept
that.
We contin have community engagement and partnerships at
the level that ha strong community support, because we are a
leading co to rary law enforcement agency, and we work hard at
it every da ne, to earn the trust of the community and of you;
and t , to move into the future and build it even better than we
h ay.
e do have some challenges. You've talked about them all
day. Recruitment and retention of professional law enforcement
officers that we want to hire and work in Collier County, because I'll
tell you, not everybody gets a chance to do that. We are very
selective, and, you know, the entry selection process often leads to
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June 16, 2022
the other end of not much to do with regard to correcting behavior if
necessary. So we put a lot of time and a lot of effort into that.
Obviously, growth of the community, all of those impacts we're
facing, just like you are. But, you know, the bottom line here
is -- and I know you are, too, but I'm committed to ensuring that r
deputies have the equipment, the training, the support, and th
leadership that's necessary to move forward, because we're ing.
Everybody knows who we are. Everybody wants to co re. We
welcome people, but we want to keep it as safe as po
And as part of that, we need to provide comp
compensation to our deputies to get them thro economic
crisis of today as well as being able to do that 1 t e ture. And
that's really -- you know, when I prepare e certification letter to
you, we took all that into account. �W e were facing future
economic issues and crisis probler regard to hiring and people
that are unable to live here. v
I'm going to tell you, fro perspective, if we're going to
recruit and select the bes them to be able to live in Collier
County if they're going to tect Collier County. It's getting very,
very difficult to do.
But my re t incorporates an adjustment to help change that,
and it's fully ZrWa Ved in the budgetary request. And we thought
we were d ing 11 until the rest of the economic fallout and crisis
came beca s you know, we're in it again.
o make you aware, I am putting in a request for a budget
a t to consider your approval for using our funds, our budget
funds, our reserves, because I want to move up that increase from
October until July 1 st. I think our members deserve it. They've
stuck with us when times were really tough, they did a fabulous job,
and now times are tough for them.
So with that, I have one last thing, and you are absolutely a part
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June 16, 2022
of this, a key part of this, and that's really about the quality of life in
Collier County, which you have done such a fabulous job with. And
you want to know why? It's not me saying that, necessarily,
although I think you have. U.S. News and World Report said it two
weeks ago, let the world know -- out of 150 metropolitan areas,
through an analytical evaluation, placed and recognized and r
Naples and Collier County in a variety of areas: Twelfth b ace
to live; ninth fastest growing. I'm not sure I like that m Ofourth
best place to live for quality of life; second best plac tire;
second best place within Florida to live. That's s omething;
and, of course, my favorite, our favorite, num o s 'est
community.
We're here if you have questions. T nk you very much for all
of your support.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: bSo tely. Thank you, sir.
Commissioner LoCastro.
COMMISSIONER LoC : Thank you, sir. Just a
couple of quick things. S is replacing UCR, correct?
SHERIFF RAMBO Yes.
COMMISSIONEI�*LoCASTRO: And we're going to keep both
online until we n ourself off of UCR?
SHERIFAiA OSK: Yes.
CO ISNJNER LoCASTRO: Across the state -- and this is
really just e spitball or guestimate, not putting you on the spot.
I kn ead the way in technology and whatnot, and that's an
e nd maybe I missed it. The other counties across the state,
is arge percentage that is -- that are exactly where we are on
NIB S and they're using both and so that, you know, the data
transfer can talk to each other county to county, or is the rest of the
state still playing catch-up and leaning on UCR and slowly
integrating NIBRS?
Page 103
June 16, 2022
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: The rest of the state is still catching up.
Most are not on dual systems. And we, our staff, our IT staff,
worked directly with UCR staff to try and implement NIBRS for the
State of Florida, and we were the first to submit live numbers.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Wow. What do you see a
timeline just going strictly to NIBRS? And, obviously, we'r
probably waiting on other counties because we don't want td� ut
ours down if they're all still using UCR, but what woul our
guestimate, Sheriff?
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Well, we were sup o be in it
already, and we were. We were compliant. ssing a year
from now.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: they compatible? Do
they talk to each other, or have you le le --
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: No. �,
COMMISSIONER LoCAST That's what I figured. So,
really, it's a workload on us to�,Vle to keep both systems updated
and equal, correct?
SHERIFF RAMBO It is. But, you know, we're not going
to do it for long. e just want to do it through the transition,
because once w rt with the first year full of NIBRS, then the
second year, e 1 b able to come and tell you how well we've
performed S - but it will be like going back to 1971. But I will
tell y4eputies
going to build that NIBRS system and show you just
howur dare.
MISSIONER LoCASTRO: Do you think NIBRS is better
thaVCR or just different?
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: I actually think it's going to be better
for us. I mean, in the unified system that Jim uses for all of the
operations, we always broadened what we looked at. So we didn't
look at just the Part I crimes we talked about, any other evolving
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June 16, 2022
events, traffic. So for us it was really not a big deal, but for some
places it is going to be a huge change.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: And in your budget you
already have everything you need IT -wise to keep both systems up
and also NIBRS fully functional, or is there more coming to us?
Because, I mean, obviously, it's a totally different system. P y
more IT heavy. Do you have what you need?
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Very IT heavy. My IT '�c r will
scream when I say I believe we have what we need. you know,
you have always told us, if we need something, al eed to do is
come back and present it, and you will revie ' 11 do your due
diligence like you do every time, and then giv s w at we need, and
working with your staff for anything we d. So we don't need it
now, but I suspect we'll learn more 4b the system works as
time goes on, and we may very w --� that help.
COMMISSIONER LoCAST So that's something that's
obviously an improvement, a logy, you know, type of
improvement.
When it comes to bo ams, you know, body vest cameras and
whatnot, obviously, we've seen a lot more use of that than we have in
years past, and i� sounds like we are fully capable and you have all
the e ui me u need.
q p Y
What o see is the foreseeable future and future budgets
coming to hat's sort of on the horizon in law enforcement
that -- you know, a lot of the new things that are on the horizon tend
to nsive -- I'm sure NIBRS wasn't cheap -- but such is the way
to e sure that we're fully -- you know, we're fully armed and
ready to protect our county. Is there something that your crystal ball
or that in your circle that maybe we're not aware about that you can
give us a little sort of a peek under the tent of some things that are
coming right behind NIBRS and right behind some of these new
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June 16, 2022
equipment type things that we've already, you know, funded to make
sure we have the best of everything?
