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BCC Minutes 06/28/2012 B (Budget Workshop) BCC BUDGET MEETING MINUTES JUNE 28, 2012 June 28, 2012 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Naples, Florida, June 28, 2012 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners, in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as the Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing Board(s) of such special districts as have been created according to law and having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m., in BUDGET WORKSHOP SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: Fred Coyle Jim Coletta Donna Fiala Georgia Hiller Tom Henning ALSO PRESENT: Leo Ochs, County Manager Mark Isackson, OMB, County Manager's Office Jeffrey A. Klatzkow, County Attorney Mike Sheffield, Business Operations Manager — CMO Page 1 BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BUDGET WORKSHOP COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA AGENDA Thursday, June 28, 2012 9:00 A.M. 9:00 a.m. General Overview - Presented Courts & Related Agencies (State Attorney & Public Defender) - Presented Growth Management - Presented Public Services - Presented Administrative Services - Presented Public Utilities - Presented Debt Service - Presented Management Offices (Pelican Bay) - Presented County Attorney - Presented BCC (Community Redevelopment Agencies, Airport) - Presented 1:00 P.M. Constitutional Officers Elections - Presented Clerk of Courts - Presented Sheriff - Presented Other Constitutional Officers requesting to address the BCC - None Public Comment: Adjourned Page 1 June 28, 2012 June 28, 2012 MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, you have a live mic. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Ladies and gentlemen, Collier County Board of County Commissioner's Budget Workshop is now in session. Would you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. (The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. County Attorney -- I'm sorry, County Manager. MR. OCHS: Thought I got a demotion there for a minute. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yes. But I see he's not here, so it could have been a big demotion. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Leo, Leo, Leo, not in pay. MR. OCHS: Yeah, that's right. Thank you, ma'am. Commissioners, good morning and welcome to your Fiscal Year 2013 Budget Workshop. We have a full day for you planned, but hopefully we can move this along and, as we have in the past couple of years, get you through this budget in a reasonable amount of time. GENERAL OVERVIEW — PRESENTED You have the agenda in front of you. I will begin as I normally do with a brief overview of your budget, then we'll call individual agencies forward, and we'll have your courts and your County Manager and BCC agency divisions and departments this morning. At one p.m. this afternoon we will -- regardless of where we are at that particular time, we'll turn our attention to the constitutional officers' budgets and then hopefully finish up before the day is out. So with that as a backdrop, I'll go ahead and begin the overview this morning. Commissioners, your annual budget planning and preparation process is one component of a larger performance management system that this Board has directed and guided over the years. It begins each January with the Board setting their strategic plan where they typically Page 2 June 28, 2012 reaffirm your vision and mission for the organization. And you go through your six strategic focus areas making any modifications or adjustments or setting individual priorities within these six strategic focus areas each January. Based on that direction, then your Board -- or your staff takes that strategic guidance from the Board, turns it into annual operating plans, primarily in the form of programs and services that we develop through your annual budget process to get resourced by the Board. We will then take that resource plan, execute it on an annual basis. At the end of year we'll assess and evaluate our progress, what results we've achieved, and certainly any opportunities that we might find for operational improvements, business process improvements, and quality assurance improvements. In terms of the timeline --;excuse me. In terms of the timeline of the budget itself, you can see that it begins in January, as I mentioned, with your annual strategic planning workshop. We then move into February where you provide annual guidance and direction for the staff as we develop our budget. Over the spring and early summer, staff puts the budget together, along with the constitutional officers. In June we are here today holding your annual workshops. We will then receive the certification by the property appraiser on July 1 of the taxable values for the county, which forms the basis for your General Fund budget. The Board will be asked, per statute, to adopt your maximum tentative millage at your July 24th BCC Meeting. We will get final appraisals and taxable values by the county property appraiser again in August. TRIM notices will go out in late August, and you will hold two public hearings, according to Florida Statute, in September where you will ultimately adopt the budget. Commissioners, before we get into the specific features of your Page 3 June 28, 2012 budget, I just want to take a minute and kind of look at the overall economic landscape that we believe will shape some of the decisions you'll make on your budget as you go through the morning's review. We'll start by looking at some positive news, and that is the taxable value has increased slightly, and it's the first positive adjustment in taxable value since your Fiscal Year 2008. It's up .54 percent. It's not a great increase, but it certainly beats the alternative. With that being said, we still continue to see disparities in taxable values in different geographic areas of the county. Different taxing districts have different levels of taxable value. Some are still declining, and that leads us to believe that some of the commercial and residential values in some areas of the county will remain sluggish into the foreseeable future. Median home prices have increased from 237,000 in April of 2011 to 258,000 in April of this year. Also your sales tax and state-shared revenues are trending up year over year. Your peak season April 2012 visitation to our destination here from the tourism standpoint and seasonal visitors is up year over year by over 5 percent. Another good sign. Additionally, new construction permitting activity for May of 2012 continues to show an upward trend. In fact, it's up over 15 percent year over year. Another positive sign that we are beginning to come out of this recession. Another indicator is that unemployment rates are down approximately 2 percent from April of 2011 to a current rate of 8.6 percent. So all in all, Commissioners, I would say pulling out of what has been the worst recession in almost 80 years. Your organization's fiscally sound. It's leaner, more efficient and structured to continue providing best-value services to the residents and the visitors of Collier County. Let's talk about some of the features of the 2013 budget. Your Page 4 June 28, 2012 budget guidance has essentially been met for the County Manager's agency. The budget features millage-neutral tax rates for both your General Fund and Unincorporated General Fund. We continued to grow your General Fund reserves. Your debt service is fully funded and fully in compliance with your debt service policy. There are no planned layoffs, facility closures, or any operating service cuts planned in your County Manager's agency for Fiscal '13. There are also no new fees or service charges planned or incorporated in this budget for county residents. Commissioners, we've also dealt with the state Medicaid unfunded mandate. If you recall, we are dealing, as a result of some legislation this past session, not only with the prospective payment issue, but we also had to take care of a backlog of Medicaid payments that were cost shifted, if you will, to the local governments. This budget contains the funding to take care of both that backlog under the guidance provided by the state and certainly your prospective payments for Medicaid services. Your high priority asset maintenance and equipment replacement has been funded in this budget, and we'll talk more about that as we go department by department. And, finally, Commissioners, we have set aside funding in the '13 budget to make what I would call a modest employee compensation adjustment, and that is certainly at the Board's discretion, and we'll talk about that in a little more detail as we move along. I wanted to give you a quick overview of some of the highlights of your capital asset spending in the 2013 budget. Once again this year, as you have this year, we have $800,000 budgeted to continue our ambulance replacement program. We also have over a million-and-a-half dollars appropriated for general vehicle and equipment replacements based on priority recommendations from your fleet manager. We have a half million dollars in general building maintenance Page 5 June 28, 2012 incorporated into the capital budget. And we have approximately $3 million of intersection safety and capital -- excuse me -- capacity enhancements planned for FY 12 and ' 13, and Mr. Casalanguida will get into the -- some of the specific projects that he would hope to accomplish with that funding in a few minutes. We have funding to the tune of $2.3 million for continued bridge repair and construction, $4 million of road repairs and resurfacing, and continue to fund the LASIP project. Now, that project permit expires in 2015, so we are aggressively moving to finish that project before the permit expires. And we have over $800,000 of capital appropriation for general stormwater improvements throughout the county. Commissioners, as I mentioned a minute ago, FY 13 budget will feature, for the first time since 2008, a positive adjustment in taxable values, and your countywide General Fund taxable values are up .54 percent, and in your Unincorporated Area General Fund they're up very slightly, . 14 percent. But, again, when you look at the bar charts, certainly getting in the black numbers is a very positive indicator for the community. While we're pleased to see that the taxable value is finally moving in the right direction, this table kind of brings us back to earth and tells us that despite the slight increase in Fiscal '13, we have a long way to go to recover till we get back to the taxable values that we had in the mid 2000s. Again, just to remind the audience, the Board certainly will recall that they have made hard decisions over these tough economic times and maintain the millage rate both in your countywide General Fund at 3.5645 and in your Unincorporated Area General Fund millage at 0.7161 proposed for Fiscal Year ' 13. Maintaining a millage-neutral tax rate with slight increase in taxable values will result in approximately 411,000 increase in your countywide General Fund receipts for Fiscal Year '13, and a 75 -- Page 6 June 28, 2012 excuse me -- $75,000 decrease in the Unincorporated Area General Fund property tax receipts. Again, as I said earlier, there are no new service charges or user fees to county residents in this budget, no reduction in frontline services, no planned facility closures or reductions in operating hours. Let's take a look at your head count. Funded positions in the Board of County Commissioners' agency for Fiscal Year '13 are reduced by 21 FTE from your FY2012 budget. There are no expanded position requests in the County Manager's agency for Fiscal '13, and we will continue our targeted hiring freeze on agency position vacancies. This is -- shows the specific areas where we have reduction in FTE programmed into your '13 budget. Commissioners, I'd like to talk for a minute about a proposal for compensation for your employees for 2013. As all of you know, there have been no employee cost of living or any other compensation adjustments for your workforce since October 1st of 2008. Since that time, employees have had to shoulder a 3 percent cost shift in their pension contributions that began last -- excuse me -- July of 2011 . We also anticipate the loss of the federal social security payroll tax cut. That is scheduled to end on January 1st of 2013. And there is no employee health insurance payroll offset budgeted in Fiscal 2013. So the increase to employees in your agency for their 20 percent share of their health insurance premiums will kick in in earnest in 2013. With that as a backdrop, Commissioners, I wanted to show you, based on an average county salary of 51 -- slightly over $51 ,000, how earnings have actually eroded over the last several years, not only as a result of the reductions that I just talked about in additional pension contributions, the elimination of the current social security payroll tax, and increased employee contributions to the health insurance program, but also if you layer in on top of that the annual cost of living changes over the last four years where there have been no compensation Page 7 June 28, 2012 adjustments, you can see that the value of eroded earnings on that mean salary are in excess of $6,700 or a 13 percent reduction in real earning power for that annual salary. As such, Commissioners, I am proposing a modest 2 percent cost of living adjustment for your workforce in Fiscal '13, which would begin to mitigate that erosion of buying power that was lost due to inability to keep up with cost of