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Agenda 10/14/2025 Item # 2E (BCC Minutes from September 18, 2025, Final Budget Hearing)September 18, 2025 Page 1 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Naples, Florida, September 18, 2025 FINAL BUDGET HEARING LET IT BE REMEMBERED that the Board of County Commissioners, in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as the Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing board(s) of such special districts as have been created according to law and having conducted business herein, met on this date at 5:05 p.m., in SPECIAL SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following Board members present: Chairman: Burt L. Saunders Dan Kowal Chris Hall Rick LoCastro William L. McDaniel, Jr. ALSO PRESENT: Amy Patterson, County Manager Ed Finn, Deputy County Manager Jeffrey A. Klatzkow, County Attorney Troy Miller, Communications & Customer Relations Page 225 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 2 MS. PATTERSON: Chair, you have a live mic. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Good evening. I want to welcome everybody to our final budget hearing. We're going to start off with the Pledge of Allegiance, and I've asked Commissioner LoCastro if he would lead us in the Pledge. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Please join me. If you're a veteran, hand salute, please. (The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Ms. Patterson, why don't you take us through the agenda. And before we begin, if there are folks in the audience that want to make a presentation, want to speak, if you have not filled out a speaker card, this young man over here, Troy Miller, will accept the speaker card from you. MS. PATTERSON: Good evening, and welcome to the final budget hearing for the Fiscal Year 2026 budget. We do have a series of requirements that we're going to go through tonight, and they're highlighted now on the screen. I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Chris Johnson. He is your director of Corporate Finance -- and I'm not even going to try. He's going to give you your -- he's going to give you his title as he enters into the record. He's going to get us started with the discussion on the FY '25/'26 millage rates and increases over the rolled-back millage rates. MR. JOHNSON: Thank you, Ms. Patterson. Good evening, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners. Christopher Johnson, your director of Corporate Financial Management Services, for the record. Again, I'd like to welcome you to the final public hearing on the Collier County Government Fiscal Year '25/'26 budget which begins October 1st, 2025, and runs through September 30th, 2026. I'll briefly run through this agenda as well. Tonight we'll discuss Page 226 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 3 the FY '25/'26 millage rates and increases over the rolled-back millage rates. We'll review the amendments to the tentative budget that was adopted last meeting at the first public hearing on September 4th. We're going to look to adopt a resolution amending the tentative budgets. This will be followed by the announcement of the millage rates and percent changes in property tax rates. Then that will be followed by an adoption of a resolution setting the millage rates for Tax Year 2025, Fiscal Year 2026, and finally, the adoption of the final budget for Fiscal Year 2026 via resolution. But before we get started, we'll begin with the required TRIM processes. And before we get started with the required TRIM processes, I'm going to give you one last quick outline of where we've been on this path towards the final public hearing and the adoption of the '25/'26 budget. As you can see, we're almost done. The peach is what we've been through, the yellow is where we are today, and the blue is where we're going. This all started in February with our first budget policy discussion, followed by our strategic plan priority-based budgeting workshop in March, and this was followed by the adoption of the FY '26 budget policy. This policy provided the framework for departments to build their FY '26 budget. In June, at the budget workshop, the County Manager presented the Board with her recommended budget. July 1st, we received the certified taxable value from the Property Appraiser. On July 8th, the Board adopted the maximum FY '25/'26 millage rates with countywide and unincorporated rates set at the maximum millage of millage neutral. On July 11th, the Board received the tentative FY '25/'26 budget document, which included changes from the June workshop. Page 227 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 4 On August 18th, the TRIM notices were sent to all property owners within the county. September 4th was our first of two '25/'26 budget hearings where the Board adopted the tentative millage rates and the tentative budget. September 12th was the deadline for property owners to file a petition with the Value Adjustment Board. And today we're at the final FY '26 budget hearing. Today is Thursday, September 18th. And early October, by October 6th, our office will submit the TRIM compliance package to the Department of Revenue. Any questions on the timeline? (No response.) MR. JOHNSON: All right. Moving on. This slide depicts our agenda for today, which can be found on Packet Page 7. This final budget hearing must follow specific format pursuant to Truth In Millage guidelines. Your agenda contains a specific sequence of events that will be covered. Pursuant to Florida Statute Chapter 200, the required advertisement for this final hearing was published in the Naples Daily News and on the Clerk's website on Monday, September 15th, 2025. Agenda and speaker slips are available in the hallway. Anyone interested in addressing the Board regarding the budget must complete a speaker slip and provide it to Mr. Miller over there across from me. Following some remarks regarding tax rates and changes to the tentative budget that was approved at our previous budget hearing on September 4th, there will be an opportunity for public comment under Item 1C. Item #1A DISCUSSION OF FY 2025-26 MILLAGE RATES AND INCREASES OVER THE ROLLED- BACK MILLAGE RATES - Page 228 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 5 DISCUSSED BY CHRIS JOHNSON, WITH THE PERCENTAGES OF THE PROPOSED INCREASE IN MILLAGES ARE AS FOLLOWS: GENERAL FUND 3.0107 PER $1000 OF TAXABLE VALUE; WATER POLLUTION CONTROL 0.0246 PER $1000 OF TAXABLE VALUE; CONSERVATION COLLIER 0.2096 PER $1000 OF TAXABLE VALUE; SUBTOTAL COUNTY WIDE 3.2449 PER $1000 OF TAXABLE VALUE; AGGREGATE MILLAGE RATE 3.7675 PER $1000 OF TAXABLE VALUE MR. JOHNSON: With that, I'll dive right into the required items beginning with Item 1A, a discussion of the FY '25/'26 millage rates and increases over the rolled-back millage rates. State law requires that the first issues to be discussed are, number one, the percentage increase in millage over the rolled-back rate needed to fund the budget and, number two, the reason ad valorem tax revenues above the rolled-back rate as calculated on State Form DR420 are being increased. Rolled-back rate is defined as the tax rate necessary to generate prior-year tax revenues, and this tax rate is calculated not including taxable value associated with new construction additions, deletions, and rehabilitative improvements. At the first public budget hearing on September 4th, the Board adopted tentative millage rates at the millage-neutral rate for the countywide taxing districts and the Unincorporated Area General Fund. For the General Fund, the millage-neutral rate is $3.0107 per thousand dollars of taxable value, the Water Pollution Control millage rate is $0.0246 per thousand dollars of taxable value, the Conservation Collier millage rate is $0.2096 per thousand dollars of taxable value, and for the Unincorporated Area General Fund, the millage rate is $0.6844 per thousand dollars of taxable value. Page 229 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 6 The MSTU millage rates that you see on this slide were established per policy. These budgets were established to cover the operational needs for FY '26, any planned capital allocations, and/or reserves. Tax levies for the General Fund, Conservation Collier, and Unincorporated Area General Fund together represent the majority of the total aggregate taxes levied across all Collier County Government taxing authorities for FY '26. The FY '26 tentative General Fund and Un -- sorry -- Unincorporated Area General Fund operating capital budgets, as presented, are based upon Board-adopted budget policy. Both the General Fund and the Unincorporated Area General Fund proposed tax rates are at the millage-neutral rate. Collier County taxable value has increased for FY '26 by 8.49 percent and 8.81 percent within the General Fund and Unincorporated Area General Fund, respectively. With an increase-in-taxable-value environment, the rolled-back rate will be lower than the millage-neutral rate, and this is the case in FY '26. The cumulative aggregate rolled-back rate for all county taxing authorities, exclusive of debt service, totals $3.5870 per thousand dollars of taxable value. The proposed aggregate tax rate for all Collier County taxing authorities is 3.7675 per thousand dollars of taxable value. This represents an increase of 5.03 percent over the aggregate rolled-back rate. Any questions on the millage rates before we move on to Agenda Item 1B? (No response.) Item #1B Page 230 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 7 DISCUSSION OF FURTHER AMENDMENTS TO THE TENTATIVE BUDGET – DISCUSSED MR. JOHNSON: All right. Item 1B, review and discussion of further amendments to the tentative budget. For tonight's hearing, changes from the FY '26 tentative budget adopted at our last budget hearing on September 4th are noted within Exhibit 1B. These changes result from, one, adjustments to certain funds reflecting FY '25 revenue and expense changes, which resulted in adjustments to FY '26 carryforward; this is also referred to as the beginning cash balance in '26. Two, adjustments for the transfer of funding from operating budgets to various motor pool funds for the purchase of expanded vehicles. And, three, adjustments that are necessary in accordance with previous Board action or direction. Detailed fund-level budgetary resolution changes are found within Exhibit 1B, Pages 3 to 16, or packet Pages 13 to 26. A summary of these actions is described within Exhibit 1B, Page 1 to 2, or Packet Page 11 to 12. The total gross budget changes amount to $1,064,600. Any questions on the budget changes since the September 4th meeting? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: No. Item #1C PUBLIC COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS MR. JOHNSON: All right. Mr. Chairman, that brings us to Item 1C, public comment and questions. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner LoCastro. Page 231 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 8 COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Thank you, Chairman. I had asked the Chairman if I could make an opening statement, and it might keep me from speaking a little bit more later on to just get everything out. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: In that case, go forward. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Yeah, I knew you'd support. And the reason I wanted to say something before public comment is I want people to just contemplate a little bit before you come to the podium what I have to say. It may change what you have to say; it may not. It may make what you say at the podium stronger, or maybe you have a different thought. But I want to give you my thoughts, and I wanted to do it in a full room before everybody started exiting, which sometimes is the case. Number one, I thank you all for being here. I think I speak for all the commissioners when I say you obviously care about the process. And you know, I wish the room was full, because we got 800 emails from people that certainly had concerns about the budget, but -- so here's what I wanted to say. I'm going to do something a little unorthodox tonight to set the stage for how I personally feel about our budget because I'm not looking to turn this meeting into some political rally or to read a misquoted soundbite of me in the news but, most importantly, to hopefully generate some contemplation in the crowd before everybody walks to the podium. Many citizens will be speaking in this room for the first time tonight about our county budget, but we've all met here multiple times for public meetings, dissecting the details, and considering the possibilities, unfortunately, usually to a near empty room. I've personally answered 7- to 800 emails from citizens who are on all sides of the budget numbers as well as Conservation Collier funding. Commissioners and staff have met in this room and also in Page 232 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 9 many one-on-one meetings for many months discussing the budget, just as Chris outlined. My position has not changed concerning the millage rate. Keeping the tax rate millage neutral is a huge positive for our community and reinforces our commitment to continue to utilize the current tax dollars we have and to, more importantly, continue looking for savings in areas that might be overfunded. Also to look at county services that could use any extra money saved for programs that could even better support our citizens. Instead of elected officials merely looking at where the money goes, we have all pledged to aggressively manage our current taxpayer dollars and properly invest and ensure we are doing more than just providing overwatch of these funds; that we remain aggressively hands-on and we know where the excesses are and where the deficiencies need to be improved. That said, there's also been a lot of talk about Conservation Collier. This citizen-voted-on program passed with a major majority of support many years ago and now certainly has opinions on all sides, all opinions that I feel have merit. As I mentioned, I've answered hundreds of emails on the budget, mostly comments about Conservation Collier; however, that number of emails is but a small fraction of the citizens who actually went to the polls and voted for the program. Although we might have some latitude to make changes to what they voted for, my stance is Conservation Collier is a citizen-voted-on program. Changes to it may have merit, but I don't think we're sitting up here as a monarchy making or overriding citizen-voted-on decisions. We're altering a program citizens felt they implemented and approved without change. We aren't kings who override what happens at the polls because someone has a last-minute great idea. What I believe citizens voted Page 233 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 10 for was a set program they believed wasn't adjustable by commissioners, and that was proven when we moved some funds around in the account and we received overwhelming questions and even some backlash. The truth is, we may have been in the right when you read the fine print, but the spirit of what 77 percent of citizens voted for was certainly questioned. I don't believe tinkering with the Conservation Collier millage rate at this late stage in budget discussions is our best course of action for this voter-approved program. If voters want Conservation Collier adjusted, we should send them back to the polls and give the masses voice once again for a tax they imposed upon themselves. I believe our revamp last year of Conservation Collier certainly better educated and informed voters on how the program now works and how it wasn't working. With that knowledge, if they feel the tax they voted for should be adjusted, I believe they should make that decision for a program they voted for. As I stated, adjusting Conservation Collier very well might have merit. I don't disagree that it might. But being told to do it by a representation of citizens at the podium tonight for a much larger voter-approved program is not how government should function, in my opinion. I do agree Conservation Collier might be ripe and ready for further analysis, and hopefully many great ideas and input will be heard tonight. All good things the mass population of citizens should be allowed to digest and decide at the polls, once again, if they want to take these ideas or not to make changes to a program they supported in overwhelming numbers. I am a strong conservative supporter of limiting and reducing taxes and for smaller government, and I'm doing so tonight with my millage-neutral vote at a time when we still have many financial Page 234 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 11 needs across the county; however, I'm confident we will meet those needs with the vast amount of savings we are and continue to find with our aggressive top-down review of our $2 billion county budget. However, if commissioners and/or citizens feel a reduction in Conservation Collier is another area where savings could be found or current taxation is excessive, we should give their voices another chance to be heard once again at the polls. Tonight I'm voting for a millage-neutral tax rate with no other changes at this time to any other programs. As I stated at the last meeting, in a few months we will be right back in this room albeit with much less people, I'm sure, discussing the next budget, and we could easily have a more fully vetted plan with our citizen population for this voter-approved Conservation Collier program if that is the desire. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Any other comments from the Commission before we move to some public comment? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Why don't we go ahead and hear from the public comment. MR. MILLER: Good evening, Mr. Chair. We have 14 registered speakers here in the room and three people participating on Zoom, although I think we have a couple more registered that haven't joined. I'm going to ask the speakers to use both podiums and queue up. Your first speaker is Fay Greystone. She will be followed by Michele Lenhard. I'll remind all of you speakers you'll hear a beep at 30 seconds to remind you that you're almost out of time. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Can we limit Fay to one Page 235 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 12 minute? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: You can try to. Give it your best shot, right? MR. MILLER: Fay will be followed by Michele Lenhard. MS. GREYSTONE: Fay Greystone, the Chinese redneck. Okay. All I know, I don't want to raise our tax. Look, the Golden Gate Estates, okay, Golden Gate City, the people, the cheapest one, the rent, cheapest one, Golden Gate City. You know it's not good area, okay. Twenty-four hundred for duplex, okay. It's not a big one. How could you handle it? Okay. Now, you want to raise the tax and also official people, your salaries, they're high, and you don't help the bottom people, okay. I was lucky because I come here earlier. I've been here almost 50 years in Golden Gate Estates. Same place 43 years, more, okay. So I get benefit. Cheap land. Everything's cheap. Now we've got to help young people, all the young kids, young people. How have we chance? Give them a break. Don't raise any more tax. That's it. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Michele Lenhard, and she'll be followed by Gayle Repetto. MS. LENHARD: Good evening, Commissioners. I'm Michele Lenhard, chair of Conservation Collier Advisory Committee. And I do thank you for the opportunity to comment on the budget tonight. I've written you letters during the process on behalf of the committee. I appreciate and thank you for your work on the County budget. During the budget process, as mentioned, Conservation Collier sits in a unique position. That is the only portion of the budget which has direct and overwhelming resident support via referendum on three separate occasions. Our residents realized the long-term financial impact of the program and trust in the mission to preserve land within our county that cannot be preserved by federal or state Page 236 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 13 programs, and they said yes. The Conservation Collier budget is an expression of that trust, a trust that can acquire and manage property today as well as in the future without impacting General Fund obligations. As we look at the budget this year, we ask the question, "Does Conservation Collier have enough money?" Since Conservation Collier is a long-term program with management obligations in perpetuity, it is important to consider this budget beyond 2026. It is important to meet today's purchasing goals as well as those in the coming years. It is important to save tax dollars today for the future. Already in the pipeline for '26 are 25 A-listed parcels totaling 907 acres and costing $17.8 million. That is pending your approval, of course. There are also A-listed properties outstanding within our multi-parcel project areas of Panther Walk, Red Maple Swamp, Winchester Head, and Gore. That's about 770 acres and totals $20 million. On the horizon is the upcoming Rails to Trails program at Railhead Scrub estimated to cost an obligation to Conservation Collier of 13.8 million. The first pledge is due of 6.9 million shortly. And the new target protection mailing area will also be coming before you shortly. We are excited about the Williams Farm purchase, 1,410 acres, closing recently at about $11.9 million, and we know the future may provide opportunities for other large tracts of lands. How much money does the program need? Let's focus on the future. The budget for Conservation Collier is a fund for our children, our grandchildren, as well as current and future residents of this county. People need and want to remain connected to the outdoors. It is why they moved here, and it is what drives our economy. Page 237 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 14 On behalf of the advisory committee, we ask you to support the rolled-back millage rate of .2096 for Conservation Collier and to continue a legacy of habitat protection, aquifer recharge, stormwater management, and recreational opportunities for our citizens. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Gayle Repetto. She'll be followed by Brad Cornell. MS. REPETTO: Hello, Commissioners, and thank you for working so hard for Collier County. I come before you with a couple things. You might be telling me I'm going to speak out of both sides of my mouth. So I want to preserve the green spaces in Collier County. I love the birds. I like going out on the trail, and we want to keep it wild and our water clean and our free spaces, and hopefully you'll continue, as Commissioner LoCastro said, to support Conservation Collier. With that said, the second you raise my taxes, I'm going to be right in here and say, "What are you doing? You're not good Republicans raising my taxes." So I have a little information technology background, so I thought I'll just think around here in this budget, not that I'm a CPA, but I noticed something. And I didn't know much about these municipality services taxing units, and for example, there's one. I know it's trivial in the budget. It's little Golden Gate beautification area. So that's 735,000 up to 775,000, which rolls into the final at 3 -- 3 million, and I'm like, "How could that be?" So I went to their meeting agenda yesterday, and this is Golden Gate beautification area. I don't know if you've driven down, like, Hunter and Coronado. It's not very pretty there. I don't know what they're doing with the money. But come to find out, they have two million, two thousand -- 206 dollars and 25 cents in unexpended Page 238 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 15 prior-year funds. So -- and they're budgeting spending $335,000 on new projects. So -- now I'm not a CPA, but it looks to me like this MSTU has money they haven't spent, and they're rolling it over. You have 23 MSTUs. What if all of them are sitting on a couple million bucks? Is that going to be enough money for Conservation Collier? No, but it's money that could be laying around. So that would be another thing I just wanted to highlight. But I'm grateful that you will continue to keep our spaces green and our nature wild and free. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Just one quick comment -- MS. REPETTO: Yes, sir. Yes, Burt. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: -- I'd like to make because I've been involved -- all of us have been involved in some of these MSTUs. They do collect money, and sometimes they have to collect money for several years before they can do some things that need to be done. You mentioned Golden Gate City, I think -- MS. REPETTO: The beautification. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: There's so much -- MS. REPETTO: Different from the community center. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: There's -- yeah, exactly. But there's so much planned for that community in terms of beautification, but it takes years to collect enough money to make those things happen. So that's probably part of why you're seeing some of those budget surpluses -- MS. REPETTO: Okay. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: -- in those accounts. MS. REPETTO: Thanks, Commissioner. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Brad Cornell, and he'll be followed by Heather Curtis. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel, did you Page 239 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 16 have something? COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I just wanted to also say I remember when I first became a commissioner, I was going to the CRA in Immokalee, and they had a voluminous amount of reserves, what I perceived to be as a voluminous amount of reserves. And I started chirping about those reserves, and that's when it was explained to me that they were accumulating funds for sidewalk projects over a three- and four-year period. And so I couldn't tap those reserves to take care of things that I wanted to do initially. So a little bit more investigation with regard to these reserve funds, as we go forward. I mean -- and this board, prior to Commissioner Hall and Kowal coming on board, we had a beautification MSTU for Radio Road, and it had really grown to a huge amount. And what we -- and there really wasn't any reason for it to be there. And so what we -- what the Board did is left the MSTU bounds in place, moved the tax to zero, and expended down those funds as opposed to hunting a project to go spend the money, and that's something that our staff is now doing on a regular basis that wasn't incorporated in the past. So as we go forward on these things, a little bit more investigation as to what those reserves are accounted for, you'll be able to see that they're planning a project somewhere, and they're gathering money as they go. MS. REPETTO: Thank you. MR. MILLER: Brad Cornell followed by Heather Curtis. MR. CORNELL: Thank you, Mr. Chair and Commissioner. I'm Brad Cornell, and I'm here on behalf of Audubon Western Everglades and Audubon Florida and its Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. Thank you for the opportunity to address you on your budget tonight and for your work on this. It's kind of thankless and boring work -- Page 240 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 17 COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Kind of. MR. CORNELL: -- from a public perspective. But I appreciate that -- we all appreciate that work. I also want to thank you on behalf of Audubon for your historic, strong support of Conservation Collier. You have shown that for years, and it's appreciated. Regarding the budget for Conservation Collier, Audubon wants to clarify some important factors on that program and the statement that "it is sitting on a pile of money, and funding should be cut." First, the acquisition fund is larger than usual because, until last week, there had been almost no closings on Conservation properties due to being frozen since February while investigations were made into appraisals and the appraisal process and how wetlands and listed species habitat get appraised. The second thing is, there also have been no offers made to any of the four large multi-parcel project landowners all year. Those typically are done starting in the spring but were not due to the appraisal review. And third, the large amount of funds in the maintenance fund, that's Fund 1062, is by design where it is principal invested so interest can be used in perpetuity for land management without going to the General Fund even after the Conservation Collier tax levy may end. That is not available for any other purposes except in emergencies, and that's a large fund, and it's got to get even bigger if we're going to do this in perpetuity for all the thousands of acres we're buying. It's important to recognize also that the Land Acquisition Fund 1061 is actually totaling right now, as Fiscal Year '25 ends, $22 million. The $50 million in your budget sheet includes funds that were transferred to the maintenance, so those funds, in effect, are being double counted and it doesn't imply the -- it doesn't show the Page 241 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 18 right figure for the total right now. And the tax receipts are actually $3 million less than the figure implies, and you can see that in your budget sheet if you go deep into it. The maintenance fund, 1062, is at 47 million, and that's 20 -- the $22 million is more than usual, and that's because there are about 907 acres worth of at least $12 million ranked for top priority acquisition waiting for your approval and action from the Fiscal Year '25 reviews. That's without any applications for Fiscal Year '26. So -- and as you heard from Michele Lenhard, there's a lot of plans and great projects that are going to be coming in front of you in the coming months for this next fiscal year. So we are all hopeful for many more applications to come to match the 2,400 acres that are being considered right here at the end of Fiscal Year '25 and closed on. That's a great amount. I think Lee County in 2020 only had about 600 acres that they bought this past year. So you guys are way surpassing what they're doing in 2020, which is great. We want to see that happen again this next fiscal year. For those to be successful, however, we urge the Board to keep the Conservation Collier millage-neutral ad valorem levy at 0.2096 as is proposed in the current Fiscal Year '26 final budget that's before you. So again, thank you very much for your steadfast support of one of the most important and most popular programs that this county has. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Heather Curtis. She'll be followed by Bridget Washburn. MS. CURTIS: Good evening, gentlemen. Tonight marks not my first but my second time here speaking before you. Coincidentally, it's the second time speaking on behalf of Conservation Collier. Page 242 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 19 I'm here again to ask that you respect the taxpayers' voices who again and again continue to show support for this program. Overdevelopment, I don't have to tell anyone here, is consuming and destroying water, natural spaces, and wildlife. I personally work in our tourism industry, so I am acutely aware of just how dependent we are on the money that we make via tourism. We don't have to think back very far to think about red tide and kind of the devastating effects that had on our economy. Programs like Conservation Collier are a vital way to balance growth with conservation, especially when it comes to our aquifers. I can't stress this enough, we are nothing but a strip mall without keeping these protected natural areas just that, protected and natural. Please, please, please do the right thing. Please do what the voters are repeatedly asking us -- asking you to do. Also, if we want to make some more money, this is the only downtown I've ever been in that you don't have to pay for parking. Let's start charging other people for parking if we need to make a little money. But thank you so much for your time tonight. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Bridget Washburn, and she'll be followed by Charlotte Newell. MS. WASHBURN: Hi, good evening. I am Bridget Washburn, executive director of Audubon Western Everglades. Thanks so much for the opportunity to speak, and thanks for all of your work that you do here. Also, thank you for all your historic support of the Conservation Collier program. Your support, along with that of Collier County voters, has made Conservation Collier a highly successful, transparent, and smart program for local land conservation. Over 5,000 acres have been protected by Conservation Collier. The program is a fundamental component of the county's Page 243 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 20 environmental conservation efforts. Properties purchased protect critical water resources, aquifer recharge areas that supply our drinking water, and wetlands, which is really important, because just one acre of wetlands can hold over a million gallons of water. So by purchasing and protecting the inland wetlands, we help protect our community from flooding. And as the wetlands hold water, they're purifying it, they're cleansing it at no cost, and it prevents polluted runoff from reaching the coast and our beaches where we get the harmful algal blooms and those sort of issues. Land conservation is a proven low-cost, low-tech approach to improve water quality and increase resilience. Land conservation helps make Collier a sustainable and really appealing place to live. Collier voters have had the foresight to consistently choose to invest in long-term resource protection voting to establish Conservation Collier in 2002, continued in 2006, and in 2020 in the midst of COVID, they still enthusiastically supported it. And during that period, the preserves were some of the only areas that were open to the public, so it was really important for getting out, getting some fresh air, and seeing your friends. Lands proposed for protection are needed to sustain biodiversity, and they provide ecological connections that expand essential habitat for native wildlife, including the Florida panther. The program allows us to contribute to larger efforts to protect and restore the greater western Everglades and the Florida wildlife corridor. We have established multiple partnerships to tackle these landscape-level projects, and continued funding is needed to accomplish the collective goals. Land conservation is a highly effective and long-term solution to a growing number of environmental challenges that we're seeing. So we at Audubon Western Everglades ask that you help ensure the future sustainability and resilience of Collier County by supporting Page 244 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 21 Conservation Collier at its current funding level. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Charlotte Newell. She'll be followed by Richard Schroeder. MS. NEWELL: Good evening, Commissioners. I'd like to thank you all so much for the time that you've spent putting together this budget, the time you've spent responding to emails, and the time that you are now spending listening to us talk. My name is Charlotte Newell. I was born and raised in Naples, Florida. Lived out in the Estates my entire life. And I may not look like it right now in my purple hair and my work clothes, but I'm a swamp lady through and through. I have been so fortunate to be able to travel the world. And with all I've seen, there's nowhere like South Florida. There's nowhere like the Everglades. There's nowhere like our amazing native ecosystems. And it's worth conserving, and Collier County voters agree with that. We have agreed with that overwhelmingly repeatedly for well over two decades. And I'd also like to be very clear, we -- us voters here, we're not dumb. We know -- we voted for millage rate, and so we know that that means some years the tax levels -- the tax income is going to be higher than others. Sometimes it's going to be lower. But we voted for that rate overwhelmingly. And so I would just like to ask Commissioner Hall specifically, why do you believe that you have the right to disregard the will of Collier voters? Why do you think that it's appropriate to gut a program that has 77 percent support of Collier residents and that was voted in favor of for years before you even moved here? This is our heritage. This is our home. And it's important that we continue to protect it. Thank you all so much. Page 245 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 22 MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Richard Schroeder. He'll be followed by Jay Kohlhagen. DR. SCHROEDER: Hi. My -- Richard Schroeder. I'm a retired physician. I'm glad this is kind of an ecological discussion because my beef is with the assessment I get from the Collier County Mosquito Control District. I object to the spraying of toxic chemicals like Dibrom and the pyrethroids, both commonly used mosquito adulticides, all over me without my consent. Dibrom or Naled is an organophosphate that's banned in Europe because of its concerns over toxicity. Will it kill mosquitoes? Sure, it will, just like it kills bees and numerous other small species ultimately necessary for human survival and our ecosystem. Naled is a known neurotoxin that inhibits acetylcholinesterase that's necessary for nerve-to-nerve communication. Animal studies have shown reduced brain size with Naled use, and the smallest human organism, which is the developing fetus, is particularly sensitive to Naled where studies in the U.S. have shown that exposed pregnant woman have a 60 percent greater chance of having a child with autism spectrum disorder. Our famous Environmental Protection Agency says that dietary exposure from eating food crops treated with Naled are below the level of concern for the U.S. population, but where have we heard this kind of song and dance from the EPA before in the face of evidence of fetal and childhood neurotoxicity? This reminds me an awful lot of our fluoride discussion. The other type of adulticide I mentioned, the synthetic pyrethroids, have been chemically engineered to have greater toxicity and longer breakdown times. These products use synergists, like piperonyl butoxide, a petroleum distillate, which increases its potency Page 246 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 23 and compromises the body's ability to detoxify the pesticide. These petroleum distillates are carcinogenic and linked to birth defects and other illnesses. The vast majority of sprayed chemicals go off into the environment where they bio-accumulate and cause intense eco destruction, ultimately actually hurting the attempt at controlling mosquitoes. So I object to having this stuff sprayed on me without my consent, and I certainly object to having to pay for the privilege. Thank you very much. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Can I comment on this? MR. MILLER: Our next speaker -- COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Doc -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner LoCastro. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: -- I just want to make a comment. First, I think, you know, you come here often, and everybody up here really respects your résumé and the professional way that you always present yourself. The question I have for you is, everything you say might have merit. I'm not a mosquito expert, and I'm certainly not a physician. Have you gone to the Mosquito Control District staff meetings -- you know they meet just like this -- to present this information? DR. SCHROEDER: Yes, yes, absolutely, several times. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: And what was the feedback you got from them? I'm just curious. DR. SCHROEDER: They listen patiently -- COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Okay. DR. SCHROEDER: -- and they do nothing. And I've been -- and I've -- yes, I've been to the Mosquito Control District. I've talked to the executive director. I've talked to the scientific director. They've heard this all from me several times, Page 247 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 24 and many, many other people, by the way, and yet nothing -- nothing ever seems to get done in terms of the -- the chemical -- COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Do they disagree with you that the chemicals are unsafe? I only say this because I get emails from two or three people, and they've never gone to Mosquito Control. So I'm like, okay, thanks for the three-page email, but you have. So -- DR. SCHROEDER: Yes. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: -- it's another -- it's a separate district. DR. SCHROEDER: Yes. I just wanted to make sure that -- COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Okay. DR. SCHROEDER: -- the Board of Commissioners -- the County was aware of all this as well. Thank you. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Thank you, Doctor. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yeah, thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Jay Kohlhagen. He'll be followed by Daniel Margolis. Mr. Kohlhagen's been ceded three additional minutes from Michelle Pile. Michelle, can you indicate your presence? MS. MEO: She had to leave. She had an emergency. MR. MILLER: Jay, you'll have three minutes, sir. MR. KOHLHAGEN: Yeah. I'm not going to speak that long. Hey, Commissioners. Hello. Jay Kohlhagen, for the record. Today is actually my birthday, and the best gift you can give me and the Collier County taxpayers is not to raise the taxes. We've already been hit with an increase from the school board, the fire districts, and who knows about the Mosquito Control. Families and businesses are stretched thin. I'm asking you to hold the line on Conservation Collier's millage, you know, this year. Page 248 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 25 Let's show that Collier County can value conservation with also respecting taxpayers. Please keep Collier affordable and give us all the gift of fiscal responsibility. I'd like to end this with a quote from Thomas Jefferson. "We must not let our rulers load us up with perpetual debt." Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Daniel Margolis, and he'll be followed by Nicole Rolando. MR. MARGOLIS: Thank you very much. Hi. My name is Daniel Margolis. I am a teacher at Immokalee High School. And I do appreciate -- I reached out to all the commissioners, but in particular I want to thank Chris Hall and Rick LoCastro for responding and having a dialogue with me. I think it's a great thing, and I teach my students this, like, to be involved in government and, like -- I really particularly, both of you, appreciate the honesty and the openness that you have, and it really did make a difference. So today I'm going to talk a little bit and quote an email that I have a copy of here from one of our citizens, a senior citizen that, unfortunately, for health reasons, can't be here, but I think it does highlight very effectively how concerned we are. I mean, honestly, we're in Southwest Florida. We have many retirees, many veterans. And he wrote a letter. His name is Harve Strom, and he indicated a more, I would say, long-term goal about taxes and holding the line. And some -- and I think it's a great way to really help us with long-term solutions for not having increases in the future. Dear Commissioners -- and this is from Harve. Dear Commissioners, as a long-time resident and veteran -- and veterans who proudly served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, we are deeply committed to the well-being of Collier County. Many of our Page 249 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 26 senior citizens are living on fix incomes, and we are concerned that property tax increases will create serious financial hardships for year-round residents and families who have built their lives here. We respectfully propose an alternative approach implementing a new homebuyer's tax applied to those purchasing properties in Collier County whether at full-time or seasonal -- seasonal residents. With a substantial amount of new development, including numerous large-scale projects and high-rise buildings, this measure will provide a reasonable -- a reliable source of additional revenue without imposing future strain on established residents. Given the significant profit sellers often realize from rising property values in our area, this policy will help ensure that the costs of growth are shared more fairly. We believe this approach better balances the county's financial needs with the protection of its seniors and veteran populations, Respectfully, Harve. So I agree with this -- Harve very strongly. This is a way for our senior citizens, ourselves, to hold the line in the future. Obviously, at some point, the -- as they say, the -- you know, the bill's going to become due, and this will hopefully, you know, stop that from happening in the future, and I hope you would consider it as well. So thank you. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Daniel, just a quick comment just -- because I think it's important for the public to -- that doesn't participate here on a regular basis to understand. We are limited by Florida Statutes in terms of what our taxing abilities are, what we can actually tax. There's no ability to simply say to a new homeowner, "You're going to have to pay X more dollars in taxes because of -- you're a new homeowner." Now, they do have to pay taxes based on their assessed values of the property that they're building or buying. But I do want to emphasize, we have, in Collier County, some Page 250 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 27 people think this is a great thing, some people may not like it. But we have, I believe, the highest impact fees probably in the state. So a new homeowner building a new home here pays their fair share for water, sewer, parks, law enforcement, roads. Every type of public service, there's a fee that is -- that reflects the cost of those services based on the new resident. And so we do what we can to charge new residents -- MR. MARGOLIS: Okay. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: -- a fair amount. That's similar to what you're saying -- MR. MARGOLIS: Yes. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: -- but perhaps not to the same extent. But that's similar. MR. MARGOLIS: Okay. No, no. That's great to know. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: And we even -- we're very much limited in even the level of our impact fees. MR. MARGOLIS: Okay. Okay. Can I counter that? MR. MILLER: No. MR. MARGOLIS: Okay. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Nicole Rolando, and she'll be followed by Patricia Whalen. MS. ROLANDO: I am Nicole Rolando, and I thank you for all the work that you've performed for us, and especially Commissioner LoCastro. I agree with his position. And I would like to have everyone confirm that they will not change -- they will confirm the -- I'm sorry. They will not do any changes to the proposed budget as proposed on September 4th. My position was that I was very disappointed if you're considering reducing the millage rate from millage neutral. I'm also disappointed if you're thwarting the will of the electorate by reducing the millage for Conservation Collier, as it was approved by a Page 251 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 28 70 percent majority, and I hope that you will vote against that amendment. You will get a tax -- if you should vote against it -- vote -- you should get a tax credit for reducing property taxes in the last two years and not increasing them this year, but you will have to face the difficulty next year by ignoring the wishes of the established voting population. You must think about what happens this year and next year. I doubt that you can make a promise of not raising the millage for Conservation Collier back next year. You've already established that you only want to keep millage constant or reduce them. If you do increase, I suppose it will be hard or impossible to not reduce the General Fund millage rate if you want to keep the millage neutral for '27 versus '26. You've been warned about the impact of multiple years of rolled-back millage via the Marco Island example, as noted by Commissioner Saunders at the September 4th hearing. You must not consider this amendment. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Patricia Whalen, and she'll be followed by Donna Aden. MS. WHALEN: Good evening. My name is Patricia Whalen, and I would just like to clarify that tonight there's not going to be any discussion of the potential closing of the Vanderbilt Beach public library; is that correct? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Well, there may be some discussion concerning the library. It's part of our budget, and that's what we're here to deal with, so there's always that potential. There's nothing specific that's been brought up in reference to that. I believe right now everything is status quo with the -- MS. WHALEN: With the library? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: -- library. MS. WHALEN: Okay. Because I have a proposed speech. I Page 252 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 29 should save it for January when it may come up again? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Well, this is our budget hearing. If you've got a speech on that, this is your opportunity. MS. WHALEN: Okay. Then hang on one second. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: And, Troy, why don't we start her three-minute clock over again. MR. MILLER: As you wish, sir. MS. WHALEN: Okay. My name is Patricia Whalen. I'm a year-round resident of Pelican Bay and a happy patron of the Vanderbilt Beach -- Vanderbilt Beach Library. As you probably already know, me and about 4,000 other -- others have signed petitions imploring you to keep the Vanderbilt Beach public library open. It's terribly disappointing if, in fact, tonight you are considering impacting the library system budget by closing the Vanderbilt Beach Library. It's previously been established that the library provides a vital service to people who have chosen Vanderbilt Beach Library as their library of choice. It's not only people who live near me in Pelican Bay that use the library but people from all over that -- all over the county that come and use that library. It's the -- it's the library that they can drive or safely walk to. It's the library that mobility-challenged folks can easily access. It's just a jewel among our libraries. But remember it's not just a library that we're talking about. It's also the place where you can -- obviously, it's a place where you can get a book, but it's a place where you can use a computer, use a printer, make copies, send a fax, read the Wall Street Journal or other print media. For relaxation, you can actually sit down and work on a jigsaw puzzle. For many, it's really more like a community drop-in center with fabulous librarians who are happy to assist you with everything you Page 253 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 30 need. For older patrons like me, it's a safe place to go. For young moms, it's a safe place to take their kids. For the folks in Naples Park, it's the only library that their kids can either walk or safely bike to. Even thinking about the Vanderbilt Beach Library I hope is totally premature because the Library Advisory Board, together with many of the dedicated patrons, are currently working to find alternate revenue streams to reduce the library's reliance on property taxes, but these efforts will need some time and the County's support to implement. If the Vanderbilt Beach Library is closed, it's my understanding that pursuant to the deed the library will revert to the Pelican Bay Foundation or, if they approve an alternative use, the County may do that. But the library will be gone forever. Finally, before you even consider closing that, you would have to -- I think you would have to have an advertised public hearing specifically advertised saying that you are going to close the library. And just remember that a library's not a luxury, but it's one the necessities of life. I use it all the time. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Donna Aden. She'll be followed by Kathi Meo. MS. ADEN: Hi. Good evening. My name is Donna Aden. Thank you, Commissioners, for all your hard work. I suppose things could be worse. We could all be discussing cutting costs to organizations, promoting DEI musicals, and transgender operas like the DOGE in the White House. I would like to begin with a quote by James Madison: "But what is government itself, but the greatest of all of reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be Page 254 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 31 necessary." History shows governments designed by humans to govern humans are fallible. Madison understood inherent flaws of human beings and recognized the necessity of checks and balances to ensure order and justice. Now, while I thank and commend the people who had the foresight and good intentions to create the Conservation Collier committee, we should also remember the old saying: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." As taxpayers, we have an obligation to ask the stewards of our hardworking money where it is going and how it is being used. With that in mind, I would like to highlight a few of the pending acquisitions on the Conservation Collier's website that, quite honestly, at first glance I found a bit questionable. You can find the first two examples on the Conservation Collier 2024/2025 Active Acquisition List. Lucarelli, five acres priced at 500,000 an acre, totaling 2.5 million. Berman Trust Parcel 1, five acres priced at 65,000 an acre. Berman Trust Parcel 2, 1.59 acres priced 88,000 an acre. So I ask, do these small parcels of land have gold or oil? What justifies spending this type of money, taxpayer money when the average cost of the other acres on the active acquisition list range from 5,000 to 25,000? One such example which seems reasonable is Williams Farm with 1,410 acres priced at 8,946 an acre. A few other questionable applicants, which thankfully did get denied, had small parcels less than an acre asking over 2 million an acre. How does anyone justify asking taxpayers to purchase an acre of their land for $2 million? I refer you back to James Madison's quote. "If men were angels, no government would be necessary." While I commend Conservation Collier for their preservation Page 255 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 32 efforts, I would encourage them to focus on its mission of acquiring and preserving vital and significant natural lands, forests, wetland communities located in Collier County for the benefit of present and future generations rather than small parcels of land that benefit only a few individuals. I would like to -- I would like to remind Conservation Collier that the citizens of this county entrusted you to use our money wisely. With that being said, I encourage the commissioners to spend more time looking at the money budgeted to Conservation Collier and how it is being spent. There definitely needs to be more oversight. I plan on attending their upcoming meetings and encourage other citizens to do the same. MR. MILLER: Our next speaker is Kathi Meo. She'll be followed by John Meo. MS. MEO: Good evening, Commissioners. Thank you for your voting in the past couple years to keep our taxes down, and I'm here to ask you to do it again. As you know, we were very vocal last year regarding this Conservation Collier situation. Conservation Collier has a lot of money in the bank, and with the higher interest rates that have been in the past several years, they definitely can use that interest money to cover all the expenses that they have. For many years, they hadn't bought a lot of property. I know that Commissioner LoCastro says, you know, it's cleaned up now. It's fixed up now and so forth, and they're buying better lands. But they have bought a lot of swamplands. It costs the taxpayers and the county a lot of money to maintain those swamplands that is not usable by the public, which was the original intent was to have trails, parks, exhibits, things for the people's benefit, not swampland that just costs all of the money in perpetuity to just sit there, and we have to clean out all the weeds. Page 256 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 33 So the original intent of this Conservation Collier referendum that was voted on by the voters -- and a lot of people, we have talked to them, who voted on that referendum, they had no idea what it really entailed. They thought it was all going to be all beautiful land. They didn't know it was going to be swampland, which so much of it is. So I'm asking you again, you can -- and it says you can -- up to -- you can spend or give up to .25 millage. It doesn't say you have to. It's not a given. And the people that come up and talk about, "Oh, don't take it away." No, nobody's taking it away. It says it can be up to .25. So I agree with Commissioner Hall with the .1. That will still give them 7 million plus 15 million in the maintenance fund. Millage rate neutral is still a tax increase. So it doesn't mean -- you know, people say -- think that millage rate neutral is not going to increase your taxes. No, it will increase your taxes. And I appreciate your return email, Commissioner LoCastro, but you're talking about tinkering with Conservation Collier, not supporting that. But tinkering, you know, it's, again, up to 2 -- .25 and up to 10 years. So I hope we do get to vote on that very soon so we don't have to deal with this situation every single year. Thank you very much. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is John Meo. He'll be followed on Zoom by Marsha Oenick. MR. MEO: Good evening, Commissioners. This is nice coming here in the evening rather than in the morning. I'm not an expert on land development and that such, but my understanding, just a quick overview, is Collier County is -- and you guys can correct me if I'm wrong -- the largest county landmass in the state of Florida. And just from a quick update of what we use for development and what we don't, 75 percent of the land in Collier Page 257 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 34 County is considered non-developmental [sic] which is protected through preservation programs. For instance, the Rural Lands Stewardship Area of Eastern Collier County, approximately 75 percent of the 185,000 acres is protected in perpetuity. So my emphasis of coming up here is not to dispute the millage, not to dispute that. Is just to make maybe a 30,000-foot overview that my belief is that Collier County, with 75 percent of that county non-developmental, it's a pretty good county, and we've got quite a bit of our land already preserved that will not be developed. I understand the fear of some people that it will be overdeveloped in such a way that it will look like some other counties in the state, but given the fact that these programs are in place right now -- and they're in place for perpetuity, which means some other Board of Commissioners can't come up here and change that rule. If 75 percent of our Collier County is already preserved land -- I understand the voters voted. And sometimes the impression when people come to the microphone is that you guys are thwarting the will of the people, and I don't think that's presented as truth. People are -- always want to keep their towns and their communities beautiful, and I think the reality is they voted for that thinking that's what they were going to do. But now that we understand that already 75 percent of our Collier County is already preserved land, not taking away the total Conservation Collier funding, but at this point reducing it somewhat, based on what some other members -- some other speakers said, you know, that we are at a point where we're really overburdened with taxation. So think about that, all of you. If 75 percent of the largest county in Collier County is already non-developmental, meaning you can't build on it, it's preserved, I don't even understand why this is an issue here today. But you guys can hash this out. Me, I'm always for Page 258 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 35 reducing taxes, and I will give kudos to all gentlemen up here because you've done an extraordinary job in keeping taxes down. I wish some of the other boards in this town would follow your lead. But thank you very much. I appreciate all you do, and we will see you soon. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: John, I want to make just one quick comment. And I've brought this information to the Board on a couple of different occasions. The State of Florida produces a report. I've got a copy on my desk. MR. MEO: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: It's buried on my desk somewhere. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: You don't have anything on your desk. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Actually, I think Dade County might be slightly bigger than Collier, but not by much. MR. MEO: Okay. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: But there's always that debate. But this book outlines in every county how much land is in public ownership, whether it be the state, the federal, local governments. Actually, Dade County has a higher percentage of land in public ownership than Collier. Dade was about 70 percent, and Collier was in the upper, like, 68 percent. So you're close, but not quite as per this book. The reason I mention that is Dade County has more land in preserve. The county's about the same size as Collier County, and they have, what, three and a half million, four million people there. So when you start looking at all of those statistics, I think it's important to know that we're not really overburdened when you look at the amount of land that's available for development. We don't ever want to become a Dade County, but we have developable land that could result in that if we let it happen. And so I think the statistics Page 259 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 36 are very important. MR. MEO: Well, if I'm allowed to just respond to your response, is the land that we're buying -- because my understanding is the land you're acquiring from these various owners is not buildable or usable land. Am I incorrect with that? COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Yes, you're incorrect. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I believe that you are incorrect, and I'll give you a couple of examples, and perhaps our staff can help out a little bit. But we're purchasing a lot of lots and all in Golden Gate Estates. Now, there may be swampland, as has been described, but the owners can build up to one unit per five acres, I believe. There's some areas where it's one unit per two and a half acres. The most rapidly growing area in Collier County is Golden Gate Estates where all that swampland is. So, yeah, it's mostly developable. COMMISSIONER KOWAL: Can I just clarify? I think he means once you purchase it in Collier -- in Conservation Collier, it is no longer buildable. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: That's correct. COMMISSIONER KOWAL: That's what -- I think that's what he's saying. So you're adding to the 70 percent or whatever every time we buy something. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. COMMISSIONER KOWAL: That's what I think he meant, not that the people could build it before a purchase. Everybody has the right to build something if they want to put the money into it. MR. MEO: Well, listen, I appreciate it. Thank you so much. MR. MILLER: All right. Your next speaker on Zoom is Marsha Oenick, and she'll be followed by Molly DuVall. Marsha, you're being prompted to unmute yourself, if you'll do so at this time. There you are, Marsha. You have three minutes. MS. OENICK: Okay, great. My name is Marsha Oenick. I live Page 260 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 37 in Naples Park. I extend my thanks to all of the county departments for developing a budget consistent with the approved budget policy, as this policy put a squeeze on the departments to enable a salary wage increase for employees, which is great, while limiting their overall budgets to a 3 percent increase and a 5 percent increase for their capital budgets, but they did it, albeit with a number of projects that are unfunded. I extend my thanks to you, Commissioner, for your -- Commissioners, for your careful examination of the county's financial situation, and I am very glad to understand you are accepting the proposed budget which keeps millage rates neutral. I request that any cost savings initiatives identified by ResourceX, as they continue their work, be utilized to cover the currently unfunded projects that can't be included in the 2026 budget, even with keeping millage rates neutral. Thank you very much for all your work, and thank you for letting me speak. MR. MILLER: Your next speaker on Zoom is Molly DuVall, and she'll be followed by Susan Nelson. Molly, you have unmuted yourself. You have three minutes. MS. DuVALL: Thank you. Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Molly DuVall. I was a resident of Collier County for 11 years. I'm here to ask you to honor the will of the voters and continue funding Conservation Collier at the full voter-approved millage rate. This program is not an end-of-budget-year source of excess funds for borrow. It exists because of a voter directive for a strictly defined use. In 2020, over 76 percent of Collier County's voters chose to tax themselves at a .25 millage to protect the wetlands, wildlife corridors, Page 261 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 38 and unique wildlands that define this county. That overwhelming majority were clear: Prioritize conservation and give this program the tools it needs to do its job. Commissioners, stakeholders, and residents worked together to create a program where management costs stay below the annual interest earned on a program account, allowing core work to be covered without touching the principal. Acquisition funds were meant to accrue so that when large high-priority parcels came onto the market, the County could act quickly to protect them through a rigorous criteria-based screening process. That vision is now at risk. Development is advancing faster than ever at the edges of our preserves. Caracara Prairie Preserve now stands shoulder to shoulder with the Kingston Development, and the Nancy Payton Preserve is holding the line for panther denning, science, and urban wildlife corridors. To cut funding now is to abandon current and future successes, to watch irreplaceable habitat disappear while the County turns its back. Collier is already behind. Over 25 Florida counties have programs exactly like Conservation Collier overseen by commissions. Manatee County, which passed its referendum the very same year as Collier in 2020 has already put nearly five thousand acres into permanent protection since then, more than Conservation Collier has been approved by commissioners to acquire in its entire history. The difference isn't voter support. The difference is commission votes and moving the acquisition process forward to protect critical lands. And let's be honest about management budget. This program has been run on a shoestring. A handful of expert staff operate out of an unventilated shipping container with four trucks, two trailers, two Page 262 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 39 zero-turn mowers, yet are responsible for thousands of acres, prescribed fire, exotic species removal, wildlife surveys, education, hunting access, and volunteer coordination on behalf of the county. Meanwhile, this board has diverted funds from the program account with promises to repay; promises not yet fulfilled. Even fully funded, Conservation Collier has been chronically under resourced. Cutting further now would be devastating. Commissioners who vote to slash Conservation Collier millage are signaling that wetlands protecting us from hurricanes and flooding are not a priority. That expanded hunting access for and youth families is not a priority. The preserves which provide health, recreation, and attract nearly a million visitors annually are not a priority. That the very wildlands that make Collier County unique and livable are expendable. I've never met one -- I've never once met a person standing on a Conservation Collier preserve who said, "I regret that we acted to save this land years ago." What I hear time and time again is the opposite. "I wish we could have saved that land when we had a chance." You only get one chance to protect land before it's bulldozed. And once it's gone, it's gone forever. Thank you. MR. MILLER: Your next and final speaker is Susan Nelson. Susan, if you'll unmute yourself. There you are. Susan, you have three minutes. MS. NELSON: Hello, Commissioners. Your constituents support Conservation Collier by a wide margin. Thank you for respecting the wishes of your constituents by supporting Conservation Collier at its current level. What may look to one person to be a swampy area, maybe not very beautiful, is a thriving ecosystem for animals, and it supports a wide variety of wildlife. So again, thank you for leaving Conservation Collier at its Page 263 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 40 current level. Good night. MR. MILLER: And that concludes our public speakers, sir. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We'll close the public hearing. Ms. Patterson. MS. PATTERSON: Mr. Johnson. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Mr. Johnson. MR. JOHNSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At this point I would suggest we open up the floor to the commissioners' discussion of the millage rates and budget. Before we do that, I just want to go through this slide real quick. This slide notes the voting requirements for the different taxing districts. You'll notice that the General Fund, Water Pollution, and Conservation Collier, which are the countywide funds, require a majority vote. On the other side there, there are a few districts that would require a supermajority vote: Victoria Park, Lely Golf Estates, Bayshore, Avalon Beautification, Haldeman Creek, Vanderbilt Waterways, 42nd Avenue Southeast, and Pelican Bay. And then there is one district that requires unanimous vote: Private Road Emergency Repair MSTU. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I'll turn it over to you. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Commissioner McDaniel. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yeah, just -- I just want to make one point. It was represented earlier on -- somebody made a comment. With these independent MSTUs, even though most of them are in the unincorporated area, they're not paid by everybody within the unincorporated area. When you read this -- we read it all the time. We look at it all the time -- it looks like the tax rates, total of 3.765 -- or .6775, and Page 264 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 41 that's not the case. If you don't live in the Victoria Park Drainage District, you're not -- you're not paying into that MSTU, only the folks in that geographic bound. Am I correct there? MR. JOHNSON: You are correct. Each one has its own geographic boundary. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Did you write down that he said I was correct? Okay. I just wanted to make that very clear, because you brought up the Golden Gate Beautification MSTU, and only the folks in Golden Gate City actually pay into that MSTU, and that's how these things work. It looks -- it looks -- the way this looks, it looks like everybody pays into it, but it's not, in fact, the case. The top three, General Fund, Water Pollution, and Conservation Collier are what everybody pays, and then the individual MSTUs are proportioned by geographic bounds. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Kowal. COMMISSIONER KOWAL: Thank you, Chairman. I made this statement at the last meeting, and I know this was the meeting to actually bring it up. You know, we always talk about millage neutral, and we talk about rolled-back. And I had the opportunity to meet with Chris a few times and talk about, you know, all -- the budget policy levels that, you know, our staff had brought to us at the beginning of the year, what -- which I think ended up being around 5 percent overall and what they feel would be a good mark to operate. So we did some number crunching and did some different millage rates that meet us at that middle mark -- or meet us at that mark where we feel the budget moving forward, you know, by policy rate, would put us. And it lowers the millage rate from millage neutral a little bit, but it doesn't take us all the way to rolled-back. And even at that rate, the Conservation Collier would make about Page 265 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 42 $2 million more than they did last year. You've got to remember, we've -- at this time -- even at this rate -- just to put this in perspective, since me and Commissioner Hall have been on the Board, prior to that, pretty much Collier stayed at millage neutral for 14 years. We got to the point where the Board, the last couple years, and we all decided it was time to start giving a break to the citizens because of what was going on in nature of the rest of the world and, you know, the cost of living, everything else going on, and we did the rolled-back two years in a row. And just by going the millage -- budget policy level at the 5 percent at these millage rates, over those three years, we would have saved the taxpayers $272 million. That's to put it in perspective. So that year prior to us being on the Board and us getting together and doing what we did, this year, if we pass it at that rate, I'm proposing, it would save the taxpayers over these past three years -- $272 million over these past three -- that's basically our public safety budget, like, not even paying it. So that would -- how much it saved already. So when people tell me going back to rolled-back is raising taxes, to me, you're still behind the eight ball. It's only $16 million difference from what I'm proposing. So in reality, instead of saving you 272 million -- or it would be around 284 million, or whatever, -87 million. But you're looking at 272 million savings right now in taxes over the past three years. So that's a pretty big number. Now, if Chris wants to kind of give the Reader's Digest of what I'm proposing. MR. JOHNSON: So, Commissioner, I believe -- bear with me one second here. I believe this is what you're talking about here. This slide shows you the policy variances. So in yellow there, you Page 266 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 43 have the budget policy dollars. That's based on that 5 percent over last year's rate which was the rolled-back rate. You have the current year rolled-back dollars there that are in the green. That would have been 507.7 million, the delta there of 11 million, and then you have the millage neutral where the tentative budget currently sits at the 535.2 million. So that would be a reduction from the current budget of 16 point -- we'll just round it up to $5 million -- 16.5 million. And I believe, Commissioner, you were talking about each individual rate going down? COMMISSIONER KOWAL: Yeah, just the countywide -- MR. JOHNSON: Okay. So if you -- COMMISSIONER KOWAL: -- being at a -- MR. JOHNSON: To do that, this is -- this is what that would look like, Commissioners. You see here in the -- in the blue column, that would be, then, the new proposed millage rate for each of the taxing authorities. So the General Fund would go down to 2.9180. Water Pollution to 0.0238. Conservation Collier to 0.2031. Total reduction of all of them is .1. And here's the numbers associated with that. In the blue would be the tax dollars associated with that. COMMISSIONER KOWAL: So it's only a difference of 11 million from rolled-back? MR. JOHNSON: From rolled-back, correct. COMMISSIONER KOWAL: Yeah. COMMISSIONER HALL: It's more than rolled-back? COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: No. MR. JOHNSON: It's collecting more than rolled-back, correct. It's over -- it's over rolled-back. COMMISSIONER HALL: And 16 million less millage -- less than the millage-neutral rate? MR. JOHNSON: Correct. When you look here, you'll see the Page 267 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 44 16.5. COMMISSIONER KOWAL: And I know that a lot of people, you know, they're coming forth with, you know, gas prices, electric bills going up, and all these things. And the reality is that the County's still has to run -- they have to buy gas for, you know, our vehicles and diesel fuel, and we pay electric bills just like anybody else. So in reality, our expenses go up, too. And if you go millage rolled-back to that exact number, we're almost to a def- -- touching a deficit when you start thinking about what the costs for us just to operate are going to be. And that's why I feel -- you know, I was voted [sic] to look at the number, and if I have the ability to lower the number, that's what I'm going to try to do, and that's what I tried to do by doing this. But I throw it to the wall, see if it sticks. I mean, my fellow colleagues up here, if they believe in it, they think it's possible, then, you know, it's another option. And I'm sure the other commissioners will have their own opinion on what their options are. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Hall. COMMISSIONER HALL: Thank you, Chairman. So I said in the September 4th meeting that I wanted to fund our full budget just like it sits with all the capital reserves, all the needs of the county, all the needs of the people, and I wanted to do it without raising taxes. And two years ago we started our data process with ResourceX. And like I said then, they've done a good job of allowing us to focus on other sources of income, partnerships on the income side of our budget. They're just now beginning Phase 2, which is the -- what they're going to call viable options for us to pick and choose from for cost savings. And I agree with Commissioner McDaniel, we're not going to cut our way -- we're not going to cut our way into a balanced budget, Page 268 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 45 but that can help. We're going to take a look at our government and see where our redundancies are. See where our inefficiencies are. See where we can actually make cuts and do things a little smarter and not just business as normal. So with that in mind, the only way that I knew that we could do that to fully fund our budget without raising taxes was to take a look at some -- to be creative with some of the accounts. I'm not -- I'm not the Conservation Collier boogeyman. I don't care what the paper says. I don't care what -- you know, what the news says. There's -- I've got some fiscal common sense, and I'm going to explain that in very good detail tonight. If your value on your assessment, on your property, if the value increased, then us charging you the same rate that we did last year is going to cost you more money. That's going to be a tax increase. That's -- millage neutral will be a tax increase if your value went up. If your value didn't go up, you're going to pay the same as you did last year. If your value went down, you're going to pay less. But I don't know of anybody here that their value went down. So I -- just keep that in mind. And so we have three choices to fund our budget as proposed. We have three choices. We can fund the budget with creativity, we can fund the budget with cuts in spending, or we can do a combination with spending -- making spending cuts, being creative, or allowing other sources of income that we're not maybe aware of yet to come into our budget to balance that. I don't want this to turn into a Conservation Collier meeting, and every single speaker, you know, I understand your -- I understand your passion. I'm the same way. Who doesn't want a county to remain beautiful and conserve what's good about it? Who does not want that? I certainly want that. I certainly support that. And it's been said -- you know, you asked me, why do I feel like I can come in and, you know -- I've been here 10 years. I'm here Page 269 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 46 because it's beautiful. I'm in office because I cared and I wanted to make a difference. I'm fiscal responsive -- responsible, and what makes me think that I can do that is because I am responsible with the taxpayers' money. I'm not cutting the program. I'm not killing the program. If we go a year and don't fund it fully like what you're saying, the developers are not going to come in and take over in a year. They're not doing that. I'm going to take a point in time and be creative with some money that's available to balance our budget and not cost the taxpayers, who are the vital many, not cost the vital many money to satisfy the trivial few that love their program. The program was voted on. It is popular. And we want to do everything we can to uphold that. I fully support the will of the people. I fully support the program. I love it, but at the same time, I want to share with you why I've taken the liberty to make this proposal. The original intent of Conservation Collier was to buy and preserve land in perpetuity for conservation, to keep it undeveloped, to keep the developers out of there. It was to provide parks. It was to provide trails for the people in valid public use. And in the first 10 years of the program, we had the properties that came forth. It was the low-hanging fruit. It was the Pepper Ranches. It was Caracaras. It was some of the bigger properties that we purchased in -- that came available, and we purchased with those funds. In the second five years, or in the second referendum in 2020 when we voted it in, we are still subject to willing sellers. So here's the numbers. In the first 10 years, Conservation Collier spent $103 million for 4,000 -- for basically 4,100 acres. Since the second referendum in 2020, we've purchased 2,310 acres. 1,410 acres that was closed on today with Williams Ranch spending a total of 33 and a half million in acquisitions. Page 270 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 47 So that's basically 136, almost 137 million since the beginning of time with Conservation Collier for a total of 6,400 acres, which, if you consider the amount of Conservation Collier land that Mr. Meo mentioned, there's 888,505 acres of acres in conservation by the state and the federal government. We've purchased 6,404 of them in 15 years, basically, which is .7, not even 1 percent, adding to the conservation of what's available in Collier County. So it's not that -- it's not that I'm trying to kill a program. It's that that money that's collected in that account -- it's not a funding issue, people. It's the ability to spend that funding. And you're -- and it's been said that we've made the process burdensome to purchase properties. No, we had to stop the program and reconsider the way we were doing things. We were buying these little wetland lots out in the Estates, and the purchases of Conservation Collier were actually creating the comps for the next guy. We didn't -- we weren't creating conservation land. We were basically being a great exit strategy for people that couldn't use their land. And whether we purchase those lots or whether we don't purchase those lots, they're still in conservation. The animals are still out there using it every single day whether the title belongs to Conservation Collier or the title belongs to the landholder. We're not stopping anything. So what my proposal was was to take a point in time, which was 2026, and to take -- we were $25 million short in meeting our budget goals. The budget increase was $38 million. Of that, we had 13 million in new taxable revenue from new properties. So that leaves us $25 million short. If we go to millage neutral and fund everything, just like we could, Conservation Collier would have $121 million in their account; 62 million of that will be in the maintenance fund. And Page 271 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 48 right now we're living great on the interest in the maintenance fund. We're not dipping into the maintenance capital on operational maintenance with the exception of if we have to build a parking lot or a walkway or something like that. We'll use the capital funds. But that's not very much money. So the maintenance fund is happy. It's creating interest, and we're living on it, and that's good. Out of the 121 million that's in Conservation Collier, I just wanted to use 25 million of it this year to keep from raising the taxes on the people. Let Conservation Collier have a smaller millage rate that would still put seven more million this year with that millage in their account. And I promised you the last time, I only wanted to do this to allow our process to works, to allow ResourceX with the Phase 2 to come in. I'm not bent on this. Commissioner Kowal has a pretty good idea. But I just promised that I wouldn't raise the taxes on the people. And I did say I'm smart enough to know we can't go roll back forever and ever and ever. We're going to have to finish our process with our budget, get the bones where we want them, and then we can operate that way year after year after year. I would be happy to go .25. And that's the only reason why I brought this up. Almost half of the property that we've purchased -- a little over half, 57 percent of the property that Conservation Collier has purchased, only 57 percent has public value. The rest of it is just there. Troy, can you show that -- can you pop that map up that shows -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: While he's getting that, someone has their phone -- it's not on vibrate, and I keep hearing the ding from messages coming in. So if you could silence your phone. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That's the ding in your ear. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: It's a computer? Okay. It's the Page 272 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 49 same thing that you get on -- COMMISSIONER HALL: Did anybody else hear that? COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That's your natural ding. COMMISSIONER KOWAL: I heard it, but it sounded like a computer. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I didn't hear a ding. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. If you can silence the computers, then -- COMMISSIONER KOWAL: Silence us. COMMISSIONER HALL: I wanted you to see this map, because in the green is all of the areas that state and feds have. It's 68 percent of our county is in preservation. And if you can blow that up a little bit, Troy. There's some new acquisitions. Everybody can see the Williams Ranch up there in the dark purple. That happened today. That's a great purchase. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Amen. COMMISSIONER HALL: Really good -- really good purchase for Conservation Collier, 1,410 acres at 11.9 million, good buy. I'm proud of that one. There's another one right there, Symphony, right here in the middle of the screen. That's a new acquisition. There's another one, a smaller one, Hendricks, is right there on the highway. Those are brand-new acquisitions. But if you take a look at the red, you can see Pepper Ranch at the top, large acquisition. Good property in the beginning. But the rest of them are piecemealed around -- there's no rhyme to reason. And if you can blow up the North Meade or blow up the Gore properties, you can see where we're talking about. We're trying to get the -- there's some in Panther Walk right there. We're trying to get the infill, but we're -- if we could just eminent domain the whole thing and go buy it and keep it in conservation, we'd do it, but we can't. We're subject to willing buyers. We're subject to the Page 273 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 50 people who want to sell their property to the program. So nobody's stopping the program. Nobody's trying to slow it down. We're just trying to operate smarter. But I wanted you to see what the people are talking about. If you could come on down a little bit farther, Troy, and show the -- no. Up -- yeah, go up. Right there. The North Belle Meade property and the Gore property, we're doing our best to try to infill these things, but even if we're not infilling them, the property that we don't own still has the very same value as the property that we own. The animals, the water, everything's flowing right through there just like it's supposed to be. These properties are difficult. Everybody can build, but the properties are difficult to build on and require a lot of mitigation. That's why they're not -- that's why they're not being targeted for development. So I want to -- I'm going to sum this up. Anything that the news is saying, that I'm trying to kill the program, that we owe the taxpayers to get to .25 mills, that if we borrow money, if we don't -- we're not borrowing money. We used 29 million two years ago of Conservation Collier's money, and Conservation Collier has never missed a lick. Hasn't even missed it. It didn't even -- you know, one caller whined about us not paying it back. I never promised to pay it back. Not one time did I even hint that. So we have these grids that ResourceX shows us, and they're broken up into quadrants, and there's one called "high cost, low impact." And Conservation Collier, if it was just a government program, would fall into that. It's very high cost, 137 million. We've only purchased 6,400 of it; 6,400, which is less than 1 percent of the total conservation area in the county. But it's not a county function. It's what the voters voted for. But I think if the voters knew the frustrations that we feel with the ability Page 274 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 51 to spend that money, I think they would understand why I'm just taking a point in time for 2026, wanting to take 25 million of that account, balance our budget, let our process roll out, let us get to the efficiency that we need without costing the taxpayers the extra money. So what's more important? You know, first, before I say that, there's been some comments to me about, "Well, I feel like if we do that this year, then we're never going to get Conservation Collier funded again." I've gotten feedback from several conservation people that that's been said. Commissioner Saunders was concerned about it in the last meeting. I don't want to bother this account. I just want to take point and time and do that this year, get our budget balanced. Next year maybe we can be a little bit smarter with our budget policy without just -- you know, we've funded our budget every year. We've never really gone to staff and said, "Make the cuts." We've funded all the needs every year, and we've done it the last two years with the roll-back. I think we can do the same thing this year without being a burden on the taxpayers. So what's more important? Support for a program that's a great program that is subject to willing buyers and is -- and is subject to the market that's not responding as fast as what we would like or burdening the people who have been hit with inflation, school board taxes? I mean, I think it was Jay that said it, fire districts, and all kinds of other cost increases. I know that we were -- I know that the Conservation Collier was voted on by the people, but so were we. Every one of us up here was voted on [sic] the people to manage and to steward well the monies that come in here for public use, and that is the only reason why I'm making that proposal. It's not to kill a program. It's not to be a turd. It's not to do anything other than have the -- have the will of the Page 275 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 52 people and what's best for the majority of the people. We still have all the conservation we have. All of the properties that are not for sale are still operating the same way with the panthers in them, the water flow, everything. The only -- the only change would be for 2026. Now, I've committed to you not to bother it because I think we can get our processes done in that time, and I'll be pushing to get those cuts and processes done. So thank you for listening to me. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Hall, let me ask you a quick question so I can understand what you're -- COMMISSIONER HALL: Sure. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: -- proposing at this point. I think I understand what -- I do have the same -- sort of the same question for Commissioner Kowal. You had talked about reducing the millage rate for Conservation Collier to .109, or whatever the number was. COMMISSIONER HALL: I think it's lower than that. I think it turns out be .0453 or something like that. MR. JOHNSON: And if I may, Commissioner Hall, I just want to clarify, because you were -- you were talking -- I pulled up this. This is the current tentative budget tax levy. You were speaking the 25 million. Did you -- is just the General Fund offset, or are you talking about all the countywide offset? COMMISSIONER HALL: I was just speaking about -- there's a figure down there, $25.4 million, something like that. I was just rounding. General. MR. JOHNSON: Because that's just -- that's the General Fund. COMMISSIONER HALL: Yes, sir. MR. JOHNSON: Okay. So that -- if you'll bear with me, I've got to flip through some slides. That would reduce the millage to 0.0553. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. Whatever the millage rate Page 276 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 53 would be, just a question to make sure I understand what his proposal is and what Commissioner Kowal's proposal is. That the -- you would go to millage -- rolled-back millage rate, but to accomplish that you would take that out of Conservation Collier's millage rate? COMMISSIONER HALL: Supplement that for the year. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. So then if we roll the clock forward, and we're into the next budget cycle, the only way you could restore Conservation Collier would be to raise the overall millage rate for the county. COMMISSIONER HALL: That's -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We generally try not to raise millage rates. That's -- COMMISSIONER HALL: Well, it's -- or to put it back if this year's millage neutral, to put it back to where it was to .2086. I'm willing to do that. I mean, that's -- it's the will of the people to keep that program rolling. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: So we would go back to the current millage rate at that point in time. COMMISSIONER HALL: That would be fine with me. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: As a potential. All right. And, Commissioner Kowal, your suggestion is to go back to the guidance -- the 5 percent guidance, no specific reduction in Conservation Collier. COMMISSIONER KOWAL: Any one. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: It would be whatever that number would be? COMMISSIONER KOWAL: Yes. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: So it would be something probably less than .2 mills at that point, but it would be very close to that. COMMISSIONER KOWAL: Yeah. Right now it's .2096. It would go back to .2031. Page 277 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 54 CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yeah. Okay. COMMISSIONER KOWAL: And it's still going to make almost $2 million more even at that rate than it did last year. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I think one of the comments I'd like to make and then listen to the other commissioners as well. I have supported -- and to support today the going back -- or staying at millage neutral. And I realize that that's a -- for our residents, that's up to a 3 percent increase in their Collier County tax bill. It won't be a 3 percent for everybody, but it will be no more than 3 percent. And the reason is that we have -- we've been trying to catch up with some tremendous needs that this county has. Our backlog in our facilities maintenance, Ms. Patterson, what is that -- kind of that number, ballpark number for just where we are in terms of a backlog in maintaining all of our buildings, all the infrastructure that we depend on? Just a ballpark. MS. PATTERSON: We -- it's hundreds of millions of dollars, and we're attempting to get our arms around five -- CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Hundreds of millions is not very descriptive. Is it 200 million, 300 million? Just, again, ballpark, but -- COMMISSIONER HALL: More than one. MS. PATTERSON: Unfortunately, I can't even give you a better ballpark. We have over five million square feet of buildings that are aging. This building alone is almost 50 years old and is at the end of its useful life. So if you think about this building and replacing this building -- something similar would be the forensics building or David Lawrence. And you know each of those buildings alone are $75 million buildings. So if you look at it in that magnitude -- and I'm not saying they all need to be replaced, but we're talking about air-conditioning systems, roofs. And so the Board has charged us with doing not only Page 278 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 55 this space utilization study but also the space conditions. And when we -- when we begin that process, then we're going to be able to come to you with better answers. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. So we'll just leave it at hundreds of millions of dollars in that particular area. Stormwater management? MS. PATTERSON: Three hundred million. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I'm sorry, 300 million? MS. PATTERSON: Three hundred million. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I know we're looking at the potential for some sort of a utility, a stormwater utility. But again, just looking at the shortfalls that we have. We're getting ready to buy a new radio system for all of our law enforcement and for everyone. That's another 60 million, $80 million. MS. PATTERSON: Yeah. There's a range of costs on that from 30 to 80 million depending on the kind of bells and whistles and the system. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. If we go to the 5 percent number as guidance, where would that leave us with reserves? Because right now I know our reserves -- if we are at millage neutral, our reserves will be somewhere around 22, $23 million. If we go to rolled-back, that number drops to 6 or 7 million? MR. JOHNSON: Correct. It will be around 7 million. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Which is not a number that we should be at for reserves. But at 5 percent, where would be? MS. PATTERSON: Twelve million. Right, Chris? MR. JOHNSON: Correct. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. And, of course, we can also say, "Well, there's money in the bank for Conservation Collier, and we can always use that. If we have an emergency, then we can take Page 279 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 56 our reserves out of that." But again, that's cutting into Conservation Collier. MS. PATTERSON: If we had an emergency like Hurricane Irma, we would take every bit of the money out of Conservation Collier and still need all of the reserves we have and probably have to go into capital projects. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: And so I support staying at millage-neutral because if we continue to cut our millage rate, we're going to wind up -- and I said this at the last budget hearing -- we're going to wind up in the same place that the City of Marco Island's in. They were looking for a 30 percent millage-rate increase. They've reduced that to, what, about a 22 percent millage-rate increase for this fiscal year. I don't know what their ultimate decision was. MR. JOHNSON: Last I heard, now they're looking at millage neutral. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. I don't know how they're doing that, how they go from -- MR. JOHNSON: I can't answer that either. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: -- 30 percent millage increase to now they're going to do millage neutral. But they've created a problem for themselves, and we're doing the same thing. And I'm very sympathetic with the fact that our taxpayers are being overburdened. Our school district has -- I don't know what their increases have been over the years. They've been lofty. But at the same time, we have an organization and a government that we have to fund and we have to run. And so I believe that sticking with millage neutral is the way we should go at this point. Commissioner McDaniel. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. These are some interesting propositions, Commissioner Kowal Page 280 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 57 and Commissioner Hall. I made a comment at the September 4th hearing, and you brought it up again today. You know, we've all been in business ourselves, and at the end of the day, you know, you can't cut your way to prosperity. My suggestion this year is to stay at rate neutral, to take the spread between rolled-back and rate neutral and move it into reserves, into this new account, the 301 account, our Capital Asset, Replacement, and Maintenance Fund. That fences off that money. It doesn't go to become discretionary expenses. It's put over there. Staff has to come to the Board of County Commissioners with specific projects which we could dictate measurables and milestones and have accountability for the utilization of those funds. When I came into office in 2016/2017, there wasn't even a 301 account ever. Collier County -- we are sitting on in excess of $2 billion worth of assets. I just learned this year, though it was shared with me, that those 2 billion-plus worth of assets were being entered into the system to do an actuarial account to show the useful life and show the ongoing maintenance and show the needs of what was, in fact, going on. That hasn't actually been being done. When I came into office, all of us dutiful taxpayers paying our taxes, there was a billion dollars, with a b, billion dollars of deficit capital projects on the front page of our budget that hadn't been tended to. Now we, much to my chagrin, enacted a sales tax, increased the sales tax, and through the efforts of those sales tax collections, laid off $590 million, a good portion of it. Some of those things were spent on things that weren't attributable specifically to capital assets and ongoing maintenance. There's still in excess of 300 million in latent maintenance that we have out there with our capital assets. That was a known number that was shared with me quite some time ago. Page 281 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 58 CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: What was that number? COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: In excess of 300 million. It was 360 million, and I would venture a guess we're somewhere in latent maintenance that we, in fact, have out there. There is a proposition of a stormwater utility fee that's coming forward, and if you'll recall, I was quoted in the Naples Daily News when they were still printing it, and that was the first time I'd ever seen the word "tax" spelled f-e-e. When this new utility comes forward, there will be an offsetting reduction in ad valorem to be able to maintain the -- or the expenses associated with it but fenced off revenue that are specifically attributable to stormwater. We have in excess of 300 million in stormwater, both capital and maintenance -- latent maintenance that we're shy on. My proposition is that we do -- this year we stay rate neutral. Commissioner Hall, we step on ResourceX. One of the comments that you made -- and I want to give accolades to our staff, because when -- you know, when ResourceX came out with their first report, they represented that was some -- they could effectuate somewhere between 86- and $150 million a year in savings, and that was through cost reductions and re-appropriations. And you and I both know that re-appropriation means something's getting cut while something's getting funded. And they had a lot of fluffy things in their report talking about our philanthropic efforts and so ons and so forth. Not much of which I bought. Our staff, if I'm not mistaken -- and, Chris, you correct me. I think you've already said I'm correct once today, so let's hear you say it twice. Oh, I've been right twice? Okay. Outstanding. Our staff grabbed onto 40 million of expense reductions out of that initial report, if I'm not mistaken, we were able to actually reduce expenses by close to 40 million. Page 282 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 59 MR. JOHNSON: It was a combination of their insights; reducing expenses and other sources of revenue. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay. So we did do something. COMMISSIONER HALL: Insights, yeah. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Sir? COMMISSIONER HALL: Insights, on the income side. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That's correct. But those are real dollars. Those are real -- those are real savings that were effectuated by having ResourceX. For the first time ever, by the way, has a third party ever looked at how Collier County's doing its thing. We have never had anybody else other than our staff looking at these numbers. I think we need to review our fee structures, our user fee structures for our assets that we, in fact, have. Those haven't been touched in an eternity. I don't know the -- different ones have been touched at different times, but I think we need to review our fee structures on the patrons that are utilizing our public facilities. I think we need to review the ordinance of Conservation Collier. By policy, Conservation Collier's requisite is only 25 percent of the collected funds are reserved off for maintenance. I would like to see that -- and I know this year we reserved it up to 50 percent, because we're actually seeing the reality of what we have going on, but it's not by policy. It was by choice. That was our staff that, in fact, effectuated that. And I would like to see us have a look at that and move at least 50 percent of the collected funds into reserves for ongoing maintenance, minimum of 50 percent. I think we need to have a review of all of the Conservation Collier holdings currently that we have. There were a lot of pieces of property that were bought just because they were there. We cited -- and I'm not going to name them off right now, because that Page 283 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 60 will turn the apple cart upside down. There's a lot of property that we own at Conservation Collier. One of the requisites of Conservation Collier, needs to be accessible by the GP, by the general public. And we have -- my last count, there was in excess of 18 or 19 of them that you couldn't even get to. So -- but we need to have a look at maybe disposition of some of those assets or reutilization of some of those assets for the public benefit. Savings from ResourceX need to be specific. I would like to see specifics on what their recommendations are as to what we can, in fact, cut out of our expenses as we're going forward. My tally on our last two years' worth of efforts in moving Collier County off of the rate neutral to a rolled-back rate cumulatively are in excess of 160, 150-some-odd. MR. JOHNSON: For the last two years, it's 152.6. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And that's cumulative -- MR. JOHNSON: Correct. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: -- for going to rolled-back for the past two years. So all in all, wrapping it up, I have those suggestions specifically with Conservation Collier. I have those suggestions specifically with our user fees. The savings -- I want to see specific savings effectuated out of ResourceX in this next report. That's something that I feel we really need to be looking at, and that we move the money between rolled-back -- oh, I do have one other point that I want to make, and it has to do -- we have -- basically we have two budgets. We have an expense budget, and we have a revenue budget. If I'm not mistaken, the expense budget that we put forth and then dictated or gave policy to our operation was based upon last year's expense money equal to what we spent last year plus three and five. Three on O&M, there was an increase, and five on capital. Page 284 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 61 MR. JOHNSON: Correct. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That's -- I've been correct, like, four times. So it's important to remember that we're holding -- we're holding expenses. We're holding our -- we're holding our costs back, but we also need to fund our reserves. It's imperative that we fund our reserves. These 2 billion plus worth of assets have an enormous amount of ongoing maintenance. It's as simple as what we -- what we do in a condominium association or even at our home. You have a 50-year building with a 20-year roof and 10-year windows and two-year paint and a one-year parking lot. You budget to put away X amount every single year so that you can fix, repair, and ultimately accumulate the capital that you need to replace that asset when it's reached or surpassed its useful life, and we haven't been doing that as an organization. We never did it. Until 2018/'19. When did we set up that account, do you recall, plus or minus? MR. JOHNSON: 2020. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay. 2020 is when we actually realized that we need to start accounting for those 2 billion-plus worth of assets. That fund, it was represented to me, needed to have about $25 million a year put into it out of the -- out of the tax revenues collected in order to support the ongoing maintenance and then ultimately have accumulated the capital necessary to replace those assets when they reach their useful life. So my vote for today for this year is stay at rate neutral, take the spread between rolled-back and rate neutral, and plow it back into that 301 account, the Capital Asset, Replacement, and Maintenance Fund. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. We've been at this for Page 285 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 62 two hours. Terri's beginning to look a little frayed there. Why don't we take a -- I know, Commissioner LoCastro, you've got some comments, but why don't we take a break. We'll come back at quarter after seven. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: 7:15? CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: 7:15. (A recess was had from 6:56 p.m. to 7:15 p.m.) MS. PATTERSON: Chair, you have a live mic. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Thank you. The meeting will come back to order. Mr. Johnson, or -- I'm sorry, did you want to -- COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Did you want to say something, Chris? Did you have an opening comment? MR. JOHNSON: I do not, Commissioner. I was just going to move us on to the next item, unless you have some comments. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner LoCastro, you're recognized. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: I mean, I was listening to everyone and sort of wrote down a few sort of random thoughts that I think maybe piece together -- at least, you know, give you my perspective. I mean, I hate to say that I don't know that Commissioner McDaniel was right four times, but we'll check the record. But he sort of summarized very similar. I mean, you know, here's something I wrote, you know, before he said it, so at least we're -- I think we're a little bit in sync. I think we have a great opportunity to continue to save taxpayer dollars, but I need to see some -- and I said this at the last meeting. I need to see some actual specific real savings from ResourceX before we make too big of a muscle movement. You know, I live on Marco Island, and I saw the effect of Page 286 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 63 multiple years of big muscle movements that they were all proud of. And I'm not here to critique that. You know, at the time -- you know, people are critiquing that really hard now. At the time, I can tell you citizens were cheering it. Nobody was, like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute." I want to make sure that we're -- you know, I understand how to do the numbers as well, and I think we all understand finance here. But I want to make sure we're as prudent as possible. Some of these muscle movements here -- I sat down with you as well and with a sharp pencil and a calculator, and when we banged out all these different fractions, I said, "So if I own a $500,000 house, how much does it save me?" And your answer was, "Fifty bucks." So that's real money, okay, and it all adds up to big money. But one thing I think is very dangerous is when we say something like, "Oh, we need to save the taxpayers $200 million," or we throw a number out there, that's then money that doesn't go somewhere else. So it's old, you know, visual of the balloon. We squeeze it on one end and we're all happy that we saved the taxpayers 200 million, but now we don't have the 200 million for something else. It's not like we're printing money in the basement and we just gave them free money back. It means we have a delta somewhere. And you and I talked about some of those deltas, and some of them really scare the be-jesus out of me. And citizens that don't do as deep of a dive as we do on a regular basis may not realize that. Citizens on Marco are realizing that, that they have bridges to rebuild and roads to redo and actually might not have the funds. You know what the largest parcel of swampland in District 1 is called? It's called Fiddler's Creek, okay. So swampland can definitely be built. So we've got to make sure we're really prudent and careful in acting like everything is, like, unbuildable, and it will Page 287 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 64 just live forever in perpetuity. Anybody visit Marco Island in 1910 or 1920? I mean, nobody thought it would ever turn into anything, and now parcels of land, an acre of land out there is -- I say "acre." It's not even an acre. Half an acre -- millions. So, you know, I just say that as a comment. You know, there's some broad statements that are made that actually are a little bit, you know, misleading. I'm not here to be champion or the guru of Conservation Collier, but some statements made that Conservation Collier, their mission is to buy land to create parks and trails, that's actually not 100 percent correct. Their mission is -- and if we need to bring the Conservation Collier team back up here -- their mission is much broader than that. So we do buy stuff that will never be a park, never be a trail, but it preserves areas where there's wildlife that's in jeopardy, where there's a large amount of panthers, and by having that land and preserving it in perpetuity -- we've bought land that had water that cut through it. So it allowed for water to get from Point A to Point B, and we all patted ourselves on the back that we bought a small parcel of land that connected to other parcels. So their mission is much more complicated than just "Let's buy land and turn it into a park." And, oh, by the way, if you turn it into a park, then you're certainly not helping the taxpayers, because who's going to pay for that park? So a lot of the land doesn't change much at all -- or in most cases the big maintenance fund -- is to take that land, and because there's a lot of wildlife, some of it that is -- I don't want to say close to extinction, but threatened, and it allows it to thrive in those areas. So I'm not the Conservation Collier guru, but the people back there that are, I would expect that you'd be sort of, you know, nodding your head. We've saved some things on Marco Island that won't ever get a trail, won't ever become a park, but because it's filled Page 288 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 65 with X number gopher tortoise now, you know, they don't have to be relocated and whatnot. So, you know, enough of that. I'm not trying to give a lesson on Conservation Collier, but it's much more than that. I feel we'd be overstepping our role prematurely as government. I can appreciate what's said up here. People vote for a program. They also vote for us. But I'm also for smaller government and not stepping over voters and telling them that I'm smarter than them because my calculator works a little bit better. I agree with all the math that's been talked about here. I think our job as elected officials is now to educate the public and maybe have them go back to the polls with more knowledge and see if they agree with us that you can punch out the math in a few different ways, and maybe it's a great program, but it shouldn't be at a millage rate that it's at. I think that's our job, not to sit up here, like I said, as a monarchy and say, "Well, we know more than the voters." Maybe a lot of people who voted for Conservation Collier didn't know the exact numbers, but our job, I think, is to inform citizens and then they vote. If this wasn't a voter-approved program and we had the latitude to manage it the way that we do all the other funds, then I think that would be our role. When it's said, "Millage neutral still increase the taxes" -- I get this a lot in Marco Island. You can't have your cake and eat it too. So if your property goes up in value -- so if you sold it, you'd make more money, but then you're upset you have to pay higher taxes. You can't have both. So millage neutral isn't raising your tax. Your property value going -- your property going up in value is what increases the tax. So, you know, that's thrown around a lot. "Wow, millage neutral, we're still putting a high tax burden." My house is worth three times what I paid for it on Marco Island now. I'm paying a lot more tax on it not because the elected officials Page 289 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 66 are gypping me or charging me more, but it's because my property value is higher. So I feel, you know, with staying millage neutral, it's something a lot of counties aren't doing. So I think that's a big muscle movement that is a positive, you know, for our citizens. And I think, you know, when we're sitting in this room, what, in a few months, I think we can go a lot further as well with some of the math that we heard up here today, especially when we have a little bit more specifics in our hand from ResourceX. Because every time we save 100 million somewhere, that means there's a delta of 100 million that we don't have at our disposal, and that concerns me greatly, especially with some of the things that I've seen. So yeah, in closing, I -- you know, you and I sat in my office and had eight different versions of slides, same as you did, you know, with everyone else. And for me, you know, playing around with the math this soon, especially when I know we have some significant deficiencies in the county that maybe the average citizen doesn't see every day, our job is also, you know, not just to give money back to the citizens, but to do it prudently and smartly, especially when we know we're -- you know, this isn't the only 50-year old building in Collier County. And we have some funds that get exhausted real quick when we have an issue. But I think we have real opportunity here. I just think a huge muscle movement right now is a little premature. But this is all great math for our next set of meetings, which are just in, you know, a handful of months, so... CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Just on a couple of points. You know, I do agree 70 -- I didn't vote for Conservation Collier, by the way, just so you know. I'm not certainly opposed to conservation by any stretch of the imagination. Page 290 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 67 If anybody knows where I live, you know that I'm a huge supporter of conservation. But it was voted on by the electorate, and I do feel it my responsibility to our job, as you referred to it, Commissioner LoCastro, is to ensure that the expenditure of those funds is done prudently and effectively. Commissioner Hall, you brought up a point earlier on that we diagnosed and went through the appraisals and found out that our purchases were being used as comparables for those -- for those lands. And we corrected that, as least -- as far as I know we've corrected it. At least we slowed down the purchases and are having a wider perspective as to what we are, in fact, paying for the lands that Conservation Collier buys. What I would like to see us do going forward -- you know, I know that it really isn't -- hasn't been as necessarily effective as I wanted for the Board to be working year-round, but I want this board -- I want our board to take a harder look on a departmental basis. I lobbied for years and years and years for a zero-based budgeting process. We engaged ResourceX on a priority-based budgeting process, but we haven't gone through -- and I think that's where we may be able to effectuate even greater savings at some point in time by -- by using our additional meetings that we have during the summertime right before these budget hearings transpire to actually bring departments in and go line item by line item through the budgets and have discussions with the relevancy. And I don't mean to say that the expenses that are proposed by our departments are not relevant -- but have a discussion as to whether or not the relevancies, in fact, therein warranted for how we perceive those expenses to be done. I love the rural lands -- rural lands -- RLSA, the Rural Lands Page 291 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 68 Stewardship Area. I think it's one of the most innovative land use plans that has ever been effectuated. It has set aside -- of the 200,000 acres in Eastern Collier County, it has set aside and taken out of development potential in excess of 150,000 acres of land that was before developable, and it's no longer developable. And on the other side, it has been at no expense to the public treasury either in acquisition of those lands or in the maintenance of those lands. And so I'm advocating right now to leave our budget as is -- has been proposed and that we stay at the rate neutral amount and that we move the delta between -- and I -- and you're going to help me clarify it, I hope, at some stage, but there is a delta between rolled-back and rate neutral that -- some of it's already been appropriated in the accounting for the budget in the funds. MR. JOHNSON: Correct. The budget's currently at millage neutral, and the above policy has been allocated to those reserves and a few of the expanded requests. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: The expanded requests -- you know, we put out budget policy for the expenses that were equal to last year's expenses, plus 3 and 5, 3 percent on the O&M and 5 percent on capital, and then there were additional expanded requests from the Sheriff, from DAS, from some of the things that were direly in deficit that needed to be -- that needed to have loving. MR. JOHNSON: Correct. So your budget -- your current tentative budget contains all that with that addition into the 301 reserve as well. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And it does move it into the 301 fund? MR. JOHNSON: Correct, the additional funding was put in there. And the additional funding from 001 was transferred to that, correct. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We've heard three different Page 292 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 69 proposals. We've heard everybody speak on all of them. So we're ready for a motion. Commissioner McDaniel, you had indicated that you support millage neutral with the 301 fund receiving that difference. Do you want to make a motion to that effect? COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'd be happy to. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I'll second that motion. I'm supporting that motion -- I wanted to make one other comment on millage neutral and -- because we are -- we are increasing taxes. There's no question about that. Some people will see a 3 percent increase in their taxes from Collier County. And like you say, it will be $50 for the average homeowner. Thirty-five percent of all of that savings that we're talking about, about 35 percent of that is savings to our residents, our ad valorem homesteaded property owners. It's real money obviously but it's still -- all of that savings is going to the -- you know, the large hotels, the winter residents. It's important, but I just -- I think it's important also to see what the impact really is on our ad valorem homesteaded property owners. I think there's a lot of -- you know, we all -- we all want to cut federal taxes because we know there's just billions and billions if not hundreds of billions of dollars in just wasted programs. But when you start talking about Collier County Government -- and we have a beautiful median beautification program. It's not necessary. We don't have to do that. We have probably some of the best parks in the country. We don't have to have the best parks. We could let the maintenance slide on that, have average parks. We maintain our beaches. We have crews out there every day maintaining our beaches. We don't have to do all those things, but this is where we live. This is our quality of life. And so I've supported and continue to support millage neutral Page 293 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 70 because I want to make sure that we not only have a beautiful community today, but it stays that way. And that's what this -- I think this type of budgeting accomplishes. ResourceX will help us save money and will help us reallocate certain funds. But for today, I think this is where we need to be. So I'll second your motion. Any discussion further on the motion? MR. JOHNSON: Commissioner, if I could just clarify the motion. Commissioner McDaniel, that is as presented, correct, with the -- COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. MR. JOHNSON: -- expanded requests and the additional funding going into 301? COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That's correct. MR. JOHNSON: Correct. Thank you. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That funds the 301 account with the spread and takes care of the expanded requests that came in after we put out the budget policy? MR. JOHNSON: Correct. The current budget, as presented, does both of those things. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: So, Chris, just for clarification, because we all have, like, 10 sets of slides up here. MR. JOHNSON: Yep. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: The one that says tentative budget tax levy, right? MR. JOHNSON: Yeah. Let me pull that one up, Commissioner. Right here is what we're looking at, and this is the tax dollars associated with it. It's going to be the blue. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Go to the -- go to the slide that has the second slide that goes with it. MR. JOHNSON: And this is the millage rates here. Page 294 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 71 COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: You know, I'm going to say, get your pencil and your calculator ready, because we've had some very healthy discussion up here that doesn't die on the vine just because, you know, we maybe are making a decision now. The budget is a living, breathing thing that, you know, isn't a one-time approval. So I liked a lot of what I heard today. I just think that, you know, there's a lot of stuff that we also still need to hear to make sure we don't get out ahead of our headlights a bit. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Any further discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Seeing none, all in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye. All opposed? COMMISSIONER HALL: Aye. COMMISSIONER KOWAL: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. It passes 3-2, I believe; is that correct? MR. JOHNSON: All right, Commissioners. I'm just going to bring this back up again before we move on. The -- that takes care of the countywide millage districts, General Fund, Water Pollution, and Conservation Collier. With the other districts, you can see, again, we have supermajority vote and unanimous vote. If there's -- if there's any changes to this, we need to go downstairs and make those changes. So I just want to make sure -- I just count noses, if possible, for the remaining millage rates. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Are there any objections to the existing -- the other millage rates -- Page 295 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 72 COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I have a question. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: -- Mr. Johnson's talking about? Commissioner McDaniel. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And it's more of a point of clarification than question on the rates. We had -- we had given policy several years ago. I mentioned to the one lady that was talking about the beautification MSTU. We had made a policy suggestion that the budgets were managed based upon a three-year look-back for ongoing O&M, operations and maintenance, and that we were managing those funds accordingly to the -- and setting the rate for those individual MSTUs so that we had a sufficient reserve that was established for each one of those MSTUs, and then -- and then allowing for the ongoing O&M based upon a three-year look-back. Has that basically been the policy that we've been utilizing? MR. JOHNSON: Correct. That and -- that and any upcoming capital needs as you explained earlier. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Well, of course. I mean, those capital needs come and go based upon the new -- the new pretty and glitty that we think we need to have. So, yeah. MR. JOHNSON: Correct. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: No, I don't have any -- I don't have any questions. I'll make a motion -- do you need to read all these rates before I make the motion? MR. JOHNSON: Not for this. This will get us into the next -- the next item, which is adopting the changes to the tentative budget followed by me reading your millage rates. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: So give us the items that we need a unanimous vote on so we can just take a separate vote real quickly. MR. JOHNSON: Certainly. Unanimous would be the Private Road Emergency Repair MSTU. Page 296 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 73 CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I'll make a motion to approve. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Second. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Any objection to -- anybody opposed to that, signify by saying aye. (No response.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. It passes unanimously. MR. JOHNSON: All right. And then the super -- the supermajority are the ones listed here. You have Victoria Park, Lely Golf Estates, Bayshore Avalon Beautification, Haldeman Creek, Vanderbilt Waterways, 42nd Avenue Southeast, and Pelican Bay. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Motion to approve. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: So made. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Second. All in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye. COMMISSIONER HALL: Aye. COMMISSIONER KOWAL: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: That passes unanimously. MR. JOHNSON: And the rest of them are majority. Item #1D RESOLUTION TO AMEND THE TENTATIVE BUDGETS - RESOLUTION 2025-177: MOTION TO APPROVE AS PRESENTED REMAINING MILLAGE NEUTRAL W/FUND 301 TO RECEIVE THE DIFFERENCE BY COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL; SECONDED BY COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS - Page 297 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 74 APPROVED (COMMISSIONER HALL AND COMMISSIONER KOWAL OPPOSED); MOTION TO APPROVE THE FINAL HEARING MILLAGE RATE VOTING REQUIREMENT BY MAJORITY VOTE AS LISTED IN THE PRESENTATION BY COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS; SECONDED BY COMMISSIONER LOCASTRO - APPROVED; MOTION TO APPROVE THE FINAL HEARING MILLAGE RATE VOTING REQUIREMENT BY SUPER MAJORITY VOTE AS LISTED IN THE PRESENTATION BY COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL; SECONDED BY COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS - APPROVED; MOTION TO APPROVE THE RESOLUTION AMENDING THE TENTATIVE BUDGET BY COMMISSIONER KOWAL; SECONDED BY COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL – ADOPTED MR. JOHNSON: So with that, Commissioners, under Item 1D is resolution amending the tentative budgets, incorporating the previously discussed changes, and the changes were discussed at the beginning from our September 4th hearing. At this time, staff would request a motion to approve the resolution amending the tentative budgets. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Do we have a motion? COMMISSIONER KOWAL: So moved. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We have -- COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Second. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner Kowal made a motion. COMMISSIONER KOWAL: Yes. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We have a second. All in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Aye. Page 298 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 75 CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye. COMMISSIONER HALL: Aye. COMMISSIONER KOWAL: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: That passes unanimously. All right. Item #1E PUBLIC READING OF THE TAXING AUTHORITY LEVYING MILLAGE, THE NAME OF THE TAXING AUTHORITY, THE ROLLED-BACK RATE, THE PERCENTAGE INCREASE, AND THE MILLAGE RATE TO BE LEVIED - READ BY CHRIS JOHNSON MR. JOHNSON: Well, that takes us to Item 1E, the announcement of the millage rates. And I'm sure you're aware by this time, the Florida TRIM statute requires that the millage rates, rolled-back millage rates, and percentage change from the rolled-back millage rates be read into the record prior to the adoption of the millage rates under Agenda Item 1E. So without further ado, if it pleases the Board, I will begin. If you'd like to follow along, the property tax rate table can be found on Tab 1F, Page 3 or Packet Page 47. All right. I'll start with the General Fund. General Fund 0001, the proposed millage rate is 3.0107. The rolled-back millage rate is 2.8564. The percentage changed from the rolled-back rate is 5.40 percent. Water Pollution Control Fund 1017, the proposed millage rate is 0.0246. The rolled-back millage rate is 0.0233. The percent change Page 299 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 76 from the rolled-back rate is 5.58 percent. Conservation Collier Fund 1061, the proposed millage rate is 0.2096. The rolled-back millage rate is 0.1984. The percent change from the rolled-back rate is 5.65 percent. Unincorporated Area General Fund 1011, the proposed millage rate is 0.6844. The rolled-back millage rate is 0.6506. The percent change from the rolled-back rate is 5.20 percent. Golden Gate Community Center Fund 1605, the proposed millage rate is 0.1862. The rolled millage rate is 0.1786. The percent change from the rolled-back rate is 4.26 percent. Victoria Park Drainage Fund 1608, the proposed millage rate is 0.3814. The rolled-back millage rate is 0.3634. The percent change from the rolled-back rate is 4.95 percent. Naples Park Drainage Fund 1613, the proposed millage rate is 0.0041. The rolled-back millage rate is 0.0039. The percent change from the rolled-back rate is 5.13 percent. Vanderbilt Beach MSTU Fund 1617, the proposed millage rate is 0.4650. The rolled-back rate is 0.4438. The percent change from the rolled-back rate is 4.78 percent. Ochopee Fire Control Fund 1040, the proposed millage rate is 4.0000. The rolled-back millage rate is 3.7959. The percent change from the rolled-back rate is 5.38 percent. Goodland/Horrs Island Fire MSTU Fund 1041, the proposed millage rate is 1.2760. The rolled-back millage rate is 1.1793. The percent change from the rolled-back rate is 8.20 percent. Sabal Palm MSTU Fund 1619, the proposed millage rate is 1.0000. The rolled-back millage rate is 0.0000. This millage is being reinstated; therefore, there is no percent change from the rolled-back rate. Lely Golf Estates Beautification MSTU Fund 1620, the proposed millage rate is 2.0000. The rolled-back millage rate is Page 300 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 77 1.8930. The percent change from the rolled-back rate is 5.65 percent. Golden Gate Parkway Beautification MSTU Fund 1621, the proposed millage rate is 0.5000. The rolled-back millage rate is 0.4784. The percent change from the rolled-back rate is 4.52 percent. Hawksridge Stormwater Pumping MSTU Fund 1622, the proposed millage rate is 0.0318. The rolled-back millage rate is 0.0316. The percent change from the rolled-back is 0.63 percent. Radio Road Beautification MSTU Fund 1625, the proposed millage rate is 0.1000. The rolled-back millage rate is 0.0949. The percent change from the rolled-back rate is 5.37 percent. Forest Lakes Roadway and Drainage MSTU Fund 1626, the proposed millage rate is 2.5000. The rolled-back millage rate is 3.7448. The percent change from the rolled-back rate is negative 33.24 percent. Immokalee Beautification MSTU Fund 1629, the proposed millage rate is 1.0000. The rolled-back millage rate is 0.9573. The percent change from the rolled-back rate is 4.46 percent. Bayshore Avalon MSTU Fund 1630, the proposed millage rate is 2.1104. The rolled-back millage rate is 1.9304. The percent change from the rolled-back rate is 9.32 percent. Haldeman Creek Dredging MSTU Fund 1631, the proposed millage rate is 1.0000. The rolled-back millage rate is 0.9034. The percent change from the rolled-back rate is 10.69 percent. Rock Road MSTU Fund 1632, the proposed millage rate is 0.7224. The rolled-back millage rate is 0.7019. The percent change from the rolled-back rate is 2.92 percent. Vanderbilt Waterways MSTU Fund 1635, the proposed millage rate is 0.3000. The rolled-back millage rate is 0.2859. The percent change from the rolled-back rate is 4.93 percent. Blue Sage MSTU Fund 1640, the proposed millage rate is 3.0000. The rolled-back millage rate is 3.0620. The percent change Page 301 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 78 from the rolled-back rate is negative 2.02 percent. Collier County Lighting Fund 1601, the proposed millage rate is 0.1025. The rolled-back millage rate is 0.0977. The percent change from the rolled-back rate is 4.91 percent. 42nd Avenue Southeast MSTU Fund 1637, the proposed millage rate is 1.0000. The rolled-back millage rate is 0.8738. The percent change from the rolled-back rate is 14.44 percent. Palm River Sidewalk MSTU Fund 1638, the proposed millage rate is 0.5000. The rolled-back millage rate is 0.4776. The percent change from the rolled-back rate is 4.69 percent. Private Road Emergency Repair MSTU Fund 1639, the proposed millage rate is 1.0000. The rolled-back millage rate is 0.0000. This is the first time this millage would be levied for this MSTU. There is no calculated change from the rolled-back. Pelican Bay MSTBU Fund 1008, the proposed millage rate is 0.0857. The rolled-back millage rate 0.0811. The percent change from the rolled-back rate is 5.67 percent. Commissioners, the aggregate millage rate proposed is 3.7675, the rolled-back rate is 3.5870, and the percent change from the rolled-back rate is 5.03 percent. Item #1F ADOPTION OF RESOLUTION SETTING MILLAGE RATES. NOTE: A SEPARATE MOTION IS REQUIRED FOR THE DEPENDENT DISTRICTS MILLAGE RATES; AND A SEPARATE MOTION IS REQUIRED FOR THE REMAINING MILLAGE RATES - RESOLUTION 2025-178: MOTION TO APPROVE THE DEPENDENT TAXING DISTRICTS MILLAGE RATES BY COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL; SECONDED BY COMMISSIONER LOCASTRO – APPROVED; MOTION TO Page 302 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 79 APPROVE THE SETTING OF THE MILLAGE RATES BY COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL; SECONDED BY COMMISSIONER LOCASTRO – ADOPTED MR. JOHNSON: All right. Mr. Chair, Commissioners, Item 1F on your agenda is the adoption of the resolution setting the FY '25/'26 millage rates. And if I may, a separate motion is required for the dependent district millage rates. Again, that's the countywide and the remaining millage rates. So if we could have two separate motions, the first motion adopting the dependent taxing district millage rates. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Do we have a motion? Commissioner McDaniel makes -- COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: -- makes a motion to approve. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Second. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We have a second. All in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye. COMMISSIONER HALL: Aye. COMMISSIONER KOWAL: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: That passes unanimously. MR. JOHNSON: The second motion, adopting the remaining millage rates. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All right. Commissioner McDaniel? Page 303 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 80 COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I will make that motion as well. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Second. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: I have a motion and second. All in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye. COMMISSIONER HALL: Aye. COMMISSIONER KOWAL: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: That passes unanimously. Item #1G RESOLUTION TO ADOPT THE FINAL BUDGET BY FUND. NOTE: A SEPARATE MOTION IS REQUIRED FOR THE DEPENDENT DISTRICT BUDGETS; AND A SEPARATE MOTION IS REQUIRED FOR THE REMAINING BUDGETS - RESOLUTION 2025-179: MOTION TO APPROVE THE FINAL DEPENDENT DISTRICT BUDGET BY FUND BY COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL; SECONDED BY COMMISSIONER LOCASTRO – APPROVED; MOTION TO APPROVE THE FINAL BUDGET BY FUND BY COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL; SECONDED BY COMMISSIONER LOCASTRO – ADOPTED MR. JOHNSON: All right, Commissioners. That brings us to Item 1G, which is a resolution to adopt the final FY '25/'26 budget by fund. This action, again, requires a separate motion for the dependent Page 304 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 81 district budgets, the countywide budgets, and a separate motion for the remaining budgets. The first motion, adopting the dependent -- dependent district budgets by fund. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I make that motion. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Second. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We have a motion and second. All in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye. COMMISSIONER HALL: Aye. COMMISSIONER KOWAL: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: That passes unanimously. MR. JOHNSON: All right. The second motion, adopting the final budgets for the remaining funds. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner McDaniel, you're doing such a great job. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Since I'm doing such a good job. COMMISSIONER HALL: You're batting a thousand. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: How many times did you say I was correct tonight? MR. JOHNSON: I lost count. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'll make the motion. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Second. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: We have a motion and second. All in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Aye. Page 305 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 82 CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Aye. COMMISSIONER HALL: Aye. COMMISSIONER KOWAL: Aye. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: All opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: That passes unanimously. MR. JOHNSON: All right, Commissioners. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Now, do you need a three-hour break to do any calculations? MR. JOHNSON: I think we're good here, actually. Commissioners, if I may, before we adjourn, I would like to take this opportunity to first thank the Board for continuing their vision of developing the FY '26 budget through a priority-based approach and supporting staff through what was a very, very long budget process. I would also like to thank the County Manager, the Deputy County Manager, and all the professionals in the agency for their dedication and hard work in developing this budget. We also need to thank the Court Administration staff, the County Attorney's Office, and the constitutional officers, including the Sheriff, the Clerk, Supervisor of Elections, Tax Collector, and the Property Appraiser. And last, but not least, I'd like to thank the staff of the budget office sitting behind me. They're the ones that actually make the wheels turn here. And with that, Mr. Chairman, that concludes our presentation for the FY '25/'26 budget. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Okay. Commissioner McDaniel, you're lit up. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I am, and thank you for recognizing me. I was remiss today. Commissioner Hall, you brought up a very important point today. We made -- Collier County made one of Page 306 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 83 the -- what I feel is one of the most monumentous purchases today that we've ever done, and that was the acquisition of the Williams Preserve. The benefits to our community, the benefits to that -- to the watershed in general, and what we're going to be able to effectuate by utilizing Conservation Collier monies to clean up the slough, reduce the flooding in Immokalee, enhance the water that's going over into Lake Trafford that then ultimately flows out over into the CREW lands and down through the newly established flowways through the RLSA is immeasurable from a -- from a value standpoint. And we had -- we had an enormous amount of work and coordination by our staff. And I'm happy to share also that we're moving forward with the zoning right now. I would have liked for us to have been moving a little quicker on the zoning, but we're moving on the zoning, and that's rezoning the south farmlands that are in the RLSA into other uses for Parks and Rec and moving the slough into the RLSA to be able to effectuate those benefits for the cleaning up of that slough. So it was a -- it was a huge lift by our staff, a very complicated transaction, and I just want to personally thank everybody that was involved in that. I think it's one of the most monumentous purchases we've ever accomplished. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Commissioner LoCastro. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Thank you, Chairman. I was just going to say that I'm really encouraged by how we're going to move forward here. We may not have agreed unanimously here, but you've got five people here that are trying to sharpen our pencils. I believe we're all paddling in the same direction, might have some differences of opinion in votes here and everything. But I think we have a lot of continuity, a lot of really good potential, and a lot of great opportunity the next time we come in here. Page 307 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 84 I think this meeting is going to be -- the meetings are going to be a lot longer next time because I think we're going to have a lot more to do a deep dive in. But I wanted to, you know, thank you personally, and even if it might extend the meeting another two minutes, the group you've got lined up there that you just sort of thanked with one big, you know, wave of the hand, you know, while you get all the attention, we'll never see them again until when, February or whatever? We maybe read their emails. I have no idea person by person exactly who each person is. Maybe everybody else does. But, you know, for the sake of the record, Chris, take a little more quality time, you know. I mean, we know it's not you. MR. JOHNSON: Would you like some introduction? COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Absolutely. MR. JOHNSON: I could do that, Commissioner. All right. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: And then maybe, like, a little bit piece of exactly what -- everybody has a different role here. I mean -- or you could have them come up and actually -- no, no. They're like no, no, no. (Simultaneous crosstalk.) COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: But give us a short version, but please recognize your staff. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Let's have all of them come to Commissioner LoCastro's office and do a 15- or 20-minutes introduction. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Hey, that's fine. They've done all the -- a lot of work. CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Go ahead. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: I'd be happy to shake your hand. MR. JOHNSON: All right. We'll start with Maggie Lopez; Page 308 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 85 she's our assistant director, on the end there. And then Laura Zautcke, she's our budget manager; Blanca Aquino, she's our budget analyst with us; Jessica Arencibia, she's also a budget analyst; and then AJ Chudy, who is our third budget analyst in the budget office, on the end. COMMISSIONER LoCASTRO: Thank you, all. (Applause.) CHAIRMAN SAUNDERS: Yeah. Thank you, all of you, for a job well done. Ms. Patterson, you've got a great team here, and I think we've got a great budget going forward and look forward to next year. If there's nothing else, we are adjourned. ******* Page 309 of 6526 September 18, 2025 Page 86 There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 7:50 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL ___________________________________ BURT SAUNDERS, CHAIRMAN ATTEST CRYSTAL K. KINZEL, CLERK These minutes approved by the Board on ____________, as presented ______________ or as corrected _____________. TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF FORT MYERS COURT REPORTING BY TERRI L. LEWIS, REGISTERED PROFESSIONAL COURT REPORTER, FPR-C, AND NOTARY PUBLIC. Page 310 of 6526