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: There are a couple of things, but I will
start by saying this: You have allowed us to be so far ahead of what
is coming in the future. We just had one of our members go to t
FBI National Academy and sat through a technology course,+
when they asked who's doing this, it was just us.
So No. 1, we're way, way ahead, but technology w- Qbtinue to
grow. And we've got some plans coming up in the ture to
utilize that, so that will never go away.
We have a -- we are a leader in technolo us bsolute.
Labor -- labor costs I don't think are going to idle. In fact, you
know, as we grow we'll come and ask for re positions. I've got
positions included in this, in the budge t we have.
But we have everything that enforcement agencies
want to go to. We have -- we jus raded radio equipment. We
continue to upgrade our CAD&em,
We are -- in South Florida
we're the only advanced 911 live, in that area. We were
the first to text to 911. first to video to 911. You know, it's
great to go out and make an arrest, but that's not what we want to do.
We want to prey the incident from occurring. That's how you
lower your cr' ra You enable us to do that.
So to no y -- and my biggest, I almost forgot, mental health.
We, along you, recognized that a long time ago. And you're
goin o out of Uvalde what some of the problems were. And I
w' u, there's a violence study that has been done. It's looked
ba er the last 50 years of mass casualty incidents, active shooter,
and hey're coming up with some not so surprising information and
some surprising information trying to get back to what is causing all
these issues.
So I've already ordered the research report. I've had a brief on
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June 16, 2022
that already. But we've committed even in addition to what you've
given us, to look back at mental health services, partnership with the
Collier County school system, them enhancing their services, and
what has been put in place since Parkland. Because when you look
around the country, the State of Florida has implemented protect s
that many other states have not, and we've gone beyond that it�
training and mental health, training for our deputies, trainin r
principals, teachers, students, providing them equip en
The Threat Assessment Award we're about to re is a
multidisciplinary committee that looks actively, pr ely at
comments, concerns, behavior well before it t e point where
we have to go in and take action, and that's wh e aw enforcement
needs to be. They need to be proactive. ey need to be
preventative. They need to intervete it, whether it be in the
schools or out in the street. And y we have the great
community we have, with your su
COMMISSIONER LoC Just as a last follow-up.
We've said here to some oups, FTEs don't mean people. Do
you have an excessive am t of vacancies in the Sheriffs Office and
out on the street in all the key positions? What kind of report card
can you give us? ou know, you're always losing people, like you
say, to other rt nts that pay more, have a lower cost of living,
or all of th ab What's the report card on your empty seats?
SHER MBOSK: We have, any day, between 20 and 40
vacancies. -,.r
MISSIONER LoCASTRO: Does that seem excessive to
yo as that caused you concern? Is that a higher number than in
years past?
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Any vacancy concerns me, because we
plan on effective law enforcement coverage; however, I will tell you
that our staff, those sitting right here and right here, look at all that
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June 16, 2022
and ensure that we have what we need to keep everybody safe. You
know, the problem is, we -- like you, we've lost many people to the
housing lottery. End of school comes, and we invariably get a half
dozen to a dozen retirements or resignations. So we're constantly,
constantly trying and actively and successfully recruiting. But, u
know, the environment of law enforcement over the last two y
the failure of communities to support their law enforcement
driving people out of the career field. For us, with our conunity
support and your support, it is driving many people t t to come
here. But we are only going to hire the people th elieve fit
within our community.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Thank o , sir.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank u.
Commissioner Saunders.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDAca
hank you. I just want to
clarify. First of all, thank you annk you to all the men and
women in law enforcement fo g us safe and making this the
number -one safest communit
You had indicated that you want to roll the pay increases back
from October 1 to my 1.
SHERIFF BOSK: Yes.
COMM O ER SAUNDERS: And so I just want to say that
I'm fully sup o e of doing all that. I suspect that the entire board
will be, and at's -- I guess my question would be, would an
actu ent begin in July 1 st, or would it just be in October when
to ions start coming in that we would pay retroactively?
ERIFF RAMBOSK: It would begin in July, July 1st. Now,
there's a two -week -- just so that -- our people listening, there's a
two -week delay in when they get paid for that. But funding and
starting would begin July 1 st.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: So that would come out of
June 16, 2022
reserves?
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Yes, that would be our request, that
you support coming it out of reserves.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I fully support that. And
I'm saying that so that staff understands that I support it and I thi
the rest of the Board would probably agree to that amendmen ur
proposed budget.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Thank you. O
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And I just want to w ersonally,
thank you.
The -- you know, Commissioner Saunde a o e regularly
about our school safety program, and you and nt round and round
when I first got elected with regard to the ' 'tia ives that you put in
place with cooperative efforts with qu tendent of schools.
The forethinking that was put into, s -- is absolutely amazing.
And I truly believe that it is one h -- as you said, it's one of the
leading -- leading programs iuntry, let alone the state of
Florida and I ersonall r�'td thank you.
p y
As I said, you and I long discussions about it, because it was
a large amount of one?. f I remember correctly, it's close to -- it's
close to 10 milli or so.
SHERIF OSK: I think the last -- it would be close to
that, the to alp ram, not what we had asked for to increase it at the
time.
MAN McDANIEL: Yeah, no, no, exactly, the total.
-'SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Yes.
AIRMAN McDANIEL: And, you know, in scope, what's
the local government's number -one duty, number -one job? Keep our
families and neighborhoods safe, period, the end. So from me to
you, thank you.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: And if I could remind those in the
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June 16, 2022
public that may not have been here when that request was made, you
all supported it --
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Absolutely.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: -- fully and completely.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Before we go away, the myste
commissioner who's not here, Commissioner Taylor, has lit u
would like to make a statement or ask a question. 117N
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr. C
Sheriff Rambosk, we are in a crisis for housing, an , ffordable
housing has morphed into that crisis. And so my ^ on to you
would be, how important is affordable housin r ability to
recruit and retain deputies in your force?
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: I think I w d answer it this way:
Each and every business, each and eve ization throughout
Collier County is facing the same nd housing is a critical
element for us all to recruit and hi r . o, yes, we absolutely need the
support in that. As you're aw - and you've worked on a lot of
this with regard to there is so e� housing available. I know you're
working together with the �ool system.
And I don't ow die answer to that, but that's why I'm going to
leave it to you a e Board of County Commission to come up with
that answer. d ay that tongue in cheek but, you know, we were
here in 20 8, a we actually had some really good plans from
developers. on't see them back today to put in that kind of
housing, but we absolutely need housing that our employees, your
employees can afford, and to be able to live in the community that
they serve.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you.