living and some of the other cost shifts that I mentioned earlier. The cost of that 2 percent cost of living adjustment in the County Manager's agency, along with continuing your popular vacation sellback program, which the employees truly value, would be approximately $3.6 million in Fiscal '13. You can see the breakdown of those costs between the cost of living proposal and the vacation sellback which would be limited to a maximum of 40 hours of sell back per employee per year. Again, that is fully funded in this budget with a millage-neutral tax rate. As I mentioned, your healthcare program, it's fully funded and actuarially determined premium levels for Fiscal 2013. Premiums have increased lightly; approximately 4.4 percent. And the County Manager's and the Board employees continue to live up to the Board guidance of the 80/20 employer/employee premium payment guidance. Let's take a minute and look at your countywide General Fund highlights for 2013. Commissioners, your countywide General Fund budget is approximately $309,541,000. In 2013, it's a very slight increase from 2012. And, again, since 20 -- in Fiscal 2007, overall decrease to your General Fund exceeds $86 million, more than a 20 percent decline. This is the high-level pro forma for your General Fund. You can see general categories of expenses and revenues in your General Fund. And we'll talk about some of those in more detail in just a minute. Commissioners, despite the difficult economic times and the Page 8 June 28, 2012 challenges of your budget over the last several years, you have still been able to -- unlike many county governments in the state and the country, you've actually continued to grow your reserves during this difficult financial time. And we've -- you can see that your total General Fund reserves, including both your contingency and your cash flow reserve, is up over $10 million from where it was in Fiscal 2010. And your contingency reserves are set at the 2.5 percent of operating expenses, which is consistent with your budget guidance. And why is it important to maintain a strong reserve? Obviously, credit rating. When you go out for bonds or other borrowing or even when you refinance existing debt, we have to go out and get rated each time by the rating agencies, and you have a very strong investment grade corporate credit rating due in part to the fact that you're continuing to grow your reserves. The General Fund is the cash flow engine that keeps everybody going, particularly at the first three months of the year before we begin to get our tax receipts in in late November and December. It protects your beginning cash balance, obviously provides protection against unforeseen mandates and emergencies, and it also is the reserve for your constitutional officers. Let's talk about your debt for a moment. Commissioners, your unaudited debt for FY2012 is approximately $627 million. You can see that that trend is coming down since Fiscal Year '8 on a steady basis. And the annual debt service required to pay the principal and interest on that debt is well within your 13 percent cap, per policy. Even though your total bondable revenue decreased by more than $36 million from Fiscal Year ' 10 to Fiscal Year '11, you were still well within your 13 percent debt service cap. Your annual debt service on all your debt is about 70 to $72 million a year. I should mention that the commission continues to reduce your debt by about $40 million per year, and you'll continue to do that through 2014, at which point you're scheduled to continue to retire Page 9 June 28, 2012 debt at about $33 million a year for the next 10 years after 2014 and, finally, another $18 million per year for the remaining 11 years beyond that. Following that schedule, you will have more than 50 percent of all of your outstanding debt retired in your next 10 years if you're not required to go out with any additional borrowing. And I think that's a very positive message that we send not only to your constituents, but certainly to the rating agencies. Commissioners, here's the pie chart that you're used to seeing that represents the various revenue sources that fund your county general fund. Obviously, your ad valorem taxes is -- provides the lion's share of that funding, along with state sales tax and your state-shared revenues and your beginning balances. Here's a look at some of the primary revenue sources in your General Fund. You can see that ad valorem is up for the first time very slightly, a little over $400,000 in 2013. We're seeing a positive trend in your sales tax revenues, up by more than a million dollars for 2013. And that, I think, is a good sign that hopefully the local economy is beginning to come back and, certainly, we had a strong tourism season this year, and I think that the hospitality industry has contributed to a great extent to that uptick in our sales tax, and we're very grateful for that. State-shared revenues are up slightly. Your gas taxes will remain flat to the current fiscal year revenues. And, of course, your impact fees continue to struggle. We have experienced a drop of$5.7 million in 2013 due to a couple of things. You continue to index and reduce your impact fee rates, and at the same time we're not expecting any large repayments of deferred impact fees, and we had seen quite a few of those over the last couple of years, but those have begun to subside. They're not on any annual predictable level. They run cyclically. Bottom line is that obviously your impact fee revenue has declined over $105 million from its peak in Fiscal 2007. And your Page 10 June 28, 2012 budgeted beginning fund balance or your carryforward, as we referred to it, has essentially met the target of $44 million. Let's talk high level about your Unincorporated Area General Fund. The Unincorporated Area General Fund for 2013 is $38,830,000. Represents about 4. 1 reduction from your FY12 budget. You can see that the reductions in the MSTD Unincorporated General Fund, most operations were cut by about 5 percent. Reserves were reduced slightly, and your operating transfers are down about $300,000 in the Unincorporated General Fund. Again, these are the high-level pro forma expenses and revenue categories that comprise your Unincorporated Area General Fund. And then, finally, Commissioners, you see the breakdown of your typical unincorporated area residential tax bill. County portion of that overall tax bill remains below 30 percent; 27.9 is roughly where you are this year, and we're -- we would expect you to be again next year. And this is, again, the breakdown for all of the local taxing agencies of a typical unincorporated area residential tax bill. Commissioners, as I do every year, I want to point out a couple of areas of ongoing concern. And we've talked about our asset management program here over the last couple of years. We've had some deferrals in our fixed asset and preventative maintenance equipment replacement programs. That began five years ago with the downturn. I am happy to report that your high priority asset maintenance and equipment replacement funding is programmed in Fiscal Year 2013. We'd always like to be able to do more, but we think that we've been able to provide you an asset management plan and a funded capital equipment maintenance plan for 2013 that is very sound. We are continuing to pursue, as you know, an agency-wide asset management tool that will help us capture -- better capture the life cycle of the value of all of our assets and help us eventually develop a Page 11 June 28, 2012 replacement schedule and funding plan. Another area, Commissioners, that's kind of flown under the radar but it's something that we need to keep our eye on here as we move into the November elections, and that is Amendment IV. It's a planned constitutional amendment to the Florida Constitution. The voters will vote on this amendment in November of this year as a ballot referendum. If it's approved, it would take effect in January of 2013. And essentially what it does, Commissioners, is that it caps your ability to capture increases in taxable value and ad valorem revenues going forward. And it does that in a number of ways. I've highlighted, I think, three of the most prominent features in this proposed bill. The first thing it does is it repeals the provision in the recapture rule that -- it says, when you have an increase in assessed value of a homestead property, even if the market value decreases, there is still, under the current recapture provision, an annual adjustment to taxable value so that there are cases where even when a market value of a home for a homesteaded property decreases, there still may be a slight increase in your taxes due to the annual adjustment by the state for the recapture provision. Amendment IV would eliminate that. It also reduces the maximum annual assessment increase to commercial and non-homestead properties from the current 10 percent cap to no more than 5 percent. And, finally, it provides a first-time homebuyer -- and that's defined as anyone who has not owned a home in Florida for the last three years -- with what's called a super exemption equal to 50 percent of the home's assessed value, and that would be capped at the median home price in each individual county. What all this means at the end of the day is that, you know, this amendment has the potential to reduce and perhaps substantially reduce the revenues that you can receive to fund existing programs and services in your countywide General Fund and also your Page 12 June 28, 2012 Unincorporated Area General Fund. So it's something that, certainly, we need to keep our eyes on. And it's another reason why, even though we've had the first uptick in taxable values in several years, that does not necessarily mean that that's going to be a consistent trend, and we need to continue to be fiscally conservative and make sure that, something like this, we are accounting for in our annual budgeting process. And, finally, Commissioners -- and we're trying to address this a little bit through your proposed compensation adjustment this year. But as the economy does improve, as private sector begins to grow and add more jobs, we certainly want to remain competitive and make sure that we can maintain the best talent that we have here and that we don't lose it to the private sector. So we continue to be vigilant about making sure we remain competitive in the marketplace. And also, going forward in 2014 and beyond, I believe we need to make sure that we insist on equity in the cost share for health insurance contributions among all the agencies in your county government. Commissioners, that concludes my high-level overview of the budget. I'd be happy to answer any questions at this point, or we can move directly into your budget reviews, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Just to go over today's agenda. We're having the County Manager's and county commissioners' agencies this morning. This afternoon we're having constitutional officers at 1 o'clock, and then after that is public comment on the total budgets; is that correct? MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. That's how the agenda is laid out. Traditionally, though, I think the chairman and the commissioners have opened the floor to public comments after each division reports out their budget in case there's a member of the audience that has a particular question on a certain program or service or expense in an Page 13 June 28, 2012 individual division. So I think past practice, Commissioner, has been to have the public comment for any general concerns at the end of the workshop, but I think we've also allowed for individual public comment after each division has briefed their budget. COMMISSIONER HENNING: My next question is, the capital highlights that you reported in the -- in this highlight, is that an increase to what it has been previous years? MR. OCHS: In some case, yes, Commissioner; in other cases we've been able to maintain level funding. For example, ambulance replacements, the Board, as you recall last year at this time during your budget workshops, made a decision to place $800,000 of funding in the budget to replace aging ambulances. So we have followed that lead this year and made sure that we were able to replace another four of those units with an allocation of $800,000. In areas like intersection safety and capacity enhancements, I think we have been able to add some funding because we haven't had a cut in those areas due to the fact that taxable values did not fall below anticipated levels. In fact, we're higher than what we had used as a planning guide going into the budget preparation. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Are those the only two things? I guess, we can get into it in each division. MR. OCHS: Yeah. We were going to -- as I said, some of these we will have some specifics as we move through each of the budget briefs. Mr. Casalanguida has got a number of projects that he wants to highlight for the Board on the capital side of his particular division. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Thank you. MR. OCHS: You're welcome. CHAIRMAN COYLE: County Manager, it might be useful for the public to understand any positive impact to capital asset funding that might accrue from grants. Can you briefly summarize what our Page 14 June 28, 2012 history has been with respect to grant funding for that as well as any other capital spending? MR. OCHS: Commissioner, we rely increasingly on grant revenues for our capital program, particularly in areas like transit where all of the buses and the TD vans that you see on the street are all purchased through federal grants that relieves that burden from the county's taxpayers and the General Fund. We also, as you know, try to leverage county dollars against state and federal grants for highway improvements, other transportation improvements. Certainly the same thing with your water and sewer utility. So there is a strong reliance on grant funding, and we are going after it as hard as we can, sir, to beef up your capital program. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. What is your prognosis with respect to the increase or decrease in grants available for those purposes? MR. OCHS: My prognosis is we're certainly not going to see any large increase, and we may see a decrease in some of the federal grants, certainly, as the federal government tries to come to grips with their budget dilemma. Certainly we're seeing that in areas like beach renourishment. You know, new federal grants for beaches are, essentially, nonexistent. Even FEMA, when we have declared emergency events, it's becoming more and more difficult to qualify for the reimbursements because they, frankly, are out of money, and they are applying some new standards that are tighter than we've ever seen on some of those reimbursements. So at the federal level it's kind of hit and miss, Commissioner. In areas like transit, that still seems to be holding its own. I know they've been talking in Washington for many, many years on a new transportation bill. There's been some action on that just last evening. So we may see something break, but I wouldn't count on continued Page 15 June 28, 2012 large federal grants in all categories coming from Washington for the foreseeable future. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And that's another good reason for building our reserves. MR. OCHS: Absolutely, yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. You commented about the fact that in previous budget meetings we involved the public after each item, and that's an option. I hope that we can exercise this option at this meeting. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Let's get started with the individual presentations, then. MR. OCHS: Thank you, sir. I'll turn this over to Mr. Isackson. COURTS AND RELATED AGENCIES (STATE ATTORNEY AND PUBLIC DEFENDER) — PRESENTED MR. ISACKSON: Thank you, County Manager. The first group up is our court system. And while they're getting settled, just a reminder that any individuals that are in the audience should file a speaker slip with Mike Sheffield. Mike, raise your hand. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Who's going to be -- MR. CARTER: Good morning, Commissioners. My name's John Carter. I'm administrative services manager for the court system. With me is Judge Ramiro Manalich, and to my left is Mr. Steve Russell, the state attorney. I would like -- before I begin, I'd like to thank you all for this opportunity and your staff, the County Manager, Mr. Ochs, would like to thank him, and our budget analyst, Sherry Pryor, who's helped us Page 16 June 28, 2012 immensely in our budget, and we'd like to present that to you today. We tried to follow your dictates of reducing the budget. And as you can see, we have taken some measures to do that. And our budget is coming -- as you see on Page 2 of our proposed budget, the total of minus 11.4 percent transfer variance from the General Fund. If you excuse me, this is the first time I've done this. I'm a little nervous. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's all right. We're a little nervous, too. We're the ones that have to provide the money. MR. CARTER: We have tried to make some cuts. We have reduced some costs. Court administration has three cars. We're retiring one of those cars to save those costs; not replacing it. We have reduced some other costs in reserves; anticipating that we're not going to have any emergencies, but maintaining some reserves. We have also had some expenses increase that we tried to offset with those reserve cuts. We've had expenses in insurance for probationers, defendants who are on community service that we've had to provide insurance for per head, per capita basis. That's been some increase to us. But that basically is what we have tried to do. And I'd ask if there's any questions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Board, any questions? County Manager? MR. OCHS: No, sir. It's been a pleasure working with these gentlemen. They do a great job with the relatively few resources, and when we've asked them to meet their guidance, they've always stepped up. So we're very happy with this budget, and it's a pleasure working with them. MR. CARTER: Thank you very much. JUDGE MA ■ALICH: Mr. Chairman, I'm Circuit Judge Ramiro Manalich. On behalf of all of my colleagues at the other building and the judicial branch of government, we want to thank our legislators Page 17 June 28, 2012 locally for all of your support in previous years as well as this year. It's our job to take those valuable resources that you allocate wisely and to hopefully translate that into the fair, competent, and just administration of justice, and we greatly appreciate your attention to our budget. If there's any questions, we'll try to answer them. But Mr. Ochs and his staff have done a wonderful job in helping us hone the budget down, so we think we've got a good presentation for you. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Well, the courts have consistently been very cooperative in working with us over the years, and the state's attorney. It's been a pleasure working with all of you. And thank you very much for what you've done. And we appreciate the 11.4 percent reduction in budget requests. It makes our job a lot easier. MR. RUSSELL: Thank you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: It's good to see Ramiro again, too. JUDGE MA■ALICH: It's good to be among colleagues, current and former. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yes. Commissioner Hiller, go ahead. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. Looking over this budget, which is a very thin budget, the cuts are substantial. I'm concerned about the State Attorney's Office. Can you really afford to cut as much as you're cutting? I mean, I'm a proponent of saving as much as you can, but, you know, your function is a very important one, and I just want to be sure that you're not compromising the service you have to provide. MR. RUSSELL: I appreciate it. What we -- that reduction in our general revenue budget is primarily through efficiencies within the office, utilities. We're in a building that we've only been in a few years. We've adjusted over the last couple years to try to get as realistic and as efficient as we can. As you probably know, State Attorney's Office, like the public Page 18 June 28, 2012 defender, is primarily a state-budgeted agency. Personnel and operations, about 90 percent of it does come through Tallahassee. About 10 percent of the county is under Article V. And the primary responsibilities, I think you-all know, of the county is buildings and communications. We've gotten pretty thin, and I appreciate the recognition of that. Tallahassee last year basically left all of us even. I think they recognized we're down to where we can be. I think we can do this proportionately. I won't promise for next year. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I commend you for being so efficient and so lean. I think it's very impressive in light of the circumstances and the service you provide, to all of you. MR. RUSSELL: We appreciate it. I, likewise, just want to reiterate, I certainly appreciate the support and the relationship we've had in working through these budget issues. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you very much. Have a good day. MR. CARTER: Thank you. GROWTH MANAGEMENT — PRESENTED MR. ISACKSON: Commissioners, next is your Growth Management Division. And while they're getting settled up front, just as a reminder, behind each tab on Page 2 gives you a high-level compliance view of where they stand in relationship to net cost to the General Fund. They'll probably be referring to that at some point in their initial briefing. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, County Manager. It is truly a pleasure to present this budget. We have our outstanding team, and I'm very fortunate to work with them. Page 19 June 28, 2012 I have several pages of notes and only four slides to present to you, and we'll cover everything we have to cover, and then we'll take your questions. For the record, I'm Nick Casalanguida, your administrator. In FY12 our total budget was $150.9 million with 272 full-time employees. The delta of the change to FY13 is 146.7 million with a reduction of 12 employees, 10 of those being by the FDOT contract dismissal. They're going privatized, so 10 of those -- we're able to transfer those folks over. To put it in perspective, in FY'09 we had 583 employees. So we are down a total of 223 over the past four years. So that's a significant cut in head count in the entire division. Our General Fund reliance has gone down 7.27 percent from 37.8 million to 35.1. Our revenue centric funds in the building department, land development services, is up 9.6 percent from 24.5 to 26.8. The MSTUs are down 8.42 percent from 12.7 to 11.7. And capital -- overall, Commissioner Henning, you had asked if capital has gone up. It's actually down 3.7 percent, but that intersection safety capacity enhancement fund has gone up as a mix of the whole from 75.9 to 73.1. It's not about what the Board gives. It's what Mr. Isackson lets you keep. As we meet with our OMB office midyear, around January, we do midyear cuts every year. To put it in perspective, in FY11 we had $8 million in cuts. In FY12, 6.16 in capital and 1.5 in our operating. So while we get this budget, it becomes effective in October, we sit until January until we get the nod from Mark that we're able to spend it. And I think he's done a good job giving us some visibility this year. Point being is we're down about 3.9, but he does not expect a midyear cut, so that's a net total increase for us. And that's good news, because it allows us to get some of the things done. Some highlights for you. We have doubled our loan repayment Page 20 June 28, 2012 back to parks from 250,000 to 500,000. After FY13 there will be 400,000 left to repay to them. In FY12 we paid off the SIB loan, State Infrastructure Bank loan for the Immokalee interchange at 6.4 million, and one year early. We put 1.75 million from 113 reserves to debt to pay down for the garage, the building that we have there at Horseshoe. And we have roughly a 10 percent increase in 113 building permit volume. Now, the County Manager talked about 15 percent year over year in May. It averages out from about 10 to 15 the entire year. To put it in perspective, from '09 to '10 we increased 22 percent; '10 to '11, 12 percent; and '11 to '12, roughly 10 to 15 percent, depending on which numbers you look at in terms of activity. We're taking our lead from Mr. Isackson. We're increasing our budget reserves in both 113 and 131. Our target is nine months. So we're doing the same thing the County Manager's agency is doing, and that's not by mistake. That's by direction of Mr. Ochs, is to pay off our debt sooner, increase our reserves. Our FDOT asset management contract that I alluded to earlier is going away. That's 1.7 million in revenues, but it's also 1.7 million in expenditures that go away. That will happen in -- DOT's fiscal year starts in June, but they've extended us three months because they want to get the contract out. What that means to you, Commissioners, is in the fall, when you get complaints on state roads, it's no longer your road and bridge group that's handling that. It will be a state privatized contractor. We're a little concerned; we will have to do some public outreach to make sure our citizens are aware of that. In terms of capital replacements, fleet has recommended 21 in P&R. We've only budgeted for six. On construction and maintenance, we have a Ford scissor-lift truck and a bucket-lift truck. We've had that bucket-lift truck for over 12 years. They can't find Page 21 June 28, 2012 some of the parts for the hydraulics, and we are -- our folks get stuck in that while they're doing intersection work. It's important their productivity remains. Staffing, we are relying heavily on job bankers; mostly in revenue-centric funds. Eighteen of them in FY13, planning 12 to 15 more, along with an approved Board contract to Nova, which is a privatized contractor, for a hundred thousand dollars a year. And the way we're managing this is that that Nova contract, we can bring folks online quickly within 24 to 48 hours. Job bankers take a month to two. Full-time employee recruitments take a little bit longer sometimes than that. In other words, we hire slow and eliminate fast in terms of quality. Risks and issues with the job bankers. We're going on two years with some of the job bankers that we have. It takes six to 12 months to train them. They do not get employee benefits. They do get FRS. And what I expressed with the County Manager -- and he said, bring it up at the budget meeting -- is halfway through FY13, since these are funded positions through job bankers, we may want to convert some of these folks to FTE's. It's revenue centric. It's not ad valorem. And if we're going to maintain our level of service, customer service, continue to improve, I think it's important that we provide that service. Talked to Jamie, the