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BCC Minutes 06/19/2008 B (Budget Workshop) June 19,2008 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Naples, Florida, June 19,2008 BUDGET HEARINGS 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 district as has been created according to law and having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m., in BUDGET SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: Tom Henning Donna Fiala Jim Coletta Fred Coyle Frank Halas ALSO PRESENT: Jim Mudd, County Manager Jeffrey A. Klatzkow, County Attorney Sue Filson, BCC Executive Manager Crystal Kinzel, Office of the Clerk of Court Derek Johnssen, Office of the Clerk of Court Page 1 NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING Notice is hereby given that the Board of County Commissioners of Collier County will conduct Budget Workshops on Thursday, June 19,2008 and Friday June 20, 2008 at 9:00 a.m. Workshops will be held in the Boardroom, 3rd Floor, W. Harmon Turner Building, Collier County Government Center, 3301 East Tamiami Trail, Naples, Florida to hear the following: COLLIER COUNTY GOVERNMENT BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS FY 2009 BUDGET WORKSHOP SCHEDULE Thursday, June 19,2008 - 9:00 a.m. General Overview Courts and Related Agencies (State Attorney and Public Defender) Airport Authority Community Development Transportation Services Public Services Administrative Services Public Utilities Debt Service Management Offices (Pelican Bay) County Attorney BCC Friday, June 20, 2008 - 9:00 a.m. Constitutional Officers: Elections Sheriff Other Constitutional Officers requesting to address the BCC Preliminary UFR Discussion 1:00 p.m. Public Comment Page 1 June 19-20,2008 June 19,2008 MR. MUDD: Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd please take your seats. Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, you have a hot mike. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. Welcome to the Board of Commissioners' 2008/2009 budget workshop. Would you all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance, please. (The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay, Commissioners. County Manager's going to talk about an item before we get into the budget about a bill the governor may sign. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. Last night -- and I know it was late. We-- I had my one-on-one with the chairman before we go out to do the agenda, and there was an item on the agenda that had to do with Senate Bill 1706. And it's passed through the legislature and it's now on the governor's desk. This particular bill has to do with expanding the three-year DRI extension. The problem with the DRI extension is there -- during the bill, they fixed one part of the problem, but they didn't do anything to protect local governments that have DCAs with those DRI-type communities and/or proportionate fair share in that particular case. This bill would exacerbate that particular situation. So you're basically, as a board, liable to do everything that you promised in that DCA even though they're now extending their particular execution of their DRIs for three years. I think I pretty much hit two on the head, Ms. Wight. What -- we had a request from F AC. Mr. Chris Holly, the director of the Florida Associations of Counties, has written a request that the governor veto this bill. In conversations with F AC, Secretary Pelham basically came up to F AC and said, you know, Collier County has issues with this particular item, too. With that F AC basically said -- asked us if we were going to have a veto letter go to -- or a request for veto letter go Page 2 June 19,2008 to the governor. And this all transpired within the last couple of days. So I'm sorry for the lateness of this. The situation, as it sits, is that. The request here is to the board, direct to the chairman, to send a letter, which is attached to this particular packet, and I'll put it up on the visualizer for you. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Mr. Mudd, would you take just one second, please, and turn on the speakers, please? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. MR. MUDD: And the letter that we're asking the board to direct the chairman to sign is, Dear Governor Crist, on behalf of the Collier County Board of County Commissioners, I would like to take our concerns regarding Senate Bill 1706 relating to development of regional impact, which was presented to you for signature on June 11th. Collier County's position holds that local governments throughout the State of Florida have developer contribution agreements or proportionate fair share agreements that will be impaired in this legislation if it is signed. This bill is introduced provided a very narrow exemption for certain developments that would otherwise be subject to the development of regional impact review process. The bill will have a significant negative impact on local governments. From our perspective, the most significant issue here is that the DRI is extended, and this language also includes any and all local approvals and agreements which appear include DCAs. The problem is that the time extension is not the major concern, rather is the physical impacts and financial burdens that are placed on the county and ultimately the taxpayers to complete its commitments and agreements and DCAs without the previously anticipated revenues from impact fees and property taxes as originally forecast in respective financial impact analysis model, FlAM, that was part of the original petition for the Page 3 June 19,2008 DRI. The economic downturn cited as the principle reason for this legislation now passes the burden to the county, and the legislation doesn't seem to give the local governments the opportunity or the latitude to amend the agreements. SB 1706 was passed to take into consideration the adverse impacts on the DRIs themselves but failed to recognize impacts on local governments. For these reasons, we respectfully request that you veto SB 1706. If you have any questions regarding county's position in this legislation, please contact Assistant County Manager Deb Wight, and her website and telephone number. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Halas, Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER HALAS: Chairman, I make a motion that we have you sign this -- authorize this -- you to sign this immediately and send it up to Governor Crist. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Second that motion. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, we can't take motions in a workshop, but we can definitely give guidance to -- COMMISSIONER HALAS: Well, guidance is that we should have you sign this immediately. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'll second that guidance. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. I agree that we need to urge the governor to veto this bill, but I am concerned with a few things in the letter. I'm not sure that the letter really gets to the issue. The fact that it removes authority from local governments is irrelevant to the governor and to the legislators. That's exactly their intent is to remove flexibility and authority from local governments because they want to see these large projects move ahead as quickly and as -- with the least amount of review as possible. So making the argument that it deprives us and our citizens the Page 4 June 19,2008 capability to act on it is not convincing, I think, to the governor. The other thing is that the sentence structure in the third paragraph, the third sentence down, from our perspective, the most significant issue here is that the DRI is extended. That, again, is not really clear. It makes sense to the people who wrote the bill, and we know what it means. But I'm not sure the governor will know what that means and what is the impact if the DRI is extended. Which DRI is extended? It -- what it does is it -- is it permits the extension of a DRI, doesn't it? MR. MUDD: Automatically extends them all. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, that's what I mean. It permits the extension of all of them, all right? I think you could be a little more specific in that sentence, that's all I'm saying, just wording. You could just be a little more specific about that. But it seems to me that we should able to make some arguments that extend beyond just the fact that they're removing authority from local government. I mean, they don't care. That's what they have in mind anyway. So I'd like to see you put something in there that explains why that's bad. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. This used to be a four-page letter. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. MR. MUDD: Okay? And I got to a point in time and says, the governor, with all the bills he has, if he's going to see this, he's not going to read four pages single space -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: That's right. MR. MUDD: -- to finally get to the end to get to -- so we tried to shorten it up and tried to get to the conclusions up front on a one-page letter. It makes it very difficult to accomplish -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. I understand how difficult it is, but telling the government -- the governor that it does what he wants to do is not a good argument. That's all I'm saying. Page 5 June 19,2008 MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: There's no question in anybody's mind that the legislature and the governor want to remove as much authority and responsibility as they can from local government. And saying to them that you've achieved your goal is not a good argument for vetoing it. MR. MUDD: Let's see if I can gussy up that paragraph. COMMISSIONER COYLE: That's the only concern, and I fully support us protesting the legislation. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No, nothing else to add. CHAIRMAN HENNING: You're okay with me signing a letter? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah. So I guess we have direction, Deb. You know, bring it up and I'll sign it right away, okay. MS. WIGHT: Thank you. MR. MUDD: Thank you, sir. BUDGET WORKSHOP GENERAL OVERVIEW MR MUDD: And that brings us -- thank you for the -- that was just a little bit of an aside and I'm sorry to take away from the budget workshop, but it is important to this particular county, and-- Okay. Commissioners, the agenda for this -- for a two-day workshop is in front of you. Weare now going to do the general overview. And I'll blow it up just a little bit, and then we'll go into courts and related agencies, state attorney first, and we'll get those fine gentlemen and ladies back to their jobs. Just as an overview real quick, you received the macro so to speak of the budget. It's on your first two pages of your particular item. And I can -- and I can go down this. And I know it's hard to read for the people that are out in -- out watching this in television, but I'll Page 6 June 19, 2008 try to break it down in sections on the page. And we'll start up at the top where it's division agencies, Board of County Commissioners. You've got some things that are transpiring in your category, and I'm talking about up in here, that are a bit of anomalies. You've got an Immokalee CRA that's doing what it's supposed to do. It's increasing its tax rolls and it's making the community better. And so you have an increase of some 36.45 percent there. Your Airport Authority operations, a lot of that has to do with the fuel price out in their particular -- their particular area. So total Board of County Commissioners, and you get the Bayshore Gateway CRA, which has an increase of3.75, but in the areas that you're responsible for, county attorney, Board of County Commissioners, other general administration, you're in the minus numbers, to the tune anywhere from minus 3.51 percent to 5 percent down to -- so you -- the total on -- total board is 4.91. The anomalies I said push into the positive numbers. On the county manager's agency, we're sitting at minus 3.10 percent, which is right there. Courts and related, they're down 15 percent. Constitutional officers -- we don't have the Tax Collector's numbers, but the numbers we do have were down about minus 6.49 percent. Your debt service transfers, which is your next category, are minus 6.9 percent. Your capital budget, which is the rather large big piece of the budget, and a big decrease where it was last year. Last year you had a capital budget of $702 million. Your capital budget for -- projected for FY-'09, if the board approves this particular budget in September, will be 367,000,000. That's a 47 percent decrease. And then you finally go to constitutionals. As I said before, we're -- Tax Collector and other items are not there. But you get to the bottom line, your net county budget last year was $1.3 million ( sic), Page 7 June 19,2008 and it's now just a tad over $1 million (sic), and it's a 22 -- COMMISSIONER HALAS: Billion. MR. MUDD: Billion, I'm sorry -- billion dollars, and that's about 300 million off of that particular item. Now we go to the second page, and I'm just going to hone in at the top portion where we talk about revenues and things like that. When you take a look at the gross county budget, because you have a lot of transfers and things like that transfer -- transpire throughout the year, now you've got capital projects that go from one year to the next and the moneys, we get rolled over into the next year. Last year your gross budget was $1.8 billion. Your budget is at 1. -- gross at $1.4 billion, which is a 21. -- 21.1 percent decrease. The -- and I'm going to hone into a line that sits right here. It's transfers. Last year transfers were $476 million. This year your transfers are going -- are projected to be $382 million, and that's about a hundred million dollar decrease. So when you look at the gross, it's 400 million down, and then when you look at the net, it's 300 million down, and you're trying to figure out, well, where is that? That's that transfer piece that gives you that extra hundred million dollars. The budget that we're going to present today is based on your budget guidance, and every year I go over what you told us to do on the budget guidance. Your budget guidance was to roll back and to take out Amendment 1; in other words, take it out, take it out ahead of time, so when you're rolling back, you're rolling back to less revenue than you would have had last year if Amendment 1 did not pass. So we did that. And this is -- this is a bit of an oddity, and it's never happened to me since I've been the county manager. And I talked to Leo, and he's trying to tell me -- and Leo's been here a long time. I said, Leo, has this ever happened since you've been here, and he said no. Well, when you lose assessed value on properties, when you roll Page 8 June 19,2008 back, you really roll up, okay, and it's kind of a phenomena that we've seen this here. So based on that budget guidance in your first block, we did exactly what the board told us to do on the particular issue. The taxable values in Collier County decreased 4.38 percent countywide. Your millage, based on the guidance for FY -'09 -- and that's what this budget is based on -- is 3.2901. And I'm going to bring out some charts right after -- right after this -- I do the general fund and the 111, and then we'll come back to this graph and show you where and how these figures get done. The difference -- the difference, it's 3.290, is basically the millage if that happens, and so your difference is .1432, which is an increase, or 4.55 percent. Your FY-'08 millage was 3.1469. All right. Next line on this thing, it says that you've got 3. -- 3.1 million in your unfinanced requirement funds available. And you say, well, how could that be? I didn't estimate very well when we talked to new construction, that's why it is. When I did this back in -- we started working on this in November and December of '07, my estimate in new construction was that it was going to come in right around 900 million. Okay. New construction came in at 2.3 billion in the entire countywide. And in the unincorporated area, it came in at about 1.7 billion -- $1.8 billion. So I was off on the new construction estimate, and that's why -- because I built the recommendation to cut 2 percent to everybody's budget based on what I thought the new construction was going to be, what I knew of Amendment 1, did the best I could in that estimate. Now, if I'm going to be wrong, I'd rather be wrong in this particular regard having a little extra money left over in the budget than I would be being short money in the budget, because then you get yourself in an unbalanced predicament. So when we moved to the unincorporated general fund, which we Page 9 June 19,2008 call the MSTD general fund, again, the rollback minus Amendment 1 taxable value decrease was 4.38 percent in the unincorporated area. Your FY-'09 millage is, based on that guidance was -- would be .7065. The difference is .0153 mills or a 2.21 percent difference. Now, the previous general fund I said the difference was 4.55, and the difference here is 2.21. And I explained that. Countywide, new construction came in at 2.3 billion, and in the unincorporated area, it came in at 1.8 billion, and that's your difference as far as your percentages are concerned. Your FY-'08 millage was .6912. And, again, monies that you could use for unfinanced requirement funds are $2.7 million in this particular category. And I said earlier in my presentation that I would -- that I would go to some sheets to show you. And I don't want to get -- I mean, this sheet's really good for John Y onkosky, but for the general public, you start to scratch your head and say -- what John did is a blow-by-blow on how we calculated it by the book. But of interest is what's at the bottom down here in the page. The legislation allowed for FY-'09 without an increase in personal income, and that's basically the millage rate based on your guidance, which is 3.2901. CHAIRMAN HENNING: County Manager, I don't know if any of us can read that. MR. MUDD: Okay. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Is there any way that you can zoom in so at least we can understand? MR. MUDD: Okay. Well, I'm going to zoom in on the numbers, and then I'll talk where the numbers are, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay, thanks. MR. MUDD: Okay. Your first -- your first number of3.290 is the legislative -- the legislative allowable for FY-'09 without the increase in personal income. And what I'm going to talk about personal income, House Bill 1 bravo, which was passed in June of Page 10 June 19,2008 2007, basically said that you as a board, with a majority vote, could pass, for FY-'09, the rollback -- now you've got the Cadopolis Bill that took out the Amendment 1, which you've already done in your budget guidance. You were -- you were ahead of the legislature by about two months, and that was good news. And you can also add 4.15 percent for a personal income adjustment. If you did that, the millage rate that you could vote on as a board with majority vote this year would be 3.4267. And the dollars amount in the general fund are over in the next column. So the millage rate that -- based on your guidance, would have about $260 million come in the general fund. If you went to the maximum allowed by law with a majority vote, you could come in with $271 million in the general fund. That's our projection. And your millage neutral position would bring, based on what we've got from the Property Appraiser as far as property assessments -- valuations are concerned, would bring in $249 million. Now, the difference between your guidance and what this budget is based on, your general fund is $260 million. If you went to millage neutral, it would be 249-. What would happen at that particular juncture is you're basically telling me to go cut about $11.3 million more out of this budget. So I just want to make sure that you're aware of that particular chart and what that means. And I also wanted to make sure that you were aware of what the legislature gives you as far as your options are concerned just in the majority side of the house, and I'll talk about your options in the supermajority and the majority later. On the 111 side of the house, we have the same kind of chart that John did. And, again, I'll zoom into the numbers at the bottom. Your legislative allowable for FY-'09 without an increase in the personal income is exactly what your budget guidance was. We come in at .7065, which would -- our projection is it would bring in $36.2 million Page 11 June 19,2008 into the unincorporated general fund. Your legislation allowed, on House Bill 1 bravo lets you bring in another 4.15 percent increase into that, and that would bring the millage rate up to .7358, which would represent $37.7 million. Again, your board's direction was. 7065, and a millage neutral position from last year is .6912, which is $35.4 million projected on revenue. The difference between your guidance and millage neutral in 111 is approximately $800,000 as far as a cut would be concerned. I'm going to go back to your budget guidance chart, and I'm going to have to pan it out just a little bit. General fund capital as far as your guidance was concerned was .33 mill equivalent. And I'd ask you to take a look at this particular block. That represents $27.3 million. Of that $27.3 million, $18.4 million of that fund is in debt service right now; 8.2 is not-- nonimpact fee debt, and 10.1 million is impact fee debt. That is an anomaly that we've had this year for the first time in this kind of magnitude. It used to be a couple hundred thousand dollars last year. This time it's up to $10 million. These are debts that are on capital programs that are in the ground that we were using impact fees to pay for, okay, to pay the debt down. And that's all legal to do, and those were all brought forward as we talked about the particular item when the board approved it. I just want to make sure that you know impact fees are down considerably. They were over a hundred million dollars last year. We'll be lucky this year in all 12 accounts to get $45 million. So there isn't enough money coming in on impact fees to pay the principal interest on the debts that new -- that new growth has put out. So what we've done or what I've suggested to my staff is, we'll use this .33 mill equivalent, and we will take and pay -- and pay those debts for the shortages that they have with general fund dollars, but they will Page 12 June 19,2008 owe us the money back when the impact fees go. So we're doing it as a debt so that we don't lose visibility on that particular item. But I will tell you that $10 million, if it -- like last year, we were able to put it into major renovations. If you remember, about three years ago, Mr. Camp talked to the board about a $14 million backlog in major maintenance, and we've been chipping away at that every year, and then making sure that air-conditioning units that went out, roofs that needed to get repaired, they got it done. This year we have really scrimped in that particular area, and we're holding our -- we've taken a lot of money out of that, and we're going to hold it off for this year and probably next year as we go through it, and then hopefully your impact fees will kick in and start taking away some of that debt, and then we can get back at some of that backlog. We were chipping away at the backlog maintenance, and now this next year we'll be increasing the backlog maintenance, and I foresee that happening for the next couple of years until the economy comes back. Stormwater millage is .15 mills. That represents $12 million, which is your next item. You had a limit on new positions for the county manager, and when you looked at your item, you go, county manager increased by 2.6 -- and I'm going to try to widen this up just a little -- increased by a net 2.6 FTE. Yes, based on that chart it did. We didn't add any new ones. If you remember correctly, when we lost the state vendor for what I'll call Meals on Wheels out in the Immokalee area and the Naples area, we -- you, as a board, on 11/15 -- excuse me -- on 11/15/07 agenda -- and I'll correct that. I'm not ahead of myself. Under 16D3, approve 4.6 FTE to basically work with that grant-funded position. And so when you add those 4.6, that's where you look at the subtotals, and we have a net 4.6 FTE increase. Next item in your budget guidance is to take a look at the Page 13 June 19,2008 decreases. And then the budget guidance was to decrease it by 2 percent. We had issues with court-related, and we talked about that a little bit. You saw two or -- two or three executive summaries in the last bit of time -- the last couple of meetings they came in and talked about moving funds that -- from last year into this year into the court -- into the court system, and then moving some monies out of teen court into the chief judge account in order to try to get that thing balanced for this year. And we'll talk about -- and since that time, I've received a letter from -- from the judge and from Mark Middlebrook that basically talked about they were going to increase their fees to work on the revenues. They're having a problem with collections. There's a lot of people that aren't paying their court bills nor the fines that they have. If you're not getting the court revenues in, then your revenue projections are off, and therefore, if you've got expenditures, then you've got issues. And they're going to take remedies into '09 in order to get that resolved. Property came -- Property Appraiser came in with a 0 percent balanced budget. The minus 4 percent is because you've got board-paid things that you do for his particular property; heating, lighting, rent, things like that. The next area on your guidance was -- to adhere to the general fund budget guidance -- was, did everybody adhere to it as far as your policy that they stay within their piece of the pie, so to speak, and you set that policy in '04. And on the chart that you have right here, it basically says who's in it. Most people are in. Your road subsidy has been increased since '04. '04 you had less than $24 million going to your road program that basically paid for your backlog of road improvements that were caused in the county in the '90s. Your debt and capital, we've been borrowing more money in Page 14 June 19,2008 order to get things done, and that's significantly slowed down. And stormwater -- your stormwater utility was not in existence in '04. Providing budget -- budget metrics is of those things that you wanted to talk about, and I'm going to show you my metrics in just a second. We received metrics from the manager, the sheriff and the clerk, and the ones in yellow did not provide that particular item. Overtime. Overtime should be less than or equal to budgeted attrition. There's issues in Airport Authority, EMS, and fire districts, water, wastewater, solid waste, Pelican Bay, fleet management, facilities management and elections. Elections wasn't on here last year because they didn't have a general election that was coming up, and part of that overtime is because of the election season that they're about ready to get into. So we're going to monitor that overtime and reduce it as much as we possibly can while we still have a freeze on as far as positions are concerned. As of this morning, there are 350 positions in county manager's agency that are vacant and not filled. I mentioned my metrics, and Collier County is in the first -- is in the first column, and what you see is FY -'08 approved FTE per thousand dollars population unincorporated. This is FY-'08. I know what their budgets are from last year, so we collect those. I don't know what budgets are for this next year, and we'll -- we provide that to you. Basically it says that we're at 6.53 approved FTE per thousand population, which is a reduction from last year to the tune of about .05. Lee County is at 7.79; Marion County, 7.23; Charlotte is 7.67; Sarasota is up from the '07 account, but they're at 7.36, and Marion (sic) is at 3.7. Basically trying to tell you that your FTE's are in relations with your population, and it seems like we're doing a pretty good job holding the headcount down serving the population that we have within the means that we have, and we try to provide pretty good service, extensional service, in that particular regard. CHAIRMAN HENNING: I have a question on that graph. Page 15 June 19,2008 MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Are you -- is that proposed employees per population for Collier County? MR. MUDD: Sir, it's '08. CHAIRMAN HENNING: So it is apples to apples. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. MR. MUDD: Absolutely. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. I have other questions, but -- you want to talk on that one? COMMISSIONER COYLE: No. I want to talk on something earlier, but -- CHAIRMAN HENNING: I do, too. COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- let him finish his -- MR. MUDD: I'll finish and then we'll go back to earlier because I think I know where you're going because -- adjusted operating budget per capita. Now you talk about -- we talked about FTE before. Now we start talking about what kind of metric do you have and what kind of dollars that you're putting out there per capita as far as the operating budget is concerned. Right now we're at $1,501. The slide last year was $1,500. We're up a dollar. Lee County is 1,681; Manatee is at 1,724; Charlotte is at 2,010; and Charlotte (sic) is at 1,981; and Marion is at $1,003. Again, the bigger the counties that we align with that are pretty much the same size, we do a pretty good job as far as making sure the dollars that we have are used the best way we can in order to support the residents. I'll get your questions and then I'll keep going with the briefing. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Before I go to Commissioner Coyle, Janet Vasey -- well, public comment is tomorrow. Janet Vasey is here today because she can't be here tomorrow. She has worked with the county manager on certain items, and she would like to speak on those Page 16 June 19,2008 items. Does anybody have an objection to that? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Ifwe do that, or any member of the public, we should allow the same. MS. VASEY: Could I wait just a little bit longer, please? CHAIRMAN HENNING: You know, you just -- anybody from the public that wants to speak, just come up to the podium on the topic MS. VASEY: Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN HENNING: -- be recognized. Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Let's go back to the millage rates. I think we need to get to the bottom line here so that we really -- the public really understands what's going on. How many years have we kept the millage rate the same? MR. MUDD: I knew you'd come to a couple of my slides that were coming forward. We have been -- we have been together now for almost six years the end of July. This is Collier County, Florida millage rate history from '00 to '09 where you can see that from '02 through '06 the county kept the millage rate at around 3.8 -- what's it, 7 or something like that, John? And then in '07, the board basically cut $23 million, and the board remembers that, and we took the millage rate to just below 3.6 mills in the general fund. We received a House Bill 1 bravo mandate to cut your budget by 9 percent, and the board did that last year, and that brought your millage rate down to what it is today, which is 3.1469. Your budget guidance would bring it up a smidge to 3.2901. And the -- and I'll go to -- and then I'll get back into the graph that nobody can read, and I'm sorry for that. John, nice worksheet, but it doesn't go for presentation very well. Page 17 June 19,2008 And this brings us to your unincorporated millage rate. You were about .84, almost .85 in '04. You stayed level millage rate through the zero time period. Your House Bill 1 bravo pushed you down to .6912, which is down at the bottom, and your budget guidance, if you did that and approved it, it would be .7065, and that would be that increase that's sitting there. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: The -- I think the important issue here is that 3.1469 is exactly the same as the millage rate last year, right? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And if we as the county commission decided to hold the millage rate the same as it was last year, the people of Collier County will experience a decrease in taxes but it will be almost entirely because the value of their real estate has gone down. Am I right so far? MR. MUDD: Commissioner, I'm -- I will tell you, they will have a decrease in their taxes, and what you're talking about is millage neutral, which is your bottom line on that chart. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Which is 3.1469, which is the same as last year? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. It will have -- they will have a tax cut, because you've got the Amendment 1 piece out of the revenue at 3.2901. Now, the only anomaly that you have has to do with homestead properties, okay? I want to make sure that you know that, because you've got an artificial constraint on those properties when it -- when it went into law, and what happened was, those properties are only able to appreciate by 3 percent or the inflation CPI, whichever is -- whichever is less. And so you've got properties out there that have taxable rates that are below the market rate even in a down economy. Page 18 June 19,2008 COMMISSIONER COYLE: And that's the point I'm slowly, but surely, getting to, okay? For those people who are homesteaded, they will not realize a benefit in a reduction of taxes as a result of the decrease in taxable value in Collier County. For those that are not homesteaded, they will -- they will recognize a tax reduction in the amount of the percentage amount of the taxable value reduction in Collier County, and none of that has anything to do with Amendment 1 or the tax relief program that our legislators and our governor promised you. If we go by their guidance, you will get a tax increase this year even though your property values might have gone down. So if we elect to do what we have done in most years in the past, which is to stay with millage neutral which means it's the same millage as last year, none of you are going to see this massive tax reduction that you anticipated when you voted for Amendment 1. Is that a fair statement? CHAIRMAN HENNING: Except for homestead. MR. MUDD: You used the word massive, okay, dropped like a rock. COMMISSIONER COYLE: That's what they said it was going to do. MR. MUDD: That you won't see, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. That's what I thought, and that's the best possible case. If we keep it millage neutral, same millage as last year, even then it will not substantially decrease for anybody. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Halas? COMMISSIONER HALAS: I think what we need to do at this point is ask the Board of County Commissioners if they feel comfortable in the direction that we're going. I feel comfortable. I'm not sure if Commissioner Coyle is looking at millage neutral, because if we do, then we're ending up with an additional cut; is that correct, Page 19 June 19,2008 County Manager? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. As I stated before, we would have to go find -- COMMISSIONER HALAS: Like 12 million? MR. MUDD: -- $11.3 million, sir. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I can tell you where $10,000 of it can be. CHAIRMAN HENNING: I'm sorry? I didn't hear that. That's all right. I was being facetious. Commissioner Halas, we haven't given guidance. I think the county manager is asking us, what do we want to do. So I'm not sure where we're going as far as your statement. Oh. I thought that we did give the county manager guidance some time back, about March or thereabouts, in regards to budget guidance so that he could put together this budget along with all of his staff. And so I just want to make sure that we're in agreement that this is the direction that we're going to go so that we don't -- well, let's say, that's where I think we should -- I think where we're at is where we gave him the budget guidance, and hopefully that this is where we're going -- where we're going to go in the direction. MR. MUDD: Mr. Chairman, on this particular slide, I just want to let the board know what their options are. The rollback millage rate is basically what you have in your budget guidance. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yep. MR. MUDD: Okay. But because of the market it's roll-up; the anomaly that I talked about. You can -- you can approve that with a 3-2 majority vote according to House Bill 1 bravo. Your maximum millage rate would be another increase of 4.15 percent because of the personal income capita personal income delta that the house bill lets you do. And you could also -- which would be higher than -- which would be more general fund money than the budget that we're going to present to you today is based on. Page 20 June 19,2008 You went with the rollback rate, and this rollback rate has the Amendment 1 monies so that that tax cut was guaranteed for the voters in your particular process. COMMISSIONER COYLE: It's not a tax cut. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir, I understand. Bad choice of words. And I guess I'm on eggs right here, okay, and I got to watch what I -- you're right, but it had the portability piece in it, it had the additional homestead exemption which only covered half, not the 25,000, because the school piece was out of it, which only gave you half, which is $12,500. Now, that additional homestead exemption of$12,500 may-- and I haven't done the numbers yet -- it may neutralize that increase in homestead properties, that 3 percent, that we get on an annual basis. So we've still got to do those numbers. The board could, by a supermajority vote, basically go with a maximum millage rate, okay, which is 3.4267 in the general fund, and you could increase that by 10 percent with a supermajority vote. And if you wanted to go above 110 percent, you'd need a unanimous vote of the board in order to do that. I just wanted to make sure you understood what the law was and what your options were as the Board of County Commissioners. Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, you've all kind of alluded at the particular item, and I guess there's a little -- we can -- and we have every intent to go through every page and -- of this particular budget based on your questions and we're going to bring everybody up in order to do it, but it sure would be useful if I kind of knew where the board was going as far as the millage rate that this budget is based on, which is rollback minus Amendment 1, and/or if the board had an inclination to go to millage neutral, because if you're going to millage neutral, then my staff and I have some work to do. And I'm not saying I'm -- I work hard and I'll continue to do so and we'll get after it, but that would -- that would help us as a board in order to have further Page 21 June 19,2008 directions. And if you want to wait till the end of this budget briefing in order to make that decision, you also have that option based on what gets done. It's your -- but that question is on everybody's mind, okay. And in my side conversations with commissioners, that has come up in every conversation. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. Mr. Mudd, I just want to clarify a couple of points now. If we don't make that decision now, then these presentations that are made to us today, they start to lose some of their meaning, do they not, because people will not have made that adjustment that we may be talking about? MR. MUDD: No, what the present -- what the presentations -- technology. What the presentations are going to be based on is your budget guidance, and that's what we came and did the budget on. And we'll go through that, and we'll base it on that budget guidance. And then at the end, you'll make the decision on how you want to go. Do you want to go on the budget guidance, do you want to cut it a little bit and get rid of the UFR money, do you want to go all the way back to millage neutral in order to get that done and I get some directions and I'll get to those cuts, and then I'll come back to you as a board on the 22nd of July when you set your maximum millage rates and tell you what we did. We can do that, too, sir. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I understand. So just to be able to clarify the point regarding the amendments that we put out there and where we are with it, unless we took a significant millage reduction, the average homeowner, homesteaded person out there would not see any savings on their taxes; is this what I'm hearing? MR. MUDD: Your homesteaded properties, okay, there's not a whole lot you're going to be able to do to affect them in either way you make that decision, okay. They're not going to see a whole lot of Page 22 June 19, 2008 cut. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay. And I think the public has a strong misunderstanding about what they voted for and put into place, and the ramifications of it are all going to come home now. This is a case where the worm has turned. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: How many properties or what percentage of properties in Collier County are homesteaded? MR. MUDD: About 33 percent, ma'am. You asked me properties, and I can't give you that number. I will tell you, of the proceeds that come into the general fund, 33 percent or thereabouts comes from homesteaded properties. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay, thank you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: You based your budget on what millage rate in the spreadsheet provided? MR. MUDD: And I'm going to -- and I'm going to try to use that matrix again because it seems to be a better -- a better instrument so people can see it. This budget guidance is based on -- or this budget is based on a millage rate for general fund of 3.2901, okay . Your rollback millage rate, or what it was in '08 -- excuse me -- not rollback, your millage neutral position. What it was last year was 3.1469. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Right. MR. MUDD: And the 111 fund, this budget is based on a millage rate of .7065. Your '08 millage rate was .6912, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. What -- here's -- here's what it says on February 26th in the direction that we have. General fund millage rate would be limited to rollback rate less the estimated $8 million in revenue associated with the additional homesteaded exemption and 25,000 business exemption for tangible property. So if that's the guidance of $8 million less than we had last year, where is that? Which one of these scenarios is $8 million less? Page 23 June 19, 2008 MR. MUDD: Sir, that $8 million less is your millage rate at 3.2901. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Right. But you based it upon higher millage. No, it's the same thing. It's exact same thing. You based it on 3.290901. MR. MUDD: That's the millage that you get when you take your rollback money that you had last year, which was -- CHAIRMAN HENNING: Right. So what'd you base the budget on? MR. MUDD: Sir, it's based on the amount of revenue that you received last year minus $8 million. It's about seven -- CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. So you did exactly what we told you to. MR. MUDD: Yes. CHAIRMAN HENNING: We're going to have $8 million less? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: The problem is, and I've said this all along, when you start basing your budget on millage, it's -- it's not the way to do it. And, in fact, we've heard it here and up here. We've kept the millage the same for years and years. We have not raised your taxes. And my opinion, the people, January 29th, and what the legislators did last year, they were looking for relief. Now, I know what's going to happen this year in the TRIM notice, truth in millage, you're going to get the truth in millage, and the public is going to see that we have raised their millage rate. So if they remember, we've also said we have not raised your taxes. The millage rate has been the same for years and years. They're going to see that we have raised their taxes, okay? That is the realty of it. They're not going to see a benefit if we go by the budget cuts. Commissioner Halas? COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yeah. I think what we did is we Page 24 June 19,2008 anticipated last year that we were going to have to roll back taxes, and so I think last year we addressed that issue, and if my memory serves my right, it was about $43 million or thereabouts that we did roll back. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Of total, of total, not millage, not property taxes. COMMISSIONER HALAS: No. I think you're absolutely right, that what we did is we rolled back that amount of money to try to make sure that we accommodated the citizens here prior to Amendment 1 being passed. Am I correct, County Manager, on that? MR. MUDD: Commissioner, the total amount that you decreased last year -- COMMISSIONER HALAS: And the year before that was 23 million. MR. MUDD: Yeah, it was about -- I want to say the total between the two years, around $67 million. So total was about 45. Thirty-five of that came from the general fund. So that reduction in millage was a decrease last year of $35 million, and then there was about $5 million that came as a result of a reduction in 111, and then the other ones came from MSTUs in order to come up with the total 45. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Janet. MS. VASEY: Good morning. Janet Vasey for the record. I believe I did -- I've done an analysis that really answers some of the questions you're asking. So if you would allow me, I'll show you how some of the tax consequences are at the different millage rates. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Do you have a spreadsheet you want to -- MS. VASEY: I actually -- I absolutely do. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Do you want to put it on the viewer? MS. VASEY: Yes, and I have copies, too. I wanted to know this for the same thing when I started look at the budget, so I tried to figure out what the property tax change would be between '08 and '09 based June 19, 2008 on the things that were happening at the different property value levels. So I did a table for each assessed value, and I've got on there 200- to $600,000. And just a couple of comments before I go over the numbers. Over 80 -- as you remember, over 80 percent of the voters voted in favor of Amendment 1, and they were looking for a tax cut. And I grant you that they don't -- they didn't realize that that wasn't really going to give it to them. But that's -- you know, I think that's an expression of what they wanted. Over three-fourths of the parcels that we have that are -- that the property taxes are based on are homesteaded. That's 61,000 versus 80,000. So most of those properties will have -- as homesteaded properties, most of them will be subject to that 3 percent recapture. And I'm sure 99.9 percent of the people don't understand that and how it works. You all do, but most people won't recognize that, that even though their houses -- their market value was 600,000 last year and it's 500,000 this year, they're only being taxed on 400,000, so the 3 percent recapture is going to result in a tax increase for that part of the calculation. Then you have the -- and that's what I did in that second -- the second column relates to the 3 percent recapture. And in -- the next column shows what happens with the 25 percent homestead for non-schools and that's pretty standard, everybody's going to get about $145 cut for that. Now, if you do a millage neutral, this is what happens at each one of the assessed value levels. $200,000 you'll get a cut -- a property tax reduction of 80 -- $78; 300,000 of assessed value, it's $45; $11 on 400,000. Now, at that level, about $430,000 assessed value, that's when you start having a property tax increase even at a millage neutral rate. And then at 600,000, it's $50 -- $55 increase. Page 26 June 19, 2008 MR. MUDD: Okay, Janet. Just for clarification for the public, when you say what the total tax is, you've taken the two columns and you're adding them together? MS. VASEY: Right, to get that-- MR. MUDD: To get that total. MS. VASEY: -- total millage change if millage neutral. That's that part. MR. MUDD: Thank you. MS. VASEY: Now, so the cutoff is about 430,000 of assessed value, so anybody with property less than that would get a small decrease. Anything with property values higher than that will get an increase in taxes. Now, if you take the millage rate that your budget is based on right now for 001 and 111 -- and I'm looking primarily at the unincorporated property owners, because the ones with the cities, they have their own taxes. But for unincorporated you've got the 001 and the 111 to look at. Now, if you have the millage increase that's built into this budget, it will result then in $25 increase for 200 all the way up to $91 increase for 600,000 assessed value home. So there the cutoff is about $300,000 if you go with the budget that's been presented. Anybody with a property of assessed value of 300,000 will break even. No tax change at all. Anything less than that will have a small tax decrease. Anything more than that will have a tax increase. So as you go through the process looking at it -- you know, I know where you're looking now. But whether you want to decide to go millage neutral or go, you know, with a budget that's been presented -- or that will be presented, I would just suggest to you that millage neutral is probably what I would recommend because you've got people out there that are expecting, number one, a tax decrease even though their expectation was not really based on fact. Plus you Page 27 June 19,2008 also have, you know, the deteriorating economy with prices and things gomg up. And I do believe as you go through here there are some options to make tradeoffs. Jim was practically clairvoyant in giving you a budget that so closely mirrors revenues that have come in, and he's done a good job. I've sat in on the budget reviews. He's done a very good job of presenting you with a tight budget. There's not -- there's not a lot of fluff in there. The decisions that you have to make now are more relative to tradeoffs. What are the relative priorities of some of the things that you're looking at? They're pretty tightly managed and budgeted, but should we be doing certain functions or should we cut some functions and increase other functions? That's your tradeoff, but I hope you will look at it as making those tradeoffs at a millage neutral level. And I have other things to say, but that relates to what you were talking about now, and I wanted to bring this up. CHAIRMAN HENNING: And we have some questions. Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. Janet, let's take a look at the total tax change if the millage remains neutral. What do you think the reaction is of the taxpayer whose property has declined in value from 400,000 to 300,000 over the past year and they're only going to get maybe a $30 a year tax decrease? MS. VASEY: They may be surprised. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And disappointed, I would presume. MS. VASEY: Disappointed, probably, yeah. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And millage neutral is probable the best we can do? MS. VASEY: I would say that you could always -- you can always cut -- if you feel like you have to, you can always cut something more. But I think millage neutral will be something that is achievable but not painless. I mean, you know, there would have to be Page 28 June 19,2008 some sacrifices to get there. But I think that the -- as a taxpayer myself, I would -- I would expect to not have my millage rate increased. Even though it's not going to save a lot of money, I would hope that you would be drawing the line at the millage rate and not increase it. And I -- I can't speak to too -- I mean, I'm speaking really for one person, but I have been in groups, and I've asked people, do you think you're going to get a tax cut in your property taxes this year? And they all said yes. They all said yes. And these are smart people, but they don't understand that that's not going to happen. COMMISSIONER COYLE: We tried to tell them, didn't we? MS. VASEY : You absolutely did; you absolutely did. But, you know, even in January, they were voting for what they wanted, even though it wouldn't give it to them, and now things are even worse, so COMMISSIONER COYLE: True. MS. VASEY: -- I guess that's where I'm coming from on it. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And if we did what the legislature says we can do, they would all get a tax increase even though their property values have declined. MS. VASEY: The budget is built on a very minimal tax increase, millage increase. But the legislature would have allowed you much higher and I guess would have then left you out to hang -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: That's exactly true. MS. VASEY: -- with the taxpayers, you know. Oh, yes, you can do this, but, boy, try and get reelected. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Now, let me just take a minute to explain my real concern with all this. Anybody who had a house up for sale last year knew that property values were declining. Any Realtor who was trying to sell property last year knew that values were declining. We almost unanimously were telling people values are going down. We knew Page 29 June 19, 2008 that the taxable value of homes was going to decline in Collier County. I said it very clearly on numerous occasions. When you change a constitution to remove the ability of local government to take into consideration unique changes in the needs of their community, you have consequences, and that's what this is, and it is not the last unintended consequence. There are going to be others. But this is the first one that the public will really begin to understand. So the legislation itself, in my opinion, was very poorly thought out. It wasn't properly designed. And it's a cookie-cutter concept. One size fits all throughout the State of Florida despite the fact that the counties have very, very different economic circumstances, so that's my primary concern with this. I just need people to understand a little bit better when they begin to vote on things like this before. Maybe they'll look behind the sound bites and the slick brochures that come out of Tallahassee. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coletta. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Janet, thank you so much for all the time you've given us over the years with your expert guidance. Can you give us a little perspective of where it is for non-homesteaded properties? Will they see considerable decrease? MS. VASEY: Oh, I would think so, yes, because they don't have that buffer of the Save Our Homes to help them. So anything that was valued last year with an assessed value of 600,000 -- let's say $400,000, it's come down to 350-, they will have a tax decrease because they don't have that buffer. The Save Our Homes ones are the ones that no one expected would have -- well, I can't say no one, but the general public didn't really expect that there would be a tax increase. Because, you know, they see their property values going down at the high market value level, but they don't think, oh, I'm only being taxed at the Save Our Homes assessed level. And the 3 percent recapture allows then an increase based on that smaller value, which then translates into a tax Page 30 June 19, 2008 increase as part of the whole package. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: So effectively what we did, the voters, the people that vote, usually homesteaded people, we voted the non-homesteaded people a tremendous tax decrease at our expense; is that correct, put the short of it? MS. VASEY: That is exactly the consequence. Whether it was intended or unintended, that's exactly what's happened. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I'll tell you what the fallout's going to be. A lot of people aren't going to understand this no matter what the headlines say in the paper tomorrow. There's going to be a public outcry, they're going to direct it to this commission thinking that once again that we're the ultimate responsible source. Now, the Value Adjustment Board, which I sit on along with a couple other commissioners, is going to be deluged with people that won't understand what just took place. And by the way, I don't know if Fred Coyle, Commissioner Coyle knows it or not, but he's also the chair of that particular board. Congratulations, by the way. COMMISSIONER FIALA: We voted you on there while you were gone. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Oh, thank you. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That will teach you to not be here. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN HENNING: So just so everybody understands, your spreadsheet is based upon the budget guidance. MS. VASEY: That's right. CHAIRMAN HENNING: And millage neutral would -- everybody would receive a reduction in their taxes? MS. VASEY: Millage neutral is like the fourth column over, and that -- that would be millage neutral, and your budget is built on the last column over. So if you look at the fourth column over, anything Page 3 1 June 19,2008 about -- I'd say about 430,000 of assessed value will break even. They'll pay the same this year in '09 as they did in '08. Anything less than that will get a tax cut. Anything more than that will still have a tax increase. So even millage neutral doesn't give a huge break, but it certainly gives more of a break to the less affluent. CHAIRMAN HENNING: What -- okay. Well, about half our properties or property values, or the average home is probable about $450,000; fair assessment? MS. VASEY: That's -- that's not anything I know for sure, but average home value is not -- you can't really correlate that to the assessed value, and I can't make that judgment at all. CHAIRMAN HENNING: No, I know that. MS. VASEY: Okay. MR. MUDD: But you can't -- Commissioner, what she's trying to tell you is when the homestead gets locked in, that's what the value was. And for -- you know, my home when I bought it was just a little over $300,000, and that was in 2001, okay. And then the tax roles, my taxable value, because the land issues and some of the improvements aren't in there, is around 280,000. And so -- and then what the market value is could be 450- or whatever that particular is. So if you're saying average value 450-, that isn't what they're taxing me on in my homestead property, it's $280,000. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Right. The millage neutral that I got on this equates to quite a savings. The millage rate that John provided me, millage neutral, of 3 .1469 is what I got. So basically what I'm saying is that's not what the budget is based upon. Ifwe go to 3.169, everybody would receive some kind ofa benefit. COMMISSIONER COYLE: No. MR. MUDD: No. Commissioner, under -- under her analysis, anybody that has a property -- and the pencil pointed to it. Anybody Page 32 June 19,2008 that -- anybody that has a property that's $430,000 in taxable value that's homesteaded -- CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. MR. MUDD: -- below will have a decrease. Anybody above that will have an increase. And the reason why you have that break-even point is the fact that that $25,000 homestead -- additional homestead exemption that doesn't have schools in it, that's only worth $12,500 is a flat rate, okay, but the 3 percent recapture in the first column is 3 percent of what that equal value is, that taxable value, so that exceeds what that cut would be based on the Amendment 1 for that second homestead exemption. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. MS. VASEY: But if you were trying to get to the millage neutral, then you'd have to take this budget, as Jim kind of outlined at the very beginning, and cut about $11 million out of the general fund and about a million out of the unincorporated general fund, of which you do have some allocated money the could go towards that. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, you've answered my question, thank you. Commissioner Halas? COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes. Just so people that are watching -- there's also another amendment going to be on the ballot in the general election, so -- CHAIRMAN HENNING: Can we stay on this same topic? COMMISSIONER HALAS: Well, I'm just -- yes, we can, and I just want to make sure that people understand that they better read very clearly what's being proposed. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. Janet, one more time now. Going back to the third column, additional 25K homestead nonschool Page 33 June 19,2008 MS. VASEY: Yes. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: -- $145 decrease, that's money that's going to be made up how? How are they going to make up that money? Is that going to be an increase in something else that's going to be covering that shortfall for the schools? MR. MUDD: No. The schools didn't get that -- the schools were held harmless on that particular clause of Amendment 1. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I don't understand. MR. MUDD: They didn't -- if you -- your school tax -- this tax bill's going to be very difficult. And what I'm also going to say to you is a lot of times you get people that come in here in September and say, I don't understand my tax bill, and you used to send them to Mr. Smykowski. I will tell you the tax bill is so convoluted now, please don't send them to Mr. Y onkosky because I don't think he can figure it out. The second increment of homestead, which is that extra $25,000, only applied to the nonschool portion of your tax. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Right. That's still part of your total tax bill. MR. MUDD: It only applied to the nonschool portion of your tax bill. Your tax bill for the majority of people in Collier County -- except for Commissioner Coyle, his is more -- is it's about 50 percent to the school and 50 percent to everybody else. In Commissioner Coyle's instance, he pays about 52 percent to the school and 48 percent to everybody else because of where he is in the zone. And it's a little bit different for me. It's 45 percent to school, 55 percent to everybody else, depending on where you are and the values of your property. But just for this argument and for this discussion, 50 percent school, 50 percent everybody else. General Fund, Mosquito Control, South Florida Water Management District, everything else that's on your bill outside of schools only represents 50 percent of your tax bill. Page 34 June 19,2008 The school represents the other 50 percent. The second homestead exemption only applies to the 50 percent that's not school. So the school -- your school tax doesn't have the second exemption on it. So during the discussion in January I said, this really isn't a 20 -- another 25 percent increment in your homestead exemption. It is only $12,500 in the aggregate. So the schools don't get hurt by Amendment 1 as far as the additional increment of $25,000. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: But if it wasn't for that school decrease, the situation would be considerably worse? MR. MUDD: No. For the taxpayers it would be significantly better because you wouldn't have a $145 decrease; you'd have a $290 decrease because you only got half of the sales pitch. CHAIRMAN HENNING: At this time does the board want to give some guidance for the millage rate? Yeah. Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Take them one at a time? CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah. Let's just go down the line. COMMISSIONER COYLE: You know, I -- I'm conflicted on this one also. I know how hard it's going to be for the staff to cut budgets further than they already cut them. Even now there are no salary increases; there's a hiring freeze. There are a lot of things going on, but there are also a few excesses that have to be dealt with. I do not want to use the legislation as a guideline for our budget -- for setting our budget and the millage rate because it permits an increase in taxes. In fact, it sort of mandates it if we follow their rules. And I don't think we should do that. The people were promised a tax cut. I think it's our responsibility to do our best to try to make that promise come true despite the difficulties the legislature has put in our path. So I would be very happy to support the millage neutral budget and then let us struggle to find the additional cuts of 10- or $11 Page 35 June 19,2008 million. CHAIRMAN HENNING: So that would be a millage of3.1469? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah, the same millage as we had last year. CHAIRMAN HENNING: No. The millage that we had last year is more than that, right? COMMISSIONER COYLE: No, it's 3.1469. MR. MUDD: When you say millage neutral, it's the same millage rate that you had last year. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Commissioner Halas? COMMISSIONER HALAS: I think that what we should do is go through the budget as is, and I think as we go through there, we might be able to have opportunities to see if there are areas that we need to cut, because I think we might have an understanding that there's some facilities and services if we go to millage neutral -- millage neutral that we may be cutting some services that the citizens may not like. So we're between a rock and a hard place, and so I think maybe what we should do is go through this, see what we have, and we can take notes, and then at the end of the budget discussion, then we can give direction to the county manager in the direction we want to go. That's my feeling. CHAIRMAN HENNING: I'm with Commissioner Coyle, I'd like to stay millage neutral, give that guidance. Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: I agree with Commissioner Halas. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I do also. It doesn't mean that I'm going to want something different than millage neutral, but I'd like to go through it in several steps. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Mr. Barlow? I apologize. You wanted to say something? MR. BARLOW: I do. A flurry of numbers this morning. Didn't prepare to the degree of having slide presentation. But conceptually, Page 36 June 19,2008 this is what I hear, that if we leave the millage neutral and that one-third of the revenues come from the homesteaded property versus two-thirds don't, that would mean that the people who don't have homesteaded would receive the largest benefit of the neutral as opposed to the roll-up percentage. And as that occurs the people that are homesteaded and, I assume, would primarily live here would get the reductions in what they like whether it be library service or parks or the things that might be less important than public safety and water and health and transportation, which are more difficult to cut. So I think when you said earlier that the commissioners reside with the ultimate decision, you're exactly right. That's why we elect them. But if you adopt the millage neutral rate, you're going to be hurting the people more that live here 365 days a year and you're going to give a larger tax reduction to the people who aren't. I don't think that makes sense. Now, maybe I've got it wrong, but conceptually that's where I come down. And I look at the numbers. I'm getting nervous. I apologize. I'm looking at the average income of a family of about 60,000, 66,000, and I'm looking at the numbers of relativity in terms of decreases and increases, and I've got it calculated at two-tenths or three-tenths of a percent, or in the numbers of $55 or $140, the net difference is a hundred bucks a year. And when you start taking away library privileges or closing parks or not doing what the people want to do, which are the more discretionary elements because everybody assumes that when you pick up the phone the sheriff is going to arrive or the 911 is going to arrive. Those are -- those are neutral. They're not going to change. But when you apply this tax millage reduction or neutral and the taxes theoretically come down, disproportionately the people that live here 365 days a year will suffer and, I think, will hold you more accountable than they will for 50 or a 100 bucks a year. Page 37 June 19,2008 That's the way I read the numbers. I'm not a CPA, but conceptually I think I got the picture as I listen to the numbers. And I would strongly recommend that you not cut what I would consider to be desired wanted service for the vast -- for a significant number of people that live here the majority of their time. Thank you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah. Mr. Barlow, your scenario is the scenario of, don't tax me, tax the guy behind the tree. The people who don't live here is the ones that don't use those services that you're saying that permanent residents like and use, and I agree with that. They do like that. But your scenario would give -- still give more relief to the person who is not homesteaded but is more of an equity thing. MR. BARLOW: Yes, disproportionately. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, it's disproportionately now, but what you're saying is you want to -- what is millage neutral is the person that's using that service is going to have to pay for that one way or another, and the person that doesn't is going to receive the benefit by the reduction. Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. One of the common misperceptions -- and I have to admit that early on I had the same misperception. But as we begin to look at it, we have to understand that homesteaded and non-homesteaded people have nothing to do with voters and nonvoters or full-time residents or part-time residents. Remember that a lot of property is owned by people who live here, and they're homesteaded in their homes, but their commercial properties are not homesteaded and they get hit very, very hard. So what we have to recognize is that we were -- we were trying to encourage tax reform. We were talking to our legislators about tax reform so we would not have these big differences in taxes. Our legislators decided to go for tax cuts, and that didn't work. It Page 38 June 19,2008 has not done anything to resolve this inequity. So I'm saying to you that there are a lot of people who live here temporarily but there are also a lot of people who live here permanently and own commercial properties. All of our businesses got hit very, very hard with our tax structure. And if they benefit a little bit now, that's not so bad. It's just that nobody is going to benefit to the extent that you were led to believe you would benefit. You were deceived. People lied to you so they could get headlines in a newspaper and get more votes for their -- to propel them into higher political office. That's all that was about, and you fell for it. That's unfortunate. But it will work out. I think we've -- we've got to do what we can to hold the line on taxes. The only way we can hold the line on taxes, whether it's for commercial properties or homesteaded properties, is to keep the millage rate lower. So that -- I still believe we ought to move for the millage neutral or something in between, but I think that's where we -- what we should shoot for. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Is there any other speakers before we go to the -- go for break? Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: No, that's all right. CHAIRMAN HENNING: No other speakers? We're -- MR. MUDD: Commissioner, before you do that, can we get the courts and related agencies, the public defender and stuff, before you take the break? CHAIRMAN HENNING: I have a lot of questions on the public -- courts and public defender. MR. MUDD: Okay. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay? Thank you. We're going to take a 10-minute break. (A brief recess was had.) Page 39 June 19, 2008 MR. MUDD: Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd please take your seats. Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, you have a hot mike. COURTS AND RELATED AGENCIES (STATE ATTORNEY AND PUBLIC DEFENDER) MR MUDD: On your agenda, this will bring us to the courts and related agencies, state attorney, and public defender portion. And if that particular group would just take the front table and grab kind of the hot seat. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Hook them up after they sit down. MR. MUDD: And because we don't get to see these folks all the time, as they sit there, if they could just introduce themselves so that the folks out in -- on the camera can also know who they are. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Good morning, Mark Middlebrook, Senior Executive Court Administrator, 20th Judicial Circuit. JUDGE MANALICH: Good morning, Board Members, members of the public, this is Ramiro Manalich. I'm County Administrative Judge. MR. RUSSELL: Good morning. Steve Russell, State Attorney for the 20th Circuit. MR. RHODES: Raymond Rhodes, Executive Director for Mr. Russell for the 20th Circuit. MS. SMITH: Good morning. I'm Kathy Smith, Public Defender for the 20th Judicial Circuit. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Who's going to start out? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: I will. With the court side, we went down approximately 8 percent in our budget submission from last year. We increased no positions. We basically cut this budget and our ability to serve to the bone at this point. Page 40 June 19,2008 We suffered severe cuts through the state budget, we have frozen any openings, we have -- are not filling one probation officer this year, and we have done our best to comply with the direction given to us by the manager and this board, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner? COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes. As I look in the first page, court-related agencies, looks like you have a 19.2 percent cut total, bottom line. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: I believe that includes everybody. COMMISSIONER COYLE: That's in red. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: That would be the state attorney and everybody. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Oh, okay. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: I'm addressing the judges and court administration side. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay, thank you very much. CHAIRMAN HENNING: The -- can we talk about your revenues? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Sure. CHAIRMAN HENNING: How can we have a decrease in revenues when you have more judges to process? Is it that we have a -- less workload? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: No. CHAIRMAN HENNING: We need all these judges? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Our criminal statistics are up, so the criminal cases are up. The revenue reduction is related to collections. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Have you done a spreadsheet on your collections? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: In? CHAIRMAN HENNING: Versus what is owed, have you done a spreadsheet -- have you compared year after year of your -- of your collections? Page 41 June 19,2008 MR. MIDDLEBROOK: No, sir. We do not collect revenue. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Who collects the revenue? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: The clerk. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Oh, that's where all the money's going then, right? He collects it. CHAIRMAN HENNING: The -- oh, probation doesn't collect the revenue? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Probation assesses a fee, and that fee is collected by the Clerk of the Circuit Court, and that money is generated and returned to the general fund. CHAIRMAN HENNING: The judge imposes the fines. The clerk collects the fines? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Correct. CHAIRMAN HENNING: So we need to ask the clerk some more detailed information of where that money is going. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Yes. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Or why isn't it being collected. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Yes. JUDGE MANALICH: Commissioner, County Judge Ramiro Manalich, for the record. I think that we have an excellent working relationship with our clerk. I think diligent efforts, from my vantage point, are made by the clerk to collect what we assess. Now, one of the institutional limits that we have in our branch of government is that we cannot run it as a revenue-generating operation. We have to deal with the cases on their merits as well as, you know, what sentences are imposed, including any fines depending on the merits, facts, and the laws as we apply them. So, you know, we cannot have revenue as a guiding thing. So it will vary depending on the nature of the cases that are presented to us. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Have you -- have you ever considered outsourcing the parole? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: We don't have parole, sir. Probation Page 42 June 19,2008 department -- CHAIRMAN HENNING: Probation department. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Outsourcing as far as a private entity? CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Yes, we've looked at that. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Have you compared it to what your costs would be? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Well, you can't -- it's not an apples-to-apples comparison, sir. They're going to tell you, just as probably any private entity will, we will do this for this much less than you're paying now. What you have to look at is the service and what type of employee they will have, what they are paying that employee. That's where they're going to have their savings is in the employment costs. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Everything else is pretty much the same. CHAIRMAN HENNING: So are you saying that the private sector would pay their employers less? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Yes, I am. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. So it's about dedication -- well, I'm not going to say that. I think it's worthy of looking at to see what kind of savings. I mean, I'm told it's upwards of a million dollars that could be saved from the patrol office. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: I would tell you, sir, that that is absolutely not going to be the case. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Is there any reason why you wouldn't be open to looking at an idea of cost savings? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: We're always open to looking at ideas for cost savings. I'm telling you that in our study of the private entities that provide probation services that you will not get the same level of service that you receive from the dedicated professional probation Page 43 June 19,2008 officers that serve this county today if you hire an outside agency who are going to pay their employees significantly less and basically bring in employees that aren't as well trained or educated as our employees. You will save money. There's no doubt about it; you will save money. The question's going to come, who retains the $70 a month we charge the probationers for the observation that occurs by the probation department? Does that money be -- is that money going to be retained by the private entity? Right now every dollar of that goes to the general revenue, which is significant money. In approximately 2004, probation actually paid for itself strictly from probation fees, and I believe in '05, they brought in significantly more money than it cost to operate. It's only because of the economic downturn, as with everybody, that their fee generation has slipped. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Wouldn't it be fair to say if you go out to bid you have some qualifications within that bid such as education for employees? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Sure. I would like to point out though that the statute requires the chief judge approve the probation department for each county, and I am fairly confident in telling you that I don't believe the chief judge would approve an agency providing probation services to this county that's not working for the chief judge. CHAIRMAN HENNING: But we get to approve your budget. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: You do. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. Mark, do you have data that will tell us what portion of your budget is spent on administration of cases related to illegal immigrants? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: We use a self-reporting number of 22 percent. So 22 percent is -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: Minimum. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: -- minimum. That's by asking, are you Page 44 June 19,2008 illegal, they tell us. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Now, what would you think would be the maximum so we can get a realistic range here? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: It could be as high as 60 percent. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. What can we do to deal with those costs? Is there something we can do better, smarter? Can we transfer some of the cost to the federal government in any way? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Weare working very closely with the Sheriffs Office and their criminal alien task force. One of the unfortunate rules with the federal government is misdemeanants do not always qualify for immediate deportation. In fact, it's very narrow as to who might qualify. We do report to them all the self-reporting illegal immigrants that we have on probation. They make a file and it's reviewed. Ifthere was a relaxation in the federal requirement, we would immediately ship several hundred of our 2,000 probationers away. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And do you think that ifthere was a state law that required us to do that or that urged the federal government to more expeditiously process these people who are here illegally, that it would have any effect on your costs? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Only if the feds cooperated. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yes. The Feds are not going to cooperate if they're not asked. Is that a fair assumption? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: I think someone has to ask a question for them to answer it. COMMISSIONER COYLE: If the governor and the legislature would require or would petition the federal government to deport these people or take action on these people more expeditiously, it would represent a substantial decrease in the cost of our court system; is that a fair statement? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: That is a fair statement. COMMISSIONER COYLE: There were multiple bills before the Page 45 June 19,2008 legislature this year to encourage the federal government to do things, and our legislature did not pass them. And to the best of my knowledge, not one of our legislative delegation in Collier County supported any of them. I will try to resurrect that issue and see if we can get some more action on it. But that is the way I think you can reduce expenses the fastest and the most, if we can get the federal government and the state to start doing something about this issue. Is there anything we can do in the interim? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: As far as the criminal illegal aliens or-- COMMISSIONER COYLE: Or any illegal aliens who are apprehended by the police department. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: I am unaware of anything that we can do beyond what we are doing now. And I believe that we are at the very forefront of this effort as far as the Sheriffs Office and the cooperation that we receive from them and ICE. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And you -- Collier County is one of the few counties in the state actually doing this; is that not correct? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Just a comment on that, yes. We have a UFR in here for the Immigration Custom Enforcement deputies for ten more, and I just -- I thought this -- I'm sure that the illegal aliens don't worry about paying their bill, but -- and that's probably a detriment to you, but at the same time, maybe if we have more of them moved out of the county we wouldn't have as many problems. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I think that's exactly the point. The -- it's my belief that the reason -- one of the reasons that the clerk isn't getting collections for all the fees is probably because they're illegal aliens. And if they are released, you never see them again. They go to another county where nobody's watching. Page 46 June 19,2008 CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes, thank you. Mark, the commission here hasn't really set the budget yet. We're toying with the idea of further reduction, possibly as much as $11 million. How would that affect your department? I have no idea what percentage you would be responsible for. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Well, we're .05 percent of your budget, .05 for the third branch of government. We're very, very insignificant in the scheme of things of a $1 billion budget. But we would be forced to cut out of the probation department, which is basically two-thirds of our budget, any positions, any further reduction. I would submit to the commissioners that it costs significant money to build a jail, and probation is an alternative to placing people in jail. I don't know what one year's -- the interest is on bonds when you build a new jail, but it probably would pay ten years' worth of our entire probation department. And I would leave it at that. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I'm confused. You just got through saying that it's self-supporting, the probation department, with the fees that they collect. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: No. It was self-supporting, but as the fees have reduced, the costs obviously remain the same or increase because of personnel. We're 85 percent personnel in our budget. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Can we raise those fees? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Well, we have. We are the highest in the state. We're significantly higher than just about every jurisdiction. We charge $70 a month. Most are $50 a month. Some have raised theirs 60, but there's nobody that's at $70 in the entire state except for us. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, maybe they get a service from you that's well worth it. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Well, we'd like to think so, but I'm not sure -- the problem is, if you continue to raise the fees, you're going to have more people going to jail because they won't be able to pay Page 47 June 19,2008 them. They'll be in violation, and we'll have other issues. JUDGE MANALICH: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Coyle, I just wanted to respond. One other thing is follow-up. I will tell you this, that from the court's perspective, I see misdemeanor as well as felony cases where we have illegals involved that have either been in violation of probation status or in collection court. And I've issued warrants for folks, and they do get apprehended, and sometimes even after a substantial period of time. So there is an effort made to make those folks accountable. Now, obviously if they leave the country, that's a different story. But if they come back they are rounded up and brought to collection court and made to come to account. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yes, Judge Manalich, I understand, but I would argue that the cost of doing that probably far outweighs any revenue we would get. If there is a way we can discourage illegal immigrants wanting to come back, that would be extremely beneficial, I believe. But I -- it's my belief that we keep recycling a lot of people here. And while we -- I believe we do it efficiently, better than anybody else I know, the costs, I think, far outweigh whatever revenues we get from collection of fines. And I would prefer to get rid of them than to have to worry about assessing the fine. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: If! could answer. Commissioner Coletta, we did raise, just this month, the diversion fees. There's two programs we operate; probation and we have a pretrial diversion. We did just raise those fees to try and offset the cost of the program. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I don't quite understand. If you've had to cut back on probation, in other words, lay people off, that means the remaining people that are there would have to pick up the load, which they'd have to work overtime, so wouldn't you be right back to where you were? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: My point is, if we have to cut our budget Page 48 June 19,2008 any further, that's where it's going to be cut, and that's going to be a pubic safety issue because we won't have -- we can only have certain-size caseloads, which means that we would tell the judges, we are at our maximum. Probation has no further openings for probationers, and they would have to sentence accordingly. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you, Mark. CHAIRMAN HENNING: So it's a matter of choice to privatize or not to provide that service at that point. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Yes. You could -- you would just tell us what type of service you would like and we would tell you how much it would cost, and that's basically what it comes down to. CHAIRMAN HENNING: John, can you help me out, please. On page 3, transfer -- oh, it's a transfer to the general fund. But the total cost from the general fund proposed is on page 4; 860,000. MR. YONKOSKY: The net cost. CHAIRMAN HENNING: The net cost? MR. YONKOSKY: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. There's -- and that's all from '01. MR. YONKOSKY: Yes, sir? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Just, if you've finished the question. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yes. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I'd just like to make a request. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And see where we go with it. I really would like to quantify the cost of this illegal alien issue, criminal illegal aliens, okay. I am not advocating blanket sweeps. But how can we track the cost of apprehension, investigation, trial, and other associated costs, probation costs, or whatever might be -- might be associated with those cases? How can we determine what those costs are on an annual basis? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: We take all the agencies that are Page 49 June 19,2008 involved, which includes Mr. Russell's State Attorney's Office, the Sheriffs Office, our office, the local law enforcement, and I would just say you'd look at their budget. It's probably at minimum, 22 percent, for all of us. You would take our budgets, find out what 22 percent of that number is, and that's what it costs this community at mmlmum. COMMISSIONER COYLE: That would be the minimum cost? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: That would be -- yes. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Now, you interface with people in other counties. I mean, you have an idea of what's going on in other counties, I'm sure. Do you believe that we are unique in that respect in Florida? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: As far as the -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: Percentage, yes. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: -- amount of criminal? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yes. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: I think, yes. Not that we're unique. I think that in other counties it's going to be either less or more depending on the make-up of the county. I serve, as well as Chuck Rice, who's our criminal justice director on the state Florida Association of Community Corrections board of directors, which is the probation, those remaining parole for state, county, and juvenile parole officers. So we meet and we discuss these things quarterly. There are some counties that have a very small criminal illegal alien population. Others have larger populations than us. So I don't know how the uniqueness of Collier County would compare to the state. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. So using that guideline with your budget alone, we're talking about over a million dollars possibly allocated to this particular issue? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Twenty-two percent, yes, sir. Page 50 June 19, 2008 COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay, thank you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any other questions for the courts? Mr. Russell, do you have anything? MR. RUSSELL: Just that our budget proposal was a 2 percent decrease, and we're primarily facilities and communications, so they're pretty hard costs. I would echo the sentiments on probation, that the level of probation service is somewhat directly related to violations which were current; in other words, if you don't have any reasonable level of service at the probation level, you're more likely to have violations which will result in new arrests and new jail beds being used. So if you don't pay the costs on one end, the jail costs tend to be greater on the other end. And the illegal immigration, criminal illegal immigration, there is the court factor. It's hard to assess exact costs, but there are some, as Commissioner Coyle and I have discussed on other occasions and other forums, some public issues, societal issues as to whether or not, at a certain level of criminal activity, do we aim toward deportation versus prosecution and sanctions within our system, and that's something that has not really been defined; in other words, if you have someone that commits a grand theft or a burglary, we may all agree that it might be better to deport that person assuming we have the level of proof for illegal status versus someone who murders someone, which we may feel we have a greater interest in putting them in our prison to ensure they don't go somewhere and then come back and reoffend. So those are complex issues. I agree, I share some of the sentiments that they need to be addressed. Other than that, I think unless there's any cost -- a good portion of our budget is funded by a $2 recording fee. And while the fees are down this year, we're working -- there were some surpluses the last two years, and we're working with the staff to try to find and get some accounting. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Anything else, Mr. Page 51 June 19, 2008 Middlebrook? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: No, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Thank you, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: We'll see you in September. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: I'd like to commend the colonel and Mr. Y onkosky once again. It's been the most difficult year of my 13 years of appearing before you, and they have made this as pleasurable as this could be. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Thank you. COMMISSIONER COYLE: We're all having a lot of fun. AIRPORT AUTHORITY MR. MUDD: The next part of our agenda is the Airport Authority. CHAIRMAN HENNING: It's way in the back under BCC. MR. MUDD: See if I can get it for you. Yes, sir. It's under -- it's under the Board of County Commissioners. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Page 1. MR. MUDD: And it starts -- it starts on page -- there's a page 3. It's a tab that you have to go to. It's right after elected officials, Board of County Commissioners, CRA redevelopment. There's a number one that says Airport Authority. You flip it over, then on page 3 is the macro on the particular budget. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Good morning, Theresa. MS. COOK: Good morning, Chairman, Commissioners. Theresa Cook, for the record. Debbie Briggerman's our finance person. Randy Greenwalt, Finance Accountant. As County Manager stated, our -- we're the anomaly on our budget. Our budget has increased due to the cost of fuel, but then so Page 52 June 19,2008 has our charges for service or revenues because we do sell that fuel. We've decreased our general fund transfer by 20 percent. That's -- we've looked at it, and it costs the county less than 10 percent to operate all three airports if you look at the general -- of our operating budget to operate all three airports. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Seeing none, can we move to your capital, please? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. Same tab. It looks like a purple spacer in there for the Airport Authority capital. MS. COOK: Okay. Our capital request has -- our proposed capital projects are approximately 6 million -- well, they're $6,835,900. Of that, we normally get federal funding at 95 percent and FDOT funding at 2-and-a-half percent. We've got some projects in here that will be FDOT funded at 80 percent. So our actual county capital fund request is approximately 163,700 to match those $6 million in projects. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: No questions, thank you. MR. MUDD: I do have one, and we've got to inform the-- because you're going to get to talk about this, and we really -- and we really need to get it resolved because you'll have an agenda item on Tuesday and we have an opportunity to at least explain it. Theresa, right now this board has been giving you $750,000 a year based on their guidance to try to get our 10 percent of the Immokalee improvement, and the FAA would do the 90 percent. Total cost to expand the runway in Immokalee plus the control tower and some other things was estimated around $30 million; 10 percent is 3 million. This board decided to take it on $750,000 a year for four years. This is the third year. Page 53 June 19,2008 MS. COOK: That's correct. MR. MUDD: That's correct. So this budget would be $2.2 million. And you have one more year to go to get the $3 million. Theresa has an opportunity to leverage some USDA money to the tune of little over a half a million dollars to build another building so to speak, and -- go ahead. MS. COOK: It's a 20,000-square-foot manufacturing building at the Immokalee Airport. It's a USDA fund -- USDA grant in the amount of 495,000. We anticipate the maximum cost of construction of the building to be 1.5 million. We're hoping for less, but we have to commit one million in order for the USDA to approve the grant to the county. And we've looked at revenue on this building once it's completed at the fair market value that we believe it is today and all the real dollar amount that we're receiving from the other tenants at the airport. And the low end of that is $5 a square foot per year, which comes to a $100,000 a year, and the fair market at $7.50 a square foot is 150,000 a year. So we believe that over the 6.7 years at fair market value, today's dollar, we could replace that million dollars and still leverage it toward the capital improvement projects infrastructure at the Immokalee Airport? MR. MUDD: I just want you to be aware that on your agenda item on Tuesday -- and I don't want the board to make a decision on it, but I want to make sure -- she's asking to take a million dollars out of that $2.2 million, okay, in order to leverage it in order to do that. You just don't have the money in your reserves to sweep over and grab that with hurricane season coming on, but you do have that pot of dollars, and it is in the Immokalee Airport, and it was one of those items that the board, as it was explained to them, the buildings and things like that on the airport are part of that $30 million estimate. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coletta, Commissioner Halas, Commissioner Coyle. Page 54 June 19,2008 COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes, thank you. Theresa, I think this is a win/win situation. We have an entity going into -- we have a new building going into Immokalee. It's one of the biggest problems we have is relocating businesses in Immokalee, is that there's no spec building for them to move into. There's absolutely nothing, and they can't wait for the time that it's going to take to be able to permit it and build it from the ground up. So this building will be utilized. It will be able to bring more employment in, be able to use money that's sitting there that's maybe gaining interest but little else. The runway's still some time off, and you're willing to put your life and job on the line to make sure this works, and I have faith in you. MS. COOK: Thank you, Commissioner. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Halas? COMMISSIONER HALAS: I think we found from the past that when we try to court new businesses to the Immokalee Airport, we've found that we didn't have existing facilities to house them, and then, of course, going through the permitting and making sure that all the different agencies were onboard, we ended up losing those people, so I think this gives us a great opportunity to go forward. And as soon as the economic climate changes, I think that we'll have the building on line and it will give us an opportunity to bring new business out to the Immokalee Airport, so -- CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. In years past, before Theresa got here, we did have problems building buildings and found that we really couldn't fill them up and the people who had committed to use them really didn't use them and didn't meet our expectations. In this particular case -- and I've talked with Theresa about this -- she feels very comfortable that if the business arrangement for this particular potential tenant falls through, the building is general Page 55 June 19,2008 purpose enough that she can use it for other purposes, including hangar space, which is -- is in short supply in Collier County. And so there are opportunities, I believe, for the Airport Authority to use this building to generate a positive cash flow no matter what happens with the current negotiations with the prospective tenant. So I would feel reasonably safe as long as you can tell us that this arrangement, this transfer, would not, in any way, impede the project for the expansion of the runways. MS. COOK: Commissioner Coyle, I'd like to clarify that you're correct and it is a general purpose building that we're constructing, but it's going to be on a land side or industrial side of the airport, so it could be sectioned off into four different businesses, two different businesses, or one, depending on the size of the business and their needs but it wouldn't be available for general -- for aircraft hangar space. In answer to your question -- now I can't recall. MR. MUDD: The second question is, does this transfer, by taking a million dollars out of the $2.2 million, does it jeopardize the expansion of the Immokalee Airport? MS. COOK: At the time frame that we have scheduled, this would not -- not should not -- would not jeopardize the expansion proj ects at the airport because the money that we have -- that we hope to leverage is at a 10 percent range. So if we were to do a $10 million project, we still have a million -- million dollars sitting there to leverage it at 10 percent. And from there on, our time frame for the runway started at seven years two years ago, so we're at five years. I still believe we're on track for having that runway out there in five years. MR. MUDD: Okay. And the runway extension is in a PUD document. We've been -- we've been talking with the landowner in order to get that resolved in the PUD, and we've come to a negotiation Page 56 June 19,2008 that, yes, we'll -- they'll agree to have that expansion from 5,000 to 7,200, I believe it is. Help me here. MS. COOK: Seven thousand, three hundred. MR. MUDD: Seven thousand, three hundred. And that will be part of the PUD that she's bringing forward to the Board of County Commissioners. So we had to go through that. That's one of those things they described to you, had to go get the land. We're working through that process right now. I've had meetings with Mr. Conrecode, who represents that particular landowner, and we've brought in the transportation department to help Theresa get it through point A to point B to actually get asphalt on the ground in that particular process, and that's what that landowner wanted, some certainty as far as getting it finished and getting it done and not having it hang out there for 25 years -- so. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Since you say you can't use it -- use the building for hangars but you can use it for other business-related activities, do you have alternative prospective lessees? MS. COOK: We recently turned away not -- we recently offered to an EDC perspective tenant a hangar that we have available, but they would -- they required 20,000 square foot of space, and we did not have that available for them at the airport, so I believe they went to Georgia to look at some property up there. That said, as you know in the past, we've had people look into properties and they've wanted space that was already built or hangar -- or manufacturing space already available. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any other questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you, Theresa. MS. COOK: Thank you. Page 57 June 19, 2008 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT MR. MUDD: Commissioner, that brings us to community developments. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Mr. Schmitt, good morning. MR. SCHMITT: Commissioners, good morning. For the record, I'm Joe Schmitt, your Community Development/Environmental Services Division Administrator. With me today, Michelle Arnold, Director of Code Enforcement Department; Randy Cohen, Director of Comprehensive Planning Department; Bob Dunn, Director of Building Review and Permitting Department; Bill Lorenz, Director of Engineering, Environmental Services Department; Jamie French, Manager of Operations Support and Regulatory Management; and Gary Mullee, my Manager, my Business Management and Budget Office. Before you today is a $32 million budget that will provide the needed funding for this county to continue to provide government oversight and regulation of development within Collier County through competent and professional enforcement of the Florida Building Code, the Collier County Land Development Code, Collier County Code of Laws and Ordinances and, of course, our Growth Management Plan. Also reinforce and collect and manage all the impact fees, and we do have regulatory oversight for the private utilities and cable franchises within Collier County. First and foremost, I want to stress that we've taken action this year to right size our organization based on current workload and, of course, based on revenue. This budget is 21 percent lower than last year's $40.4 million adopted budget and 46 percent below the $61 million budget we had two years ago. Page 58 June 19,2008 We're down 25 percent in our total building revenue and permitting fund, that's fund 113, and down 27 percent in our zoning and land use review and permitting, at least in the fund. So that's how we've made our adjustments. This is based -- and our budget is based on current revenue projections and current revenue. I do want to stress though, failure to meet any of the forecasted budget revenues that we -- at least that we've shown in this budget, we're certainly ready and prepared to deal with further reductions if needed to reduce expenditures and any of the other things that are funded either under those fund 113 or 131. On the cost side, we've not increased the fees since 2003 primarily due to the level of reserves we had on hand. As most would expect, we have -- and we've been dealing with increase in operating expenses and operating requirements, but we've been absorbing those. But we are looking at areas that we may have to come in and increase these, but right now this is based on a revenue neutral and no fees -- no fees to present to you as far as increase in fees. This budget is -- and the associated commitments were reviewed and unanimously supported by the Development Service Advisory Committee and also reviewed by your Productivity Committee. In summation, we believe that all the necessary reductions commensurate -- are commensurate with the economic downturn of the industry yet we still have sufficient staff to serve the community, our customers, and the industry. Given the volatility of the construction market, we believe that committing to deeper personnel cuts at this time is premature, but we acknowledge that if the current activity level becomes long-term, we're certainly willing to take action and deal with that. We have one expanded unfounded request that has to do with PUD monitoring, and we -- certainly we're prepared to discuss that. That identifies two FTE under fund 111, and that was to deal primarily Page 59 June 19,2008 with outreach activities and community relation activities in dealing with PUD monitoring and PUD turnover. I do want to stress though, actions we've taken this year, we've had a complete hiring freeze. I noted -- or I would note that we have 89 current frozen positions. This budget represents 89 -- a freeze of 89 FTE. We have 299 authorized FTE. This represents a 210 FTE budget, about the level of our 2001 budget year. We've relocated staff where we needed to. As Mr. Mudd mentioned, we've imposed a full hiring freeze, we've tightened controls over all operating expenses, we have bans on overtime, and we've dealt with voluntary reduction in work hours. So that pretty much covers my introduction. And I'm subject to your questions, my directors and I are prepared to answer -- or subject to answer any of your questions. Thank you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Questions? Commissioner Halas? COMMISSIONER HALAS: You said that you -- in your budget year you have two additional FTEs in regards to take caring -- taking care of PUD monitoring? MR. SCHMITT: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. I think that's an essential area as we've gone through discussions with the PUDs, as they're being turned over. I think that the citizens realize that this is an important aspect to make sure that they're -- that they're taken into account so that they don't be -- aren't saddled with a lot of additional cost upon turnover, and that the monitoring is done in such a way as to make sure that all aspects of the PUD are such before the turnover, and I think also the existing PUDs to make sure that they stay within compliance as far as wildlife and making sure that preserves remain preserves and not changed into something else so -- CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. That wasn't in your budget Page 60 June 19,2008 though. That's an unfunded mandate request. MR. SCHMITT: That is an unfunded requirement, yes, ma'am. I have two positions that are funded under the 113 budget -- 131, thank you -- that are budgeted under the 131 that do the monitoring and monitoring activities and also do the outreach, but the -- frankly, my emphasis right now is on the monitoring, pretty much the -- from the commitment tracking, all the associated activities that are involved in tracking commitments and monitoring the requirements. I'm afraid this year, some of the things that may slip, the outreach programs, and -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's so important to Commissioner Halas. MR. SCHMITT: Those are very important. But with only two staff, I'm focusing on trying to close out PUDs, bring PUDs to you to declare essentially built out DRI actions and PUDs. And the other requirement, the two were identified as an unfinanced requirement specifically to deal with some of the outreach activities. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. MR. SCHMITT: That would be under fund 111. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Mr. Schmitt, has DSAC reviewed your budget? MR. SCHMITT: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: And their comments were? MR. SCHMITT: Unanimously in support of it. They've reviewed it on two different occasions and reviewed it thoroughly, there were basically no issues that were raised, and unanimously supported the budget. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Was the budget changed by the time that they last reviewed it till today? MR. SCHMITT: They may have had some tweaks. Gary? MR. MULLEE: For the record, Gary Mullee. The last time they Page 6 I June 19,2008 reviewed the budget was last week at their last meeting, so there have been no changes. The last draft that they reviewed was the draft that was presented to you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay, great. Because I'm finding out that there are some changes in MSTUs, and one of them didn't even get to reviewed; not from community development. But we'll talk about that later. Anything else? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes, please. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Oh, I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's okay. I nodded to get your attention. Mr. Schmitt? MR. SCHMITT: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: In the past we talked about such things as possibly turning code enforcement over to the Sheriffs Department, and I think the discussion also a couple times went in the direction to looking to privatize certain parts of your operation. Has DSAC ever looked into these items recently as a possible cost saving measure that may help to move things along? MR. SCHMITT: Well, I'll talk about code enforcement. Code enforcement, if you want to privatize, that certainly would be done, but that would be probably something that would be out of the realm of the DSAC purview because that's your general fund. Privatizing, I can certainly look at privatizing permitting. I can give you a very recent example, if you would not mind me digressing a bit. But Bonita -- City of Bonita Springs just looked at going privatized. And, in fact, Lee County was doing all their work, and I just happen to have a spreadsheet that shows the fees. They just hired CH2MHill to come in and run their entire building department. It will save the city a little money -- a little money because they refused the Page 62 June 19,2008 cost it would have been paying to Lee County, but CH2MHill is proposed to triple building fees. Right now a 2,000-square-foot residential home right now is a $475 permit in Lee County, and the proposal was going -- was going to go to 1,988. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: What's it in Collier County? MR. SCHMITT: Right in Collier County, we're the second lowest. I can put this on the chart or on the overhead, but we're the second lowest -- MR. MUDD: Tell them what it is. MR. SCHMITT: Seven fifty, $750. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Second lowest in the state? MR. SCHMITT: Of the ones that are shown there, and that's a-- I don't have any other copies to hand out, but that gives you an example of what a fee costs all the way up to $6,000, a little over about $6,800 in Sanibel. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: So generally the cost savings to the consumer is greater if we can keep it in-house? MR. SCHMITT: It appears that that's the case. If you want us to look at privatizing, we certainly can. There are cities that have gone out to bid. In most case it will increase the building permit fee, just as what they're experiencing right now in Bonita Springs. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I thought some of the items that they had the architects and -- I'm sorry -- the architects and designers, if they use their license to be able to sign off, it may be able to bring the cost down where you'd have competition to market rather than hire one entity out there, and then if there was any kind of disagreement, it becomes a civil matter between two parties. Just a thought I had, and I don't know if that's all eyes in the real world or not. MR. SCHMITT: The Florida Building Code also allows one to hire a threshold inspector so the -- to hire a private firm for threshold inspections and also to hire a private provider to do building reviews Page 63 June 19,2008 and to do inspections. So that's in the law today. They can do that today. And some choose to do that. Now, that does not relieve them from the responsibility of going through fire review. Fire review -- they still have to come in and go through fire review, which, of course, I have no control over that. That's a separate entity as you well understand. But they -- the options are there today for a private provider -- a property owner to go through a private provider and go through a private review. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Most people choose not to do it because of the cost factor; is that what it is? MR. SCHMITT: Yes, that, but you still have to come in and file for your building permit through the county because we have to maintain those records. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you, Mr. Schmitt. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coyle, then Janet wants to weigh in. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Excuse me. Is the approval of these private providers provided for under the current law; in other words, if we have them, must we be the ones who approve who they are and who is certified to do this? MR. SCHMITT: No, they're not. And I'm going to turn it over to Bob. Bob? There you are. MR. DUNN: Bob Dunn, building director. Private providers are licensed through the State of Florida, and they control -- they're always required to be state-licensed engineers. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Now, we had a gentleman appear before us some time back who had not bothered to get permits for a number of things, and he, himself, was a licensed something or other, and he alleged he didn't have to come to you to get approvals on these things. Page 64 June 19,2008 If we were to do that, are we going to encounter a lot of those kinds of situations? MR. DUNN: I wouldn't recommend it. We have to oversee -- you want oversight, because if it's a single-family home, they can turn around and sell it. We want to make sure the home is built to code. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Now, this surprises me that we have a number of categories where we have no fee, inspection fee, permit fee, a roof permit, and a plan review. I thought we charged fees for reviewing. MR. SCHMITT: Commissioner, we do. It's all inclusive. Most of those fees are wrapped up into the square footage fee or the building valuation fee. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Now, where is that shown on this comparison? MR. DUNN: The building permit fee that you see, the $750 for a single-family home, that includes the plan review fee and all of the inspections. We're currently running probably about 19 inspections now on that single-family home. COMMISSIONER COYLE: So you're charging a building permit fee -- MR. DUNN: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- that is probably a third or a fourth of most of the other people? MR. DUNN: That's correct. COMMISSIONER COYLE: So you are giving the people a real bargain? MR. DUNN: We sure are. MR. SCHMITT: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Now, why is that never -- has that never been brought up when people are talking about the high fees that they're being charged? MR. DUNN: We brought it up with DSAC. We've requested an Page 65 June 19,2008 increase of the fee for square footage, and we were requested to keep it at 29 cents a square foot. Naples is now at 50 cents a square foot and Marco Island at 50 cents a square foot. So I would like to stay in line with the other communities. COMMISSIONER COYLE: But would you -- would you reduce impact fees? MR. SCHMITT: Impact fees are strictly related on other factors. It has nothing to do with -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: So among the 23 -- 23 other governmental agencies on this chart, Collier County is the second lowest? MR. SCHMITT: That's correct. COMMISSIONER COYLE: That's amazing. I've never seen this comparison before. MR. SCHMITT: Well, that's surprising to me, because I thought we had included that in the past of other municipalities, but I apologize if I haven't. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I don't recall having seen the comparison, but -- well, congratulations for keeping the fees low, but are the services matching the fee? Could you do better if you doubled the fee? MR. DUNN: We would have a complement of, you know, additional inspectors and plan reviewers, and I think we could do a better job for the community. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Then -- MR. DUNN: Currently we're almost up to 20 inspections a day. I mean, we -- you know, ISO recommends ten. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Well, so that you understand, there are people who have been very vocal in their criticism of Collier County for the failure to provide the necessary reviews and approvals of their plans on a timely basis. I have requested from you and you have provided the actual check sheets and comments concern your Page 66 June 19,2008 reviews. And I have sat down with these people who have complained and I have shown them these things, and they are somewhat surprised that many of the problems were of their own making. But you still have a number of problems in that respect, so things come back for review several times, and not necessarily new items. The point is that I am surprised that DSAC would encourage you to keep very, very, very low fees rather than encouraging you to get more in line with the other counties and hopefully provide faster reviews for them. So it's something I would encourage you to talk to DSAC again about, if you can really say that if you let us charge more money for the reviews and inspections, we'll get them done for you faster. And if you can quantify that and keep that promise, I would support higher fees for you, and I would encourage DSAC to take a look at it from that standpoint. MR. DUNN: Thank you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah. I don't want to get too far off, but that's exactly what we did two meetings ago. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. CHAIRMAN HENNING: We accomplished that. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Did you increase the fees or -- no? CHAIRMAN HENNING: We did. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Oh, okay. CHAIRMAN HENNING: So anyways. The -- Janet, you want to say something? MS. VASEY: Yes, thank you. Janet Vasey, for the record. As we go along, would you like me to input on the areas where I think we could possibly have reductions to save money in general fund to try and get you to millage neutral? CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yes. MS. VASEY: Okay. I have a recommendation in this program. The EDC program, I think, is low hanging fruit for picking and Page 67 June 19,2008 reducing in this area. It's -- the incentive program is about a million-two, and the EDC funding is about $400,000. And I think you probably have commitments that would require $100,000 of that money to follow through on incentives that you have approved, so that leaves -- MR. MUDD: Around $250,000. MS. VASEY: Oh, I'm sorry, okay. I thought we had a different number. Okay. So that's what you've got that I think would be available for reduction. This is a program that started when you had a lot of extra money from high property values, and I think now is a time when we are really under pressure to reduce taxes and try and get to a millage neutral, that this is time for this one to go away. And I think you wouldn't have an impact in the community as far as services. For me, the highest priority is to keep government -- keep services to the community, and this would not have that kind of effect, so I would recommend that you hold this one as a possible reduction. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Did you have recommendations? I'm sorry. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yes. COMMISSIONER COYLE: May I? Do you have recommendations as to what percentage reduction? You said you'd like to see it go away. Is there any choice between zero and what they've requested that would appear to be fair and reasonable to you? MS. VASEY: There's 1.6 million out there and $250,000 in commitments, and I would say the rest is reasonable. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Is reasonable to retain or-- MS. VASEY: Reasonable to reduce. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Reasonable to reduce. MS. VASEY: Yes. So what is that, 1.25, 1.35? 1.35. MR. SCHMITT: Commissioners, I think if you -- I'll refer you to the page. And I have it at page 11, but I don't know what page in your Page 68 June 19,2008 book. MR. MUDD: Go to the community development's tab. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Page 11. MR. MUDD: Page 11. MR. SCHMITT: Page 11. And so economic development, that's your 001 fund. First line is 415,000. That 400,000 is your contribution to the public/private partnership to support the EDC function; 15,000 of that is the revenue that they -- they are the funds that I receive to support that program through my organization. It pays partially for Amy Patterson's salary because she does other things as well. And then the economic incentive programs are shown there as 1.197. And that -- down at the bottom it breaks down. It's basically 50,000 for the QTI program and 1.147 for the five economic incentive programs. So you understand where that money is going. MR. MUDD: What Janet Vasey -- and I can break each one of those out in detail. But what Janet was basically talking about was, if you look at FY -'09 in this chart, it's paid, obligated, and potential. And '09, you basically -- you've got to keep track of what you've obligated because a lot of the incentives are multi year, and you have to keep track of what that is. So the obligated piece that you have right now is $255,000 that I would recommend that you don't cut because you've got obligations or potential obligations this year that you're going to have to fulfill. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And what is the remainder? MR. MUDD: That would be just the -- Commissioner, that's about $900,000, and it's -- if you look at -- on page 11, the economic incentive program, that's where that cut would transpire at. That would leave you 255- there, so it would be around $900,000 cut. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Oh, thank you, Commissioner Fiala. I'll tell you what, I'm concerned with the direction we're going, Page 69 June 19,2008 and normally I'm in agreement with Janet on just about every subject she brings up. But in this case, you know, we're at an economic downturn and we need to be able to keep our economy stimulated as much as possible. We have a very positive situation happening in Eastern Collier County now because of the EDC; 300-some new jobs going to be opening in Ave Maria, there's a number of other efforts coming forward. We're starting to see an increase in the purchase of houses out in the eastern part of Golden Gate Estates where there was a tremendous fluctuation in foreclosures and people leaving. Because of the demand for housing that's going to be because of these new jobs, people are starting to move into it. And this would be a case of doing extreme damage just to be able to save a small amount of money. The return we'd get back from it is many, many times what we have to pay into it. So I hope that we give this very, very serious consideration before we take the knife to this particular item. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Commissioner Halas? Commissioner -- COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yeah, I have a couple of things. Commissioner Coyle brought up a good point in regards to increasing the fees, and hopefully we can get things moving along a lot quicker. But I think a lot of the problems end up being a fire review issue. On the point of the EDC, I think this is just one area that we need to look at. And as we go through the budget, I think then we'll have a determination of the areas that are important to the citizens and what needs to be addressed. So just keep this in mind, whether it's services, whether it's other things, but the most important thing is that we have to make sure that we always keep vigilance in our mind that it's health, safety, and welfare, and then look at other aspects of where budget needs to be cut. Page 70 June 19,2008 So put this down on a piece of paper, because as we go through, there will be other areas that then we'll have to use the balance scale to figure out what's the most important. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Can I get to Tammie? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's what I was going to suggest. I didn't know if you seen her. Forgive me, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, I seen her move her chair. I didn't think that she had a bad chair. It's that she wanted to come up and speak. MS. VASEY: Could I make just one other comment? CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yes, thank you. MS. VASEY: I think Ave Maria is a very, very attractive area. I think you will have companies moving there, you will have people moving there for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with incentives from the county. So if you've got something that the people are going to want to do anyway, there's no reason to pay them to do that. And I think that that's happening in quite a few of these areas. So that's it. Thank you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Good. MS. NEMECEK: Commissioners, Tammie Nemecek, President of the -- CHAIRMAN HENNING: Did you have a bad chair? MS. NEMECEK: Yeah, I had a very bad chair. Needed to get right up. Tammie Nemecek, President of the Economic Development Council of Collier County. Janet Vasey, thank you very much for, every year, bringing this to the attention of the county commissioners because I think it brings us an opportunity -- I've got a great deal of respect for Janet. She gives a lot to the community. I think that at end the of the day she and I will disagree about what we need for this community with regards to high-wage job creation. Page 71 June 19,2008 Economic development is about sustainability. It's an intergenerational commitment to your community. Your efforts can improve the community over time. It is a long-term commitment, and I think that's part of what the budgeting issues are with this on a year-to-year basis is that you cannot take a snapshot in time and say, are we successful yet or are we not successful yet? I'll go back to some communities that we've studied over the years, that La Joya area with San Diego that we presented to you at the workshop in January, or a research triangle back in the 1950s leaders in the research triangle looked at that community and knew that textile industry was not the future of that community. It has taken them this long to get to a point where they've been successful in turning that community around. This is a very big ship. It takes not just you, it takes not just the private sector, but it takes us both working together. That is the reason why the public/private partnership was created in 1997, and at that time the county commission agreed to approve $250,000 of funding for economic diversification initiatives. That was increased to $400,000. And then in 2003, prior to really the boom time, we put into place the incentive program. At that point in time, the incentive program in 2003 was $2 million; 500,000 of it went for affordable housing, and 1.5 million went for incentives. Each year the incentive program has actually been decreased at a point in time when fees, impact fees in particular, have increased. We've seen finally one company that has said yes to Eastern Collier County, and that was Arthur X. Arthur X absorbed the entire incentive budget this year. They could have absorbed twice plus that if we were to help offset the entire amount of impact fees that that company would have to pay, which is over $2.6 million. This is not a short-term endeavor for any of us. The private sector encompasses a little over 60 percent of the EDC's budget. The public Page 72 June 19,2008 sector is somewhere between 35 and 40 percent. We continue to have the commitment of the private sector in helping to fund economic development initiatives in this community. We hope to see the public sector continue that support as well. Sometimes we find ourselves stuck in the tyranny of the present prices. The job of the Economic Development Council of Collier County, by definition, is to move past that. Let us keep our eye on the ball. Don't ask us to simply be relevant. Tomorrow we must look beyond and do that in partnership with you, the Board of County Commissioners. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. Kind of interesting in how different communities think. I read Fort Myers New Press for Lee County is considering putting in the EDC $23 million. I think they have a vision. I see that real estate has slowed down. And whether they're correct or whether other opinions are correct is, wait to be seen. But in my opinion, we need their diversification and not depend on the real estate or growth. Not depend on growth. So -- is there any other comments, questions, for Mr. Schmitt's department? Is there any further direction? (No response.) TRANSPORTATION SERVICES MR. MUDD: Commissioner, that would bring us to transportation. Do you really want to try to take transportation services on in 15 minutes? CHAIRMAN HENNING: No, you have anybody -- MR. MUDD: It's normally taken two-and-a-halfhours to do Norman on a budget cycle. So if -- you might want to take a lunch break and bring 'er back about quarter to one. That might be a recommendation. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, if you just wouldn't let Page 73 June 19,2008 Norman talk, we'd -- MR. MUDD: Sir, I've been trying to do that for six years, and I've been -- I have been unsuccessful. CHAIRMAN HENNING: It's Jay Ahmad. It's not Norm. Okay. Let's come back at 12:45 and start the process over. (A luncheon recess was had.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Mr. Feder? MR. FEDER: Commissioner, Norman Feder, your Transportation Administrator. I have here with me to my immediate right, Sharon Newman, who's your Operations Manager; Nick Casalanguida, Director of Transportation Planning; my left, Diane Flagg, Director of Alternative Transportation Mode; Jay Ahmad, your Director of Engineering/Construction Management; Bob Tipton, Director of Traffic Operations; and John Vliet, your Director of Maintenance. What I wanted to do is give you a quick overview, then we'll open it up to questions that you may have. I will tell you that in spite of increased costs, fuel, electricity, other items that are fixed, we are within budget guidance, which was 2 percent of the adopted '08 budget. The division overall is 2.2 percent reduction from '08. And if you take out the MSTUs, which we don't directly control, we're 2.8 percent below budget. Also an important factor is we're down 2.7 percent in general fund transferring. Positions are the same as our prior budget year. We're still at 284 authorized; however, we have 25 vacancies, frozen positions both from vacancies that weren't filled, and about 11 from the '08 buy-out program. That leaves us 259 positions that are covered within this budget. We did remove the two positions that have been carried for many years for the Big Cypress Basin. If you remember a number of years back, they had some budgetary restraints, asked us to put two in our Page 74 June 19,2008 budget. They were going to fund it and fill it, they never did, and carried it for a long time, and we've pulled it out this year so you won't see those there anymore. Basically major changes, the results of those numbers, we did reduce gas tax in transit by 250,000. There isn't an impact on service levels, as we've optimized the FT A grant monies to cover out maintenance costs and, therefore, allowing us to maintain our operations. In addition, we are -- started the process to go through the required actions for possible increase in fare from 1.25 to $1.50 on the transit. That process requires us to hold public meetings, get the public input, evaluate the issue further, come back and present it to you, which would be late fall for your consideration as to whether or not you wanted to implement. If all of that comes to that point, there is a recommendation, implement and approval by the board. That wouldn't go into effect, realistically, until about halfway into the year, about March, anticipate that that would generate somewhere about 80,000 from that six-month period in additional revenue if we did experience the 3 percent reduction that an increase of that industry says normally you experience in ridership. Realistically last time we did, we didn't have a reduction in ridership. And if that's the case, you generate about 120,000 over that six-month period. That is not in this budget. That's just for your information, and we're looking at that. If we do go forward and if it's approved, it would go into reserves and be ready for hopefully expansion or issues as we face the budget in '010. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Fiala, did you want to talk on that? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes, I did. Can I ask you, you're taking $250,000 out of the CAT system, is that what you're going to do? Page 75 June 19,2008 MR. FEDER: Out of the gas tax dollars, the tax system right now is funded by grant monies, by gas tax, and by ad valorem, and what we've done is taken a portion of the gas tax, 250,000 of the 2 million that's provided at this -- it was in '08. Taking that $250,000 out. And again, what we're doing is we're capitalizing on grant monies that are available to us that we can use for maintenance. Weare using it for maintenance so there's no impact on our service level. COMMISSIONER FIALA: It concerns me a lot. Because of the price of gasoline, people are actually wanting to ride the CAT system more. MR. FEDER: We're taking 250 -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: We're hoping that they will with people having more and more problems with jobs. Do you plan on continuing to take money out of that CAT fund next year and the following year at $250,000 a year? That's a million dollars out of four years. How is that CAT system going to survive if you've taken out a million dollars? MR. FEDER: First of all, it doesn't change this year. We evaluate it each year if we continue that 250- to get it down to one million, as you point out. But I'll also tell you that we have grant funds that we've had available to us that we're pursuing, and those grant funds are allowing us to make that change. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Let me interrupt you. We all know what grant funds are and how grant funds might not be coming through even though they're promised, especially as the economy gets tighter and tighter. MR. FEDER: This is in fiscal year '09. In '09 we've removed 250,000 of gas taxes, a proposal to you. We already have the grant funds. And so it's not impact this year. COMMISSIONER FIALA: So you're going to remove 250 -- I just have to understand this, excuse me, because I feel very passionate about this issue -- Page 76 June 19,2008 MR. FEDER: Understood. COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- the field of transportation. So you're going to remove $250,000 but it's not going to make any impact? MR. FEDER: That's correct. We've had-- COMMISSIONER FIALA: You have that much extra in that department that you didn't need? MR. FEDER: We've had grant funds that we haven't brought to bear to the maintenance activities that we could, and we're doing that. And we have grant funds from prior years that we're utilizing as well. And we will not -- we will not -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: You can't -- you don't have enough to build shelters or anything? MR. FEDER: Weare moving on shelters as a side issue. I brought the shelters inside because I heard from the board the concerns on shelters. Weare designing -- we're, first of all, doing a survey with our own survey crew, designing it with our own design crews, and our maintenance department is going to be erecting the shelters, and we're going after aggressive programs to get shelters out there to respond. COMMISSIONER FIALA: This is -- MR. FEDER: This is not a pull back from any commitment to the CAT system. COMMISSIONER FIALA: So the million dollars that you're going to take over the next four years isn't going to affect the CAT system at all? MR. FEDER: Well, first of all, the only thing I have on the table right now is 250,000 as a recommendation to this board. The other plan would have to wait and see how grant monies and other issues come in before I'd recommend that to you, although that's something we've looked at is maybe a phase-in, given the fact that five years' grant monies hadn't been pulled down, we've rolled them year Page 77 June 19,2008 to year, and so we're trying to make that activity go. We're trying to capitalize on the grant funds that we have already committed to us. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah, I'm a little confused the way this conversation's going back and forth. I would think that in the time that we're at a point where the gasoline has reached the price it is, a lot of people's jobs have been in jeopardy, that we'd want to make sure that the CAT system is running and running at an acceptable level. MR. FEDER: Of course. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And so I guess if it's a question of where the funds come from, that may be important. But the important thing is that we do find the resources for doing it. MR. FEDER: We have the resources. And what I've recommended to you is no reduction in levels of service. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Norm, since we're talking about Collier Area Transit, can we go to page 14? MR. FEDER: Yes. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And program funding sources under charges for services, FY-2007, actual is 993,000; but this year, let's say, FY-2009 current, it's 720,000. Why? MR. FEDER: Farebox is now being put into our budget. In the past the contractor managing the system, McDonald, was collecting the farebox, putting it directly into their bank account. We told them that we want those farebox collections put directly into the county's account and so, therefore, you see a change in there, and also that increased the amount that we send in contract services because they were retaining the monies previously, but it gives us a better management of the funding farebox collection. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, what were the charges of 993,000 in FY-2007? Are you telling me that didn't include farebox Page 78 June 19,2008 revenues? MR. FEDER: Yeah, it did. The reason it's down a little bit -- I thought you were asking for both. That is farebox. We started that previously. And the reason it's a little bit less is ridership is down a little bit less in CAT. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. If ridership is down a little bit, then people aren't relying upon it more for getting to and from work, because if they were, they would be using it more and the farebox revenue would be up. MR. FEDER: Yeah, and you are correct, and we feel that, unfortunately, some of our ridership that was in the construction industry and service industry are not employed at this time, are not using it to get back and forth to work as much. Having said that, we still believe that service needs to be out there, is important for that segment of the population. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. And in view of the fact that your operating expenses are increasing, gasoline and other things, is it not appropriate to consider an increase in fares? MR. FEDER: And that is exactly -- I mentioned we are looking at, to go from 1.25 to 1.50. There's a process we have to follow of public hearings, get the input, do surveys of riders, and bring that to you for consideration -- That will be -- the earliest that would be available, if we go through the process and you approve, would be about March of next year. We're not relying upon that revenue that would generate from March to September 30th. We'd put that in reserves getting ready for the next year, since we're fully funded for this year. But we are recommending that we at least explore that. And if all things pan out as we anticipate they would, that we do increase that fair. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, so that we don't have a major impact on the people who depend upon this transportation regularly -- MR. FEDER: Yeah. Page 79 June 19,2008 COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- could we -- could we have a smaller decrease for weekly, monthly, or yearly passes, as an example? MR. FEDER: Yes. And we're going to look at that. You have different fare levels for different persons. And as you point out, you have the passes, and maybe they don't go up or they decrease. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. Maybe the one-time usage goes up, but those people who have to depend upon the service on a regular basis can buy a pass, and they will not incur a substantial mcrease. MR. FEDER: Yeah. And we need to look at all the different rate structures. We also provide transfer for free. I think we'd still do that by the nature of our system. We can look at all those different items. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And you'll have that to us? MR. FEDER: It will be late this fall after you've gone through some of the public meetings. It's already been initiated. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay, thank you. MR. FEDER: Any other questions on-- CHAIRMAN HENNING: CATs? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Next? MR. FEDER: Okay. Let me go forward then. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Or continue, I should say. MR. FEDER: Yes. The second area changed is limerock conversion program. Last year in '08 we had about 5.6 million, -7 million in that. We're recommending -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: What page are we on? MR. FEDER: We're recommending -- that's, I believe, on page 57. Want to follow through with what I'm saying. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Oh, here it is. Page 57. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay, thank you. MR. FEDER: Basically we had dollars committed there from Page 80 June 19,2008 prior year. We're recommending that that program be cut in half at this time, 2.7 million be taken from the limerock conversion program, put in the resurfacing program. What that means, if it's done, is that it would delay the completion of the limerock conversion. Basically the remaining 52 miles of the original 95 would go from 2012 to 2017 or a delay of five years. We have addressed the areas of the highest density segments over the last three years of program. We believe we need to continue this. It's an important program. But we also find on the other end, on resurfacing, that we're basically on a 50-year cycle for the ability to resurface our road'Yays, especially as we expand with new lane miles. And basically by putting this 2.7 in and bringing that resurfacing up to about 5.5 million, we'd be in a situation we're about a 25-year cycle. And I need to make sure you realize that that is still well above the industry standards, which is basically arterials every seven to eight years and our rural roads every 12 to 15 years. And, of course, we do pavement condition ratings as to determination of where. I'm giving you a rule of thumb about how long pavement life expectancy is, and obviously it depends on weather conditions those years, truck traffic and the like. Y "? es, sir. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Question I have for you. Ifwe're going to extend the length of time that we're going to resurface these roads, do you think it would be beneficial for us as the Board of County Commissioners to look at what the charges are that we institute for heavy truck traffic, because obviously they're the ones that have the biggest detriment to our county roads. MR. FEDER: Okay. First of all, I've got two things, Commissioner, to make sure I understand your question. The limerock road conversion is probably not where the heavy trucks are going. That's where we're going from limerock to pave those, and that's where -- Page 81 June 19, 2008 COMMISSIONER HALAS: Paved. MR. FEDER: -- I'm recommending actually reducing that program by half, extending the time it would take to complete five years. It is then pulling that money into resurfacing where we're at our 50-year cycle to bring us to about a 25-year cycle overall for the system, which is still a little bit behind general life expectancy. To your other part of your question then, is we are charging about a dollar, per your efforts, as new mines have come along. We would recommend that we continue doing that, and I think Nick has a feel. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yeah. For the record, Nick Casalanguida with Transportation Planning. We're working with Tindale-Oliver to review that charge. Right now we give the miners an option. We give them a radius of influence, and we say, you can either maintain that road to our standard for the life of the mine or voluntarily contribute a dollar per heavy load of truck for maintenance of that area. And we started that about a year ago. We're looking at an impact fee for mines, which there isn't currently one on the books right now, and a study that would dictate actually what the actual costs would be for maintenance, so that's moving forward right now. COMMISSIONER HALAS: You've hit a -- hit upon something here, it's in regards to a miner in that particular area, but the trucks would travel not only from that mine to a particular area, but they might travel anyplace in the county -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HALAS: -- that uses county roads. So that's my concern, not only in the general area of the miner, but also overall. And if we're going to extend the resurfacing of the roads, then maybe we need to take a closer look or have a study done to make sure that we're taking care of the wear and tear that's induced by heavy truck traffic. Page 82 June 19,2008 MR. CASALANGUIDA: And we are looking at that. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. MR. FEDER: And we are looking at -- and the other thing I'll remind you is in general, truck traffic and that -- that's why that rule of thumb. We're still well behind that. It's not like we're at the basic standard or every seven or eight years for arterials and 12 to 15 for rural road. We're still in, overall, about a 25-year cycle. So that issue -- we're not in the position where we're supporting or minimizing their need to come in and address their impacts. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coyle, then Commissioner Coletta. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Norman, you mentioned reducing the annual allocation for limerock road construction and maintenance and extending the schedule. I don't see that on page 57. In fact, I have no information on 57 that pertains to -- MR. FEDER: I believe it's on -- it started on 57. Page 58, I think you'll find it. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Middle paragraph. MR. FEDER: Fifty-eight. COMMISSIONER COYLE: On page 58? MR. MUDD: Fifty-eight; last paragraph on 58, sir. MR. FEDER: Yeah. It gives you the description of what I'm talking about, 5.675 of -- or 2.675 of2.7 million and moving that over to resurfacing. And on the prior page, if we take a look at it, the limerock maintenance, they're being shown as 2.9, and the road/bridge improvements capital down there, 5.4, that reflects the change figures, moving that 2.7 million from one program to the other versus '08. COMMISSIONER COYLE: You still have me lost. MR. FEDER: Okay, fine. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay? What did you have for limerock road maintenance -- or resurfacing and maintenance for the Page 83 June 19,2008 current fiscal year? MR. FEDER: We had about 5.6, a little bit over 5.6 million. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Show me where that is. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Paragraph 1. COMMISSIONER COYLE: No. I want to see it in the summary of numbers. MR. FEDER: Yes. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Where is 5.6 million shown anywhere in any of those -- MR. FEDER: It's mixed in the capital outlay on the bottom of 57. Let me see if I've got someplace where I've -- no, it's not. It is Gov Max, so I may have to defer to them. But I think the only thing I can find you is where it's pulled together. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, I have a -- MR. FEDER: I have a shot that we can put up there. MR. MUDD: And Norman, I have a -- because I've asked the question. I have a chart that they basically gave me to -- I've asked the question, okay, we had about 100 miles. Where are we in this process and how have we done in the previous years and what miles did we get done and then how many miles do we have left? And this is the information that I received. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Now this says FY-'08/'09, proposed 2.675. MR. FEDER: Correct. COMMISSIONER COYLE: On page 57 it says 2.930. MR. FEDER: Yeah. The limerock where I'm doing the sections where I'm doing maintenance on a quarterly basis after we extended that now. It's only about three times a year. That limerock is also -- those costs are in here. The program itself, the conversion is the figure you see here 2.675,100 (sic). The balance to the 2.930 is the limerock and the other material for the maintenance of the remaining, in this case, 52.09 Page 84 June 19,2008 miles -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Tell me again how much you have reduced the budget for the limerock road construction and maintenance program. MR. FEDER: -- okay. As you see on page 58, that third bullet, you have reduced by half of it, 2.675,100, and that brings the construction of the road program up to just under 5.5 million on resurfacing. COMMISSIONER COYLE: That's the entire road program budget? MR. FEDER: Correct, resurfacing. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Not just limerock road construction and maintenance? MR. FEDER: Correct. The limerock maintenance was previously at about 5.6. That is where you see limerock road and maintenance. It has been reduced by 2.7 million, which was half of the program because you also had limerock maintenance generally for the -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: And you've extended the schedule? MR. FEDER: And put that into the resurfacing program, which is effectively double that. That's why it reduced the period of time from 50 years to 25 years, making that about 5.4 million now, on the resurfacing program. You've got two things. One is the road pavement resurfacing; the other is the limerock program. The limerock program in fiscal year '08. I had a program for conversion that was about $5.6 million. It had some additional dollars in it for maintenance and limerock of the roads that I wasn't going to convert that are stilllimerock roads. I took out of that 5.6, 2.7 million, leaving 2.9 million in both limerock conversion and in the generallimerock maintenance program. I put that 2.7 into the road and bridge improvement capital that you see here, which is resurfacing, effectively doubling that budget and bringing down the 50-year cycle to a 25-year cycle. Page 85 June 19,2008 COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Now tell me why you felt it was important to double the road and bridge improvements capital. MR. FEDER: Because the life expectancy of pavement is typically, as I said, seven or eight years on an arterial, about 12 to 15 on a rural road. Weare adding a lot of miles, some of those starting to get to that point, and we are behind in our resurfacing program in this county, and pavement condition is showing our need for additional dollars in resurfacing. And to bring us into a 25-year cycle which is fairly consistent with other counties in the area, as was looked at and studied, brings us a little bit closer to what we're really facing and what our condition ratings say that we're going to be need to be addressing. In other words, I was underfunded in road resurfacing. I am now bringing it closer to a more appropriate level of funding, and that was more critical to me with conditions and needs than a quicker response on the limerock conversion, although I have needs for both. I just don't have the budget to do both. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And what's the source of funds for that? MR. FEDER: Source of funds on both is 111. MSTD non- incorporated. MR. MUDD: Unincorporated general fund. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. COMMISSIONER HALAS: There's no gas tax put into this? CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coletta. MR. FEDER: No gas tax in this portion now. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, I understand about how we're in this money crunch, and I absolutely understand, especially when it comes to some of the bridges out there that we have neglected to be able to move this limerock conversion forward. We've neglected the bridges. And I can tell you that the people whose roads we have Page 86 June 19,2008 paved have been extremely appreciative. MR. FEDER: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Just on the opposite end of the scale, those people that are still living on limerock roads -- MR. FEDER: Want them done. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: -- are less than happy campers. They were -- many of them have lived there a good part of their lives, and they were promised 30 years ago that they were going to be paved, and we haven't been able to do that, but we're trying. We're trying very hard. And this commission, I want to -- I want to thank you for the past years of performance. You have made life very meaningful for a lot of the residents out in Golden Gate Estates, allowing these funds to be spent in that direction. I believe in the -- what do we call it -- the UFR list, there's some money that may be in there for additional roads. Another how much, Mr. Feeder? MR. FEDER: There was a request for, I think, a million and a half. I have to go back to the beginning here on the UFR. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, on the UFR list -- MR. FEDER: Two million. MR. MUDD: -- for reoccurring -- for limerock roads, there's $2 million sitting there, and road res -- and this is a request -- in road resurfacing, it's 1.5 million. So there's a total between the two of$3.5 million, and there's a total fund there of $2.6 million. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And once again, this commission has been exercising due diligence for a number of years in recognizing that roads have been our number one priority. I don't think that has changed. Of course, there is budget constraints. But I want to bring my fellow commissioners aware of the fact that if we do ever make it to the UFR list, I'd like to have some discussion at that point in time about trying to expand the operation Page 87 June 19,2008 for revamping some of the roads that are out there and also limerock converSIOn. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Mr. Feder, I want to thank you for -- there's a need for resurfacing out there, there's no doubt about it. So it's an asset that we can't lose. Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes, regarding resurfacing. I know that you have an ambitious program. We've had -- John and I have worked on some complaints regarding that resurfacing, and I won't bother to go into them. But are we changing that program or improving that program somehow, or is that -- was that an experiment or what? MR. VLIET: Yeah. Commissioner, were you talking -- I'm trying to remember -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: That black stuff that was all-- MR. VLIET: That was definitely an experiment. COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- the one they were resurfacing. And then it -- oh, it was an experiment, and then it got all over everybody's driveways and cars and stuff. MR. VLIET: The -- yeah, what happened, that micro-surfacing, it was -- it is an approved project by FDOT and most of the country. We have tried it. The experience we had in your particular area was the contractor did not have the right materials available to him and he put it down. So he was coming back to repair those areas, which he's done at this point in time. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And fixed the cars and stuff? MR. VLIET: Yes, ma'am, whatever -- whatever was called to our attention was taken care of. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay, good. So this is a different resurfacing program than that, right? MR. VLIET: Well, it all falls within resurfacing, Commissioner. Microsoft -- micro-surfacing is approximately two-thirds the cost of a Page 88 June 19,2008 conventional asphalt overlay. So we're trying to look for the most cost-effective way to do an overlay as well. They -- we have worked very closely with that contractor and others, and they now have the proper materials and we have some guarantees that this would not happen again. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Good. MR. VLIET: We did not use it at all last year. We may move forward and utilize some of that this year, but not to a great extent until I see how well it's going to work. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. Thank you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: That's John Vliet, for the record. MR. FEDER: Commissioner, should I move forward? CHAIRMAN HENNING: Please do. MR. FEDER: Road maintenance efforts, I just want to tell you that a lot of that staffing I mentioned, the 25 vacancies that we have that are the authorized is 284; we're working with 259 positions. A lot of that is in the road and bridge area, so we have moved mowing process from about six-to-eight-week cycle to a ten-week cycle. The same with that limerock grading that was mentioned before that -- the roads that haven't been paved yet. Ditch cleaning is working on a priority basis as opposed to a more definitive basis at this time. Landscape program, we do have a change there. We came to you CHAIRMAN HENNING: Before you get into that, have you ever looked at outsourcing mowing versus doing it in-house? MR. FEDER: Yes. And we do a lot of the mowing by outsourcing, and I'll let John speak to it. But we've looked at areas where it is better for us with contractor to do it, and we are doing that right now by contracting. As a matter of fact, there's an agency we're very, very heavily contracted out, and that's something I'll hit at the end. But, John, do you want to elaborate? Page 89 June 19,2008 MR. VLIET: Yes, sir. John Vliet, for the record. Presently most of our urban mowing is done in-house because it's small machine mowmg. CHAIRMAN HENNING: That's the one I'm talking about. MR. VLIET: Yeah. It could be very costly. We have looked at those prices. If we were to do it on the same frequency that we're accomplishing it, which, quite honestly, doesn't seem to be satisfactory to the public -- when you're talking an eight- to ten-week cycle, the public's not happy with that. So if we increase that by going to contract, it would become much more costly than it is in-house. Our rural mowing is about 85 percent contracted out at this time, and we are looking at possibly doing 100 percent of the rural. MR. FEDER: That is an area that we're looking at some more though, Commissioner, because it's got the option. Costs of contracting out have come down some. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Right, okay. Thank you. MR. FEDER: The landscaping program we reviewed with you in the AUIR last cycle, that we had removed the gas tax, and we had that 880 thousand -- million, yeah. Big number -- $180 million shortfall from a prior effort. We reviewed with you what we're going to do to respond to that. Part of it was, among many things, pulling the gas tax out of the landscaping program which meant that our basic program when we started back in 2003 with a master plan that was to catch up to the projects that have been built from 2000 to 2003, the airport, Pine Ridge, and others, that we would catch up, get them landscaped, and then from then on, we would basically landscape at the end of the construction upon completion of construction. To date we've been able to follow through on that. As we've finished the construction project, we've been able to landscape it. The most recent one, of course, was Goodlette-Frank Road. As a matter of fact, we landscaped it while we still didn't have substantial or final completion because we had the wrong streetlight Page 90 June 19,2008 fixtures up there to the public. There was streetlights, it was open six lanes, so we went through and got the landscaping done, a little bit to a degree, the same on the overpass as well. What we found at that time is we're going to have to then delay that ability to be right upon the completion of construction. What we find now, this restrained budget that we have, right now in this budget that you're looking at, there's 1.4 million for landscaping capital. COMMISSIONER COYLE: What page? MR. FEDER: That is on page-- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Seventeen. MR. FEDER: Transportation modes, 18. And if you see capital outlay here for '09 of 1.403, is what we have in there for an improvement. When we have five projects coming to completion, essentially, during the '09 fiscal year or completion now and then into the '09 fiscal year, I was asked to -- how are we going to address it on a priority basis. We knew already we're going to have to not move on all five based on funding levels. With 1.4, we then looked at it and said, okay, what's our basis? The initial shot that I have and what is in this plan as a recommendation for one segment is based on basically the concept of the original master plan, and that is, upon completion of construction, go to landscaping. So that means, again, like we did with Goodlette-Frank and others, when is it open to traffic? That would argue, as you see the map in front of you -- and I have a larger one for the audience here above, and if Jim puts it on the overhead, I guess -- is basically in green you see all the segments that have been done and already landscaped. Of course, one section of Immokalee under landscaping now. There are five segments; the segment of Immokalee between 1-75 and 951, that is already open to traffic; the section between 951 and 43rd, which is essentially open to traffic on your six lanes, and then Page 91 June 19,2008 Vanderbilt Beach Road, that is anticipated late this calendar year to be completed and open to traffic; Santa Barbara, again, a little bit further, completion; Rattlesnake Hammock, that is very nearing completion. It's a little bit delayed, but it's almost complete; and Collier Boulevard South, that is a little later for completion in '09. Based on when a -- we're completed and open to six lanes, that's one option to look at. We also provided for you in this map that the original master plan in 2003 would have had a different ordering and therefore a different possibility of which to be first, and that would have been Rattlesnake Hammock. It got delayed six months from permitting, and then got delayed by the contractor. It's almost complete now and will be open very shortly to six lanes of traffic. When we looked at it as well, we said, if we have 1.4 million, one of the reasons we kept that level of dollar in on the section we recommended initially based on open to traffic, which would be the section ofImmokalee between 951 and 1-75, is that the contractor did no work in the median and therefore did not prepare the bed for planting. We've gone through with some of our maintenance funds we had this year. The contractor gave us a better bid than anyone else gave us, so we've gone, and the contractor is preparing that bed. So I -- based on unit cost that we've had of late, we could do both that section and the one that was number one in the master plan, which is Rattlesnake Hammock if we do not add the side trees at about 1.7 million, and we've been getting bids in better than our unit costs, so we feel that that 1.4 -- and what we can do to modify it -- if we don't put side trees in at least at this time, we may be able to proceed on two of the five segments. Again, though, the ideal is, I have enough budget to be able to do all five. To be able to do all five, I'm talking about with street trees, about nine million, nine-and-a-half million. To do it without street trees, about 7.6 million, do all five. Page 92 June 19,2008 We don't have that, so I'm asking board's direction and guidance on how to utilize this 1.4 or some adjustment to that to move on the landscaping program. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Halas? COMMISSIONER HALAS: What is our maintenance cost per year on this landscaping that we presently have throughout Collier County? MR. FEDER: Yeah. It's just over 6 million. That's on page 15; it's fund 111. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Over 6 million. And what do we -- what are we projecting for costs to continue this landscaping? MR. FEDER: Each mile we've got 800 -- how much is it? MS. FLAGG: Commissioner, this year in the budgets it reflects a reduction of $8,4 70 a mile. COMMISSIONER HALAS: No, I'm not asking for a reduction. I'm asking for what the cost is that we -- that we've got scheduled for landscaping this year. MR. FEDER: It costs us 76,871 right now today, and we've done some cost saving, per mile. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Per mile, that's per mile. MR. FEDER: Each mile. So each mile we add on beyond -- COMMISSIONER HALAS: And how many miles is that? MR. FEDER: You have 87 right now. You're talking about three-and-a-half miles on the Immokalee section and a little over two miles on the Rattlesnake section. MS. FLAGG: You'll have 91.5 miles at the completion of this fiscal year. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. It seems to me that obviously landscaping is very important to this community, but it seems to me there should be another funding mechanism. If people want this landscaping, there must -- there should be a way that the people pay for this instead of the -- instead of being taxed -- taking -- trying to cut Page 93 June 19,2008 ad valorem taxes. We need to cut ad valorem taxes. So they need to come up with some other method such as an MSTBU countywide on landscaping and then vote on it. MR. FEDER: Yeah, Commissioner? COMMISSIONER HALAS: If they want it, fine. If they don't-- CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, where do you think ad valorem monies come from? COMMISSIONER HALAS: Well, that's the problem. CHAIRMAN HENNING: From the taxpayers. COMMISSIONER HALAS: That's exactly right. So what we need to do is shift the cost so that there's a -- we look at cutting the ad valorem taxes so that we can lower the tax rate, and then put that -- if they want that landscaping, then they pay optional on it. MR. FEDER: Yeah. Commissioner, what I will point out to you, there's a difficulty in MSBU because, how do you differentiate the person who lives right on the street versus the one that's one block over, two blocks over. The person that works downtown drives further, goes through more roads. What I think the chairman was also pointing out is, this is funded by an MSTD, which is, in effect, a non-incorporated or unincorporated area. I don't want to say MSTU, but MSTD. It's an MSTD. So it is including everybody all the benefit. The only people that aren't paying into this are the incorporated areas. COMMISSIONER HALAS: But if it's got to be in that manner, then -- if those people want it, they should pay -- step up to the plate and say, I'm willing to pay extra and take that out of -- we should get out of the landscaping business so that we can cut the ad valorem tax rate and-- , MR. FEDER: What I will tell you is -- CHAIRMAN HENNING: What Norm is trying to tell you is, if you create another MSTU, you've got to reduce it out of your ad valorem. Page 94 June 19,2008 COMMISSIONER HALAS: That's exactly right, take it out of the ad valorem tax, yes. CHAIRMAN HENNING: So you have to decrease the ad valorem. So if you create an MSTBU, how are you going to come up with a formula for equal taxation for the benefit? So what are you really accomplishing by creating another fund -- line fund and taking it out of the other one? What are you accomplishing there? COMMISSIONER HALAS: What you're accomplishing is, if the people really want to have them and pay extra for landscaping -- and it doesn't just affect the people who live on the road. It affects everybody in the community, whether they live two miles from a main highway that's landscaped or whether they live right next to it. They all benefit from it. And what we're doing is, in the present time, we are in a position where we're taking ad valorem tax dollars, and there's a lot of people that don't -- don't like landscaping; there's other people that do like landscaping. So I think what needs to be done here, instead of putting it on the shoulders of all the taxpayers -- and we're looking for ways of cutting tax dollars. This is one way. And if the people want it, then they can vote on a way of funding landscaping throughout the unincorporated area of the county. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, in looking at the District 2 map, I can understand the reason for your comments. Looks pretty green to me. Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: You know, I think we all agree that landscaping serves a wonderful purpose with respect to property values and quality of life. But the point is, we're going to be looking for places to cut expenses, and we have to cut them in those areas where it has the least impact upon health, safety, and welfare of our community. Page 95 June 19,2008 And not only is landscaping expensive to put in, but once you put it in, you're obligated to maintenance forever, and it is very expensive in the aggregate to maintain our landscaping in Collier County, but it's what sets Collier County apart from most every other community in the nation. But we're at the point where we have to make some tough choices. So I think that we need to take a good, hard look at our landscaping budget and not have a policy that says we'll start landscaping after road construction. I think what we do is we say, we'll start landscaping whenever we have enough money to do it, whether it's five years from now or ten years from now, or ten years after road construction. It's just a simple fact. We cannot maintain this county as well in the future as we have in the past, and the voters have had a hand in making that decision for us. So we have to find ways to cut costs, and I'm putting this on one of the -- on my list of things to take a real hard look at when it comes to trying to trim out that extra ten- or $12 million out of the budget. And if we just have to say, there's not going to be any landscaping on these roads until we get the money to do it, end of story. Forget about the source. When somebody provides us a source or we can find a source, then maybe we'll go to the voters and try to get it done, but that apparently doesn't exist right now. So I'm all for just saying, forget about landscaping, folks. Let's not increase our costs any more, and deal with it whenever we have more money. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coletta and Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You know, it's interesting -- and I've heard a lot of people in my district of those that live on Golden Gate Boulevard are very appreciative of the landscaping; a number of other people are very critical of it, you know. And you're always Page 96 June 19, 2008 going to have that mixed bag. But here's the concern -- and I'm sure that if we ever get to that point where we're going to do cuts, we'll find a way to make a balance. We have an MSTBU that covers the whole unincorporated county -- no? I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER FIALA: MSTD? CHAIRMAN HENNING: MSTD? MR. MUDD: MSTD, taxing district. MR. FEDER: MSTD, taxing district. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Right, and that taxing district covers the whole unincorporated county. MR. FEDER: Correct. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay. I have residents out in the rural part of the county that are paying into this. I can remember years ago when we were talking about these particular programs and how we put it together, and I brought it to Jim Carter, because at that point in time they were talking about ending all landscaping at 951. And I said, well, 85 percent of the county is past 951. That don't seem fair. And he said, well, the logic is is the fact that even though the landscaping might be far removed from these people that live in the rural areas, they still benefit from it with the fact that it makes a beautiful area and the values of their homes has a trickle-down effect, or all the way back. Well, I really don't agree with that. And when the time does come we're going to talk about cutting services, and we -- most of the new roads that are going to be -- going to go in in the near future are going to be District 5, and the people that live in District 5 have been paying into this fund for many years for the rest of the county, with the idea that at some point in time there's going to be some benefits arrived at. Now, I'm not trying to cast stones on any of my fellow Page 97 June 19,2008 commissioners, but I want you to be aware there's a balance that we have to arrive at. Who pays for the services the rest of the county gets? CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. Norm, could you explain to us an MSTD, please? MR. FEDER: The MSTD is a municipal services taxing district. In this case, everything but the incorporated areas are within that MSTD. At one time, I believe -- and someone historical here can tell me, but I believe there were a number of them that were all pulled into one, so it's one MSTD. And so it basically is an item that is ad valorem taxation of all residents in the county that live outside the incorporated, or all county residents. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Dedicated to landscaping? MR. FEDER: No. It is used in a broad area of use; all your fund 111, when you see fund 111. You've got it in community development, you've got it in transportation, and in some of our maintenance work, in landscaping and other areas. You've got it in other items as well; parks and recreation. So it's used for a number of different activities, just like your general fund is as well. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. MR. MUDD: You have two -- you have two general funds, and I normally give it -- you have the general fund, which is 001, which is the entire county, and the millage is set and the taxes are collected. That was the first slide. Then you've got unincorporated county general fund. That's the MSTD that he's talking about, and that's 111. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And that's dedicated to things like this? MR. MUDD: It's basically dedicated to urban services in the unincorporated area. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay, okay. I think that that maybe Page 98 June 19,2008 helps to clear it up for me and maybe others who are listening and watching. MR. FEDER: If! could go on, just as a quick wrap-up of this issue. Obviously two things; one, fully respect, if we need to look at the budget, we'll respond whatever direction of the board. I do want to put in perspective though, starting with AUIR last year, we already recognize we no longer were in position to immediately follow construction with landscaping when we pulled out the gas tax portion. Here we've gone further. You're about a little over 15 percent in what we're recommending, about 1.4 million of what I told you is almost $10 million construction if we were -- tried to do all five as they get completed in this area. So we're already a major reduction that we're proposing to you. Initially in here what you see in the budget includes only one segment. If you don't do the side trees, we believe we could possibly do two of the five segments. Again, we'll leave that to your direction and guidance. Particularly, if we do keep the 1.4, then do we try to get both of those segments without the side trees added or do we stay with the one segment or different segment, and that's the guidance we're going to need if we stay with the budget. Obviously if the budget gets removed, that's not an issue for discussion. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Right. And I think that's probably one of the things that the county manager looks at is the landscaping program if we try to go -- if we try to go to millage neutral. So I think that's kind of where Commissioner Coyle is coming from. MR. FEDER: The only other thing on the landscaping; I'll move past that. You have here in the program -- CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah, but Commissioner Coyle -- before you move on, he as something to say. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah, really -- and it doesn't add Page 99 June 19,2008 much more to this discussion, but I want to make sure there's no confusion about what we have in mind here. Commissioner Coletta is concerned that there's some imbalance and that some balance has to be maintained. What -- it is important to understand that if Commissioner Coletta's district had to survive on the property taxes they collected, they would not have any roads; they would not have many parks and recreational facilities; they would not be able to pay for deferring impact fees for affordable housing. The real fact is that there -- the imbalance is really the other way, and I don't complain about it. Eighty-five percent or more of the property taxes collected in Collier County come from those properties west of951, but probably 65 percent of the money that's spent is going east of 951. So there is no imbalance. Commissioner Coletta's district is getting more than their fair share of the tax revenues paid by the people of Collier County, and I don't complain about that. I think the money goes where the money is needed. And if we have to make a decision about landscaping, the amount that has been paid into this fund by people in a single district is relatively insignificant. So I just want to clarify that issue. I think we're here for the purpose of spending the money where it needs to be spent, and there is no imbalance between District 5 and the other districts. CHAIRMAN HENNING: And if! may further clarify. Parks and rec. is 111, the unincorporated, so the municipalities don't participate in those. The landscaping is unincorporated. The municipalities don't pay for that, and neither does resurfacing of the roads, or the limerock roads. So, you know, when we take a look at what comes from geographical areas, you really can't use that source of geographical areas because they don't enjoy paying into those. Do we want to move Page 100 June 19,2008 on? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Just a brief comment, if! may. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Sure. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I didn't mean to upset Commissioner Coyle. I do realize that the density doesn't exist in District 5 that it does in the rest of the county. As Commissioner Henning so eloquently put it, the municipalities don't figure into this fund. It's something that's still raised outside of that. And I'm not going to apologize for the fact that the homes in my district cost less than those that are on the coast, but I think the people that live in my area make a great contribution to Collier County and they'll continue into the future. And as we go farther and farther into the century, we're going to find that the balance comes more and more into the east of951 sector. And I'm sure these things will all balance out, but I don't think that we're exactly the stepchild that's asking for a handout. We're willing to work for everything we've got. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Please. MR. FEDER: Mr. Chairman, going further, also on page 18, under operating expenses, you see an item there for '09, $480,000. That is both the grant and a 30 -- included in there is the $32,000 match for landscaping just north of the Jolly Bridge on State Road 951. That's a LAP agreement, local agency program agreement. The state, in their work program, has moved all landscaping and LAP agreements for landscaping out a year. So, therefore, we were hoping to be able to keep this because our years overlap, and July 1 it would become available in '09. The problem with that though is, also, as you see down there further under your governmental revenue, that 448, which would be the money from DOT is there, and you have to get the project. You wouldn't be able to get a notice to provide until after July 1, and there's no way you'd able Page 101 June 19,2008 to complete and get the reimbursement within the fiscal year as required for the revenues to be realized. So we'll probably have to defer this project, and you'll see it deferred out to the next year when you see the budget later this year, but I wanted to make you aware of that. Not a good item, but full disclosure here. COMMISSIONER FIALA: We won't lose the money though, will we? MR. FEDER: You won't lose the money. The state's moved to one year, and they've told us that they're committed, that they won't move it again, but we'll see. It's a LAP agreement. We do have efforts at an expanded bridge program in here and not a lot, but we're focusing on that, and out in the Estates, to try and take care of the two-lane bridge. Where do we show the bridge program? It's in the capital, and I'll hit that in a minute in the capital. Also, one I need to bring to your attention is, Roy Wilson, is he here? Mr. Wilson's with Haldeman Creek MSTU. And what page is that on? They are asking for an increase from their current .1 mill up to a potential .5, that's 0.5 mill. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Which page is that one on? MR. FEDER: Forty-fourth, ma'am. That request -- and we have a letter from them requesting this consideration. Understand that they were formed as a mandatory MSTU. They initially had no organizational structure. They've started looking at what they feel the needs are, and I know Mr. Wilson could probably speak for himself much better than I -- but wanted to relay to you that that was the request they had for the board to consider allowing them to go to .5 mill. COMMISSIONER COYLE: It's been approved by the advisory committee? MR. FEDER: That's my understanding. MR. WILSON: Yes. Page 102 June 19,2008 COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. MR. MUDD: Commissioners, I will have to do some calculations, okay, as -- whatever you decide the millage is. You remember we talked about the pie, and whenever you decide to increase part of the pie, something's got to decrease out of that pie. Now, depending on the millage rate that you decide, we'll-- you know, that could lessen one side of the pie for the other one to increase. We will do that to make sure that we stay within the law, okay? If we determine that this puts us outside of it and you decide that you want -- based on the MSTU, that you want to increase that millage, when you do that, we'll ask you to go to that item, we'll ask for a supermajority vote by the Board of County Commissioners on that item, and when you do the millage and you lay all that out, when John lays it out, we'll ID that. And if it causes us to get out of -- to make the pie bigger than what the law allows because of the increase in the millage, we'll let you know about that, and then when you set the millages -- and in that particular area we'll go supermajority vote, and then overall you'd have to do supermajority vote because that would -- that would put you out of whack. I just want to let you know when you start doing that, that's what it -- that's what it will take. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Now, can we convert this to an MSBU? MR. MUDD: Could you what, sir? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Convert this to an MSBU MR. MUDD: Sir, you could come up with an annual assessment on the particular properties. It's a little bit harder, but you could. COMMISSIONER COYLE: That will solve the problem. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir, or you could just do the vote. I mean, if it's there and the board agrees to it and everybody's saying, we agree to it, it's just a simple supermajority. COMMISSIONER COYLE: But you still don't have to adjust it Page 103 June 19, 2008 from the basic budget? Ifwe approve it by a supermajority vote, you still don't have to balance it out with the decrease from the -- MR. MUDD: No. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. MR. MUDD: No. You'd have to do it for this item, and then when we do the roll-up, you'd have to do a supermajority vote with that exception in it, and then you're fine. MR. FEDER: Commissioners, I'll call your attention back to the capital. MR. MUDD: If it creates a problem. COMMISSIONER HALAS: What happens if you have an MSBU; do you still have to follow the same guidelines? MR. MUDD: No. COMMISSIONER HALAS: That -- I think that's where we were trying to -- MR. MUDD: I understand that. The assessment gets a little bit more difficult to do based on size. For instance, you have -- you have basically an MSBU on trash collection. You get your garbage picked up twice and you're paying for that service, no matter how big your lot is. It's how many garbage cans you have. And so it's very easy to do. When you get difference sizes of lots that butt up against the creek to be dredged, then it gets to be a little bit harder when you start talking about assessment piece. How much of that is my benefit? And so then it gets be a -- it gets to be a bit troublesome. But on taxing -- on a taxing unit by doing it, there's -- there's a method. Property Appraiser appraises the property that sits there. It's worth a certain amount, and depending on the size, if it's bigger, it's worth more than a lot, and with the house, it's smaller. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Do they have to go to a vote for the people in the community to accept that this is a -- what is this -- MR. MUDD: No. Normally -- normally what happens when you Page 104 June 19,2008 have an MSTU that wants to increase their millage, they have a governing board that meets that's -- that's there that's -- and then they basically come up with a recommendation that comes back to this board as far as what the millage rate that they're recommending. How you gauge it after they make the recommendation is if you start hearing complaints from the people that live within that MSTU. And if you don't hear any complaints, then you've pretty much -- they're in tune with the people that they represent. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes, Rock Road. I just want to touch base with you on that. There was a -- more or less like an annual meeting where the people came together and discussed the improvements to the road and they agreed to that increase? MR. FEDER: Uh-huh. MS. FLAGG: Yes. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I appreciate the detailed answer. The reason I'm getting to it is that I don't want the commission to lose sight of this. This was one of the more perfect examples, and I think most of them are, of people representing themselves in the simplest form of government saying yes, we want to pay these fees for the betterment of our community, and we're there for if. And I hope that nothing in any of these MSTUs or MSBUs, or whatever we're dealing with here, that we don't have to get to the point that we have to go back to these people and say, we're going to have to cut it back because our budget is restrained at the other end to make the whole thing balanced. I know what we have to do by law, but I hope that we can avoid that. And we have a request for the people to be able to provide a certain service under government, and then we have to go back and tell them we can't do it because of how it's put together doesn't make any sense, but thank you. MR. FEDER: Mr. Chairman, if we can move on to the capital Page 105 June 19,2008 portions of the budget. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Capital portion is -- MR. FEDER: The back section right behind -- CHAIRMAN HENNING: -- pretty much those -- like to finish the -- MR. FEDER: Operating? CHAIRMAN HENNING: The AUIR? MR. FEDER: Well, the AUIR is to follow, but this is one year, the capital portion for '09 for the first year -- CHAIRMAN HENNING: Right. MR. FEDER: -- for what will be coming. In the capital section here, we've reduced the capital budget, as Jim pointed out. Overall capital is down. Our capital is down from 214 million to 101 million, as is shown in here. Now, that's the actual product items, and you can see the reduction here to 134, which also includes, as I understand it, the revenue reserve and some other items. But the actual product level is a reduction of over 50 percent. We have in here -- you do not see the 50 million, which was the commercial paper bonding authorized by the board previously. But since we don't have the cash flow requirement for it, that isn't shown in there. That's some of that reduction. We've also got about 14 million that we've taken out of the program in '09 as we've determined to take in-house with the reduced program of our construction engineering inspection rather than going out to consultant. And that's a critical component. Transportation division staff, ifnot for the peak (sic), but for the basic program. Not sure we're there by needs, but we're definitely there by resource availability with our impact fees down by basically half. We're now bringing a lot of things in-house, and our reduction enforces predominantly through consultant support services and contractors, and in particular in consultants where we've taken out design on some projects; we're stopping at 60 plus to get our permits Page 106 June 19,2008 and our need for right-of-way acquisition not going forward because we don't want full plants sitting on a shelf too long. We're bringing the construction engineer inspection, as I mentioned on Santa Barbara, coming up in-house as well as on Oil Well. When that's somewhere in the area of about 10 percent of construction, that's substantial. But I no longer have my staff distributed over many design projects or many construction projects. So both the design folks, the folks that were overseeing CEI contractors, as well as some of our folks in traffic ops and road and bridge, will be conducting those construction engineer inspections in-house on the upcoming projects. That gives you a quick overview. Again, any questions you have on either capital or on the operating. The only thing, Commissioner Coyle had asked me the question where when I had mentioned on bridges, and I believe on capital three, if you look down here, you'll see the bridge program, bridge structures, we're about 200,000 adopting in 2008. We brought that up to about 2 million. Again, that's with reductions in other areas. I'm on page capital three where it says transportation, first part, stormwater. It's actually going through the project breakout. It's under the Gov max, but there you can see bridges. And that's both for rehab and taking care of aging bridges as well as starting a program to try and get -- rather than adding lanes, providing a connection of the two-lane grid that exists in the state -- the Estates as an opportunity, and we've already been working with your emergency response to identify best locations for fire, EMS, for school board and other issues to try and identify where we connect up that grid and work with community. I'm open to any questions you have, and I appreciate your time. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Questions on the capital? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: That's it. MR. FEDER: Thank you so much. Page 107 June 19,2008 CHAIRMAN HENNING: You're all done? We're going to -- oh, I'm sorry. Janet, I apologize. MS. VASEY: Quite all right. Janet Vasey, for the record. I just wanted to bring up some opportunities for consideration. You know, you're looking for 001 money, and I wanted to just talk about a couple possibilities. Transportation has been your number one priority for a number of years. And you've been giving $24 million to transportation for quite a long time to take care of the debt service. And I apologize for not knowing the exact numbers, but I don't think you're using 24 million for debt service anymore. MR. FEDER: Fourteen. MS. VASEY: I think it's 14-ish. So there is about $10 million in there that is absolutely going for useful functions in road building, but it maybe is time to say, you know, some of this money could be diverted in order to, you know, come up with some of the reductions if you do want to get to millage neutral. Half your construction program is down, and perhaps it's time to take another look at that money. And to be perfectly honest, if you like that idea, it's mine, and if you don't like that idea, it's Commissioner Coyle's. I heard him talk about that maybe anywhere to a year ago. And I was just -- when I was going over the budget, I thought, well, maybe that's something that you might want to talk about. Another thing is, when you were having your discussion on landscaping and looking at that as an opportunity for reduction, you know, that's fair, but most of your landscaping now is in 111. You're not going to find a big chunk of 00 1 money to save. And in general, your 111 unincorporated general fund has a couple million dollars available for unfinanced requirements right now. And in looking at some of those requirements, they're not hugely high priority in my mind, and that's just one person's opinion. I think some of the limerock stuff -- I wanted to bring to your Page 108 June 19,2008 attention. I hope you've all read the Productivity Committee core value -- core government function paper. There were some recommendations in there relating to landscaping and limerock and things like that that, you know, may have opportunities for you to look at for withdrawing money. But your landscaping in general is a 111 kind of thing. I didn't -- I apologize. I didn't hear anything about stormwater. Is this still part of your program? MR. FEDER: Yes, it is. It's in the capital, yes. MS. VASEY: Okay. We're giving .15 mills dedicated to stormwater management, and that translates to $12 million. And that's been a program that you wanted to identify money for on a recurring basis so that you could qualify for grants and things like that. You'd have matching funds. Twelve million dollars is a good chunk of money. If you went from .15 to .10, you could get $4 million of general fund money on a one-year basis if you wanted to. And that's just -- I suggest that as an option, you know, when you're looking for things. Thank you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. Is it -- is it fair to say -- right now what you're doing is trying to acquire the property to do your capital improvements, but you're not going to do -- build the roads till what, five years out? MR. FEDER: We have a program that we'll be bringing to you in the AUIR that is grossly reduced, moves projects out, limits the projects in outer years. It is working with close-off at 60 plus to get permits and be able to buy right-of-way and purchasing right-of-way. There is some construction, but they are delayed, so yes. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Yeah, I know there's a lot of money focused on acquisition that I see no way that you can do construction for quite a while. MR. FEDER: We're talking about VBR extension. We've already Page 109 June 19,2008 reduced that almost by half over time for acquisition, the cost impact on that and what's program. So we've had to reduce all the way around. That's why hopefully -- but whatever direction the board takes -- the 10 million beyond the 14 to pay back debt service was a reflection that, when we went after initially the backlog, we didn't get the half penny. When we went in and bonded the gas tax revenues in two increments, that put us short of the dollars needed to meet that backlog. And the provisions that was established to get an ongoing basis rather than hitting the nut in the different level each year was the 10 million to get us whole, and that's what we've utilized. So I'm already down. I'd be further down in road programs. In stormwater, about 7 million a year of that is your commitment over the next five-plus years to finish offLASIP, that project we've spent about 18 years getting permits for. So we've got a pretty tight program, but we'll do whatever the board wants to do in the guidance. CHAIRMAN HENNING: I think that's going to be the direction as far as millage. Commissioner Halas? COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes. At this point in time with the lack of impact fees coming in, the 24 million that we've set aside for road building, if we put that away, what would that do to our program? MR. FEDER: Well, first of all, you've got 14 million of that that's in debt service that hopefully wouldn't. The question is the 10 million at least initial on. With us being down right now -- and you'll see it more in the AUIR than this first year's budget, the impacts. But as you can see, I've already reduced my program even in fiscal year '09 in half, or just a little bit over half, and so, obviously, 10 million a year in five years is $50 million. I'm talking probably design right-of-way on three projects and construction on one or two. Page 110 June 19,2008 COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. I've got one final question in regards to the stormwater millage. Where are we with the stormwater program as far as addressing this issue countywide? MR. FEDER: Well, first of all, we brought to the board and have the update of the stormwater policy, and the direction and the focus is on the secondary system, primary being BCB. Our major focus right now in the program are those projects that have been studied that we have the long-range plans, for which is, as I mentioned, the big bulk of it LASIP, as well as Golden Gate -- I mean the Gateway Triangle and Gordon River. Right now it manifests itself in the Freedom Park water quality improvements. And so that is our major focus of our stormwater program, and it will continue to be that way over another few years. We're also working in your floodplain management to get the information on other areas and the backup of other projects as these start to be completed. But, again, LASIP is five to six years just to completion all by itself, and we've got longer even than that on the Gateway Triangle and the like. So our program is pretty well structured within those major programs right now. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Would you classify this as a health, safety, welfare issue? MR. FEDER: Of course, and that stormwater always has been. We built in a swamp. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. The other concern is, has there been anything that's been done with the stormwater in regards to District 5 in that area? I know there's been some work out in Immokalee, but in the Estates. MR. FEDER: There's been some definite work throughout the county. I think the major thing there is, I think we coordinated with Big Cypress Basin. They've done some improvements in a couple of areas. We haven't changed, if the question is, the flood event level, Page 111 June 19,2008 whether ten-year versus 25-year event. That's still the case. We're still looking to see what the implications are going to be of what they're doing relative to the south blocks and how that's going to change equations. We're trying to keep an eye on that. Weare looking at all development as it comes forward. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Thank you very much. Thank you, Chairman. CHAIRMAN HENNING: I think we have a speaker. State your name for the record, please. MR. WILSON: Yes. Roy Wilson speaking today as Chairman of the Haldeman Creek Maintenance Dredging MSTU. Just a quick clarification -- and I hate to be the first person asking for an increase. But as you know, the legislation was passed late last year to create this MSTU As we met, we were faced with having to put in a budget and a millage. And as a group and working closely with staff, we approached it on the basis of what is the minimum amount that we need to assess the MSTU residents in order to just function to have steno services and staff help, and that's why we put in the DOT one. We had no idea what the state was going to do with all of its budget stuff that's been discussed over and over here again today. So as we approach it this year, after learning a lot, doing a lot of research, having a lot of people in, not only from staff, but outside engineers, we thought, we're going to need to start accumulating money, because what we figured out, we can't do anything right now without money. Somebody knocks over a marker pole, and we virtually don't have the money to have it replaced. So as we sat down, we had to try to figure out and had a lot of dialogue, what number do you pick. And the best we could come up with was to accumulate $1.8 million over a 25-year period, projecting that in 25 years we might have to do the maintenance dredging. And based on everything we've accumulated, the 1.8 might be a very low Page 112 June 19,2008 number by the time we get 25 years out. Thank you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. MR. FEDER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. We're going to take a ten-minute. (A brief recess was had.) MR. MUDD: Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd please take your seats. Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, you have a hot mike. Before we go to public services division, though, I need to bring something to your attention, please, because this piece of paper should look mighty familiar. This piece of paper was used in September of 2007 to balance the budget from last year. And you will notice the fourth line down where it says, reduce reoccurring road funding by $10 million, replace with UFR funding, which was one-time money, and reduce reoccurring stormwater capital by $5 million and replace it with UFR funding. What you have in stormwater and in roads right now is, yes, you have the $24 million that Norman -- but only 14 of that is reoccurring. Ten of it is non-reoccurring. In your stormwater it's $13 million; 8 million is reoccurring, five is non-reoccurring. So let's not make a mistake. You've already used that 10 million of that 24 that Janet talked about to balance your budget last year. So if you didn't have interest income or whatever that came in in order to get that resolved, that 10 million would be gone automatically and Norman would be down to $14 million. Again, it's non-reoccurring money in the long-term. So I just don't want -- I don't want you to go down that road -- I'm saying, you can go down any road you want to, but I'm going to caution you that balancing your budget and trying to get reoccurring cuts out of non-reoccurring money is not a good idea. It has a Page 113 June 19,2008 tendency to come back and bite you later. Okay, and I-- CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thanks for the good word, or the good news. COMMISSIONER COYLE: The state government does it all the time. Why can't we? MR. MUDD: Commissioner, because this commission is a lot smarter than they are, okay. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Thank you. You're right. MR. MUDD: I knew I'd get agreement on that one. PUBLIC SERVICES The next presentation is by the public services division. Ms. Ramsey? MS. RAMSEY: Thank you. Marla Ramsey, Public Services Administrator . Commissioner, I've got a group of people sitting in front of you right now who touch more community people than any other division that you've seen so far. Weare the face of your government and we see these people on a day-to-day basis and we touch them, and some of them we touch incredibly well. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Ask Pelican Bay. MS. RAMSEY: Excuse me? CHAIRMAN HENNING: That's all right. I'm sorry. MS. RAMSEY: The budget that you see in front of you is-- exceeds the budget guidance that we were given, 2 percent; we are actually at 3.9 percent, and a lot of that has to do with the cuts that we have made already year to date, and this is a reflection then of what that would look like for the full year. Y "? es, sIr. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Now, people listening will misinterpret what you just said. Page 114 June 19,2008 MS. RAMSEY: Okay. COMMISSIONER COYLE: You said the budget guidance is more than or -- you actually came in higher than. MS. RAMSEY: Less. No -- well, I exceeded it meaning that instead of 2 percent, I gave you -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: You came in lower? MS. RAMSEY: -- 3.9. COMMISSIONER COYLE: You came in lower. MS. RAMSEY: That's correct. Almost double, yes. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Good, good. I just didn't want anybody to misinterpret your good performance here. MS. RAMSEY: Okay, thank you. Some of the reductions that we have done you've heard and you've seen and you've felt over the last few months. We've made reductions in our libraries, we've made reductions in the park areas, in our buildings. We've reduced our staffby seven-point -- 78.6 FTEs. And the budget that I present to you today reflects all of that for a full year. We've also looked into the future. We -- in order to get this budget to where it is, we have looked at not purchasing some of the fleet suggested equipment. There's about a million -- I mean, $160,000 that we are not going to purchase. We think we can get another year out of that. So we've looked at it closely. This budget also includes increase in the gas, and we use quite a bit of that as we mow and go. We've also looked at the electricity, which we pay directly out of our budgets as well, which is an increase. We think we've given you a very solid budget, but we sit before you today for you to ask us questions, and hopefully we'll answer them succinctly. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: No questions? Page 115 June 19,2008 Oh, we've got a question. MR. MUDD: I want to give you -- Marla mentioned electricity, okay, and the divisions that you have out here that present their increase in electricity in their -- in their budgets is 5 percent. That was the guidance that we put out at John and my level to the divisions. As you know, FPL has come forward, and in August they're going to the Public Services Commission, and they're going to ask for a 16 percent rate hike on the residential and a 17 to 23 percent rate hike on commercial. We're commercial. So you'll notice when you get to the general fund sheet and the 111 sheet, you will see an item in there that says reserve, 15 percent for electricity. It's not in their budgets because I didn't find out about this until the budgets were already printed. So instead of doing that, I collected it on the gross scale on the 111 and the 001 sheet. So you'll notice that there is an electricity 15 percent reserve that's there because their budgets only cover the 5 percent that we thought we would get. Didn't know we were going to get this big announcement. So when we did, we notified it at our level on those sheets, which is a whole lot easier to do than to go through this whole budget. But I thought that that would be important. The next item that you didn't get, okay -- one of the things -- and Commissioner Henning, I told you, and you're getting some of it -- and we're going to get some more -- you wanted to talk about how do you re-establish some services, okay, in order to get things resolved? And one of the things I believe in order to re-establish the hours and the folks that Marilyn needs in order to get the libraries before we had to cut back and scale back, if you decided that you wanted to increase that particular issue to re-establish those hours, I think it's around $450,000, ma'am; is that correct? MS. MATTHES: Yes. MR. MUDD: Okay. And I wanted to make sure that you're aware Page 116 June 19,2008 of that particular fact too, because the board wanted -- you had mentioned, Commissioner, previously in February, how do we -- what kind of re-establishment do we have? We talked about it today in PUD monitoring already, and I wanted to make sure that we talked about it on libraries because that's one that's absolute -- absolutely seen by the public. That's all I have to say, sir; thank you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: And that's on the UFRs, the -- MR. MUDD: No, I don't think so. MS. RAMSEY: No, that isn't on any UFRs. MR. MUDD: I don't think -- the re-establish is not on the UFRs. What's on the UFRs is -- MS. RAMSEY: We can put it there. MR. MUDD: -- the south regional library, sir. MS. RAMSEY: That's correct. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. But how do you re-establish the hours of operations? MR. MUDD: She would have to go back and she would have to re-hire part-time employees in order to make that happen, sir, and that's where that $450,000 comes from. CHAIRMAN HENNING: But that's not in any -- that's not in the budget today? MS. RAMSEY: No, sir. MR. MUDD: No, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: And it's not on the UFR? MS. RAMSEY: No, sir. We can put it there if you want us to. We can put that in as a UFR. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah. I thought that that's the guidance that we gave is to keep the customer services whole and look at administrative services and some of those ancillaries' things that don't touch -- MR. MUDD: Well, that's why I thought I'd bring it up -- Page 117 June 19,2008 CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. MR. MUDD: -- because it's not in your sheets, and I wanted to make sure that you had that information. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, can we adhere to what the board did in February? MR. MUDD: Board didn't specifically state that. The board said make sure that you identify it in this particular item, and that's what I'm trying to do. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Marla? MS. RAMSEY: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: I've talked to three out of the five community center advisory boards, and they have said that they have not reviewed their budget. I can understand why, if that's true. MS. RAMSEY: Well, the -- you talking about the Golden Gate Community Center? CHAIRMAN HENNING: Right. MS. RAMSEY: I believe that they did review that in May, and I believe that Barry was at that meeting. Were you at that meeting, Barry? MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, sir. For the record, Barry Williams, Parks and Rec Director. We have, throughout the spring and winter, involved the Golden Gate Community Center Advisory Board through the budget process. And I reviewed the May meeting minutes just to kind of confirm that. I was at that meeting and we went over the changes. We actually got input in the advisory board in terms of comments regarding reducing to get to that 2 percent below operating. So we reviewed and also allowed them to participate in that process. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Right. Did they vote on it? Because they have to make recommendations -- a lot of these advisory boards have to make recommendations to the Board of County Commissioners. Page 118 June 19,2008 MR. WILLIAMS: They did not vote on it. They do not have a meeting in June. We certainly can bring the budget to them in July for that confirmation. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Well, one of the members was not even at the meeting, so -- but the ones that I had a chance to talk to, they said they didn't remember. Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Could you explain a little bit about the south regional library? MS. RAMSEY: Well, I can -- if you turn to your unfunded request, I believe it's page 10 under tab -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: It's not -- there's no place in your budget that it's located, right? MS. RAMSEY: No, ma'am. And it's under general review, the tab general review, and it's number 10. Page 10 underneath that you'll see libraries. And the opening of the south regional library, we've got one point -- $1,691,100 listed there in order to staff and place books in that library. That's about 30,000 items in order to open it. That's the -- that's the dollar amount that we would need in order to bring it up to the same hours that we would have at the Naples city branch. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Is that 58 hours? MS. RAMSEY: Fifty-eight hours a week. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Halas? COMMISSIONER FIALA: And again, that's one of those public services you were just mentioning. Thank you. COMMISSIONER HALAS: The question is, to open the regional library, if there was days where the branch libraries were closed, would that give you the operational budget to open up all the regional libraries and keep them open at the regular hours? MS. RAMSEY: Well, Commissioner, we've looked at numerous scenarios in order to try and get to that answer. If you close this one or that one, how many would you need to close in order to open one full? Page 119 June 19,2008 And I believe that we came -- that if we wanted to close, we would need to close two-and-a-half branches in order to open this one with the staffing elements that we need. The problem still lies in the books. The books from three branches would be a lot of duplication in that, so it would be more books than we needed. We did look at -- and this budget does talk about -- even at 1.6, so taking FTEs from Marco Island, from the Estates branch and from East Naples, and we would look at reducing hours at those locations in addition then to opening the south regional library, so there would be some additional library open hours that would be reduced even with this unfunded request that you have in front of you, but not a total closure of the branches. That is not what we did -- that is not what we were hearing as we were talking with various board members. There was -- didn't seem to be the support there to actually close a branch. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. Now, this budget, again, is based on the guidance that was given the county manager with the possibility of a roll-up, correct? MR. OCHS: Yes. MS. RAMSEY: This budget is much better than that. I mean, we came in at 3.9, and the budget guidance that the commission -- that we got was 2 percent reduction, so it's actually less. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Where I'm going at is, in our earlier discussions this morning, the budget guidance that we gave the county manager and this budget in front of us is based on the guidance that we instructed to give him; is that correct? MS. RAMSEY: Yes, as an aggregate for the entire county, that would be true. COMMISSIONER HALAS: And so then the end result is, if we go back to a rollback rate, then we're even going to have other extenuating problems here; is that correct? MS. RAMSEY: That could happen, sir, yes. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay, okay. I just want to make Page 120 June 19,2008 sure that we're clear -- MS. RAMSEY: All depends on the direction that we get. COMMISSIONER HALAS: -- that this, what we're discussing right now, is on the budget guidance that was given to the county manager in regards to trying to figure out what's the best way to address this budget? CHAIRMAN HENNING: No. The budget guidance -- and we talked about it -- is the difference between direction and a vote. The direction that we gave is to keep customer services whole, okay? That's what we voted on and take a look at administrative services that don't touch the customer or the constituents. That isn't what we got, okay? We got -- we got an across-the-board cut of what was being proposed. We didn't vote on that. So those, whether it be libraries, parks, or other services, are being cut. Those services that touched the customer will be cut. That's the bottom line. That's the direction that we gave in February. I have the minutes, and I'll be glad to read them all. Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. I was wondering, could you ever take the money for the books for the library, that was $700,000, you said, in order to put the books in the library -- and I know that that's supposed to be paid from impact fees. Could we ever advance the money for the $700,000 to buy the books but yet in anticipation of having it being paid back from impact fees? MS. RAMSEY: I would assume, yes, ma'am, because that's exactly what we're doing with the debt service on the libraries. Weare paying a lot of that on the construction of libraries through ad valorem because the impact fees are not substantial enough. And so we do have this little account that tells us how much we will owe in the future. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. So that's a possibility then. Okay, thank you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coyle? Page 121 June 19,2008 COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah, just a quick moment to clarify something, then I'd like to have a question. The issue that Commissioner Halas and Commissioner Henning are discussing is really, I think, this: Commissioner Halas is -- has pointed out that this budget is based upon the 3.2901 millage rate, overall millage rate that the county manager has developed to present to us; whereas, we are also looking at the possibility of a 3.1469. So if we go with the millage neutral 3.1469, it is true that some cuts will have to be made somewhere. Won't necessarily have to be in your department but in the aggregate there would be some cuts that would be necessary. So I think that's what both commissioners were actually getting at, and I just wanted to try to clarify it. The question I have is, you mentioned the increased cost of electricity. One of the big users of electricity has to be our water park. What is the impact on the operating costs of the water park? MS. RAMSEY: I can tell you that if we raise the fee at the gate by 50 cents, we would cover the additional electricity cost at the Sun-N-Fun water park. As the entire department, I have that number. I don't have it -- you know, the number broken out, unless Barry has it. But it was like $344,000 for electricity for the parks department, not just the water park. COMMISSIONER COYLE: How about operating costs overall? MS. RAMSEY: Operating costs overall last year, 2007, our deficit for that particular location was $86,000 rounded. Your budget guidance to us and what was approved by the board was for $454,000 loss. We did 315,000 or so better than we thought we would. We've had 366,400 people come through that water park since we opened it and -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: Good. MS. RAMSEY: And one of the things that the Productivity Committee has been looking at with the parks department is a possibility of coming in with a raise -- raising of the admission fee to Page 122 June 19,2008 $12, but then granting a resident with a driver's license, which is the easiest thing for us to do, giving them a $2 discount, which would leave the resident with a $10 fee, as it is today, but end up charging the non-resident $12. That additional $2 would probably get us into the black. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay, good. Thank you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Other questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. MS. RAMSEY: Do you need capital or are we okay with that as well? I didn't discuss that yet, but do you have questions on capital? CHAIRMAN HENNING: There's not much of it. MS. RAMSEY: No, it's much less. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Just millions and millions and millions of dollars. MS. RAMSEY: Some of that's TDC and the coastal zone, and it's kind ofa mixed bag that we have there now. But impact-fee related is definitely -- there is no park impact fee on this list for new construction. CHAIRMAN HENNING: That's just capital debt? MS. RAMSEY: Yes, that's correct. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Where do we stand -- oh, excuse me. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Halas? COMMISSIONER HALAS: Where do we stand with the marinas that the county presently owns and where do we stand with making sure that they're up to standards that everybody in Collier County likes? I know you've worked on the Caxambas marina. Is that up and running and is that 100 percent? MS. RAMSEY: Yes, it's up and running. If you're asking financially how it's doing, I can turn that over to Barry. He can give Page 123 June 19,2008 you some specifics. But both of our marinas that we have taken over do make money. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. Do you have funds allocated this year for Cocohatchee and 951 marinas? MS. RAMSEY: As far as construction dollars, 951, we're like real close within a couple weeks of getting that permit. We're crossing our fingers because we've heard that before, but we have, I think, about -- we had 1.2 million in the project to begin with, and I think we've got about 900,000 left, Gary? Is that where we're at? MR. McALPIN: That's correct. MS. RAMSEY: And we're getting ready to put that bid package out on the street. As soon as we get that permit in hand, that bid package will go out, and we're hoping to get a good -- good price on that. So that one is moving. Cocohatchee, the improvements that we were doing there mainly are dealing with the docks. Weare still waiting on the developer Aqua to come in and help -- to do, as part of their PUD requirement, to do the expansion parking at that location. I don't have a time line on it. I haven't actually checked that. Gary, are you familiar with if you got a time line on when they're doing it? MR. McALPIN: I don't have a time line when Aqua will be in there to expand the parking lot, no, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HALAS: What about dispensing fuel at that location? Do we have -- are we dispensing fuel, both gas and diesel at that area? MS. RAMSEY: Are we doing diesel? MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, sir. We have both gas and diesel at that location. We have a split tank system that allows for us to take deliveries of both and dispense both. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Will we have that option at all the marinas that we're presently running? Page 124 June 19,2008 MR. WILLIAMS: We have that option as well as Caxambas, yes, SIr. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. COMMISSIONER FIALA: 951 also? MS. RAMSEY: 951 doesn't have a fueling area, nor will Goodland have a fueling area. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: What is elected officials transfer? MS. RAMSEY: Well, I believe that has to do with fees associated with -- maybe I can get budget to help with that, because that's one of those strange little new things that we've got. But I thought it was impact fee refunds and fees to collect the impact fees and -- is that correct? John? MR. YONKOSKY: Yes. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Capital 4, top of the page, left side. I thought maybe you were paying us something. MS. RAMSEY: Unfortunately, I don't think it's you. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, who are the elected officials that are transferring or this money is being transferred to? MS. RAMSEY: I think it's like the Tax Collector and -- MR. YONKOSKY: John Y onkosky, Budget Director. It's the commissions for the Tax Collector and the Property Appraiser for the collection of ad valorem. And I was just reminded that another one is boater registration fees that the Tax Collector collects for you. COMMISSIONER COYLE: That goes to the Tax Collector? MR. YONKOSKY: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Can we be specific and say tax-- transfers to Tax Collector, or is it only Tax Collector or is the Tax Assessor somehow involved in that? MR. YONKOSKY: For the collection of ad valorem, it is the Property Appraiser and the Tax Collector. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Page 125 June 19, 2008 MR. YONKOSKY: Specifically for boat registration fees, it's to the Tax Collector. And yes, sir -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: Can we label that transfers to Tax Collector and Property Appraiser? MR. YONKOSKY: Yes, sir, we can. COMMISSIONER COYLE: That way it's specific and we know where it's going. MR. YONKOSKY: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. MR. YONKOSKY: We will do that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Sounds a lot better, too. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yes, it does, yes. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Anything else? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. MS. RAMSEY: Thank you. DEBIT SERVICE MR. MUDD: Commissioner, the next item on your agenda is debt service. It's yours, John. MR. YONKOSKY: For the record, Commissioners, John Y onkosky, your Budget Director. The next area is debt service, and in your debt service funds, all of the payments for long-term debt with the exception of lease -- leases is accounted for in your debt service fund. And I would like to hit some of the highlights. It is down on the funding side approximately 5 percent in total from last year. And on the disbursements or expenditures side of the appropriation, it was $80 million -- $80,166,900 adopted in FY-08. The proposed for FY-'09 is $76,162,200. There is a separate page for each of the debt services that you Page 126 June 19,2008 have. And in reviewing last year's workshop, Commissioner Henning, you had asked what the total was, and I have that number for you. The total debt outstanding as of 9/30/07 was $573,925,300. The outstanding debt as of 9/30/08 is $518,963,000. That's a variance of $54,962,000 that we've paid in fiscal '08 as debt services. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. MR. YONKOSKY: And I can answer questions ifthere are any questions about the debt service fund. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any questions on debt service? Can I go to my -- I have some questions from Mr. Mudd's presentation earlier this morning. Does anybody have any problem going back to that part? Carryforwards are going up quite a bit, almost 60 percent on page 3, on the top paragraph, carryforwards? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Why are we carrying -- is that encumbered; is that allocated of projects? MR. YONKOSKY: John Y onkosky, budget director. It is driven by capital, and the carryforward major drivers in it are capital. I can go through and explain how that happened to you -- for you, but the vast majority of it is appropriated. It's going into projects for this year. CHAIRMAN HENNING: How many -- okay. But they're encumbered, right, with the projects, all of it or not all of it? MR. YONKOSKY: No, sir, not all of it. Let me get to the -- what we did -- because in anticipation of this question -- was to look at the adopted in FY-'08, a proposed in FY-'09, and then to show the change in FY-'08, adopted. The total carryforward revenue was $186,810,000. Proposed in '09 is 297,468,000. The difference, the amount of change, is 110,679,000. And when you look at the funds, we took all the funds that had $750,000 or more in the variance. And in the operating funds, the amount of change or the variance in that total number is a 1,598,000. In the capital funds, Page 127 June 19,2008 it's 109 million. The decrease in your capital programs and projects, we've eliminated both proceeds that would come in from bonds, like Mr. Feder told you the 50 million was not in there for the borrowing of the commercial paper. Other proceeds in borrowing is down. Your capital program is down. The vast majority of your carryforward in capital is being appropriated. As you will see, there's some areas where capital programs are not identified in the budget, but when you talk at the public utilities, you take a look at theirs. But by and large, the vast majority, $110 million of that, is all in the capital programs. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. But you said -- you said a vast majority of it is being appropriated. Could, at some time, can you give us the amount that's not appropriated? MR. YONKOSKY: Yes, I can. I can give you that before the end ofthe time tomorrow. CHAIRMAN HENNING: The -- on the same page, as far as the number of positions, we don't have for some of the constitutional officers. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. We're missing the -- we're missing the constitutional officers for the Clerk of Courts, the Sheriff, and the Tax Collector on this particular page. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. That's funny. I met with the supervisor and told me that there was a no net increase in hers, but that's fine. MR. YONKOSKY: John Y onkosky, Budget Director. There is no net increase for the Supervisor of Elections. Her figures are in there. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Oh, yeah, okay. It's just the -- okay. Got to use my ruler. MR. MUDD: No. It's okay, sir. When John printed it out and it was -- all the books were done, I go, darn, I don't have the numbers for Page 128 June 19,2008 the three that are missing, and I even circled it on my sheet of paper. He was going to get those, and when you had your final book, have it finished for you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. There's a -- on the -- on page 5, halfway down, there's a cost of allocation plan. I don't know what that is. Can you explain what that is? MR. YONKOSKY: Yes, sir. Your cost allocation plan is basically recovery of costs in the general fund for administrative services. Your costs are included in that, the costs of the Board of County Commissioners, the cost of the county attorney, cost of purchasing, costs of -- certain costs ofIT. The cost allocation plan as it's structured takes expenditures in the general fund and allocates them out through a process because you do provide a benefit for someone in fund four -- in utilities, for example. You provide a benefit to all of the funds, just as do all of the other expenditures are costs that are in that bundle of costs. So if you want to think of it as a bundle of costs that you provide a service for, it's a method of getting it reimbursed. And the total of it is $9,460,700 of expenses in the general fund that is charged to other funds, other divisions that have services outside the general fund. And that -- as you will notice, it is down 2.6 percent because your budget guidance was 2 percent under, and so we reduced the cost allocation plan approximately -- it's 2.6 percent. CHAIRMAN HENNING: That's different than fund transfer? MR. YONKOSKY: Yes, sir. That's absolutely different than a transfer. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Where -- MR. YONKOSKY: That is a charge that is established through a cost allocation plan development before the budget season starts, and then when you approve the budget -- the budget, after you approve it, we will then reach out and bring those dollars into the general fund. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. There's no allocation for Page 129 June 19,2008 attrition? MR. YONKOSKY: Sir, in your budget guidance, the allocation for attrition was at the cost center level. You can look down at each one of those individual cost centers. If they have 10 FTEs or more there is an attrition built into the individual cost center. And the county manager recommended that you take this approach because where you have a large fund, like fund 111 and the general fund, and if you put the attrition at the fund level, there's less emphasis for the cost center manager or directors to follow that guidance. When you put it at the cost center level, they've got a bigger share of ownership of that. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. On page 7, the 111 fund, there was a transfer from '01, which is now a reduction of $3 million. I'm -- is that part of the sheriffs operation? I'm sorry. It's page 7. MR. YONKOSKY: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: And if you go down into --let's see. You see reimbursement, carryforward, transfer fund '0 l. MR. YONKOSKY: Transfer of fund 001 that was $225,000? CHAIRMAN HENNING: I'm sorry. Got to use my ruler. It's-- you got to go up, carryforward -- your carryforwards; you're reducing your carryforwards? MR. YONKOSKY: Yes, sir. Carryforward's gone down from 11.9. The -- and the carryforward, the way that it comes about is that you take the forecast and subtract for -- or to get the difference between revenues and expenditures. That becomes the figure that's carried forward into the next column to help balance the budget in the following year. I don't know whether that answers your question or not. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah. Is that carryforward, is that incumbered? MR. YONKOSKY: No, sir. That's -- that is carryforward that turns up as a revenue in the subsequent year, and that's becomes part Page 130 June 19,2008 of your funding source for the expenditure appropriations. MR. MUDD: So, yes, it is incumbered, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. That's all, thanks. Appreciate your patience. MANAGEMENT OFFICES (PELICAN BAY) MR. MUDD: Commissioner, that brings us to management offices Pelican Bay. John? MR. PETTY: Good afternoon. I'm John Petty, Pelican Bay Services Division Administrator. This is Janice Larnid (phonetic). She's what we refer to as my mirror. If anything happens to me, she takes over. I believe your manager is currently looking for volunteers to make sure that happens. Our budget is a little bit different in that it is an MSTBU It is for services requested by a specific community and funded by that specific community. We currently provide services for our beautification or landscape. We like to think that it's pretty, but I don't know if we meet it all the time. We also do water management facilities, streetlighting, and Clam Bay restoration and maintenance. The intent of this year's budget is to follow our budget committee's direction. The Pelican Bay residents like to get hands on in their budget, and they have a budget committee as well as the full board review. Their request was that we look for fat, cut wherever we can. That has been their directive for the last several years. We have been using capital reserves in cutting that down to the minimum possible for the last couple years. Weare now going into operational reserves. The intent this year was not to exceed the last full year of assessments which was 2007, which is approximately $420 per home. Page 13 1 June 19,2008 The reason it's approximate is because there's an ad valorem assessment, and that's what kind of makes it a variable. The more house you have, the more your assessment may be. We found a little bit of fat in how we manage our cash. We were using three-and-a-half months carryforward to handle our cash flow for the beginning of the year before tax revenues came in. We found that in studying that we could cut that back to three months, and we will look to do further cuts in future years if possible. We also found a little bit of fat in our equipment fund for our trucks, lawnmowers, et cetera. We found that our life spans may have been a little bit too short. We were getting a little bit more life out of our equipment, and we made about $200,000 out of that fund and brought it over. Overall we are down as far as our cost goes with the exception of, this year we are having to pay an ad valorem assessment for our streetlights. This is a longstanding program. For the last two years though we have been able to keep that as a zero assessment for monies we saved from the Broward -- excuse me -- the Collier County Sheriffs Department. When they initiated a new program, they saved us close to a half a million dollars. We've been utilizing that to offset the cost of the streetlighting for two years. There is only one small issue that we have in this budget in comparison to what the board of Pelican Bay Services Division approved, and that is a procedural policy, I believe, in the budget that -- I'll refer you to page -- MR. MUDD: Thirty-eight, 39. MR. PETTY: Forty-three. MR. MUDD: Forty-three. MR. PETTY: -- forty-three where there was a directive to lower ad valorem assessments, and so the budget office took our reinstatement of the streetlight ad valorem assessment and reduced it by that percentage. The Pelican Bay Services Division board has not Page 132 June 19,2008 looked at that or considered it. We looked at our budget in total in reducing our costs, and this reduction represents about $30,000. We would request that you would allow us to put forth the budget as approved by the Pelican Bay Services Division which would put it at its original millage of -- I think it's .56. MR. MUDD: Five -- .05322; is that what you got? MR. PETTY: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. MR. PETTY: .5322 versus what budget has put in to be in conformance, which is .0-- MR. MUDD: .04661. MR. PETTY: -- 4661. Thank you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Well, the -- in the miscellaneous correspondence, the budget that you brought to the Pelican Bay Services District was 3.77 -- or 3.7 million, I should say. In here it's 4. -- almost 4.2 million. MR. PETTY: The difference is mostly in the categories of the carryforwards and how they're listed. And we did show our board all the carryforwards which actually totals up to about $6 million. There are project carryforwards that aren't listed. It's a difference of accounting practice, if you will. CHAIRMAN HENNING: I would think that the bottom line would be the bottom line. So you had a different bottom line for your carryforwards than -- MR. PETTY: Yes, sir. As -- if you look on -- in this budget under capital you don't see a $240,000 carryforward for the Clam Bay proj ect. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Let's get the commissioners on page -- MR. MUDD: Capital seven. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Seven. MR. PETTY: Yes. And in our presentation, we did discuss that. The budget committee was made aware of all project carryforwards Page 133 June 19,2008 for a determination of whether it would stay as a reserve or whether it would be allocated to a project or released. CHAIRMAN HENNING: I don't see $4 million in capital improvements though. I see 95,000, quarter ofa million, 5,000,2,700, 148. Doesn't add up to -- well, it's a total of capital of 800,000. MR. PETTY: A little over 800,000 that we expect to spend this year. All remaining capital projects reserved were put before our committee and our board, and we asked them, what was their determination. We gave them our recommendations, and our board selected the option of keeping those projects in reserve with the intention of doing those projects whenever they are appropriate. The Clam Bay 200 and some odd thousand dollars that is in that carryforward, it was determined that it was in our best interest to keep that in there as a carryforward should fund 111 have such a high demand that what was available to us out of that fund would diminish. We would like to have that carryforward so we can continue to work on Clam Bay. Similar carryforwards were carried over for our equipment, which is also a considerable line item since we have quite a bit of lawn equipment, et cetera, so there's some dollars there that was shown in our budget that aren't shown here as well. CHAIRMAN HENNING: How can we all get on the same page about reporting the budgets? I don't think we're -- MR. PETTY: That's a good question, Commissioner. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Is there -- is it a -- is it a software thing? MR. YONKOSKY: No, sir. John Y onkosky, Budget Director. It is not a software. It's a process that the Board of County Commissioners use, that's used by practically every county in the state. And the process is that they -- Pelican Bay, when they look at a project and they're talking about carryforward, when we have a project that is incumbered, just like Pelican Bay, we released a contract for a Page 134 June 19, 2008 particular project, that money is appropriated and it doesn't roll forward. The reserve for the vehicles -- this is actually the first time that I've heard about that. But I do not believe that you want one area of your budget to be presented different than the rest of your budget. I think you want consistency throughout. CHAIRMAN HENNING: That's my point. MR. YONKOSKY: And so -- and another thing I want to make a point about this is that there's an ad valorem levy, and the request, we just heard, to bring it back up to the millage that the Pelican Bay Services group wanted before -- the reason the change was made, to bring them into conformance with your budget guidance. That's exactly what we did. The -- and rolling up or increasing that millage, there has not -- I don't believe it's been -- I think it's been three years since there's been a millage or a levy, an ad valorem levy. They were using special assessments, I believe. So just like when you had your discussion about Haldeman Creek, the increase, you may have this issue here with Pelican Bay, the exact same issue. I'm not sure whether the dollar amounts are enough to cause that kind ofa hiccup. We don't have all of the information yet. We won't have it until July 1 st for -- and then we'll be able to start making those calculations. This is one that you may want to hold and make that decision when you have the information or direct us for consistency. MR. MUDD: One correction. John might not have known about it. But when the annexation issue was out there, okay, there was some large money in reserve. And instead of -- and instead of worrying about, is it going to transfer when it goes to another municipality or whatever, a determination -- or a decision was made by the Pelican Bay Services Board to basically burn down the reserve instead of -- instead of having a tax levy for a couple of years in order to burn that Page 135 June 19,2008 down, and that's why there wasn't one prior to this year. They burnt down that reserve and now that reserve is gone, and now they're back to tax levy. I think I hit it, didn't I, John? MR. PETTY: We did burn down the reserve, but as I thought I explained, the reason we didn't have the tax levy out there for streetlights was because of an improvement from the Collier County Sheriffs Office that saved us a half-a-million dollars that we had out there as an ad valorem assessment for additional security in Pelican Bay. And because they came up with that new program, we were able to basically get the same services without the additional half-mill ion-dollar fee, and they were kind enough to tell us that mid year, and we saved a ton of money. Since that was taken by the ad valorem process, we applied it to the next ad valorem service we had, which was streetlights, and it has funded that for two years. So that's why we didn't have it last year. We have always funded streetlights by ad valorem since its inception back in early '80s. So we're bringing that back this year because, one, we've used all the money, and it's time to go back to a standard assessment. If I could address the issue about the budget. Our budgets that we do prepare at Pelican Bay are different from Collier County, mainly because the explanation is to the layperson, and their definition is more from their business perspective, so they ask for line item details and ask for a little different comparisons. So we've come up with a very detailed layman's version of the budget, and as such, we show fund amounts that are not typically shown. We show future expenditures that typically don't show up on your process because it doesn't meet the criteria for your accounting. So there is a little bit of difference there, but I think it's because it's being presented to a lay source, excuse me. CHAIRMAN HENNING: I just have another question, one more question. What is the 400,000 plus capital expenses that's not Page 136 June 19,2008 earmarked? It's not in the book. It's what was presented to the Pelican Bay Services Division. MR. PETTY: The only item that is not in your budget that we are expending for capital, it shows up on water management, beautification and streetlighting pages as capital, and that's for the equipment; otherwise, there's nothing else in here other than project carryforwards, like the Clam Bay, $240,000 as I described. Streetlighting has a carryforward, I think, of about 175,000. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Here it is. It's reserve carryforward summary projects, and it's not in the book. It's what was in the -- what was presented to the committee. A carryforward -- MR. PETTY: Oh. CHAIRMAN HENNING: -- 2008 budget. The total is 463,900. MR. PETTY: Yes, sir. I think I understand now. This was at a prior budget hearing that you're referring to? CHAIRMAN HENNING: What happens is, your meetings, the board gets to review the material and all the minutes. And this was in there. I just thought it was -- MR. PETTY: You're absolutely right. As we were going through the budget process, our budget subcommittee made a determination that capital would be frozen at the current year's level. It could not be increased. We had discussed needs for possibly funding our pathway system in Pelican Bay. The county patches it to the best of its ability with its road funds, but the pathway system in Pelican Bay is a little bit above and beyond the typical sidewalk, and its demands are excessive. So we had a two-million, two-mill ion- five program there, we had some other programs. But because of tax reform, because of the request of residents to put a control on taxes, the budget committee decided to freeze the level, and that's where you have the number without a reference to a name. And the $400,000 is a freeze level. We apply it to a continuing program in today's budget, which is Page 13 7 June 19,2008 watermarked -- which is marked for erosion control and water management at $250,000 on capital page 7. And my eyes are getting bad. I apologize. I've got to carry this so far away, I can't get to the microphone -- and $154,000 for hardscape upgrades, which is basically where we put the remainder of that $400,000 to go for any capital improvements approved by the board. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Well, I'm in favor of restoring the ad valorem for your streetlighting. I don't know how the other commissioners feel. Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: I need to understand the impact on the rest of our budget if we're going to have to offset something somewhere. Are we going to have to do that? MR. MUDD: Commissioner, we're going to have to -- as I said before when Haldeman Creek came up and they wanted to increase their millage, we will go through, and based on your guidance, we'll take a look. If it does impact and it gets us out of compliance with House Bill 1 bravo, we'll come back, and in this particular item, we'll ask the board to -- Commissioner, are you okay? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, yeah. I was just looking at something. Excuse me. MR. MUDD: You're squinting hard. I'm wondering -- I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's okay. MR. MUDD: If it take us out of compliance in this particular item, I can go through the same -- I can go through the same recommendation to the board that the board would approve it based on a supermajority vote, okay, and ifit affects the total, then we'll go to the total and put the exception either at Haldeman Creek, and in this case, Pelican Bay for lighting, and you'd approve it with a supermajority vote with those two exceptions and then we'd be okay. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Now, the other question is that --let's go to page capital 7. We had a discussion about the permit Page 138 June 19,2008 itself, whose permit it was, what the responsibilities should be. And I am -- I need an interpretation from County Manager concerning whether or not that Clam Bay restoration description and the amount of money there is representative of what we discussed and decided at that earlier meeting. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, this is -- because you're still under the old permit and we got the one-year extension -- and you're going to talk about this on Tuesday at great length. There's an item on my agenda that we're going to get at this one. And so -- and it was basically predicated by a letter that Mr. Petty sent you, and we're going to get to some resolution as far as markers and things like that from the board on Tuesday; however, this description fits in with the existing permit that you have right now. I do not know what the permit requirements will be because there has not been a submission yet of that particular permit. But Mr. Petty is basically working on that permit. Board told him to work up a permit that's based on five years. We have had some conversations with FDEP that basically said, for mangrove maintenance only, okay, to maintain the mangroves, you don't need a permit. We want -- Mr. Petty and I both want at least something in writing from the director, the local director ofFDEP, that states that because neither one of us wants to be out there pruning a mangrove tree and then all of a sudden get a fine. And we say, well, we've got permission. Well, you know, I don't have anything that you've got permission. Well, Suzie told me two years. Well, Suzie doesn't work here anymore. I'm not into that, and I don't believe Mr. Petty is either. So we're going to get some clarification on that particular issue. And if the local director ofFDEP doesn't want to give it to us in writing because there's some type of hesitation that I'm starting to get a gut feeling for, then when we submit the permit, he can either deny it because you don't need one, and we'll have an official interpretation Page 139 June 19,2008 at that particular time. But to answer your question specifically, under the current permit which we just got a one-year extension on, that description and that allocation is correct, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And when will you have the interpretation and the application for the new permit? MR. MUDD: John? MR. PETTY: Sir, we expect to have that before the end of the fall at the latest. We're working on it now. As far as cost, we expect it, since it is going to be keen on maintenance, to be much lower than what we currently allocate. We're looking forward to it being lower anyway. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Does that mean that when the new -- if the new request is approved, new permit is approved, that the old permit will terminate and the new permit will take effect immediately, or is the new permit going to take effect one year from the date of extension of the old permit? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Commissioner, this particular item extinguishes in July of2009. That's when the extension -- we got it from July of this year till July of next, and that has been approved. At that time I have -- my recommendation is, to the board, is that you do not extend this l1-year-old contract now at that particular time or permit, and that the new one, you go by it as soon as it comes in. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, wait a minute. I can't go by the new one as soon as it comes in if the extension is not going to be extinguished until next year. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, it could be extend -- it could be extinguished. We have two outstanding issues which we're going to talk about on Tuesday, one of which is navigational signage, and the other piece is -- MR. PETTY: Information. MR. MUDD: -- informational signage, okay. And we're out of-- Page 140 June 19,2008 and we're out of whack with both of them. So we're going to get some guidance about where this board wants to go. Both John and I want this permit finished, okay, I'm talking about the old one, so that we can start with a new one that is less expensive and gets at really what Pelican Bay wants to get at. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Let me see if I can summarize that. You're going to have a new permit application sometime in the fall, and whenever that permit is approved, it will take effect and will extinguish the current extension? MR. MUDD: Ifwe have the two deficiencies that we have right now, it's navigational signage and informational signage and we get the people -- the people, Corps of Engineers, Coast Guard, and FDEP to all agree that we have fulfilled the old contract, the old permit. COMMISSIONER COYLE: So the old permit will continue in effect no matter what we do with respect to a new permit until the signage itself is resolved? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Is that -- is that a correct statement, interpretation of all this stuff? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir, that is a true statement. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Halas? COMMISSIONER HALAS: No. Commissioner Coyle nailed it down. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Anybody else? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you, sir. MR. PETTY: Thank you. ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES Page 141 June 19,2008 MR. MUDD: Well, while I was doing the thing, I skipped two divisions, and I'm very sorry about that. The next division that's up there is administrative services. Thank you, John. MS. PRICE: Good afternoon, Commissioners. The budget that we submitted to you comes into guidance as you had put it forward. Our general fund operating budget came in 4 percent below last year's and our internal services fund at 2 percent. This year we had two significant challenges to overcome in coming to those numbers, the first of which is the rising cost of fuel and the second is bringing on approximately 400,000 square feet of additional office building space and trying to do that within the same amount of funds. Some of the ways we were able to cover that included a significant savings in property insurance rates, the conversion to irrigation quality water. Here on campus we've been able to reduce our water consumption by a significant amount. We've also had approximately 9 percent attrition to try and cover those costs. We did submit one UFR and that is for our fleet facility. This would be a zero cost. We would reduce our overtime budget and add one auto mechanic to cover -- help us with the CAT facility that we've just opened up. And we can go into more detail on that if you'd like. Other than that, if you've got any questions for us, we'd be more than happy to answer them for you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Questions, Commissioner? COMMISSIONER FIALA: I have one. Where did the CAT facility open? MS. PRICE: The Radio Road maintenance facility. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any other questions, Commissioners? On the UFR position, you're going to reduce the overtime costs? Are you going to increase your regular rate? I mean, your fleet management charges the parks and rec or transportation or whatever. Page 142 June 19,2008 We don't see those increases or adjustments. MR. CROFT: No. Dan Croft, fleet management director. No, sir. The rates would stay the same because we're charging by the hour -- overall cost of the entire operation, and the costs are going to remain the same. As a matter of fact, it goes down about $1,800 overall if we get the new position. We've -- basically what this position is for is, we have opened up our new facilities over at out -- at the bus maintenance operations. Our original plans were to move two technicians from our main shop at County Barn and then to -- for two added positions, expanded positions. And this -- these expanded positions have been requested for the last three years because of the increase in the number of vehicles we've had and also the increases in the services for the CAT bus system and paratransit system, and also for the ambulances. Couldn't take all of those out of my County Barn facility because it would lead me to leaving (sic) County Barn. So what I had to do is to -- I left the paratransit maintenance at County Barn. It's not very efficient that way because what is happening is they're having to drive the buses back and forth. County Barn's costing about, just to transport back and forth, it's costing about $1,000 a month just for the transport back and forth for the maintenance on those buses. So I believe, you know, by adding this one position, what I would do is I'd put the new position at -- over at Radio Road. I would take one other position from County Barn and move all of the paratransit maintenance and the transit bus maintenance to Radio Road, and this would increase our efficiency. I believe it would help us in maintaining the buses better, and it should reduce our costs. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah. I don't have a problem with it as long as it doesn't result in increased costs. Commissioner? Page 143 June 19,2008 COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yeah, I think it's cost effective in regards to making sure that the buses stay on the road and meet the requirements as far as picking people up that are at the bus stops. MR. CROFT: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HALAS: So I think this is very well thought out. I spent some time over there at the new facilities and also at the new transfer site, which is the old Mirande auto dealership, and I can tell you that I was very much impressed with what's going on there, and I think with the use of a full-time mechanic, that location, I think it would save a lot of time shuffling people back and forth. That's definitely cost effective. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, this particular item is on page 11 of the first tab, general overview, and it -- I've got it on a UFR list because it's adding a position, and we had a zero policy that the board approved, and I couldn't add anything. When Dan came forward with his original budget and we sat there, he had an overtime budget, and he had these two positions that he would like to do UFR, and I basically said -- I said, I don't think that's going to fly, but if you can -- if you can tell me that you can get those two positions and take it out of your overtime budget and you can work it that way then that might fly. And he went out there and looked at his operation, got out of the box a little bit as far as the way he was thinking about it, and he just described it to you, and he's able to add one and subtract that amount of money plus another $1,900. You have a $1,900 savings with that by bringing on this new technician, and then he cuts his -- he cuts his overtime budget by $54,000, okay, in order to pay for the 52 for the -- CHAIRMAN HENNING: Let's try it this way. Does anybody have a problem with adding the expanded position? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No. COMMISSIONER FIALA: No. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. I don't see anybody. Go ahead. Page 144 June 19,2008 MR. CROFT: Thank you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Do you want to get into your capital? MS. PRICE: This year's capital, I think like everybody else's, has been significantly reduced by the requirement for debt service; however, there were a few things that we were able to move forward on. We've got, of course, the capital budget for Conservation Collier, which is approved by the board. We've also got, in facilities management, while it appears to be an $18 million capital request, a good portion of that is debt service. The areas that we're going to be working for this year are air-conditioning repairs, renovations to Building F so that we can move folks out of leased space and into this building as we bring the courthouse annex online, and fill it with other people. We've got some repairs to the courthouse and general building repairs and maintenance that we do every year. That's pretty much the facilities management budget. All the rest of it is debt service and interfund transfers. On the IT side we're asking for little over $400,000 to equip the data center, the emergency services center, $750,000 to increase the capabilities of our SAP financial management program and $200,000 for our technology improvement program, which essentially replaces old and obsolete equipment. CHAIRMAN HENNING: I have a question on PM services. What's that 400 and some odd thousand for? MS. PRICE: That's for our data center, and I'll let our IT director give a little more detail on that. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, isn't that budgeted in the construction cost of that? MS. PRICE: No, sir. We had to pull that out of the construction cost in order to handle the increased cost in construction and the redesign that we had to do on the building when we moved it from one Page 145 June 19,2008 area to the other. CHAIRMAN HENNING: And we further reduced it through taking a look at it again? MS. PRICE: The value engineering? CHAIRMAN HENNING: Value engineering. MS. PRICE: Yes, sir. We were able to bring it down to budget. Unfortunately, there were certain items on the inside that we weren't going to be able to do with the capital construction budget, and so we're working it through the capital budget this way. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Do you want to bring that back up again, 400 and -- MS. PRICE: 436,000. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. So what is that for? MS. PRICE: The data center. MR. AXELROD: Barry Axelrod, Director of the IT department, Commissioner. There's expense to bring the building online, which basically accounts for getting the connectivity for all the work stations that will be placed in that building and the core infrastructure for that building in order to be able to commission it and make it useful right away. So before we can put any central equipment in, you have to do power conditioning so that we can survive lightning strikes without interruptions, that sort of thing. So there's a piece of infrastructure, a core piece of infrastructure that's fairly expensive that needs to go into that building right away in order to put anything else in behind it. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Is that all for -- it that -- is some of that for 911? MR. AXELROD: No. CHAIRMAN HENNING: It's just strictly the county side of it? MR. AXELROD: This is the emergency management side of the house and the other county operations in the building, yes. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir, so it would have the 911 from the sheriff Page 146 June 19,2008 as far as the protections to get all the links together, yes, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Shouldn't that come out of his budget? ' MR. MUDD: He is putting in his management system -- his new management system into that budget. Last year you provided him $2.5 million, the sheriff, and we are doing a five-year capital plan in order to fund him the other $7 million so he could replace the guts of his command and control operation. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Any questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. Great. We all set? Thank you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. PUBLIC UTILITIES MR. MUDD: Commissioner, the next division is Public Utilities Division. MR. DeLONY: Good afternoon, Commissioners. Jim DeLony, for the record, Public Utilities Administrator. I have with me all my division directors. Of course, we're here to prepare to answer any questions you have in our budget. I have a few remarks I'd like to make in the beginning. This operating budget for the division exceeds your budget guidance that you gave us back in February. It also sets in motion a few things that have happened within the context of our growth and meeting demand within the county utility district. I would -- I would reflect a bit that where we're at right now is a consolidation phase. Over the last -- let's see. I'm six years and three days as your administrator, and we've gone through several business cycles, and where we are today is much different than where we were when I came here and anything I've experienced to date in that we Page 147 June 19,2008 have reached a point where things have slowed down. And as a utility, with an eight-year window of decision, we have to respond and adapt to that change. We're -- we've always told you that we're scalability, that we're adaptable, and using a military term, we're agile in the fact that we can move fast and meet that demand and stay in compliance. And I believe the budget that we present to you today, as well as the master plans and the rate studies and impact fees that you're going to look at on Tuesday, meet those tenets that you gave me as your administrator several years ago when I came onboard. I speak also for that same type of agility, adaptability and scalability when I speak to our solid waste program as well as our pollution control program, which is part of the division. So with those opening remarks, we have met your guidance. Our budget fully addresses that both from an operational standpoint, personnel standpoint, our capital standpoint. And I can either have each of my directors present their budgets to you or, Mr. Chairman, we can respond to your direct questions. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Can we respond to the direct questions? MR. DeLONY: Your call, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any questions? I have a question. Miscellaneous revenues. MR. DeLONY: If you'll tell me about what page you're on, sir, I'll look at the specific -- CHAIRMAN HENNING: Well, I'm on page --I'm on page 5. MR. DeLONY: All right, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: And halfway down it has miscellaneous revenues. It shows $8 million in 2007, and right now we're at a little bit less than 700,000. What is miscellaneous revenues and why the change in the two years? MR. WIDES: Commissioner, for the record, Tom Wides, Public Page 148 June 19,2008 Utilities Operations Director. What we've done is basically re-classed our revenues between miscellaneous revenues and our other categories of services. The miscellaneous revenues today are simply things such as meter tapping charges, various other fees that are assessed to the division. So over time we've reclassified them. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah, okay. Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, one of the things -- I want to just tell you guys, you all do such a terrific job, everybody. I just admire the daylights out of your whole department. But anyway, that's -- I shouldn't get into that on a budget hearing. But one of the things I hear from people who are trying to save money is they are saying that maybe we don't need that second garbage pickup. Maybe we only need one garbage pickup a week rather than two. And I was wondering if you would be addressing that or if that isn't a concern with anybody but the people who have contacted us. MR. DeLONY: Ma'am -- Dan, I'll ask you to respond to anything I leave out, or do you want to take the lead? Which way do you want to go? MR. RODRIGUEZ: You can go ahead and I'll pick up. MR. DeLONY: The assessment that we're going to have for this year is going to retain the current level of service, ma'am, for two days a week pickup, which is prescribed in our collections contract with Waste Management. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. MR. DeLONY: And with the option, it's -- I've heard both ways. I mean, for our side, I've heard people who, for example, live in residential neighborhoods that require their garbage cans to be placed inside. They can't be placed outside. So consequently that garbage sits in their garage, largely, and it creates a tremendous odor from maybe Page 149 June 19,2008 Monday, my day, and Thursday. So I've heard both ways. Let me tell you where the tipping point's going to be. When we reach a point that we have reached a cost of doing business in our collections contract -- and, you know, it goes up every year by some percentage associated with the cost of living -- and we get to a tipping point where we believe that rate has become something we need to take a look at in terms of -- I would recommend that be one level of service that we would want to take a look at. I also know that, and you know, that fuel prices -- the fuel prices are going up. Our current contract recognizes no fuel surcharge or adjustments other than a percentage of the cost of living. And so I would say that with -- that is something we need to take a whole look at as we continue to see changes in the market and changes in cost of doing business. But -- and Dan, I don't know if changed any -- said anything that there -- Joe, we have got some comparative pricing for you in terms of what we charge as a solid waste fee and other communities, and we remain very, very, very competitive, if not, cheap on a service-to-service basis. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I just took a group through the landfill, and when it was pointed out to this group how much less we pay here in Collier County than any other place in the State of Florida, they were all very impressed because that was one of their questions. And I think that you're right, it's a mixed bag. Young families with children really enjoy having that second pickup because they generate a lot more than old retired people. So -- well, I'm not retired, but I mean -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: But you're old. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes, I am old. Oh, he's so cute, isn't he? Anyways, so I was just wondering if that -- MR. DeLONY: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Do they give us a lower rate because there's not as much pickup? Page 150 June 19,2008 MR. DeLONY: No, ma'am. The fee we pay is 50 cents -- roughly 50 cents a trip, I guess, when you break it down over a 365-day window, and that's about what the household pays is somewhere between 50 and 60 cents every time that truck goes by your house and makes some type of collection. And so, you know, that's about what you would see, I would think, in the long run. Maybe we could negotiate a different price. But my view is, if I can, until we have a real trip in terms of -- you know, we reach a point in this escalation of cost, and it -- the costs will go up. As cost of living goes up, that contract will adjust -- that we maintain the highest level of service possible at a fair and reasonable pnce. And, again, I have not had anything but mixed input as to whether we ought to have a one-day-a-week pickup or two-day-a-week pickup. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. I would love to have everyone see that little chart to show how we compare to other counties as far as MR. DeLONY: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- as far as our cost for the services. MR. DeLONY: Yes, ma'am. Joe, would you like to explain any of that? MR. BELLONE: I would. MR. DeLONY: Joe, you need to get that microphone, if you would. MR. BELLONE: I'm sorry. Joe Bellone, the Interim Revenue Services Manager for Utility Billing, Customer Service. You'll see in light green the fourth column from the -- from the left is our District 1, thank you, District 1. Those are our current rates, and we're fairly consistent with counties around. If you move two to the right, Jim, you'll see in a light orange, those are proposed rates. Again, I'm using District 1 because it's a little Page 151 June 19,2008 higher than the District 2, but it's significantly less than our neighboring Lee County, City of Naples, et cetera. So at 171.44 is the proposed tax bill. Still a -- still a bargain compared to Hillsborough, Lee, City of Naples, et cetera. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And for the audience, District 1 is central Collier County, and District 2 is Immokalee, right? MR. DeLONY: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Just so that the audience knows that it's not District 1, but your district. Thank you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Where's the rest of the county? You said we're the lowest in the county -- or the lowest in the state. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, yeah. I thought we were the lowest. Well, we're pretty darn low. Okay? CHAIRMAN HENNING: Where's the rest of the state? You'll provide that to us, right? MR. DeLONY: Yeah, we have that. MR. BELLONE: I'll give you the chart, and it's available for you to -- MR. DeLONY: Yes ma'am, yes sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any other questions? Commissioner? COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes. Is the budget that's presented to us today, is the item that we're going to be discussing on Tuesday in regards to lowering impact fees and possibly raising some other fees, is that incorporated in this budget or not? MR. DeLONY: Yes, sir. I've visited with three of the five of you prior to this budget hearing to outline to you what we would be presenting to you in both master plans, impact fees, and rates for the upcoming year, and those proposals are incorporated in this budget submission in terms of our projections of demand and receipts from those rate studies and that master plan execution. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. So if we approve that item on Tuesday's agenda, it'd have no reflection as far as any change that's in Page 152 June 19,2008 this particular presentation that was brought before the board today; is that correct? MR. DeLONY: That's correct, sir. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. MR. DeLONY: But this reflects that decision in the affirmative. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes, thank you. Mr. DeLony, in the past -- and I'd say it's quite unfrequent now, but I wanted to make sure there's sufficient reserves in here to cover it -- there was a fund that existed to be able to take care of people who have their driveways damaged by Waste Management trucks. Is this still an active fund and available -- I know that you've taken care of the majority of them out there, but I just wanted to know how we stand. MR. DeLONY: First of all, if they damage it, they pay for it. We don't pay for it, they pay for it. So if the damage is done by them, we go out with the -- with the constituent, sit down with waste management and we arrive at a conclusion that gets the repair done. What you may be referring to is a program where we where reinforcing driveways -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes, sir. MR. DeLONY: -- so we would have the ability to turn around the truck in the Estates on streets that were very narrow. You have a -- I'm going to bring to you -- I believe it's Tuesday; is that right, Joe? MR. MUDD: Tuesday, the executive summary-- MR. DeLONY: -- Tuesday, executive summary, that's going to take that program and move it a little differently in the future whereby instead of reinforcing driveways, we're going to look at building the hammerheads, expanding the hammerheads in conjunction with our transportation division; and, therefore, we get out of the driveway business and into the hammerhead business essentially for the Page 153 June 19,2008 turnarounds. Makes a lot of sense. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: It does, because if you have a driveway and you've got permission to use it, somebody might sell the house. The next person might come down and deny you. How you going to get your truck out of those streets where you can't turn around? MR. DeLONY: Yes, sir. And what we've done -- we can't eat the elephant all at once to do this, but we have a program over the next five years as we see the transportation network today in the Estates and how we knock out, you know, worst first, most critical first, hammerheads and improve those hammerheads with this program. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Do they have sufficient right-of-way at the end of those streets? MR. DeLONY: Where we do -- that's where we're going to go. That's where we're going to go. That will be exactly where we're going to go. And I'm getting nudged from my staff to make sure I define for the viewing public. A hammerhead is that end of the street in the Estates a lot of times is up against a canal, sometimes just ends, and that is that turnaround point, that circle at the end of a street. We're talking about making that sufficient in size and in construction to take on the weight and the size of one of our trash collection trucks. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Would you keep me appraisal of your progress? MR. DeLONY: Absolutely. And if you'd like, sir, I can outline for you our strategy on a one-on-one if you'd like. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Very much like that. Thank you. MR. DeLONY: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. You want to go to your capital? MR. DeLONY: Yes, sir. Sir, with regard to our capital program, with me, of course, is Mr. Gramatges, Mr. Wides who will keep me straight, but we've seen a significant transfer of our capital programs into the out years because of the downturn in growth and demand for Page 154 June 19,2008 services in terms of capacity. And so in terms of the reflection of that growth, this capital program is submitted to you. It essentially is about $27 million worth of investment in their FY -'09. The bottom line of it, that'd be new money, new spending, is really finishing out what we started several years ago in accordance with our master plan. Tom, is there anything I've left out with regard to that discussion? MR. WIDES: I think, Commissioners -- Tom Wides, for the record. I think what's significant here, as you look at these pages, there's a line called capital outlay probably about four steps down. You'll see our budget -- and this is on page capital 1 for public utilities, okay. About four items down you'll see capital outlay for our true capital program. We had budgeted approximately $163.4 million in FY-'08. You'll see that in FY-'09 and forecast for FY-'08, if you look at those two numbers, they don't approximate the less spending levels that we had originally contemplated. So basically we've taken probably about $136 million out of that capital program. And when I say take it out, we've taken it out of FY -'08 and FY -'09 as part of our master planning effort that you're going to see next Tuesday. Those funds are being -- those expenditures are being deferred in the years two, three, and four and five of our capital program. We're moving the monies out in the program, not crashing the program. So that has allowed us to generate some reserves that will, in fact, fund our next five years of the program. MR. DeLONY: Again, as I described earlier, really, this is a reflection of a consolidation in terms of our overall capital spending as well as our operational perspectives on how to serve the client and stay in compliance. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Questions? Page 155 June 19, 2008 (No response.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Thank you. MR. DeLONY: Thank you, Commissioners. MANAGEMENT OFFICES MR. MUDD: Commissioner, that brings us back to management offices. Commissioners, as we start this, this is a compendium of the county manager, the office of management and budget, tourism department, communications, customer relations, emergency management, the medical examiner, emergency medical services, EMS. We've already done Pelican Bay Services. Collier County Fire Control, the Isles of Capri Municipal Fire and Services, Ochopee, and then the GoodlandlHorr Island Fire District. And so we'll start with me in this particular case, and I'm on page 5 on the tab, management offices. You'll see personnel services and operating expenses total, we're down 3.2 percent. That carries through to board-related expenses. We're down 2 percent in that particular account on page 7. And then when you get to page 8 it gets into the board-related costs a little bit and how those reductions transpired, and there's a listing at the bottom of page 8. Of note, I will tell you that we've taken out the picnic and -- the county employee picnic, and we've also taken out the Florida Sterling Council and goal setting dollars because our folks internally, our step-up group, has now got the information they need, and their activities with those other folks has been less than productive in the latter years. We got what we needed, and it seems like it's dragging a little bit. So the choice was to discontinue, save some money. The county picnic, like I said, it's something that's nice, it's something that builds morale, but in these times, I think it's something we don't need to have Page 156 June 19,2008 in the budget, and so that's the reduction that you see on that particular chart. And without further -- if you have no comments for me, then we'll turn to Mr. Y onkosky and he'll talk about the office of management and budget. MR. YONKOSKY: John Yonkosky, Budget Director. The budget for the office of management and budget is down 5.5 percent. MR. MUDD: It's on page 9. MR. YONKOSKY: Starts on page 9 and goes through page 10. It's down approximately -- or 5.5 percent. We have met your budget guidance. We have one unfilled position that is not funded. I guess the major change in this budget is going from one ski to another ski is about all there is to it. MR. MUDD: So now you're using two skis? MR. YONKOSKY: Yes. MR. MUDD: So if you don't have any questions on that last remark, we'll go to the Tourist Development Council department, Mr. Jack Wert. MR. WERT: Thank you. Our budget starts on page 11. We are projecting flat revenue for next year based on what we know of the tourism industry in general and the state of the economy. We feel that's legitimate to stay there. Overall our expenditures are a little less than 1 percent over what they were last year, and most all of those dollars are allocated to additional marketing activities so that we can stay even with where we have been this year. Holding steady at our current staffing level of six-and-a-half FTEs. The emergency advertising fund that we have been building up over the last couple of years, we made the final contribution last year, so we are holding at a million-and-a-half dollars, which was our goal, getting there. Hopefully we won't have to use it during the windy Page 157 June 19,2008 season here, but if we do, those dollars then are available for emergency advertising. The -- all the other funded mandates in the other funds are met by this budget and we're holding our administrative expenses at 18 percent. And we feel that -- in fact, I just got some statistics, Commissioner, that for every dollar we invest in advertising and promoting this county as a tourism destination, we get back $20.87 in spending from our visitors. So that's a very healthy return on the investment that we're making. And I think in the economic times that we have right now, this is certainly going to help us to bring folks who don't live here to come and spend money in our community and leave their tax dollars behind. Thank you. I'll answer any questions you might have. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Nope. MR. YONKOSKY: Ifthere are no questions, then the next area will be the communications and customer relations. MR. OCHS: Page number, John? MR. YONKOSKY: And page number -- MR. TORRE: Eighteen, 19,20. Good afternoon, Commissioners. John Torre, Director of Communication and Customer Relations. You can see the department's proposed budget is 6.4 percent lower than last year. They're authorized for 12.8 positions and currently have two vacant positions in the department. Just as a reminder, the department's responsibilities include the following: Press releases and public meeting notices, Collier Television, management of the Collier government website, including the video on demand service that was implemented last October, the annual report, emergency information during activation of the emergency operations center, conversion of BCC agendas to compact disk for distribution, BCC services that are provided at the North Collier Government Services Center on Orange Blossom, AIMS, Page 158 June 19,2008 public records request, the first floor switchboard operation in this building, photography services, graphic design and support for all departments, printing services, community and employee newsletters, staff support for the Freedom Memorial campaign, staff support for the Floodplain Management Committee, the citizen survey, and media . .. mqumes. And I believe all the individuals still in my department do outstanding work and are very efficient in an effective way and provide value services for the citizens of our county. And with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Questions? Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. John, this year we're going to have a very, very interesting election. People are going to want to see the results quickly. Last election you were pretty much left alone yourself to try to take data that was coming in, raw data, convert it into the proper format trying to get it onto the television, our television broadcast. Is there anything we can do to automate that process so that it doesn't require so much manual intervention to get prompt results to the public? MR. TORRE: It is something we're working on. This last election was the first time the Supervisor of Elections posted numbers to their website, which was helpful, but, again, it was in a form that we couldn't just immediately transfer to the television station. So we're working with them to try to come up with an easier way to get those numbers and turn them around a little bit quicker. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Can we expect that that will be done before -- MR. TORRE: Yes. COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- the -- MR. TORRE: August. Yes. COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- before the August election? Okay. So we'll have it for the primary as well as the main election? Page 159 June 19,2008 MR. TORRE: That's the goal. COMMISSIONER COYLE: That would be wonderful. Okay. MR. TORRE: I agree. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay, thank you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: John, I take it by -- that your budgeting of 111, that you don't answer any questions or assist anybody from the municipalities? MR. TORRE: Oh, no. No, that's not true. I think we had this discussion last year that obviously the television station is a service that others could watch besides in the unincorporated area. CHAIRMAN HENNING: What -- isn't all your monies coming out -- MR. TORRE: Yes, 111. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Why don't we balance that out? Can't we balance that out a little bit? MR. MUDD: No, Commissioner. You're -- if you take a look at what you're trying -- yes, you can, but it's very difficult to do. When we get a query from the public, we don't normally ask the person, are you from the City of Naples or Marco Island? We just try to answer the question when we get it. That's number one. Number two, the TV stations aren't necessarily interchangeable in the different municipalities with our TV stations. So I can't -- outside of Marco Island, I don't believe that's interchangeable with the City of Naples. It's not as transparent as you would like to be. Each one of these municipalities have a customer response type person and/or agency that responds to their particular item. So it's not as clean cut as we'd like it to be, and I would also state to you that based on my presentation this morning, you had -- you as a board have more of an issue right now in the 001 area than you have in the 111 area if the desire is to go to millage neutral. CHAIRMAN HENNING: That's fine, but is it the right way and Page 160 June 19,2008 the fair way to do it, strictly out of III? Can we look at that in coming years? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. We'll take a look and try to cipher it out in that particular case. I can tell you that's where it's been for the longest time that I know about it, in that particular area, I'm just responding to you that basically said, if you want to talk about -- well, if you want to get to the fair part, you know, if we're talking about the million dollars that we're giving to the City of Naples, okay, i.e., for parking spaces and whatnot, that's on the 001 account, and it's not coming out of the 111 account. So that's not -- hasn't been totally pure either with the county. So I'm just -- it's what's there. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. That surprises me. I don't know why you don't charge both of them. I mean, let's face it, the people in the municipalities when they want to find out about county business, they look at the county television broadcast, and it's as valuable to them as their municipality broadcast. So I'm really surprised that we're not charging or allocating those costs across the board. I mean -- MR. MUDD: Commissioner, we can -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- what's fair is fair? MR. MUDD: We can do an allocation. It's going to be a gut piece that's not going to be accurate to lay down. I don't believe you can get the exactness that you want to, but we'll give it our best shot and come back to the board with it. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Are you okay waiting -- not to do it on this budget, but -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: Oh, I'm okay waiting. I don't think it's a critical issue. I'm just surprised that we have somehow separated that cost out to only one segment of the county. I think everybody in Page 161 June 19,2008 the county is served by that -- by that -- by those services and there should be an allocation to both funds. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Halas? COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes. How do you handle requests from the public in regards to email requests and all this other stuff? Is that -- MR. TORRE: Well, often they come through the website. We check each day. There's an avenue for the public to go through the website to make requests. You know, generally either -- if! can answer it, I do, if not, I'll farm if out to a department director or department head to help out. COMMISSIONER HALAS: But if somebody requests a vast amount of emails,that'salreadytakencareofonthe111 account, is that correct? MR. TORRE: The citizen liaison who is in my department handles public record requests and email searches and also the AIMS program, too. COMMISSIONER HALAS: And the AIMS program comes out of the 111 account? MR. TORRE: Yes. Everything in this department comes through 111 at the present time. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Why can't --I'm sorry, can I-- CHAIRMAN HENNING: Sure. COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- add to that? Why can't we break that out on the basis of population and some -- have some population calculation to take money out of the general fund and allocate it for these purposes? I mean, let's face it. There are people in the City of Naples who regularly request information from our office, and I don't know of any reason why the general fund shouldn't help cover the costs of that. MR. MUDD: Commissioners, if you -- if you agree with that allocation based on population, let's do it permanent population. Page 162 June 19,2008 COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. MR. MUDD: -- so we don't stay with what comes under -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. MR. MUDD: So basically you have permanent population and you've got what's -- the incorporated population as a part of the whole county's population, and we basically break that out and it's -- I'm just saying, okay, let's take that 350,000 people total. I'm pretty close. And you've got 50,000 between Marco Island, City of Naples, and Everglades City. Okay, so it's -- you've basically got one-seventh of this fund that's coming from the general fund and the other six-sevenths is coming from 111. So we can do that, and I can get you this change done in this budget. It's not that difficult to do that. I mean, what he's needing, it's just a line here and a line there as far as that change is concerned. That's doable. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Yeah. I think it's a fair assessment on how to figure it out, but I don't care when you do it. MR. MUDD: We'll make the change. MR. TORRE: Yeah, the only one that seems probable to me is North Collier Government Center. It seems unlikely to me that a resident in the municipality is going there for a beach sticker or driver's license renewal. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Just cut that out. Don't need that. Okay. MR. MUDD: This brings us to the emergency management department. MR. SUMMERS: Commissioners, good afternoon. For the record, Dan Summers, Director of the Bureau of Emergency Services and Emergency Management. You know the chiefs that are here and their associated staff. I have Allan McLaughlin, our new Chief of Ochopee Fire, his first budget hearing with you as the chief at Ochopee, and Chief Rodriguez and Jeff Page from EMS, and Jeffwill be representing paramedic ground ambulance service for EMS as well Page 163 June 19,2008 as MedFlight. I'll be addressing the emergency management as well as the office of medical examiner, respective organizations. I'd like to open this discussion and comment with you that this, too, has been a very challenging time for us, both in the planning and forecasting in addressing a lot of the operational issues you've heard today, including fuel, electricity, labor, maintaining world-class pre-hospital care, one of the calling cards for Collier County, addressing the wildfire, the hurricane/tornado preparation, working with the ever-changing FEMA and Department of Homeland Security guidance and grant requirements that are placed upon us to maintain a level of preparedness and readiness level that the community has come to expect in an all-hazards environment and, I believe, one that you have come to expect. Weare particularly proud of the successes to date with the number of grants. We've been very successful in limiting some of the pain in the dependent districts with using FEMA firefighter assistance grants to modernize apparatus and become very successful in that, bringing the modernization up, to help with your insurance rating to reduce the maintenance cost, and most importantly, address safety and liability. However, you know as well as I that grants are not something that we can rely on every day; however, I pride myself on being a good bird dog of trying to find grant opportunities for Collier County. But, again, it is not a consistent level of funding for basic operations that we want to rely on. We work hard to meet the budget guidance, and we have done an awful lot of housekeeping in this budget to true up a number of things. And I have to thank Laura Davidson and John for their assistance with us in making sure that we script really hard to drill down and clean up some things on this budget that needed to be accurately reflected and documented. I won't -- I will not echo the direction given by the manager. Page 164 June 19,2008 You're familiar with that. We've taken that message loud and clear, and all the efforts as well as the actions by the other directors that you have heard from already today. There are exceptions in the budget that are duly noted, I think, by exception in there to address where percentages and that type of thing, look a little bit at them but, again, part of that truing up in that entire process. I will stop at this point and see if you have any questions of me or the particular chiefs. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commission Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah, thank you. Mr. Summers, one of the things I think this commission agrees on is that we're going to -- if we have to place our eggs in a basket, it's always going to be for the services that offer our citizens protection. Health, safety, and welfare are of primary importance. I don't think anyone's ever going to argue with that. MR. SUMMERS: Thank you, sir. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: The staffing level that you have now, is it adequate? MR. SUMMERS: In which department? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: In the fire protection and EMS. MR. SUMMERS: In the fire protection area, I will tell you that we can't do any more with any less. Weare at minimum for a number of reasons. We're at minimum in managing that with very prudent uses; overtime that's mandatory and discretionary. And some of that discretionary being when we have major wildfire events or hurricane events and those type of things. We also have state law and OSHA laws to have minimum staffing. So it's there; it's bare bones. I think there's never been wiggle room; there's not any wiggle room today. With EMS issues, emergency management is the same thing. Emergency medical services, as you know, we have a lot of discussion Page 165 June 19,2008 in that environment through the Productivity Committee, and we have also seen discussions of our response times. We've seen discussions related to AUIR activity. And I would like for Mr. Page to comment on those or to go further. But I have to tell you -- and one of the things, Commissioner Fiala, you asked me in previous years was that, at any point that we felt like cuts were jeopardizing service, I was to bring it back to you for discussion. We have those -- we have some attrition requirements that have been mandated upon us. We've made -- we're making a good-faith effort to meet that. But as you also know, we've got emergency services delivering, we have response time standards with population requirements under AUIR for level of service. So we have done everything in our power to meet that budget guidance, and I think what we have presented to you today is a fair picture. But I know that there are some parties that have reservation or recommendations about downing some particular ambulance units. You know, my -- I have to be -- just to be honest, you know, we have the requirement to meet those attrition requirements. We understand that, we respect that, these are difficult times. We need to be part of the solution, not part of the problem in that particular environment, but we have less people resigning positions; we have less turnover today. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: The simple question -- let me go back to it. At what point in time are we going to be placing the public safety in jeopardy? MR. SUMMERS: Commissioner, I think what happens, one phenomenon that is hard for us get a grip on, and that is when -- actually when there is economic difficulty in a community or in a community or in a nation. There is, on occasion, less demand for service. People don't call for an ambulance. They might say, well, you know, I'm sick. I normally would have called for an ambulance but I'm Page 166 June 19,2008 going to drive to the hospital or I may postpone that medical care or I may not have that fire inspection today just because I know I may have to spend some money on this particular situation. However, it's important that we not drop our readiness posture and we also realize how hard it is to catch up should things rebound sooner than we expect. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, you still haven't answered the question, sir. What I'm concerned about, are we in imminent danger because of the lack of personnel, or is this something that we can address in the near future? MR. SUMMERS: Sir, today we're getting by. Today I think we're doing -- you look at response times, the support that we have from the ALS engines, we're looking at about a 90 percent response time threshold. We're at 89 percent. I will tell you that I will follow your guidance and the guidance of the manager as it's conveyed to us. But right now, I think we need to maintain our status quo. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: This is in reference to the two ambulances? MR. SUMMERS: Yes, sir, that's correct. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. MR. SUMMERS: And, Commissioner, I think there's one thing that's very important here to find some middle ground. Nothing stops us from monthly reevaluation, quarterly reevaluation, of that picture in this current economic environment. So while we have a mandate to meet the attrition, it doesn't stop us from discussing further, you know, where we are month to month, what are we seeing in demand, what are we seeing in trends, what happens if we have more people in season and how we average that out. So while we would like to make a static decision, we understand that we have dynamics in population and we have dynamics in Page 167 June 19,2008 calculations volume and call history. And so we're certainly willing to take a look at that on a month-by-month or quarter-by-quarter basis. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Halas, Commissioner Coyle. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes. I just -- since both you and John Torre are sitting at the table, I'd just like to commend you for the outstanding production of the 2008 hurricane DVD that's out there, and I recommend that anyone that's the president of a homeowners association or so get their hands on that, especially if they have their own TV channel so they can run that. I think it's outstanding. And I hope that you put that out there for some type of an award nationally because I think it was that done -- done that professionally. MR. TORRE: Well, we should give credit to Troy Miller who really was the architect of that. He did a great job, I agree. CHAIRMAN HENNING: So Troy's new name is architect? MR. TORRE: Yeah. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. Almost without exception today we've been meeting with departments who have been proud of the fact that they've met the budget guidance. And I am disappointed that, particularly in the fire and rescue areas, you apparently have not met the budget guidance. You haven't even come close. Most of these are 7 to 9.8 percent increases over previous years' budgets. I don't know of any substantial increase in services. What is accounting for the fact that you couldn't come in at or near the budget guidance? MR. SUMMERS: Certainly. There are a couple things that I can elaborate on. I'll forward to the chief and maybe ask the budget office for some assistance. And that does address some of the truing up that I mentioned. Page 168 June 19,2008 Some of those particular issues had to deal with issues associated with -- retirement of personnel and associated payout were affected in that. There's a labor contract in Ochopee that's in its second year in which those labor costs are reflected as additional fuel being additional issues, the electrical prices because, again, they pay their power bills separate from the county campus as such. So those are just some of the -- a few of the factors, and I'll ask Chief McLaughlin ifhe'd like to elaborate. MR. McLAUGHLIN: Thank you. For the record, Allan McLaughlin. Is there a particular note, Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, you know, throughout all of the budgets, I'm looking at a 9.8 percent increase for the Isles of Capri. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Which page are you on, please? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Pages 47 through 49. And for Ochopee we're looking at 3.9 percent increases. Goodland/Horrs Island, we're looking at 7.3 percent increases. Everybody else has been coming in with minus two, minus three. And, you know, that's a pretty big variation here. MR. McLAUGHLIN: Well, the 3.9 percent increase overall has to do with the payout. We have two firefighters retiring, another one coming in October, 30 years. That's two large payouts plus the former chief payout on top of that. We also are impacted by the contract with the union. And another thing that is an add-in to that is that there was a problem with the holiday pay with the Ochopee employees, and that -- you know, the holiday pay had to be adjusted for all the employees, which had -- they had never received, and that was a pretty good chunk to have to overtake itself. We did reduce the operating expenses, if you'll note there -- in there, overall. We have a 4.8 decrease in expenditures and a 32 percent decrease from '08. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, are these -- do these payouts Page 169 June 19,2008 for the people who retired result in lower costs going forward? MR. McLAUGHLIN: They will go down. This is a -- this is because they're during this budget year coming up. The following -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: Next year can we expect a further decrease in the personnel services as a result of the retirement of these people? MR. McLAUGHLIN: Ifno one else retires and depending upon what happens with the union contract. It's in its third year. It's up for renegotiation. COMMISSIONER COYLE: But we didn't have any increases due to the union contract this year? MR. McLAUGHLIN: Yeah, I believe we did. COMMISSIONER COYLE: We did. Why, if it's not up for renegotiations till next year? MR. SUMMERS: Sir, I'll have to go back and pull that percentage. MR. McLAUGHLIN: I had just come on when that was in negotiations. I'd have to go back and research that. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, I guess I'm looking for the date at which the most recent union contract was modified or increased. MR. McLAUGHLIN: It had to be last August, September, I believe. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And it's going to -- MR. SUMMERS: Commissioner. Oh, I'm sorry? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Go ahead. MR. SUMMERS: I'm sorry. Dan Summers. There was one additional thing that didn't quite take place in that, if you will remember, a year-and-a-half ago we went through -- all of south Florida went through a challenge with both paramedic and firefighter salaries. The HR department did initiate a new salary study and also that affected Capri and Ochopee as well for some entry-level and Page 170 June 19,2008 mid-level firefighters in order to be reasonably close to current market conditions. Those adjustments took place and were also effected in this budget period. MR. McLAUGHLIN: Commissioner Coyle, I'd like to also say that the carryforward is part of that. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. Let's talk about the carryforward. What is the primary reason for the very large carryforward? MR. McLAUGHLIN: The primary reason for the carryforward, we've had money in that carryforward reserves. Every year it keeps getting carried forward, so the reserves keep growing as that gets carried -- as those monies get carried forward that aren't used or haven't been allocated, the projects weren't allocated, and I'm just going back and have to look at what's been the past. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Now, we've got a reserve for capital that has grown dramatically, 37 percent. What capital expenditure are we preparing for? MR. SUMMERS: Sir, there's several things that we've kept on the horizon for that particular capital. One, let me talk about carryforward for a little bit. We've been very conservative particularly at Ochopee to address issues associated with the hurricane event or should that building get so inundated by a storm surge event that it addressed an issue of a possible mitigation opportunity or station relocation. So we've continued to be maybe a little too conservative in that environment just to have that particular period -- those resources available. The other thing that we were very conservative in was how -- what the ultimate status would be as the clerk's lawsuit moved forward. So I think we were, again, not knowing what insurance resources would issue available for those expenses and how that would ultimately work out, but I'll -- we maintained a conservative Page 171 June 19,2008 posture there across the board. COMMISSIONER COYLE: So what you're telling me is the carryforwards could be excessive? MR. SUMMERS: Sir, yes, sir. We would be happy to take another look at carryforwards. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. I'd like that, and also, the reserves for capital. You have $719,000 reserved for capital. And, you know, that's a fairly -- fairly large percentage of your total budget. I'm just looking at Ochopee right now -- MR. SUMMERS: I understand. COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- but I think the same thing might apply not quite so much to the others, but -- MR. MUDD: Let's talk about Ochopee just a little bit to give you more of an inside feel for the reserves for capital. Over the last three years, there's been a constant conversation with the Port of the Isles residents about trying to get a station, a fire stations, in the Port of the Isles, i.e., Ochopee supported. Right now Ochopee is down in Everglades City. If that was to transpire, there would be a capital expenditure for that particular fire station. Now, we've been trying to get those residents to offer up the land on which this fire station would sit in order to get that resolved. Another issue that's out there with the Ochopee Fire that's also under discussion is providing service to 1-75, because that comes off of 29 and you have access to 1-7 -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: Somebody else is going to own it. Let them worry about it. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. I'm going to deal with today, as far as -- so there is conversations about how that would get done. So I believe that's where the reserve for capital kindness is because there's two things outstanding in the Ochopee side. One is a fire station at the Port of the Isles, and the other one is a station at a rest stop or whatever out Page 172 June 19,2008 on 1-75 to provide better service. Now, ifI-75 goes away -- and you also are going to have this item on your agenda on Tuesday as far as a resolution is concerned, and one of the items you might want to consider is emergency service on 1-75 and how this contracted firm is going to be able to provide it and/or supplement the county in order to provide it because it becomes a private entity at that particular juncture. So that's in there. These were conversations that we were having on 1-75 with Representative Davis before he passed away, and we still have a hole and we're still trying to figure out how best to fill it. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Well, tell me what the capital budget is for this new location and what is the anticipated date of construction, because that's -- that's relevant to how rapidly you accumulate reserves for capital expenditures. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, right now we don't have the land for that particular piece or parcel to put the station on, so we haven't got ourselves past square one as far as that is concerned. But the reserves for capital that you have sitting right now is about half of what you'd need in order to build that station and put it online. Now, there is an interim solution that's out there right now whereby the hotel across the street of 41 will provide a room so that we can get an engine that sits outside the room in order to get that done to the tune of about $40,000 a year; is that correct, Mr. Summers? MR. SUMMERS: I think so. MR. MUDD: Okay. So we're -- it's -- we're trying, okay, and so there is -- there is some things that are going on. And I will tell you, Ochopee Fire is right there at the four mills, I believe, or close to it. MR. McLAUGHLIN: Just under. MR. MUDD: Just under because of what we had to reduce last Page 173 June 19,2008 year across the board, the 9 percent. And they are the highest millage rate fire district that you have in Collier County, independent, and in this particular case, dependent. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. One of the reasons-- MR. MUDD: No. I don't think Commissioner Coyle's -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: That's okay. I'm finished. MR. MUDD: Do you still want to talk about the Isles of Capri? COMMISSIONER COYLE: No, it's okay. MR. MUDD: Oh, I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I just wanted to make sure we'd take a look at these things and see if they are, in fact, excessive, the carryforwards and the reserves for capital. You have a very high percentage increase in reserves for capital. It's a very high percentage of your total revenue budget. And if you -- if you have good reason to believe that disaster is going to befall you very quickly and you need the money, then I understand why you'd need to accumulate it quickly. But if there's reason to believe that you're not going to get wiped out maybe in the next three or four years, maybe you ought to accumulate it a little more slowly and that way you won't have such a huge impact on this budget when we're all having difficult financial problems. MR. SUMMERS: And we've been juggling the balls here with Port of the Isles and 75, and thank you. MR. MUDD: The other piece, you have a Horrs -- a Goodland/Horrs Island Fire District. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, I wanted to ask that, but I first want to finish this. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. I appreciate that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. Page 174 June 19, 2008 COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Everybody's getting ahead of me on this. I can tell you that this has been probably the biggest issue in that whole end of the district is the Port of the Isle fire station. And anything we can do to keep this thing on track, I appreciate it. We've met so many times with the different supposed developers that were going to donate the land. They've come up with more clever schemes than I've ever seen, and we are -- the net result has been zero. And I can tell you the residents of Port of the Isles are very, very unhappy with it. If we could come up with some plan that would be able to project out, even if it was three years out, something's going to be able to happen and when it's going to happen, and give them some certainty that we're doing something, I think we'd be light-years ahead. MR. SUMMERS: Sir, we appreciate that. We, too, want to take care of that problem. We're sensitive to that, and we have hit a lot of hurdles in that. Even if we have an interim solution with some of the space that on-again off-again has been offered at the hotel, that's going to take a zoning exemption by you all as an interim step, and we want to make sure that you understand that while we want to do -- we still have another hurdle to get to, and we would split part of the Ochopee personnel at each one of those sites, and then we would need to evaluate that, put those engines a fair distance apart, and they're going to have to support each other on particular calls. So we want to do -- support the residents. We're aware of their ISO rating issues that they're concerned with, and we want to try to be creative and innovative and be efficient in that same process. But we're going to need -- we still have a lot to do to initiate an interim solution. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Anything we can do to keep moving this forward. Rather than just talking about it, let's do something, because we've been talking about it now for seven and eight years. Page 175 June 19,2008 MR. SUMMERS: That's comforting, and we want to do that as well. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. And I wanted to ask, although you were going about the same question, I think, I don't even know of anything at all about Goodland/Horrs Island Fire District. I mean, where is it located? MR. MUDD: It's in Goodland, and it used to be on Horr's Island, but Horr's Island is now in the City of Marco. And this is the money-- this is the fee that's paid by Goodland for fire service out of Marco Island Fire Service. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, I see, okay. So this is actually Marco Island Fire Service that services these two areas? MR. MUDD: Yes. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. MR. MUDD: Yes, ma'am. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any other questions? MR. YONKOSKY: Mr. Chairman, I do need to follow up on Commissioner Coyle's comments a little bit. The anomaly in 1588 that requires us to add the impact of Amendment 1 back-- MR. MUDD: They don't understand what 1588 is. MR. YONKOSKY: Oh, 1588 is the glitch bill. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I understand it. MR. YONKOSKY: Okay. We're required, as Mr. Mudd went through and showed you in the millage calculations this morning, we're required to do that with every MSTU We don't get that information until July 1st. The Property Appraiser gave us the information as an estimate, went through and did that for us so that we could bring something simply intelligent to you for this meeting. We do not have that information for the MSTU s, and so we used rollback rate in the calculation. We had to have something, so we used Page 176 June 19,2008 rollback rate. And I suspect that the reserves are going to change after we get the actual numbers. Ijust wanted to let you know that. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Thank you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: My second question was, I was going to ask Janet if she could tell us what the Productivity Committee had to report. Here she is ready. MS. VASEY: Janet Vasey, for the record. I am here in case you wanted to talk or ask any questions about the paper you got yesterday afternoon from the Productivity Committee on the EMS units for the budget. We passed that yesterday, quickly got it signed in to you, so you might have a chance to look at it. I will warn you, the basic document comes out of the joint Productivity/EM SAC Committee that's looking at the EMS master plan. Now, you've tasked us to work together to look at the EMS master plan to see if there's -- if it's good or bad or should be changed or accepted or whatever. And as part of that review, we -- we're looking at the number of units and the ALS fire engine support and its contribution to the EMS service in the community. And then Jeff came in with his budget, and he had a $700,000 cut. And so we tried to put what we knew together with that funding reduction and make a recommendation to you. And we were able to get it passed yesterday. I do want to be sure that you understand that the EMSAC has not had a chance to review that. The members on the committee were in favor of it, but it has not gone to the full EMSAC for their review yet. So I would strongly recommend that you don't take any final action till you get their input. But I'm here to discuss any part of this report that you'd like to talk about. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. I'm just a little --I'm unsure exactly what you're telling us here though, Janet. Do I understand this Page 177 June 19,2008 to mean that we can save $4.5 million by not constructing two stations and that we could save two units for another $942,872 in annual cost savings for staffing? Is that essentially correct, about a $5.4 million total savings between capital improvements and personnel costs? MS. VASEY: Yes, but I wouldn't mix them. The 4.5 would be out of impact fees for building two stations that you probably don't need to build now that you're counting the North Naples ALS fire engine support. Now, the, essentially, million dollars for the recurring costs of two units, 700,000 of that was already included in Jeffs budget -- in Chief Page's budget. And so there's only a little bit extra over and above that. But this was trying to help him in his budget. He's only got really personnel to try and take a reduction from. And so this kind of has a rationale for why two units might be eliminated. COMMISSIONER COYLE: So your recommendation would be an incremental savings of approximately $200,000? MS. VASEY: In '09, yes. COMMISSIONER COYLE: In '09, yes. But it would be every year after that? MS. VASEY: Right. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah, unless we replaced it. Okay. So there's roughly a $200,000 incremental savings based upon your recommendations and observations subject, I guess, to the input of DSAC. MR. OCHS: EMSAC. COMMISSIONER COYLE: EMSAC, yeah. MS. VASEY: Absolutely. We fully expect them to take a look at the implications. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, you also get another benefit. It's not a direct savings. If you look at your -- if you look at your UFR list, Page 178 June 19,2008 you'll notice that there's three ambulances that are on there for replacements of old ones. And if you cut two units, these two units already exist, these were of the newer variety because you grabbed four of them, so two of them could go against the three that are too old to do business. So, in essence, it does take some off the UFR list, too. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay, good. Thank you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Could I ask a question on that? If you -- if you use these two new ones and you sold the two old ones, can those -- the sale of the two old ones go to purchase the other new one? Does that make any sense? MR. MUDD: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER FIALA: We'd be selling three actually. MR. MUDD: It comes to the -- it comes to the general fund on the surplus side of the house. I wish the surplus we got was half price or whatever. We don't get that as far as their salary's value is concerned when you go out on the open thing. Those monies do come back to the general fund, and those dollars could be used as a payment for some of the price of the third ambulance, ma'am. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. All right. We're complete? MR. MUDD: Commissioner, you want to do -- do you want to go to capital on this particular item? CHAIRMAN HENNING: Ifwe do, we're going to take a break first. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: So we're going to take a break. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: I think we just discussed capital, right? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir, we pretty much did the capital. Ifthere's no other questions on capital, then we can let these folks go. CHAIRMAN HENNING: And then we're still going to take a Page 179 June 19,2008 10-minute break. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir, we certainly are, because we've got the county attorney next. (A brief recess was had.) MR. MUDD: Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd please take your seats. Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, you have a hot mike. COUNTY ATTORNEY This brings us to the county attorney, and then we'll go to BCC, which has your CRAs and your executive office. Mr. Klatzkow? MR. KLATZKOW: JeffKlatzkow, County Attorney. I have Debbie Allen, my Office Manager, with me. We came in under guidance, 4.1 percent reduction, and we're pretty simple. We're 91 percent personnel and 9 percent everything else. If the board has any questions, be happy to answer them. MR. MUDD: Commissioners, if you go to Board of County Commissioners tab in your book and you start on page 10, 11, and 13, 12 and 13 are part of the county attorney's pages. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Questions? Commissioner Coyle? COMMISSIONER COYLE: No questions. I'd like to thank you for meeting budget guidance and reducing costs from last year. Keep up the good work. MR. KLATZKOW: Yep. COMMISSIONER COYLE: See you next year. MR. KLATZKOW: Thank you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: You want to talk about your capital? MR. KLATZKOW: It's a big one. It wouldn't be as bad if! could go outside the vendors, quite frankly, but-- Page 180 June 19,2008 CHAIRMAN HENNING: If you could what? MR. KLATZKOW: Go outside vendors, but that's okay. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay, thank you. BCC MR. MUDD: Commissioners, that brings us to the BCC office and the CRA -- MS. FILSON: I'm right here. MR. MUDD: -- and the CRA. MS. FILSON: Oh, I get someone to sit with. MR. MUDD: Absolutely. I didn't want you to be lonely. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Can't remember what? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Advice. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Advice? MR. MUDD: And we'll start with Ms. Filson, and her items are -- MS. FILSON: It's on page 7. MR. MUDD: On 7. MS. FILSON: My item's on page 7. I'm in compliance with your guidance. In fact, I'm 3.51 percent below. And I'm here to answer any questions you have. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Any questions? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Good budget. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Good job. MR. MUDD: Okay. Now, we did -- we did move the FAC charges into a different account out of this one. Ms. Filson would have never been able to do that if that -- MS. FILSON: That's creative financing. MR. MUDD: -- if that constant money was there, okay, so that was a key -- that was a key issue, and we worked it. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah, good. Thank you very much. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. Page 181 June 19,2008 CRA MR. MUDD: That will bring us to -- we went through the county attorney, legal aide. That will bring us to the CRA portion, which is on page 14, and we'll start with Bayshore Gateway Triangle Redevelopment CRA on page 15. MR. JACKSON: Good afternoon, Commissioners. David Jackson, Bayshore Gateway Triangle CRA component. The budget presented to you today was worked with staff and with the office of budget management, and it was reviewed by the local advisory board in a public meeting on two separate occasions, and they submit it to you for review, comment, and approval. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Any questions? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Boy, you really blew it, didn't you? MR. JACKSON: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: What -- yeah, you're -- you don't include capital in this? You don't have a capital page in our book, right, for CRA ? MR. MUDD: No, just for airport. No, sir. It doesn't have capital. He presents that to you through his board during their presentations that they give to you -- I believe it's March or something like that that you give it, David? MR. JACKSON: What was that, sir? MR. MUDD: Talking about the capital piece of your budget when you do your projects. It's included in your -- in this budget page? MR. JACKSON: That's correct. And we go through that in review January through March, and in March you guys -- or when you're sitting as the CRA board, looks at any projects that we're going to go forward with, any property we're going to buy, anything we're going to build, so -- and Commissioner Coyle, I surmise your Page 182 June 19, 2008 comment was in jest? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yes. MR. JACKSON: Thank you, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, no, quite frankly, David, your costs, of course, have changed dramatically, but there are good reasons for that, and I think we all understand those. You're a slightly different organization than the other departments we deal with because you're funded from taxes that are collected within your district that your members agree to. MR. JACKSON: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. So it's a different situation. And when you're increasing revenues and increasing costs, it generally means you're doing something to improve the redevelopment district, and that's what we all hired you to do, so -- MR. JACKSON: Yes, sir. And to -- a little bit more specifics on it, to support your comments, is that we are -- we do receive only a modest amount of money that comes from the property taxes, and we are at the mercy of the market out there, just like everyone else is. Weare taking a reduction in our potential revenues because of the market, and we will receive less than what we would have if numbers had remained the same. Some of the increase in numbers in where you're looking at expenditures, that is basically money coming out of reserves that we've built up over time, and now we're going to expend that on infrastructure, on projects in the public realm. So essentially the money has been there but it's been in the building it up and saving. My piggy bank now is going to get spent, and that's what our objective is. The longer we save money, then nothing really gets done in the area. Our objective is to collect the funds, find a project, expend the funds on it, improve the quality of life and the environment in the area there, and eventually sunset ourselves and go away because then you'll Page 183 June 19,2008 have a piece of property or an area in the county that is on the same par as the rest of the county. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: I have three questions. MR. JACKSON: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER FIALA: The first one. Were you ever able to buy those 10 flophouses and get rid of them? MR. JACKSON: No, ma'am. The offer was made, the contract was delivered. The prices were negotiated. The seller walked. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Darn. MR. JACKSON: So until the seller gets back into the willing seller statute -- or category, they're going to sit there as they are. Now, there's a lot of other activity that's going on from other county departments on those pieces of property, which comes through the Board of County Commissioners and the county manager's divisions. But where we're at right now is to purchase those properties. We had it in the budget, and we were right at the point of signing the contract or bringing it to the CRA and to the Board of County Commissioners for approval, but the seller walked -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. Okay, and that hasn't changed. The second question I have is the old Burger King property that was ready to go. You had a bid on it, and then the attorney general, I guess it was -- who stopped the CRAs from buying anything? MR. JACKSON: Supreme Court. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Supreme Court, excuse me. So what's happening with that particular -- I know that they've had a lot of problems with vagrants in there, what's happening with that? MR. JACKSON: The vagrant issue was pretty much rectified with code enforcement actions. They sured up the building and they took care of the windows and the cleanup and the landscape. There was, on that property, two prospective tenants to lease the space. For some reason they were not able to negotiate the agreement or to Page 184 June 19,2008 improve the property according to code and be able to move in there. Currently it's still on the market. And as I understand, I don't have the numbers, but the price that we were looking at it back 12 months ago has been reduced significantly as market adjustment. Since that, if the CRA sometime in the future either has the ability to get the funds or to go after that property in the triangle, the price should be different, much different than where we were negotiating before. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And has that decision from the Supreme Court ever been reversed or is it still in the court system? MR. JACKSON: I'm glad you asked that question. My conversation this morning with the Florida Redevelopment Association in Tallahassee has been in contact with the attorneys that were associated with the Strand case and with the two associated cases from Bay County that were heard in February. They surmise -- of course, they don't know any more inside information than anyone else does; however, they surmise that this year two of the justices on the Supreme Court are going to retire, and they will retire sometime in the month of August of this year, and that the Supreme Court does take a summer recess session in the month of August, that they will rule sometime between now and August to clean their slate, and that's when we'll find out whether or not we have to comply with their previous decision or we can roll back to the procedures that the CRAs followed for the last 30 years. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay, thank you. And the last question is, you had purchased 17 acres of property, and the thought was to build a cultural and performing arts center on that piece of property. Are you still in that mode and are you still trying to move forward with that? MR. JACKSON: Yes, ma'am, we are. We're also still, again, not to -- not an excuse, but we're still sensitive to the market forces out there. Page 185 June 19,2008 There's -- when you start developing commercial property and other residential properties in a mixed-use development, the developers are very interested; however, they're not very aggressive at purchasing and starting construction now, and you see that all the time with all your other rezones and stuff; people get rezone but they don't go anywhere with it. We're trying to find a group or company that is willing to start sooner than later rather than acquire the property and sit on it. As you well know, we have two other residential projects that have been approved and have site development plans but aren't coming out of the ground. It's market forces again. They can't make the sales, they can't satisfy the bank requirements. We're in there monitoring. We're positioning ourselves to go forward. Short answer to your question is, yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. Any other questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HENNING: Thank you. MR. MUDD: I believe that brings us to the Immokalee CRA, which is starting on page 17. MS. PHILLIPPI: Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name is Penny Phillippi. I'm the Executive Director of the Immokalee CRA. And what we have before you is the budget that was approved by the Immokalee Community Redevelopment Agency's Advisory Committee and the Immokalee Master Plan and Visioning Committee. It looks very different probably than any other Immokalee CRA budget that you've seen historically because, first of all, we have staff, which is something we've never had before. We've had some budgets -- some budget for affordable housing, like you recently approved the Esperanza Place, 200,000 a year for three years. And very soon, on the 24th, we'll bring to you a contract approval for a consultant to pursue simultaneously the work on the Page 186 June 19,2008 master plan, the Land Development Codes, with that, the transportation plan, and a capital improvement plan. And that capital improvement plan will address these large reserves of capital that we have here in this budget as well. So with -- and then the next thing we'll bring to you is an amendment to the ordinance that will allow us to do programs. Currently there is an ordinance that allows the Bayshore CRA to execute grants and programs within the community. So we are amending that ordinance so that we also can pursue some commercial and residential grants for facade grants and those kinds of things. And that's -- these are, I guess, the really big things that you see here on this budget. And if you have any questions, I'll give it a shot. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. I wanted you to know how proud I am of what you're doing in Immokalee. As we all know, Fred Thomas is known as the honorary mayor of Immokalee. Penny's known as the guardian angel of Immokalee. MS. PHILLIPPI: Oh, my. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And we're moving forward in an expeditious pace where we've been -- seem to be lagging behind for a number of years, and I attribute a lot of this to Penny's presence in moving things forward. MS. PHILLIPPI: Thank you. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you so much for your commitment to Immokalee and the CRA. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And Commissioner Coletta is the prophet of Immokalee. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No, of Collier County. I'm sorry, I'm pretty universal. MR. MUDD: Mr. Y onkosky will finish up this particular -- there are tabs in there that you didn't get done. Go ahead, John. Page 187 June 19,2008 MR. YONKOSKY: If you would look to page 8 and 9, Commissioners, they're the other GNA or the general fund 001 and other GNA fund 111. These two cost centers actually address expenses that don't fit anyplace else and in the -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Eight and 9 in the front of the book? MR. MUDD: No, in your tab, ma'am, under Board of County Commissioners, page 8. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry about that. MR. YONKOSKY: And a major one -- or program that's in there is juvenile detention centers. That's where you pay for admittances, something for housing for juvenile offenders. The Naples CRA, that payment to Naples for their CRA, unemployment, accounting for cost of unemployment, the insurance premiums that are attributable to those departments in the general fund, and then certain countywide costs, and at the last program is countywide auditing. I think the only notable thing in this budget is that you're 101 percent over in your personnel costs. That's unemployment compensation insurance, so, that -- we've had a -- I think it's 20 -- unemployment costs are expected to be $24,000 above the adopted FY -'08 and '09 indicative of what's going on in the county. On the 111, other GNA, there's the insurance premiums and the IT client support and computer lease payments. And then, Commissioner Henning, you had talked about the cost allocation plan that this $2,689,300 is the portion of that cost allocation plan that fund 111 pays back to the general service to pay for the services they -- the commissioners and other departments in the general fund actually pay for. So I could answer any questions. There is a payment for $500,000 to the City of Naples for the board-approved park system that comes out of the 111 fund. MR. MUDD: And that was based on the board's decision to do a million dollars. Half a million was coming out of parks and rec, and so Page 188 June 19,2008 it's still coming out of parks and rec, and the other $500,000 is right here in order to get that resolved. So that's where -- I want to make sure that you're aware. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Can you -- can you substantiate a direct benefit to citizens in the unincorporated area for that 500,000? MR. MUDD: Yeah, we can try. Basic -- the basic issue was county residents using parks and whatnot in the City of Naples, and the other 500,000 that's in parks and rec has to do with the fee that they're charging us for parking, unincorporated residents parking to get to the beach in their particular parking spaces. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, this cranks back up again at nine o'clock in the morning, and we'll start with constitutional officers, and then whatever time that breaks and we can have further UFR discussions at that time, and then we have a 1 :00 o'clock time for public comment that's been announced. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay. When are we going to deal with the millage? MR. MUDD: We can do that when we talk about preliminary UFR discussions or we can do it after public comments, sir. But we'll do it before close of business tomorrow. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay, all right. That's good. So we-- this is a workshop. We're not adjourned. We're continuing till tomorrow. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: And you don't need a motion. MR. MUDD: Don't need a motion, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: So we're continuing it tomorrow at nine o'clock. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Nine. MR. MUDD: Nine o'clock, sir. CHAIRMAN HENNING: Okay, nine o'clock. Page 189 June 19,2008 COMMISSIONER COYLE: And we can leave this here, right? MR. MUDD: Yes sir, you can. ***** There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 4:55 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPEC1 DIST CT~ UNDER ITS CONTROL ---~,,' TOM HENNING, Chai an ATTEST: DWIGHT E. BROCK, CLERK ~~~ . ,-',' ,. -"'-' Att.st as to;:Chilnllll t .", ') slllllltUl"t GAl",. 'I , J i.i' These minutes approved by the Board on ~ or as corrected 1-)7-z..{o~, as presented TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICES, INC., BY TERRI LEWIS. Page 190