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: And I have one last thing, because you
asked about -- I think, Mr. Solis, Commissioner Solis, you asked
about recidivism rates.
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June 16, 2022
Typically, they're done on a three-year cycle. I was able to get
two years together from 2017 to 2019. The new one will be
out -- the new three-year cycle will be out at the end of this year, so
we'll be able to tell you. But just so you have some sense of it.
Drug court recidivism rate was only 15.5 percent. Mental heal
court recidivism rate, 9.6 percent. Veterans court recidivism
15.75 percent.
So think about -- if we didn't have those services, t i kbout if
we didn't work together to make that happen, you kn here all
those people would be. They would be in our fac* ' nd it would
cost us a heck of a lot more money and angst n ti g them
sufficiently reintegrated into our community. o, y s, they work.
Thank you for your leadership and y support on that.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yea thank you for
championing those courts as well e'i, , yeah, that translates into a
lower crime rate, I'm assuming, to
SHERIFF RAMBOSK: lutely, it does.
COMMISSIONER Folks that would be in trouble and
off the street. And so, ag , thank you and everyone at the Sheriffs
Office for staying the course with all that. And it's great to see, and
those are amazi low numbers for any kind of criminal justice
effort, right, an,, in terms of recidivism?
SHE IF MBOSK: Yes.
COM IONER SOLIS: It's amazing how effective they
are.
IFF RAMBOSK: So we're hoping that the new
th - ear period will show the same thing. Again, Judge Martin,
fabu ous in this effort. I didn't thank COPS. I absolutely need to
for school safety. We do not do this by ourselves, we know that,
and, of course, thank you.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: You were lit up. Did that take
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June 16, 2022
care of what you wanted?
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: Yeah, that was it. I just wanted to
say thank you, and it's -- you know, what a return on an investment to
the community for --
MR. HN N : We can circle back around. We can ask
Dr. Yilmaz and lbs. Curry to come up and talk about the Public
Utilities Dep,4rtment.
CHA MAN McDANIEL: None of our other constitutionals
wanted to and say "good afternoon," I take it. Somebody get
ahol ax Collector and tell him I want him up here. I'm
j old b, if you're listening.
predate your indulgence earlier. You were dutifully coming
forward when it was your turn, and I swayed you off. So I
appreciate you waiting.
DR. YILMAZ: Thank you, Commissioner. We're here
24/7/365, so we don't count time. We're always on the watch. We
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June 16, 2022
appreciate your indulgence.
Good morning, Commissioners. For the record, George
Yilmaz, department head. First, congratulations to Ms. Patterson as
our new County Manager, and she has been partner to us, and we
have made a great, great team in the past. Moving forward, I thi
we're going to make exceptional team and put Collier County
map as being one of the best -run counties in the state and n
Congratulations, ma'am. n
MS. PATTERSON: Thank you, Dr. George.
DR. YILMAZ: With that, we will provide y rief overview
of the department budget. And very briefly, mended
T(S
budget meets the budget guidance establishedis board,
including our reserves levels, debt and boA covenant requirements,
and continue to maintain -- most impo ontinue to maintain
Wall Street highest credit ratings�Nch and Moody's. As
reaffirm, as good news, I want to Adewith our board, June 9th,
2022, we are still on the top 6e*ame in Wall Street.
And I think that the budget for all Enterprise Funds, as
well as General Fund, wi eet the intent of the Board priorities
established by this board as we understood individually and
collectively, an finitely will fulfill expectations of our County
Manager's O c . ,
With at, ave Amia Curry, our Public Utilities finance
director W. eak to our Enterprise Funds, water/sewer district,
irrig er quality, and solid waste District 1 and 2, and
hwaste management countywide with budget highlights.
That to be followed by Ed Finn, our Office Management & Budget,
addressing General Fund areas, mostly facilities, making sure that we
are here to fulfill Board's expectations on all constitutional and the
county government facilities to be top-notch.
We also have our chief engineer and chief engineering officer
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June 16, 2022
here. If there are any questions, he's standing by. With that, ma'am,
Amia.
MS. CURRY: Thank you, Dr. Yilmaz.
For the record, Amia Curry, the director of utilities finance for
the Public Utilities Department.
The Water/Sewer District is an enterprise fund. It's full lbw
funded by fees for services, and it is revenue centric. The
recommended budget achieves an appropriate balance o ®rating
and capital needs that supports the department missio rovide
regulatory -compliant and life -sustaining services t customers, to
perform critical asset -management -driven ca . n enance and
replacement, add expanded operational resour s eeded to meet
mission requirements, and prepare and po 'on the department for
the future.
Water/Sewer District revenu t using Board -approved
rate adjustments which cover fix St, inflationary increases, and
include 4 percent for water, 5 stewater, and 9 percent for
irrigation -quality water.
The operating budge 127.5 million includes 476 FTEs, and
it's set to produce 10 bi;kion gallons of water, treat 8.25 billion
gallons of waste ter, and distribute 5.5 billion gallons of reclaimed
irrigation-qu t w er.
Expa de uests driven by system and customer growth
include thr nversions of contract labor to FTEs, five new FTEs,
and cle.
mv apital Improvement Program of 55 million is focused on
as - anagement-driven renewal and replacement of our
$1.5 billion in aging infrastructure.
Unrestricted reserves of 3 1. 1 million represent 58 days of
operating and capital funds.
At the beginning of Fiscal '23, current outstanding debt will be
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June 16, 2022
approximately $334 million with debt service of 25.5 million in that
year.
The Water/Sewer District is proud to have achieved and
maintained the Triple A rating from both Fitch and Moody's, and we
know you understand that maintaining these investment -grade cr it
ratings benefits our ratepayers by allowing utility to borrow a �+
favorable interest rates when necessary.
Moving to the Solid and Hazardous Waste Manag
Division, it is also an Enterprise Fund. It is fully fu y fees for
services, and it maintains no external debt.
Solid waste revenues are set using Boar e rate
adjustments, which include 3.25 percent for ti i g ees, and
2 percent and 3.2 percent, respectively, fo e residential collection
assessment in Collection Districts la ese revenues support
operating expenses primarily com f costs that are driven by
contracted CPI.
The operating budget of illion includes 47 FTEs, and it's
set to provide 14.4 milli ide collections, manage about
370,000 tons of municipa lid waste, and operate five major
recycling drop-off centers that dispose of 2.6 million pounds of
household hazardous waste.
Twice- e ly collection of trash and weekly collection of
recycling d waste, those services are provided to
approxima 00,000 Collier residents.
rogram funding of about eight and a half million is
fo improvements to the Immokalee solid waste facility and
th ource Recovery Business Park. Unrestricted reserves of
15 million represent 83 days of operating and capital funds, and
restricted reserves for emergency debris removal total 9.8 million.
Now Ed Finn, our Facilities Management director, will speak to
the facilities budget highlights.
Page 115
June 16, 2022
Thank you, Dr. Yilmaz, Ms. Curry. I appreciate it.
Mr. Chairman, pleasure to address you today about facilities
management. I want to tell the Board what a pleasure it is to be a
part of the Public Utilities Department. George provides outstanding
leadership, and it's a pleasure to work over there. I want to tha
him.
Facilities Management's division mission is to deliver tS best
value management and maintenance to Collier County f, 311ies and
assets, best -in -class real property services, effective security systems
and security operations, appropriate energy mana G , timely
capital project delivery, and disaster support t 1 agencies in
county government.
The operating budget is about $20 'on offset with about a
million dollars in revenue. It inclu4e§ s, more than 20
contract employees, and an additi N8, contract security
employees.
The responsibilities for 50 -- I'm sorry. Almost
five million square feet o is the responsibility.
I will tell you -- Co m ' sioner LoCastro, you were asking about
vacancies. I'll give you an example. We have four plumbing FTEs,
trades people; t!o f them are presently vacant, as an example. As
you mi ht i fe �iere's a little bit slippage in terms of our delivery
y g �
of service 2sakult of that and other things, both demand -- demand
for service, nded square footage, and some difficulty in filling
posit'
ertainly not going to sit here and tell you that it's a crisis,
be e it's not, but it is a challenge. It's a challenge that we will
overcome with your support. But I want to tell you that the
questions you're asking about vacancies versus FTEs are perfectly
legitimate questions.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Have we been going to
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June 16, 2022
contractors when we had something emergent and maybe didn't have
the plumbing support, you know, which is usually a lot more
expensive, you know, pulling a contractor off the shelf? Has that
been our go -to?
MR. FINN: Yes, absolutely. Most of our services are bac d
up, and many of them are directly supported by contract servi I
because contract services, as you know, oftentimes are mor st
effective than having personnel on board. So it's a bal act
between --
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Sometime .
MR. FINN: Sometimes, not always. 1 e ends on the
level of expertise required. The heavy-duty C stuff
is -- typically, the maintenance is handle a contract.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRQ: tely.
MR. FINN: Major, major el switch -out is, of course,
handled by an outside contractor ose kind of things are typically
handled in that way.
COMMISSIONER RO: Yeah.
MR. FINN: So, in a event, the other question you asked,
Commissioner Lo astrq, had to do with vehicles, and I can assure
you that I do ha4,d1%Lome expanded requests in this budget. A number
of them are h niN or converting some of those contract
employee to s. The reasoning for that is twofold. The first
one is rec nt and retention. We stand a better chance of
rec ' d retaining best talents if they are, in fact, employees
rjefN contract people. Within that reason is they have been
co t employees of ours for, in some cases, 10 or 15 years. And
the other -- the other thing is, once they've been around for 10 or 15
years and/or even shorter and we've expended resources to train
them, bring them up to speed, it's kind of a shame to let them go over
a 2 to $3 per hour pay differential and/or the provision of health
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June 16, 2022
insurance or something to that effect. So it provides -- it provides
that, and it also provides a little bit of a reward for those employees
that have stayed with us for that long and have committed their career
to Collier County thus far.
Interestingly, we have a couple of additions in the project
delivery side, and one of them is a nuts -and -bolts accountings n
that's absolutely required given the workload that we have.
interesting one, however, is the addition of a planner to Qde for
some agency -wide planning capacity, not just for Fa
Management, but rather for the entire agency, wh be Parks,
Facilities Management, or whatever.
In any event, project delivery team, $42 ' 1 on in projects next
year. We've talked about some of them ady. Government
operations business park, Golden Gate urse, video -- video
monitoring system. HVAC main , of course, is a very big
one. We have a fair amount of fu g this year to get ahead -- a
little bit -- catch up a little bit ome of our parking lot repairs
that are necessary.
We've talked about t ollier County Sheriffs Office projects,
and I managed to provide a out $350,000 for some
ADA/accessibil' 'mprovements that are sorely needed.
Additio -- nd we might have a chance to talk about
this -- Fac' stye anagement's also responsible for a fair amount of
the project ery for the sales tax surtax program. A number of
prof oing to continue into '23 . The Collier County Sheriff s
9nfensic evidence facility, the Collier mental health facility,
thoNyAnpus, this campus chiller plant replacement, there's some
funding for DAS replacement, a hurricane enclosure at the ESC.
Some of the other projects that are kind of community interest
projects include the career and technical training center. That's
going to be done in cooperation with the school board. We also
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June 16, 2022
have some involvement with the Workforce Housing Trust Fund
that's part of the surtax program.
And, lastly, we have some planning and some assessment work
as well as our overlap with the golf course associated with the state
veterans nursing home project.
With that, I'd be more than happy to answer any questio
may have. -�
42
And Ms. Patterson has been kind enough to put up a is called
Exhibit A of the surtax ordinance, and that outlines i d terms the
projects -- the surtax projects. The program over 20 million.
I think that's -- I don't have my glasses on. I t 11 see it. That
is the right-hand -- right-hand column on the s e you're looking at.
Towards the bottom is $90 million w h f the
community -- community priority p1oj he middle are kind of
some nuts -and -bolts general Facil. ' nagement projects, and
towards the top is 191 million, ex s me, of Transportation projects.
The Board has seen these. T a est Transportation project up
there is the Vanderbilt D nsion. It's 70-plus million dollars.
I'll be happy to field questions on this if there are any.
DR. YILMA AAd if I might.
MR. FINN• es, sir.
DR. YI Z: Commissioners, just to clarify, that
$420 milli n i at we take in as Collier County Government.
There are �� all the way to 460 million that cities do et and
.� p y $ get,
city council decide within their jurisdiction what is best investment
and IV through -- like we do, went through our surtax committee
fu levised and fully transparent in terms of validation process.
Currently, we have 23 projects validated, and most of them have
been approved by this board. And I think that not being optimistic
but realistic, next five years we will finish every single project on that
chart.
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June 16, 2022
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I would concur with that.
Commissioner LoCastro's first.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Mr. Finn, drill down under
hurricane resilience. What are the big things under there? Are we
hardening facilities? What's in that line item?
MR. FINN: There's an effort there for generators and p Ut
lift stations.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Okay. 0
MR. FINN: There's an enclosure that's validatoS he existing
ESC.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO:
yeah.
MR. FINN: And I'm a little blind.
$8 million of that that is unvalidateq aV
some -- there has been over the
held out in order to be able to
and/or at a facility, if one is b
Toned that,
there's actually
There was
ssion that that was being
:.1.ning at various facilities
local money.
So that would
be added to the local monk M Orovide the hardening component.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Okay. The two questions I
had, the $1.4 million East Naples Recycling Drop-Beoff Center,
what's the latek
' eline on that either you, Dr. George, or you,
Mr. Finn. Is,re - what can you educate me on when, if, how?
MR. fing
I'm going to briefly speak to it. The nuts and
bolts I hae sense on the real estate, if you will. There has
been effort to find a location for that.
MISSIONER LoCASTRO: Yeah.
R. FINN: Kari has been working with us pretty steadily and
pushing us along to find a location. We've been through a few
locations. George will be able to tell you how much more time she
has at the airport location. I think there's a little bit of time, but that
is an active on the real estate side.
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June 16, 2022
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Yeah, I get asked that a lot.
And so the 1.4 is a little bit of a guestimate based on, you know,
wherever we find space. But, really, I just was curious, so what's the
latest update? Don't have a location yet but still looking. Any
other, you know, short story to where we are on that project
or -- obviously, it's finding the location first. But then what?
DR. YILMAZ: Yes, Commissioner. -""%
I think East Naples Recycling Center is past due. tt its with
real estate. We're actively looking for best real estat can find
that is large enough so that we can provide service ing the
community there, not just current. But we'v t Farms.
Southeast is our next northeast. It's just matte o ti e.
Next five to seven years, I think that 're going to see great
deal of movement where we have filia eaning rooftops
going into southeast.
So our next endeavor in term o eeting the demand, getting
ready for our quality-intellige elopment is going to be in
southeast. So everythin I
looking for southeast, including site
for water reclamation face is about, like, 250 acres plus, all
inclusive of Ed Finn's 1*ssion. Among others, go and find land that
is the beginning the program and the project. Thereafter, you'll
see us comin 1 wi project management plan, expedited execution.
CO I NER LoCASTRO: So once we find the land, you
feel like w have an accelerated build, you know, quickly?
Bec e you said, it's long overdue. So, I mean, you know, you
can it without the land but, I mean, if we found the land
to ow, are we poised and ready to, you know, accelerate, you
know, construction at whatever rate, you know, we can and with
whatever expedience we can?
DR. YILMAZ: Absolutely, sir. We're working with our
Procurement Department, and our Procurement Department has been
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June 16, 2022
very diligent in terms of being open-minded to progressive design
build, design build -- traditional design build, and everything in
between, and they are open to change orders.
Now, I'm going to briefly mention about change order, because I
came from private sector. Change orders in private sector is the
best, most efficient way of making things better in the field w'4.
paying for mobilization, demobilization, firing, hiring, or c ing
the contractor and engineer. So I think that working w' to r
Procurement Department and working with our Cler ourts,
we're going to make sure that we have a great, we rstood
up -front rules of engagement so that when w a h nge order,"
that's not a bad word. In engineering co, ru o project
management business, change order is on f the best, most effective
tools for us to expedite program prole:svit done.
COMMISSIONER LoCAST Nometimes. We could waste
a lot of money on change orders t yway, that's a whole 'nother --
DR. YILMAZ: Concur r.
COMMISSIONER RO: Okay. Totally different
subject. The last time yo d I toured the water treatment plant, I
mean, I will just sa -- end you remember me saying I was blown
away compared like, the military bases I commanded. I was
like -- I woul ve illed for -- I was just so impressed with the
polish, ho we kept them up.
I noti have a million dollars in here for membrane
repl , and I just -- I've got a long history with that just from,
y o , my previous life. When we execute that to stay ahead
an ke sure that we don't have any kind of, you know, catastrophic
failure or whatnot, will there be any change -- that's a big swap -out,
but it seems like we had enough redundant capability that if we
change a membrane in one of our water treatment plant areas, it's
invisible to the customer, correct? I mean, that was the thing that
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June 16, 2022
just surprised me is how many redundancies in the things you had
and the quality of what we had.
But I just sort of noticed that when I was walking through here,
a million dollars for membrane replacement, which is something you
have to do, you know, out of a significant amount of time and
regularly. No change in customer service or whatnot? That e
invisible behind the scenes when we swap out those membr��
true? .- mO
DR. YILMAZ: You're right on, Commissionerake
everything invisible to customer in terms of water, --,a4ty and
quantity, and I think that membrane technolo 's e oping faster
and better.
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Y
DR. YILMAZ: And we're makiuN hat we're not the
bleeding edge; we're cutting edge. tote same time, we go after the
best value.
One good news I can sha h our board is that 80 percent of
our water supply is comi ower Hawthorn and Upper
Hawthorn aquifer system is highly separated from surficial
freshwater aquifer system. What that means is that we're taking
brackish water, tre ting it to freshwater. And going into wastewater,
we're takingate rer turning it into water reclaimed to the quality
g q y
of irrigati 4ckish
quality. So in a sense, we're adding as much as
we're takin water to our system freshwater. And we have
a sayi , every day in Collier County it rains, even in dry season.
MMISSIONER LoCASTRO: No change orders on the
membrane replacement, okay? We shouldn't get blindsided by
anything. But, okay, thank you very much.
DR. YILMAZ: Thank you, sir.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I don't have any questions. I want
to thank you, Dr. George, and everybody within -- within our Solid
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June 16, 2022
Waste department -- Public Utilities Department, forgive me.
One of things that we all talk about, and you've listened to the
questions and comments that have come here today, and they're
largely instigated by the Board, by our constituents who have
complaints. What are you going to do about this? What are yo
going to do about that? You know, we don't get complaints
regularly about your department. We don't get complaints
the -- how many thousand trash pickups a day do we eff Ote,
Amia? Do you -- you said that number, and I was -- n't write it
down. Forgive me.
DR. YILMAZ: Commissioner, yesterd it s 31000.
Today is 41,000 trash and recyclable collectio I our world,
managing the risk against service, that's 4 00 opportunities for you
to get complaints. In addition to -
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL:
DR. YILMAZ: -- 40000 c mers we serve, and list goes
on. Our job it to make invisi.smooth, and thank you for kind
words.
CHAIRMAN McDA L: And one brief statement, if you
would, please, on the Northeast Regional Wastewater/Water Facility
and the rational hind that. Just a brief synopsis, if you would,
with regard tuAe e ense associated with that, the benefit to our
current us s o e system in relationship to those that are coming. I
mean, ther large misconception out there that we're building this
plant o e new people that are coming.
R. YILMAZ: Very good. Thank you for the opportunity.
Northeast Regional Water and Wastewater Plant is integral part
of our regional water/sewer district, which is about 110 square miles.
Water we're going to produce in northeast, and wastewater we're
going to treat and reclaim in northeast for that 120 square miles.
That includes all new customers and current customers within 120
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June 16, 2022
square miles. New customers include infill, increase in density, and
increase in -- through zoning processes, high-rises, low -rises. So
we're here to meet the demand district -wide. We do not build any
specific regional plant for a specific series of development. We
build it for the Collier County Water/Sewer District, 240,000
customers. lz�
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you. I appreciat%
sharing that. You and I have spoke at length about the ags, and
it's -- you know, as much as anything, it's an opportu r us to be
able to take our existing systems off-line and per and the
like to continue to maintain that invisible se t e customers
that we already, in fact, have.
DR. YILMAZ: And, Commissione , f I ight, just to give
synopsis of what we're doing. 0 ;!0
South water plant, most sout $00�lant provides 20-plus
percent of the water all the way to o and northeast.
Eighty percent of north water rovides water to the west and to
the east and to the south. tly, our northeast
customers -- where we're uilding our regional water, northeast
customers getting theirs inking water from our north existing
regional water p t. When we move to the future 10 years from
now, picture oin to be same. It's one network, one reliable
system, o qu ' y, and standardized service level.
Than , sir.
AN McDANIEL: Thank you. Thank you, all so
ppreciate it.
e you ready? Okay. We're going to take a 10-minute court
reporter's break. Be back at 2:40.
(A brief recess was had from 2:29 p.m. to 2:40 p.m.)
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: We're going to have to have a little
talk about governing my children.
Page 125
June 16, 2022
MS. PATTERSON: You have a live mic.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay. It's live now. That
probably come across, didn't it?
Okay. County Attorney, I believe --
MR. FINN: Yes, sir. Mr. Chairman, we have just two 1
left. We have the County Attorney and the Board, the Board,,
and then I'll just wrap it up a little bit with a refresher on theme
schedule. O
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And our public co t.
are some -- there were some folks that want to spe ey, how you
doing?
MR. FINN: Very good.
COUNTY ATTORNEY
MR. FINK: So the County �rney's budget is wrapped up
with the Board's budget when ' tually grouped out. And if you
happen to be looking at the t at all rolls together, there's no
change in the position counts for the County Attorney nor the Board
offices. Those two budgets are in compliance.
If you lookethe roll -up, the roll -up has some other things in it.
It includes ju 'le some overhead budgets, that is, so it includes
juvenile d en t payments, it includes the Naples CRA, it includes
centralized ' rance payments, some corporate countywide costs,
and rking -- part of the beach parking payment to the City of
N o that's rolled in there. So if you're wondering where the
in ea es that show up on that roll -up page are coming from, it's
coming from those overhead budgets, not the Board budget nor the
County Attorney's budget. With that...
MR. KLATZKOW: I hate talking about myself.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Well, we do it for you all the time.
Page 126
June 16, 2022
MR. KLATZKOW: No, that's fine. That's fine.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Which is unusual for lawyers.
MR. KLATZKOW: I talk all the time, but I hate talking about
myself. Something my parents drilled into me. Never talk about
myself. N
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: One of us could dot �+
talking. Who would like to go first?
MR. KLATZKOW: Yeah. Anyway, just briefly. 0 got on
my staff a total of 16 people: Eight attorneys, eight suort staff,
predominantly paralegals. We have four people Horseshoe
offices to support Jamie and Mr. Bosi. That' e very successful
partnership for many, many years; two attorne n two support
staff over there. A
The rest of my folks are in this.b n the eighth floor
predominantly supporting Board AiN1, and staff.
We always try to keep two n E positions, one for an
attorney and one for a suppo It allows me the flexibility
when I find somebody re ly good to just hire them. Then
somebody who's not so re , really good winds up getting migrated
out of the office, a d that's just the way we've worked the office over
the years.
So we'v ken ble to maintain the same headcount over the
years but ad>�y improve the office that way. Everything is bell
curve. I'm ays trying to shift the bell curve over to the right.
I'm open to any questions, and it's a pleasure to serve
the a , and it
a pleasure to oversee a really outstanding group of
peO.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Agreed.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: I'll just --I'll just add that the
amount of work that you get done with that number of attorneys is
beyond outstanding, I think. That's a small staff for as much work, I
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June 16, 2022
think, as we have.
MR. KLATZKOW: Thank you. I appreciate that. What I
learned a long time ago is the work quality you get from an A person,
you cannot fill with B people, and the work you get out of B peo le
you can't fill with C people. So you always try to have as many
and B people in your office as possible. So you can do more
less, it's just the quality of the people, and I've got very hi la ity
people.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Thank you.
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Ed, my, esiion is, are the -- are
the employees for the Board of Coulity issioners included in
5
the new potential merit pay progr ;,,a##,we have coming forth for all
of our county employees?
MR. FINN: My gut fee' that a no answer would be bad.
COMMISSIONER L 9 RO: They weren't.
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: They were not.
MR. FXn't
yoxere not.
COMR LoCASTRO: Yeah.
MR. Fknow. We'll be sure that they are adjusted
appropriat i .
MR. ZKOW: It is a Board policy, if that's what you
wan
AIRMAN McDANIEL: Yeah. So we'll have -- maybe
ve a discussion about that at an upcoming future board
meeting before we move into the finals on the budget just to make
sure we're treating equitably everybody.
MS. PATTERSON: If I may, we have HR working on that
now so we can provide you some information.
Page 128
June 16, 2022
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: What was the thought
process to exclude them? Too soon to talk about it? I'm just
curious.
MS. PATTERSON: I don't know what the thought process
was, but I'm certain that HR will be able to provide that informat
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: I'd be very interested
entertaining that one for fairness.
MS. PATTERSON: Sure. 0
COMMISSIONER SOLIS: For whatever it's wmy sense
of it was that past boards wanted kind of more co 1 ven though
in this instance it's probably not good. ; �
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: You know, ee again, if there's a
flexibility that's involved with, you knowOad
ain, I'm glad
we're -- I'm glad we're discussing it4a it's going to be
brought up at a time when we can ma policy decision and
give some directions, so...
MR. FINN: Terrific. nn
Mr. Chairman, I do hav a wick -- I was going to wrap up on
the calendar with you, but this would be an appropriate time to take
public comment, we can wrap up at the very end.
CHAIRM1V4'TMcDANIEL: That would be fine. Let's go
ahead and doeui public comment, then.
PUBLIC C ?�tMENTS
MR. MILLER: All right, then. Your first speaker is Becky
Kokkitos. Don't sit down, Becky. She'll be followed by Bebe
Kantner [sic]. I don't know if Ms. Kantner is still here. I'm going to
look out in the hallway for her while Becky's speaking.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: We can hear her if she is. I think
you can hear. Hello, Ms. Becky.
Page 129
June 16, 2022
MS. KOKKINOS: Hello, sir. How are you?
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I am well, thank you. You don't
have to stand on your toes. Pull the mic down. There you go.
MS. KOKKINOS: I don't usually talk like this, so...
Really -- my name is Becky Kokkinos, and I'm here to than
you for including the Brookside stormwater project in your b
In full disclosure, I work for a local legislator, but I'm not h n that
capacity. 0
I'm here representing myself and my husband. wn a home
on Holiday Lane, and we've lived there since 197 I've seen a
lot of things change in Collier County, and m o e good. The
one thing that's changed is our streets -- our ne h o hood streets
have really deteriorated, and the stormwa is ifficult to deal with.
There's been several prior plan§ f lier County to upgrade
the storm system going back as fa ast 2010, one in 2014, one
in 2020, and another one in 2022 u e just didn't quite get it over
the finish line. So it looks li e got it there now, and I just
wanted to thank you all. preciate it.
I'm well aware of the ' faculty that you have as elected officials
to choose between the Veds, the wants of all of the Collier County
residents, an4ch
appreciate your service. It is a thankless job,
and it's done lenging arena in the public.
So thgvery much for what you do. And Brookside says
t
McDANIEL: Absolutely. It's good seeing you
`SCUMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: God, who was that lady? Oh
my, God. That was amazing.
MS. KOKKINOS: Nobody ever says thank you.
thank you all.
I wanted to
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Somebody buy her a dozen
Page 130
June 16, 2022
roses.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Go ahead.
MR. MILLER: Commissioner Taylor has her hand up. I
didn't know if she wanted to comment to this person or not, sir.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: I don't know.
Commissioner Taylor, did you want to say something to �+
Ms. Becky?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes, just briefly, tOhink -- I
think Brookside should be very happy that it didn't ha"p in 2010.
MS. KOKKINOS: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Becaus t ning as it is to
see rising water coming into your front yard a t en maybe
climbing up on the front porch, we are go' to do a so much better
job coordinating with all the entities�to is a milestone on how
we go into communities. And w e ed a lot, and we continue
to learn.
So feel confident that thi t off our radar. This is priority
that we're moving forward i hank you.
MS. KOKKINOS: And Commissioner Taylor and the county
staff and Ms. Patterson�ave all been extremely responsive to the
residents' needs their concerns, and they've gone back and redone
things. And ' a IN of work. And we really appreciate it. We're
really look'ng and to the improvement. So thank you again.
CHAI N McDANIEL: Yes, ma'am. Take care now.
LLER: Mr. Chair, your next speaker is Daija Hinojosa.
Shill be followed by Ashley Jenkins. I will call Ms. Kantner one
m me, but I don't believe she's here. I'll call her at the end.
MS. HINOJOSA: Good afternoon, Board. Just for the record,
my name is Daija Hinoj osa.
I just had a couple of comments from a few different subjects.
One, the Growth Management Department stated that it's hard to
Page 131
June 16, 2022
keep long-term employees, but then he also stated that it is because
they have -- the state requires stringent licensing. But I was just
wondering, like what are the driving factors of recruiting and
retention? Is it pay? Is it workplace culture? You know, what is it
that we're not able to secure long-term employees? Because I w
that people don't leave jobs where they feel like they're happy
feel satisfied in their work, and they're also paid for their leVW
expertise and their skill.
You know, with staffing challenges it does crea backlog,
increased workload, and a huge complaint that I a ear, as I'm
sure everyone else does, is that the permitting oc i so horrible.
That's, like, one of the biggest complaints that v found with
speaking with residents.
So if we can't find the people, Uiy n is, how can we
innovate? How can we find a mote �r mlined process? If we
can't find the people, we've got t f nn a way to at least still be able to
too
deliver customer service.
The second one wa is services. I was just curious to
know more about what re ue the taxpayers can expect to see from
the parks, the library, the museum. Because as you know, when we
put a bunch of r _6 eey into these projects and these capital
p
im rovement e�got to see some sort of return on it because I
don't thi the payers enjoy paying for parks and libraries and
museums they've having a hard time maintaining their
mort their rent and things like that.
then secondly -- thirdly, I wanted to say that, you know, we
do 'v in a world -class destination center, and I think that we should
be incredibly competitive with our salary. I know we've been
talking about that, especially for EMS personnel, officers, and also
for county staff. I've talked to so many county staff, and they said
that their biggest challenge is that they're understaffed, which then
Page 132
June 16, 2022
creates a huge workload on them, which then creates more stress at
their job.
And then, two, is just their pay. And I know that's been a huge
conversation today is increasing county pay. But I think that moving
forward we have to be really, really, really, really focused on kee g
our county staff. If not, then we have to figure out ways to4tind
e.
Again, shrink down government, shrink down departments
ways that we can still deliver customer service and not ning
short-staffed. Because I know from the business wo hen you're
running two people on a sales floor in a retail a st you're, like,
on Black Friday, that's, like, literally impossi
So just something I would say to consid1,p ase. And thank
you so much for allowing me to speak. I ved being a part of my
first budget hearing, and I'm looking f JpVo learning more about
the nuances in the budget moving a Thank you.
MR. MILLER: Your next a er is Ashley Jenkins. She'll be
followed by BeBe Kantner.
COMMISSIONER Kanter.
MS. JENKINS: Th8you, County Commissioners and
faculty and staff who hwe stepped out, but for an epic presentation
from all of their departments that consciously considered asking for
the bare neceXi�jes in unprecedented times of inflation in our
country. N
On Pa of the information materials that were passed out
befor rted the meeting this morning, it stated that they were
p g capital obligations like the extension on Vanderbilt Beach
Ro nd I understand that's because you're getting another
assessment for that. Specifically, transportation networks,
improvements, and new bridges in the 1 percent local infrastructure
sales tax, and then a recall of 115 revenue bond that was to cover
stormwater infrastructure and maintain the park aquatics in many of
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June 16, 2022
the parks that we have.
In spite of having parks that we cannot pay to maintain,
incurring injuries from faulty infrastructure is simply something that
we cannot afford in Collier County, specifically to our residents, our
economy, or our precious environment.
Brookside has the clay pipes in critical condition, as we
heard this woman speak to, and they're imploding undergro6i ,
which are linked to specific county infrastructure. Thi i c using
property damage, and what will this liability of this c 1 of us as
the county when it occurs to other stormwater or ng
infrastructure in critical condition?
As you know, in October it was presente t we have
29 percent of our infrastructure in sewage at is currently in critical
condition and many approaching thit 1 resent. Vanderbilt
Road extension would be wise, pr' ilding up, ensuring that
multiple lanes are secured before lopment and growth expand in
your district, Bill.
And the $115 milli , in debt, is that really dangerous
when the cost of failing to e proactive could cost us more?
And then also when they were speaking about our beautiful
medians today, t about seeking clean options to offset fertilizer?
And I know mi
Q
ioner Taylor was present for part of the CRA
proposal f tum Growth on Monday, but she left before he
give ive�is information.
hat about infrastructure that we could do proactively that
w Acrease some things? And I didn't hear any of that today,
an maybe that's not today's intention. But I do ask the
commissioners to reconsider these cuts and reevaluate the millage
rate to be proactive.
I'm really looking at what's the Murphy's law, like the "oh, no."
We have inflation coming that we do not know or we will not see
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June 16, 2022
until it's happening to all of us. And each department mentioned
opening with retention concerns. So I would ask you, with a
multi -billion -dollar budget, especially with learning so much about
faculty in our county and our city and our school board that are being
paid 30 to 50 percent of a livable AMI, that we deeply consider t t
this budget did not allocate for that offset and we reconsider t
before you guys make a formal decision.
Thank you so much. 0
MR. MILLER: Your final speaker is Bebe Ka
(No response.)
MR. MILLER: And she's not here, sir.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: Okay. No w '1 have the -- we'll
have the wrap-up, sir. Ed.
MR. FINN: Wrap up. The big s4i dance. All right.
Everybody ready? We have --
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: ember, this is okay
(indicating). This is not ating).
MR. FINN: Ms. Pair went over the schedule for the Board
early on. I just want to brig it back up to give the Board a sense of
where we're going from here.
Our next budget actions are going to take place in July. First of
July we get t nalv-- the final taxable value information from the
Property Ap Hal r. We will roll that information into the budget.
That will h Kome slight adjustments to the ad valorem amounts,
and we wi - we will get the budget rebalanced with those new
numbers.
We will come to the Board on the 12th of July. That's an
opportunity for the Board to set the maximum millage rate. This is
common. Every year we do this. It's part of the TRIM process.
The Board is going to be asked to set the maximum millage rate, so
that would be the highest they can set for this budget year. We'll
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June 16, 2022
come to you with that information. And then a little later in the
month we will release to you the budget, the tentative budget, on or
about the 15th of July that will include or incorporate all those
changes you made.
When I talk about the maximum millage rate, the concept t e
is the Board sets the maximum amount, because we cannot g
cannot go up from there relative to state statute. That does mean
the Board can't look at that again, because they have an_ portunity
at the two public hearings in September, to adjust those m-illage rates
in a different direction than up if they elect to dos'�
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: And that's i , for the ladies
that were speaking from the public. You askes-Tv6ral questions
with regard to this process. And this -- p very close attention to
that that's up on the screen right novy. a an answer to a lot of
your questions as to when this boa i, ltimately make the
decisions with regard to revenue a penses and so ons all the way
up to our last budget hearing t i on the second Thursday of
September -- ,n
MR. FINN:
CHAIRMAN
the hammer droj?�
MR. F
attention. 2k
CHA N
the 2 e orc
EL: -- in the evening. And that's when
)er 1 st starts our new budget year.
That is all I have. Thank you for your
McDANIEL:
Anybody else have anything for
S SIONER SAUNDERS :
My only comment will be,
done, all of you, for the presentation --
MR. FINN: Thanks.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: -- and the material that was
delivered.
MS. PATTERSON: Thank you, sir.
Page 136
June 16, 2022
MR. FINN: Thank you, sir. Greatly appreciate that.
CHAIRMAN McDANIEL: You want to say something?
COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Yeah.
Amy, I just wanted to say, you know, congratulations again but,
really, to both you and Dan for stepping in at a time when we co
have never expected that our county manager would exit. A Zl�
don't need to beat that up, but you -all invisibly just stepped ' tth
4'
seats, and I think it's a real testament to what a true tea Q do, what
true professionals can do. You know, you heard me at, you
know, everyone from Crystal to other folks have b
complimentary of how you both have led fro e at and how
you've tag teamed.
Yeah, going forward after today, the a it of a change but,
like I said, take charge, and congratVia
MS. PATTERSON: Thank, uch. Thank you for your
support and the support of the st f a e move forward and over the
past year.
CHAIRMAN McD Very good. With that, we are
adjourned.
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June 16, 2022
There being no further business for the good of the County, the
meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 3 :01 p.m.
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONER
BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX
OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) CA
SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER IT��NTROL
n
WILLIAM L. McD
ATTEST
CRYSTAL K. KINZEL, CLERKS,
These minutes app oved by the Board on ,
as presented or as corrected
TRANSC REPARED ON BEHALF OF FORT MYERS
COUR17 ORTING BY TERRI L. LEWIS, REGISTERED
P IONAL COURT REPORTER, FPR-C, AND NOTARY
PDBLIC.
Page 138