building, you know, department business center is experiencing an amazing amount of activity right now, and we're going to active review in the fall. I don't want to lose the momentum. I'm already seeing a few hiccups, and I want to make sure we provide excellent customer service. So we'll discuss that later in the year, but right now we have it under control. CityView has been completed in FY12. Sire active review has been coordinated with the fire districts and is expected to be implemented halfway through FY13. We already have some online permitting with HVAC: Reroofs, demolition, some of the commercial Page 22 June 28, 2012 hot water. We will go all electronic in FY 13, which hopefully will increase lobby activity but will not increase the workload. It will just spread it out. You have a little bit of that McDonald's effect, I call it, where at the end of the day people come in to meet our deadline so we have a flush in the lobby. Sometimes we're pulling some of the phone people off, administrative assistants to go up front and handle the work. By going electronic, we should be able to balance that out. It will be 365. On the capital, it's on, really, Page Capital 33. We can go through it, but I'll talk a little bit about it, and then go into some of the projects. Before I do that, if I could ask Jamie to pull up -- you've already done that chart. It's on your viewer right now. That will just give you a little perspective in terms of the activity. While this looks like a stock chart, and if it was, you'd be a potential buy. You have higher highs and higher lows. That is building permit activity. MR. FRENCH: New construction. MR. CASALANGUIDA: New construction. You don't see much commercial, which is the green. We don't expect any for anytime soon because I think we've got another year or so of inventory there. But the inventory in the single-family home and multi-family home is starting to become thin. I meet with all the new builders. We had one new builder at the Board meeting on Tuesday. They're raising their prices, and they're selling homes. That does not mean your foreclosure activity is not a different animal, because we expect to still see some foreclosures that our code enforcement department is working on. Our building inspections, you see on your viewer right now, from a low of roughly 5,000, hitting close to 9,000 or 8,500. So that's a significant amount of work increase in that group. On the capital side, impact fees expected to be much lower, Page 23 June 28, 2012 although we have some COA prepayments coming in, around 5.6 million. And, Commissioner, you had touched on grants. I'll give you a little bit more on that. Your current project, 951 and 75 has a $20 million repayment grant. Oil Well Road that we're about to finish has a $6 million grant. 951, Golden Gate to Green, has a 6 to $7 million grant. 951 to 41 has a 7 million DOT/JPA, joint participation agreement, grant as well as a county infrastructure grant incentive for $3 million as well as prepaid impact fees of$8 million. So your major capital projects -- I'll have Jamie put that up, if I could. It's your next slide. I'll take you through real quick -- are only grant funded except for one in the outer year, which is Golden Gate to Wilson. It's an eye chart, and I have copies I'll leave with commissioners so they can look at it. But it gives you an idea of where they are. The only thing that's coming up in major capital is bridge replacements, bridge renovations, and the projects I just discussed. And they're spread out pretty much throughout the county by need and by grant appropriations. Your urban area, over the next five years, should be wrapping up pretty well. Your next slide, Jamie, are the capacity enhancement projects we talked about. There are five projects on that. And I think -- going through them a little bit. They're numbered 1 through 5 on the chart that's there. They're no means by priority. I'll take No. 5 first, which is the Valewood intersection. That was supposed to be done with the Immokalee design-build. A design-build, by nature, does not require a right-of-way. And when we went into that project, we expected to do this project right behind it, because it did require right-of-way. So that, right now, is part of that fund, the Intersection Safety Capacity Enhancement Fund. It's roughly a $1.5 million project. It should have been done with Immokalee. It provides connections to Oaks and the opposite signal connection to Valewood. Page 24 June 28, 2012 Project No. 3, which is Immokalee Road paved shoulders, we had a fatality on that road just this year. The shoulders are narrow. It's roughly a $1.8 million project. Again, Project 5 and Project 3, these are designed and ready to go. I'll take you next to Project 4, which, if you're familiar with Wyndemere on Livingston Road, that's that Whippoorwill connection to Green. That project is designed, was supposed to be done by a developer agreement for impact-fee credits. We did not allow them to go forward because we were right in the middle of the recession when this project hit, and we needed impact fees to sustain our grant-funded capital projects. That project is ready to go. It's roughly $1.2 million. Item No. 2, which is at the intersection of 41 and Pine Ridge Road, I think if anybody drives that intersection, you know that it's -- has its issues. We're going to go in to study it first because we think we can do something without tackling the gas station and the convenience store/pharmacy that's at the other corner. We might be able to do an improvement within the existing right-of-way, so we'll go in to study for that. Project No. 1, if you drive southbound on Airport Road, you know that you have to merge to your left. We lose a lane for that right turn on Davis. We're going to try and recapture that lane back. Now, there are other projects in this fund that are smaller, but these are funds we think we can get started and do FY13 and complete, at least the study portion and then some finishing in FY 14. There are other projects that are not highlighted on this such as, Commissioner Hiller, in your district, the Vanderbilt Drive corridor has about $1.7 million that's not coming from the General Fund. It's by settlement agreement. I believe sometime in FY13 that project will hit as well, too. In terms of our refurbishments, we have about $4 million in there, and we made sure the language was clear, because it was going Page 25 June 28, 2012 to Golden Gate City. It makes no sense for us to refurbish the road and the surface with sidewalks and pavement if the pipes underneath are failing. So that -- when we do a road refurbishing, we look at that as well, too, and that will be done as well in FY 13. As the County Manager pointed out, LASIP is our number one priority by permit, and then we'll transition to repair and refurbish, and then we'll transition into Watershed Management Plan projects with -- hopefully with the district and the basin participating. Our asset management has been a key priority, as the County Manager pointed out. We have done an asset management report card. We've given it to Leo to review about a week ago. And he had said, listen, I want to review it before you put it out to the public. But I want to let you know, we have done it, and we have gone through every category. We know a little of what we don't know, not a lot of what we don't know. And we're going forward. We're very comfortable that your priority assets are being taken care of. Things like how many signs require replacement, all the pavement markings, which are not as high risk, we're going to have to go through. As the County Manager pointed out, there's an incredible amount of cooperation going between all different County Manager agencies for a -- what I would call an agency-wide asset management program. So we are working to bring that forward, and I know Dr. Yilmaz will discuss a little bit of that when he comes up. That concludes my presentation, and we can take questions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MR. CASALANGUIDA: One other item, Commissioner, if I could, for Commissioner Coletta. We talked about, every year we get an item called limerock road requests. I know that's going to come up. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You beat me to the punch. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Well, I knew it was coming, so I could tell you -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Motion to disapprove. Page 26 June 28, 2012 COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Awe, geez. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Based on the fact that we have -- we don't expect any midyear cuts, I'd like to say we approach the Board in about six months and see how successful we are with refurbishing and these capital enhancements. If we're fortunate for them to come in under budget, as most projects has -- have in the past year or two, that might be something we want to consider. City of Bonita's going through a major program to put through their limerock roads, too. So I think if we can give us guidance to put some of these on the street, see what kind of bids we get, and then come back to the Board for their approval, I think it's definitely a worthy item, because we do explore -- or expend costs just to maintain these limerock roads. Again, I'll leave it up to questions now. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. I'll leave the limerock road discussion up to Commissioner Coletta when we get to him. But I think a couple of things are remarkable. You showed slides which indicated that in the most recent reported month, which is May 2012, you're processing a volume of permits which is 70 percent higher on average than it has been over the past three to four years. With respect to building inspections, you're showing an increase of 40 percent of the average over the past three or four years. It would be interesting, I think, if you shared with us and the public how you've been able to do that with fewer people and less money. MR. CASALANGUIDA: The job bankers have helped, sir, to bring those in. So when I say "less money," a little bit of it is that -- by finance job bankers. As I talked to Jamie, I think he's holding his breath -- a lot of overtime, and that's a little bit of a concern. These folks are staying late. He comes in around eight or nine and doesn't leave sometimes till eight or nine at night along with the business center staff. CHAIRMAN COYLE: What's wrong with that? Page 27 June 28, 2012 MR. CASALANGUIDA: A lot of commitment, Commissioner, a lot of streamline processes. The CityView software's online. They've done an excellent job, and it gave the opportunity -- Jamie, exactly, as you look down -- to give a shout-out to those folks in the building department and in the business center. They have been phenomenal. There is not a day that you don't walk in that lobby or at the end of the day where you don't see someone like Jamie, Claudine, or the business manager, Tatiana Gust, staying late, fielding phone calls. It's a real tribute. They are amazing people, sir. Thank you for that opportunity. CHAIRMAN COYLE: We get nothing but praise for what you guys are doing. So congratulations to all of you. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And keep working hard and late. Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes, sir. Thank you. Nick, it's absolutely remarkable. And, Commissioner Coyle, I'm going to piggyback on what he said. Increased your reserves, reduced your debt, found more efficient ways to work with your employees, using the latest of technology. And you're in the process now of taking it to the next step, which I think is absolutely remarkable. A year and a half ago when we took the trip over to Miami to see how their operation worked with CBIA, we picked up a lot of great ideas. You've taken those great ideas, and you brought them forward in a way that I fully appreciate. Of course, the next step will be, when we fully implement the system, everything will be digital. People will be able to work -- people at home that have permits here will be able to view them as they would like. It will be multidimensional, so they'll be able to see how everything's coming together. The time for doing it will be considerably less in the fact that it will go to everyone at the same time, and everyone that works on it in Page 28 June 28, 2012 the county and even fire review would be able to see what everybody else is doing at the same -- at the different levels that are there. I thank you for that. It's -- you serve as a great example for the rest of Collier County government and other governments. Limerock roads. God bless you, sir, for beating me to the punch on that. We've been a number of years on this without being able to do anything. A budget crunch is a budget crunch; we're still in a budget crunch. However, with that said, in the past we were very successful in the fact that 80 percent of the people that lived on limerock roads in Golden Gate Estates since 2000 have had them paved. Then the program came to an end because of the lack of funding. The other 20 percent have been very vocal. They can't understand why other roads are being repaved and their road's not being paved at all. Of course, we know what the reason is. It has to do with the resource and how you're going to make it work for a longer period of time. So if we reach that point in time where you can bring it under and come up with a funding mechanism to be able to do some of the roads within this -- with '13 -- Financial Year '13, it would be appreciated not only by the commissioner of that district, by that 20 percent of the people that have had to endure living on these county roads for this long without having them paved. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sir, just -- let me -- one comment on that. It takes good leadership at the County Manager's level and support. You have to have someone who's willing to support what you're trying to do. And I've got to tell you, the staff I work with, when you say, you know, me, and I think you referenced all of us, they're amazing. The directors, the new accountant we have, Gene Shoe, to my left, Ken Kovensky. Every time the staff comes to them, it's a budget hearing. They Page 29 June 28, 2012 review it in detail what their requests are. So I really work with fantastic people so they -- it's good that they make you look good, but they do all the hard work. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good. Thank you very much. Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. Speaking of limerock roads -- and I don't usually say this at all. I'm pretty quiet about it. But we have limerock roads, as you well know, in East Naples also, especially -- especially like all in the Parker's Hammock area. And, you know, you hear from the Sunset Drive people, and those off Polly Avenue and Whitaker and so forth, and they've been without roads for 25 years. And they keep saying, when are you going to do something with our roads, because the gullies do go deep. And I understand that every once in a while you come in and put some kind of a layer on it to kind of do that, but I would hope that maybe -- I don't want to take anything away from Commissioner Coletta, but I would hope that after all of these years maybe we could do a little something with them as well. Okay, that was just a sidenote. The real thing I wanted to talk about, I think you guys are doing great, and I echo everything I've heard. I just had a couple little concerns. My concerns were that we -- we all have been talking about jobs, jobs, and more jobs, how much we need jobs, how much we want to create jobs, and yet we're eliminating jobs, 12 of them here. Yes, they'll probably get hired up by a company, whoever takes over, except that then, of course, they'll give them a reduced pay and they won't give them any of the benefits, so then the benefits have to come back to the taxpayer because they won't have any healthcare benefits anymore, and if they don't get paid enough, then they don't even -- you know, they might even have to go for food stamps and stuff. So we end up paying for it anyway, and that's a big concern of mine. I think that we ought to consider that. Page 30 June 28, 2012 Also, it says in here -- these are concerns of yours. Mowing cycles will be extended. Some safety concerns could develop if excessive overgrowth results from these extended mowing cycles. I realize you're cutting costs but, you know, to the safety. You know, you have to -- there's things that we have to be careful of. Same with overtime -- over time the failure to proactively manage tree growth -- because you're talking about less tree trimming -- could lead to safety concerns during storms. There are other concerns that you had here. I won't go through reading all of them. But as we cut back on our maintenance, we cut back -- reduction of the annual spray cycles could cause localized flooding in some areas. Water control structures could not operate properly under emergency conditions. You know, there's so many things here you've had to cut back on, and that's admirable, except that we have to be able to -- you know, if it starts affecting safety, we have to do something about that. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Ma'am, I'll address those for you, if I could. Out of those 10 FTE's for FDOT, through attrition -- because the department's fairly large, about a hundred people -- we were able to move those FTE's from FDOT into road maintenance. We actually said, we know this is coming. So as we get attrition, we'll hold those positions open because we need -- we'd rather have experienced folks we don't have to train. It's just good business sense. COMMISSIONER FIALA: So you're going to keep them in -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, ma'am. They're within our group. COMMISSIONER FIALA: All right. MR. CASALANGUIDA: So we held budgeted positions open knowing that we're going to -- this was going to happen. Why would we want to hire a new person and train them when we have them already trained and working with our staff? Page 31 June 28, 2012 COMMISSIONER FIALA: Great. That's good news. Thank you very much. MR. CASALANGUIDA: You're welcome, ma'am. As far as the mowing cycles, in the asset management review, our landscaping is the only one really that scored A's. While that's an issue, in our road refurbishing fund, we have the ability to up that mowing. We also are working with IFAS to -- I talked to John about it. We're going to do a little research. There is a nutrient or something they could put in -- a grass growth inhibitor on some of these medians that don't have landscape, just grass. That may reduce our mowing cycles quite a bit, and it's a lot cheaper. So I've asked John to look at it. We're going to meet with the IFAS extension service folks to look and see what other communities have done. That may help us out quite a bit. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Thank you very much. Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Nick, about the job bankers. If you're converting them to permanent positions, how will that affect your budget? I understand that it's, you know, an enterprise fund and it's fee driven. Will the budget remain the same because you're basically looking at it as proportionate that you've got more permits being processed generating more revenue that will basically offset the cost of the additional labor, or are you seeing that you need more staff to manage, you know, basically what you see as a given volume and, therefore, you might have to increase fees? MR. CASALANGUIDA: No. No, increase in fees, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: That's the assurance that I want to hear. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Absolutely, ma'am. No, they're budgeted job bankers, so we convert them to FTE's. And the fear, again, is you take time to train somebody. What we're experiencing Page 32 June 28, 2012 now as we post a job banker, is they'll take the position, we'll ask them to get started, go through the process. They'll say, I just found a job with benefits, because the economy is improving. So it would be a conversion of job banker to FTE, and we'd do it very, very slowly. I think Mark and I have talked and said, you know, maybe at the rate of four or five a year. COMMISSIONER HILLER: There still is an incremental cost. MR. CASALANGUIDA: But -- MR. FRENCH: For health. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yeah, for health insurance only. And then -- but it is budgeted. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. So that basically everything will stay as is? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: My next question is regarding another division that's in your budget now, and that's the economic development, or I should call it a department. And there are certain things that I've noted in this budget. First of all, one thing that we voted on is that, prospectively, we're going to take the 400,000 that was expended in the past to the EDC and expended in-house for economic development, staffing, and marketing. It's on Page 32 of your budget, 32 and 33. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: There are certain things that I think need to be detailed. The first is the appropriation towards the state QTI program. To the extent that we will give job-creation incentives, I think we should limit it to the state QTI program. And the reason I say that is, in effect, the company gets substantially more, and it costs the county substantially less, and here's why. If the county gives a job-creation incentive, it's $2,000 per employee. If you go through the state program, the company actually gets $3,000 per employee, with 2,000 coming from the state and only Page 33 June 28, 2012 1,000 coming from the county. Obviously that is a material difference. The company benefits; the county benefits. It really makes sense to appropriate accordingly. I don't see anything reflected in your 2013 budget with respect to that. So I would like to see you somehow incorporate something to address that. The second thing that I noted is that the Early Learning Coalition will be receiving 75,000 this year. Last year I believe we had allocated 25,000. MR. OCHS: Fifty thousand, ma'am -- I'm sorry -- yes. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I'm sorry, 50,000. So I just want to point out that your budget presumes that we are going to increase the allocation to the Early Learning Coalition. Another issue that I see is in Fund 007, and that is that you have basically taken the Seminole Tribe compact funds and while I understand -- and you're absolutely right, Leo, that's where the 50,000 came from for the Early Learning Coalition this current year -- that expenditure is not going to be made from this fund next year. But, more significantly, what you're doing is taking the unexpended funds from this year, carrying it forward into next year with 265- coming from that Seminole compact going into reserves to build a reserve balance of$469,000 -- and I'm just rounding for discussion purposes -- in that account. I said this last year. I'm going to say it again. The Seminole compact funds are not for this purpose. They are there to serve and benefit Immokalee and the services that we need to provide and help Immokalee with. I can't support these funds in this budget. Those dollars need to go to Immokalee. They need to help Immokalee. For example, fire services or other services. Whatever the Seminoles were contributing in the past directly to that community needs to be maintained, and we should not be stripping that community of these funds, and that is, in Page 34 June 28, 2012 effect, what is happening here. So I think you need to find some alternative revenue source for 007. MR. OCHS: Commissioners, I'll respond just briefly to that one. Last year was the first year that we were in line to receive the gaming proceeds as a result of the gaming compact that was entered into between the state and the Seminoles a couple of years ago. I told you last year that I had recommended that we set that money aside and begin to build up a reserve for some future economic incentives if you need them, and the rationale behind that was it was not ad valorem funded. It was revenues that were generated not only by county residents, but largely by people outside the county, and I thought it was a good alternative to get us started to begin to build a reserve if you have the opportunity to attract a new business that created high-wage jobs in the community. Under the gaming compact and the enabling legislation, this is general revenue that comes to county government. So it is available to you to spend at your discretion on any number of county services. It is not limited to this, but it certainly is not limited to expenditures in any given geographic region of the county. It is a general revenue, just like your other state-shared revenues in your sales taxes. So it was appropriated here based on my recommendation and your concurrence with that last year. This is the second year of that program continuing. If a majority of the Board decides they have some other higher use for it, that's at your discretion. But that's why it is where it is, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Oh, and thank you very much for your explanation. And I do understand that, and it's with that discretion that I say it needs to go back to the community that the Seminole Indians participate in, and that's Immokalee. So, you know, it will be a discussion among the Board. I support Page 35 June 28, 2012 Immokalee, and I think those funds need to go to Immokalee for Immokalee directed services and find some alternative source for this fund. That's just my recommendation. And, of course, it's subject to discussion and, ultimately, vote when we come back. I mean, this is strictly for, you know, workshop discussion purposes. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And, just generally, at some point in time I think you need to make the Board and the public aware that the Seminole tribe doesn't pay the same fees that other organizations might pay in Collier County for the support of infrastructure and other things of that nature. And one of the things that we talked with the leaders of the Seminole tribe about was when we discussed this payment back a couple of years ago, was we were looking for additional funding support from them to help fund things like infrastructure and other things that help the general community, because they do not contribute to the maintenance and building of roads or any other infrastructure, but they attract people who use it. But because they are a separate nation, they do not pay the same fees that other users do in Collier County. So when we had that discussion with them, we had it in the context of finding out how they could help us with infrastructure that they themselves need. And so I think we need to keep that in mind when we go forward with this discussion. And the other issue that is raised here is the -- there is a federal Indian road fund. I'm not sure we ever get any money from that. But we need to -- we need to evaluate that and find out whether or not we can get some money from it, because they're going to grow, and they're going to need roads and infrastructure, and they recognize that they should participate in funding some of that stuff. So -- okay. Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Can I ask one last question? Page 36 June 28, 2012 CHAIRMAN COYLE: Sure, go ahead. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Very quickly. We're -- meeting after meeting we talk about this aging of the infrastructure and what we're going to need to set aside for repairs and replacements. When is that going to be finalized? MR. CASALANGUIDA: We've done what I would call a preliminary report, what we're going through right now. And each department director had to personally sign a memo saying I've reviewed my area. I know what's critical, what's not. It's going to take years before I would say you have an asset management system that ties back to SAP. Right now we're going just, you know, worst first, making sure we're not being just reactive and somewhat proactive. But for our initiative to do it agency-wide -- and I don't want to speak for the rest of-- COMMISSIONER HILLER: I'm talking about just your infrastructure. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Anything that's a, I would say, priority for health safety, we know it now. The little stuff is what we don't know in terms of when things need to be replaced and how often in terms of signage, striping, roadway pavement markings. We're going through right now, especially in bridges, roads, water-control structures. We know -- we know where we have problems, and we're attacking those problems systematically on worst-first basis right now. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Do you have a, you know, three-year budget, five-year budget, 10-year budget for repairs and replacements that you've established? MR. CASALANGUIDA: I would say I have visibility from three to five years. Every department manager that has those assets has a five-year budget. Visibility, I would say, is nebulous after three years. But we've got a five-year budget with a three-year comfort level. Page 37 June 28, 2012 If budget stays the same, we can attack these issues and stay ahead of the -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: And what is the five-year liability for repairs and replacements? MR. CASALANGUIDA: I couldn't give you that off the top of my head. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And that's okay. I understand if you don't have that with you. But at some point can you give that to me before the next budget -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sure. COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- hearing, meeting? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Sure. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Thanks. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Nick, I think you asked -- you're looking for direction on three issues, is that right? Job banking -- that's really not a Board issue. That's a County Manager's issue whether to fill; is that -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, sir. I'm not looking for direction, really, on anything. I just want to make you aware that I think just a couple nods that you value the quality of service we're providing in the building department, and you want to make sure we're doing -- you know, I said to Jamie, I was going to bring a book called Good to Great and put it in front of you. How do we make that next step? And I want to make sure we don't go backwards. So we'll be back on FTEs. Just an acknowledgment that you want us to make that a priority -- since it's not General Fund, it's revenue centric -- that you're okay with us making that system better. COMMISSIONER HENNING: That is the guidance. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Okay. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right? Page 38 June 28, 2012 MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I didn't hear any objections to it. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, sir. MR. OCHS: Commissioner, excuse me. I think -- part of Nick's point was while we don't -- we wouldn't need any additional financial resources to convert some of those, we do need Board authorization any time we add a FTE during the fiscal year to your budget. So we would come back at some point in time where we need to get authorization to add those FTEs into your budget. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And like I said, I don't see any objections. MR. OCHS: Okay. COMMISSIONER HENNING: The intersection improvements, I didn't hear any objections myself. I'm quite excited about it. I see a couple of those, Valewood and Whippoorwill interconnection, of helping out bigger -- or arterial road capacities, I think, will increase dramatically. Going out to Immokalee -- we all go out to Immokalee -- the safety of expanding Immokalee Road, the shoulder improvements, widening, that's a huge success. And, of course, we always go through the intersection, Commissioner Fiala, of Davis Boulevard and Airport Road. That's going to be a huge intersection -- or capacity for Airport Road, and then actually Pine Ridge Road. I'm very excited about that. I hope you move forward with it expeditiously. You said -- I'm in favor with the majority, 6 months, come back about limerock roads. Commissioner Fiala is spot on. We all have limerock roads in each of the districts, okay. So I'm looking forward to that discussion. As far as Commissioner Hiller's comments on the state QTIs, that is a prudent way to move forward with economic development is do a match. I know that they -- Lee County, that's how their program is constructed. Page 39 June 28, 2012 COMMISSIONER HILLER: Actually, it's both -- most counties do it like that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: The only concern that I have -- and I'll share this with my colleagues -- talking to the County Manager, and as Nick mentioned that midyear cuts have cut out other programming. Those things that we see at this workshop are cut out because of midyear cuts. And, Leo, correct me if I'm wrong, Nick's budget, the way it's outlined, can stay whole as long as we don't put more onto the budget, like commissioners' projects and stuff like that; is that correct? MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. That is, essentially, correct. As I went through the budget highlights, I gave you the highlight on your reserves in your General Fund. And, obviously, one of our major objectives as staff is to maintain your reserves at the right level so that we begin each fiscal year with the appropriate beginning fund balance. And as long as we're able to maintain that, or we believe we can maintain that, we don't need to get into significant midyear cuts. Obviously, the last several years we've have to go in and do those cuts. With the slight uptick in taxable values for 2013, we're hopeful at this point that we won't have to make significant, if any, midyear cuts, and that will allow us to carry out the full capital program as it's budgeted. In fact, some of those intersection and safety improvements that Nick mentioned, we have some funding already in '12 that, if this Board gives us nods today, we can begin to move out on some of those rather quickly. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Oh, that would be really -- I'm all in favor of that. And Commissioner Coyle is absolutely correct, building our reserves is a prudent and fiscal responsibility, and I recognize that too. MR. OCHS: Thank you, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Coletta? Page 40 June 28, 2012 COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. Just a couple of things. One of the things that we want to make sure we're discussing when we talk about my favorite subject, which is limerock roads -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: Limerock roads. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Right -- is the fact that we have county-maintained limerock and private roads. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Both of them need some sort of attention. County-maintained limerock roads -- and there's some roads that are private roads that county has to assume some responsibility for, and so they fit in between those two designation of private and county. I guess in your district you've got a couple of them where the county has been doing maintenance even though they weren't designated as county-maintained. We need to, one, re-evaluate where we are. If we are maintaining a road on a regular basis, then it should be called a county-maintained road and then put into that same pool that we're talking about that we're talking about with the Estates area where we have numerous roads out there we're trying to deal with. Then there's the other level where it's private roads. Those roads, I'd like to see us come up with some sort of long-range program whereby these people can get to the point that funding or grants or whatever it may be will be able to get them to where they need to have their roads improved to the point that the county can take them over. That will increase the value of the property on those roads. You'll pick up more taxes to be able to pay for even more road improvements. It will have a snowballing effect. Now, going to another issue, as far as the Seminole pact and the money that we get, the original agreement was -- we beat everybody to death for it. Jim Mudd and myself had this made as an addition to the agreement. It was dropped several times in Tallahassee. Numerous trips back to Tallahassee to be able to get reinstated. And it Page 41 June 28, 2012 went through quite a process. Our vision was about three-and-a-half-million dollars a year to be able to put into a fund to be able to finish the final connection between the existing Immokalee Oil Well/Camp Keais Road to give everybody that four-laned road into Immokalee -- Immokalee to be able to get to the coast -- and also to be able to use some of that funding to be able to complete 82 from Fort Myers to Immokalee. That was the vision; however, when they got through playing with it in Tallahassee, it came out to be, what was it, 260,000? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Three hundred thousand. MR. OCHS: Two hundred sixty-five thousand. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Two hundred sixty-five, sir? MR. OCHS: Is your annual receipts this year. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah, considerably less. But it's still -- it's still money, it's still found money that we came up with. And the idea of applying it -- and the reason why we talked about it before and we decided economic development, this commission, when we had this discussion before, was because of the fact that most of the economic development that's going to take place in Collier County is going to be east of 951 over the next 20 years. Immokalee's been a recipient of economic development from the county and through various grants we've got such places as Arthrex that recently moved to Ave Maria, which would have never moved there if Oil Well Road wasn't built and a commitment made to that. Salazar Machinery at the Immokalee airport. Tremendous new facility they're going to have to be able to create new machinery for the farming industry to be able to employ even more people. And, of course, their specialty, foods, which specialize in several different things, but mostly string beans that they package and freeze and sell all over the country. Just a small example of what can be done. And I expect a lot more will be done in the future. Page 42 June 28, 2012 As far as taking this money and saying, okay, we're going to give it to Immokalee's Fire Department that would be a very noble gesture. But let's look at the facts. The idea is to supplement what the Seminole tribe isn't paying. I had this discussion with Pam Brown before. And my question to her is, why don't you bill the Seminole tribe, bill them for what they actually receive? I believe at the time they were only paying $60,000 a year. And the reply was, if we do that, they may -- they may start their own fire department, and we'll be out of a job. So I'm kind of lost on where we're going with that. The Seminole tribe is a pretty realistic bunch of businesspeople. I've got the greatest of respect for them, and I'm sure if they're approached to pay their fair share for the Immokalee Fire Department, they'll come across in a fair way. And that's where we need to go with that. Meanwhile, we need to concentrate on raising people up in Immokalee by their bootstraps, and you do that by making sure you give all the incentives you can for new jobs in that area, and it will make a difference in the end. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yes. Nick, under the restructuring that Leo rolled out several meetings ago, you now are going to have Gary McAlpin and the entire beach renourishment -- MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- initiative under you. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Coastal zone and pollution control, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. Help me out. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Not in this budget, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. Where is it? MR. CASALANGUIDA: It's under the respective budgets as they live today, so you'll hear them when they come forward. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. Because I went to the TDC Page 43 June 28, 2012 budget, and I was having -- is -- on page -- under management offices, is that where you're saying? MR. ISACKSON: Ma'am, if you go to public services -- ma'am, public services capital. MR. OCHS: That's the next presentation. MR. ISACKSON: Page 14, 15, 16, 17, et cetera. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Public services capital. MR. OCHS: That's your next division to present, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. Are they -- I don't understand why this isn't under Nick. If it's supposed to be under Nick, why isn't it under Nick's budget? MR. CASALANGUIDA: Ma'am -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: That's my question. MR. OCHS: Yeah. What -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: And I want to review it very carefully. MR. OCHS: Well, what we said when we brought the reorganization here a couple weeks ago was that if you approve the reorganization, we would recast these budgets to capture all of the changes in your final adopted budget that you see in September, but we did not have the time to do that. These budgets were already developed, essentially -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: So we're going to see this change. Because, obviously, you know, the capital portion of the beach project is moving under Skip, and the renourishment portion, which is Gary, is moving under Nick. MR. OCHS: That's correct. COMMISSIONER HILLER: So we're going to start seeing -- so, basically, what we have here is going to look very different when we come back in September? MR. OCHS: All the numbers are the same. We will just put them in the right places under the reorganized division structure. Page 44 June 28, 2012 COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. And thank you for clarifying that, because I expected to find it here and now -- MR. OCHS: No, I appreciate the question, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- and couldn't, so I was a little concerned that maybe you were -- MR. OCHS: Thank you. COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- you just got rid of it completely. MR. OCHS: No, no. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. I think you have Board encouragement for the suggestions you have made about future changes and we'll hear more about that at our next budget presentation, I'm sure. I would like to, again, commend you for the fine job you're all doing and congratulate you on putting together a really good budget. Thank you. MR. CASALANGUIDA: Thank you, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And we're going to take a 10-minute break. We'll be back here at 10:41. (A brief recess was had.) MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, you have a live mic. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Ladies and gentlemen, budget workshop is back in session now. PUBLIC SERVICES — PRESENTED MR. OCHS: Commissioners, we're moving on now to your public services division. Mr. Carnell will take you through a brief overview of that division's proposed budget for FY13. Steve? MR. CARNELL: Yes. Good morning. Steve Camel!, interim public services administrator. And I think you-all are aware that I Page 45 June 28, 2012 assumed this position back in March, so I'm the new kid on this block. But with me at the table here is more than 100 years of directorial experience, institutional knowledge, and heartfelt commitment to serving the needs of Collier County and the citizens. MR. OCHS: I believe -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Well, that's only about three years per person. MR. OCHS: I was going to say Mr. Jamro represents about 90 of those years. MR. JAMRO: It feels that way. MR. CARNELL: I'm just going to briefly give you an overview, and then we'll turn it back to you for questions from each of the directors if you have a specific question regarding a particular department. Briefly, the realities of this budget are what's in it and what isn't. We're in a historical context here, similar to what Mr. Casalanguida talked about with growth management. In the case of public services, we are bringing a budget to you that includes -- it's about 6 million to $6-and-a-half-million dollars lower than what was funded in 2008, just to give you a little idea of the negative progression in our budget appropriations. Also, from a staffing perspective, five years ago we had 465 full-time-equivalent positions. Today we have 365. We've lost just over a hundred positions in five years, and yet we press on, we press on with enthusiasm and great commitment and determination to meet the need of our citizens and I think continue to do it quite successfully. While that element of the budget is somewhat discouraging, I do think there's some very good encouraging bits of news that Mr. Ochs and Mr. Isackson have already hit on this morning, one being that by -- we are going to be taking some steps, obviously, to take care of our employees this year through the cost-of-living adjustment to try to take a step in the right direction to better compensating our Page 46 June 28, 2012 employees. We're also very grateful for the fact that we did have that small increase in ad valorem valuation, because while we open our budgets essentially 5 percent below our appropriation for 2012, we are getting the opportunity, office of management and budget, to build reserves, and we -- that's good news for us in the operating business, because it lessens the need or likelihood of a midyear budget cut, which has been a very challenging practice for our division in particular. It's very difficult to tell the guys, all right, you have less to work with. Go out and do it. Oh, by the way, midyear we're going to take some more away. And it looks like -- we're grateful for the fact that Mark has set this thing up to where there's a lessened chance that we'll have to be facing that this coming spring. So that's going to help in terms of planning continuity for the new year. We have a number of special events occurring in 2013 that public services will be participating in. Many of you are aware that it's -- it's really to be a historical year, literally and figuratively. We are looking at participating in Viva Florida, which is the 500th anniversary of the discovery of Florida; we're also going to be active in celebrating the 90th anniversary of Collier County. This is all happening in 2013; the 85th anniversary of the opening of the Tamiami Trail; and it's the 55th anniversary this coming year of our Collier County library system. So between the museums and libraries, they're going to be active in all four of those areas participating in special events. And you'll be happy to know we're doing it almost entirely with existing resources. In addition to that, we are looking to try to hold the line on -- and do what we can in the area of equipment and facility maintenance. The good news is that we have a -- we've actually found a little bit more money to work with in the parks area this year. It's not a big increase, but we've targeted -- your park staff went through a very diligent capital review process this year, and they've prioritized -- really identified about $1.6 million worth of improvements, mostly in Page 47 June 28, 2012 the maintenance nature, things in terms of maintaining existing sites. I think most of you know we have over 60 park sites in the system. And we're able to fund about a third of that, $500,000 in the new year budget. And the good news is that the 500,000 are the most critical ones. The park staff separated the threats to public safety, the most critical from important, from nice to but not critical-type changes, and we were able to prioritize, and we are funding the most essential actions and improvements and repairs for the coming year. So we're pleased to see that happening. I think something that I noticed and been very clear to me since taking this job has been that Mr. Ochs, as your County Manager, has been really emphasizing cooperation among staff across divisions, across departments. And, obviously, it's just very logical to pursue something like that, and when you're in a time of diminished resources. I bring that up for two reasons. One, my annual performance evaluation's in August. So I figure if I suck up to Leo in front of you, that will be good. But, secondly, in all seriousness, we're going to be very strategic; already so, but more so in terms of trying to leverage resources across divisions. I was very heartened by what Nick mentioned this morning with regard to training with -- through our University Extension Service. Our new director is Brian Fleck. Brian just assumed his duties officially last week. Brian's been a part of that department and group for some time now, and he's been -- I don't know if you-all realize this, but he's been very hands-on involved with other departments in county government, including Coastal Zone Management. Brian's expertise is as a sea grant marine agent, and he's worked very closely with Pamela Keyes and Gary on different projects over the years. And Brian is going to be offering, through his department, training opportunities, development and technical knowledge opportunities for other county departments. Page 48 June 28, 2012 And I'm trying to raise a profile of what the university extension does within the agency so that all the county departments can get what, essentially, amounts to, for the most part, free consulting, free technical information that the university extension provides. So that's one example of us trying to maximize cooperation. We're going to be working very closely with the administrative services division, our partners in the purchasing department, facilities management. In the case of purchasing, we're going to be looking at opportunities to be more business efficient in how we procure and obtain services. And then facilities management, mention was made a little earlier about the fact that, pursuant to your organizational realignment, our facilities management department is going to be assuming management of our capital projects on behalf, primarily, for our parks and rec department. And we have a lot of confidence in facilities management. They're very customer oriented, and we're looking forward to working with them in a way that's going to be cost efficient and effective in bringing projects home. So we look at those examples and we also -- within our division, we're -- I mentioned a moment ago the library and the museums are going to work very closely together on some of these historic events in the coming year. And I, as your administrator, am going to be looking for some more cross-departmental opportunities to share resources, particularly in the area of public relations and customer communications and coordination with Mr. Sheffield as well as the resources we have within the division. So, you know, in a nutshell, that's really where we are. We have some capital projects coming forward this year of importance. I think you're all very aware at this moment of the Gordon River Greenway project which, again, is a real, I call, signature project that's going to -- Page 49 June 28, 2012 can affect and impact the Naples urban area in a very positive way, we feel, going forward. Our -- I think our biggest concerns for the year are going to be continuing to look for ways to fund maintenance of our system, our systems. We really have some challenges there. We've taken, I think, a good step in this budget forward to address the critical items, but we're going to have to continue to try to find ways to be more efficient and to lower costs and provide the necessary maintenance that we will need at our different sites and facilities. And then the other thing is that I'm very concerned, as I think everybody is, about the wear-and-tear factor on staff. All the things you were saying earlier, Commissioner Coyle, in jest -- I hope they were in jest, about -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: No. MR. CARNELL: -- working hard and overtime -- you said it with such pleasure -- but I hope we understand that we are very fortunate to have a dedicated group. I'm just amazed at what some of the people I've seen in public services doing, just so many of them, and at their level of dedication, responsiveness. And, obviously, we want to be sure that we don't burn those people out. And we're taking some steps, again, to try to combine resources. Like Nick, we're using job bankers and temporary employees to backfill as a lower-cost way of kind of hanging on and holding our place. But it's really not the best way to do business in the long term. But for now, we'll make it work. But we have to keep an eye on where we are with the staff. Again, I think Mr. Ochs' budget proposal for cost-of-living increase, for vacation sellback, things like that will help, they keep sending the right message that the five of you are attentive to that need as well. With that, I'm going to stop and just turn it over to the Board for questions for our directors. Page 50 June 28, 2012 CHAIRMAN COYLE: We have four speakers, Mike? MR. SHEFFIELD: Five. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Five speakers. Commissioner Henning, you want to wait, or you want to ask a question now? COMMISSIONER HENNING: No, I'll wait for the speakers. They probably have things to do. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Is one of the speakers going to be Gary? MR. CARNELL: Gary's here to answer any questions you might have. COMMISSIONER HILLER: So who are the speakers? MR. OCHS: Public speakers, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Oh, the public speakers. I thought you guys were -- MR. CARNELL: No, no. We're here to answer questions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: They aren't allowed to speak. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I thought -- you use a medium. I would actually like to hear the public speakers first, also. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Let's call the first public speaker. MR. SHEFFIELD: The first speaker is Lawrence Lift, to be followed by Patty Huff. MR. LITT: Good morning, Mr. Chair, Commissioners. CHAIRMAN COYLE: For the record, if you'd just say your name. MR. LITT: Oh, my name is Lawrence Litt. I am the president of the Friends of the Collier County Museum. Part of the budget talk is going to be from the TDC about cutting funding to the museum. I was going to make a nice long presentation, but three minutes is really not enough, so we're not going to do that. I just want to say that with the publications that I receive from Page 51 June 28, 2012 the TDC and what Mr. Ochs has said earlier, that travel down to Collier County has increased by 5.4 percent over the past year. That means TDC funding is going to be up because of the tourist tax. Now remember, the tourist tax is not paid by the residents of Collier County. It's paid by the tourists that come to Collier County. With increased tourism, the TDC does get more money. I can't see why or how the TDC can turn around and say they would like to cut the museums out of their budget. It came to effect through an agreement of the Collier County residents that came to the Board and through a Board declaration, a statute, that the county museum, being a public museum, can be funded through the TDC, which is very true. If it was not a public museum, we might be able to get outside funding, especially from a grant that would come out of the general budget. And we know the General Fund does not have extra money to spend. By keeping us with the TDC, it would reduce the burden on the Collier County citizens, because it would be a burden to come out of the General Fund. And the -- I believe it's 2 percent of 1 percent of the income goes to the museums, which is a mere pittance. As an alternative, I can recommend, let's say, we raise the tourist tax slightly, a half a percent. It will not affect the residents of Collier County. It will not affect anybody coming down to Collier County as a tourist. If they're spending $130 for a room each night, a half a percent, we're talking about 65 cents a day, will not affect anybody's decision to come to Collier County. I'd like you people to -- you commissioners to think it over. We have history in Collier County that goes back 10,000 years with Calusa Indians. We can't afford to lose it. And at this time, I'm going to ask is everybody who came here from one of the museums, which is now five museums in the county, please stand and let them -- let everybody see. These people really care. They came down here to show their support for a noncommittal -- or for a commitment of non Page 52 June 28, 2012 -- not losing the funding that we have now. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. MR. SHEFFIELD: Patty Huff, to be followed by Lodge McKee. MS. HUFF: Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. Whoops, am I starting? Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And your name for the record, please. MS. HUFF: My name is Patty Huff from Everglades City with the Friends of the Museum. In 1998 the Museum at the Everglades was opened after many, many years of hard work by the Everglades women's club, which is now known as the Friends of the Museum at the Everglades. Our community raised money through craft sales, raffles, and membership drives to acquire the old laundry building built by Barron Collier. And this group went together to Tallahassee to implore the state to renovate -- for funds to renovate the future museum. Because the Friends knew that our small community would never be able to raise enough money to operate and maintain a museum full time, it was decided by the Friends to donate the building to the county. The county agreed to maintain the building and provide staff. The Friends agreed to volunteer our services and to continue fundraising for exhibits and events. So for the past 14 years we have exceeded even our own expectations on raising funds for the Storter collection and for other exhibits as well as sponsoring any exciting events. And as was mentioned before, next year we hope -- we'll be celebrating the 85th anniversary, the opening of the Tamiami Trail, which the original celebration was in Everglades City. It will be the Friends of the Museums that will be sponsoring this event in Everglades City, and we invite all of you to attend that next year. And we hope, if you attended the last one, the weather will be Page 53 June 28, 2012 better this time. We had a tropical storm in April of 2003 when we celebrated our 75th anniversary. The Friends are very happy to report that we have been successful in increasing our volunteer staff both at the front desk to greet people and at various events. In fact, our volunteer hours have increased 35 percent this year compared to the same period last year. We've also been able to encourage our high school students to get involved in volunteering at the museum. As far as visitor attendance, we are also very pleased to report that during the past four years during a most difficult economic environment, the Museum of the Everglades has had a steady stream of visitors representing every county within the State of Florida and every state in the country. Over 96 percent of our visitors come from outside Collier County, and a large percentage from outside the United States. We believe that this has had a positive economic impact on both the Everglades area and Collier County. Because the museum is being supported by tourists outside this county, the Friends of the Museum believe that it is appropriate that the funding for the operation and maintenance to continue to come from the Tourist Development Council. And thank you for the opportunity to speak and for your past support of the museum. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. MR. SHEFFIELD: Lodge McKee, to be followed by David Schimmel. MR. McKEE: Good morning. I'm Lodge McKee. I'm president of Southwest Heritage, which is a non-profit organization that was formed about 30 years ago to save Naples Depot for the residents and people of Collier County. It's another of the five facilities in the museum system. And like most of them, it was not built with county money. It was built with Page 54 June 28, 2012 generous donations and sweat equity of people who cared. And all of them have been provided to the county. And we ask only for your assistance in the operation of those facilities. We find ourselves, once again, with a rather aggressive sibling in the Tourist Development Council who would like to eliminate the assistance of the tourist development tax for operations and have suggested instead that we hold some fundraisers and that we apply for grants and that we shift some of the requirement to the General Fund. And I'd like to point out that there are no grants available for daily operations of museum facilities. They simply don't exist. We -- there's a lot of question about whether museums actually should be included in the tourist development tax. I'd just like to point out for the record that that tax was created, as many bills are with riders, to provide funding. It was created to provide funding for beach renourishment, for one thing. And there are three elements in the tax. We don't call the ad valorem tax the school tax. We don't call it the public works tax. We generally refer to these taxes by the source of the revenue, and the source of the revenue for this one is the TDC. So what we ask for here is balance. The TDC would like to double its share for advertising from 2 million to 4 million. You folks recently allocated 400,000 to try to create some balance between tourism and economic development and business in the county. That's a rather vast difference. The tourist development is working. We've seen that. There's -- there comes a time when you have to say, "How much is enough? When do we stop?" So I'm asking you to please address that balance we need here in the county and continue to fund the operation of the museum system. Thank you. MR. SHEFFIELD: David Schimmel, to be followed by Craig Woodward. MR. SCHIMMEL: Good morning, Commissioners. I'm Dave Page 55 June 28, 2012 Schimmel, CEO of the David Lawrence Center. And I'm not here to speak in favor of the museum, but if I keep appearing before you year after year in support of Baker Act funding, you might want to stuff me and put me in the museum. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Put that in your budget, will you? MR. SCHIMMEL: The other thing, Commissioner Coyle, is because I'm asking for money doesn't mean I'm uncooperative. I'm actually here to try to propose solutions for the community. I've got a very brief PowerPoint, because I know I have a limited amount of time. But I want to say, mental health and Collier County Government have had a 43-year partnership. There are many things we would not be able to do in this community to keep this community safe if the county had not helped us every step of the way, from creating a detox center, to creating the original crisis unit, to establishing a satellite facility in Immokalee. So the David Lawrence Center is very appreciative for the support that we get from Collier County. We're asking for increased support, and in no way am I implying that you are legally required to do that or statutorily required to do that. We are asking for that support because we want you to be part of the solution for what is an overcrowded situation in the Baker Act. This is an issue I've been working on for about five years. But we originally opened the Baker Act unit in 1986. There's a Florida Statute that governs the Baker Act, and for over the last five years we have not had enough beds to really keep the community safe. It's very important that we have a timely response, because it is essential to the safety of the community. Engagement with David Lawrence Center is far safer for people who have a psychiatric crisis than for them to be walking around the community untreated. We established a task force a couple of years ago with the Department of Children and Family Services, Naples Community Page 56 June 28, 2012 Hospital, the Sheriffs Office, and Physician's Regional and some consumer advocates. The solution was that we needed to try to manage this problem, but we ultimately needed more beds. Expanding the Baker Act will help create a safer community. It's much more cost effective, and it produces better outcomes. We have raised the $5 million to build the building. The Baker Act funding is essentially comprised 60 percent of State of Florida, 12 percent of Collier County, and we go out and fundraise and charge sliding fees for the rest. We're requesting $300,000 in additional funding so we can go from 20 beds to 36 beds, and we're requesting that funding for our operational costs, not for our capital costs. Collier County is a world-class community. We need to make sure we're taking care of people. If they don't have access to our facility, they could end up in the county jail; they could end up in the emergency room; they could end up institutionalized. All those things cost us far more than treating them as quickly as possible. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Commissioner Coyle, can I address? CHAIRMAN COYLE: I think Commissioner Henning was first. Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HILLER: I just want to speak to -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Was he finished? CHAIRMAN COYLE: I don't know. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Mr. Schimmel. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Are you finished? MR. SCHIMMEL: I am finished. Your timer told me I was finished. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah. But, you see, I have the authority to waive that. MR. SCHIMMEL: And I recognize that, Commissioner. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. But Commissioner Henning was Page 57 June 28, 2012 first. So, Commissioner Henning, would you want to waive your time or waive your turn and let Commissioner Hiller speak? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Sure. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Hiller, go ahead. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I really wanted to address what Mr. Schimmel presented here today. I strongly support what you do. You're the only one in the county that's providing Baker beds; is that not correct? MR. SCHIMMEL: That's correct. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And it's really remarkable that you have the level of donations that you have to support your initiative, because the bottom line is, if you didn't get those donations, county government would have to provide the service. We would have to pay for it, and the taxpayers of Collier County would have to pay for it. So, really, I think it's absolutely essential that we figure out how to get you the funding you need to get those beds. And so what I would like to do is ask that the Board today direct Leo to work with you over the next couple of months and come back with a source of funding to make it happen. The last thing I would like to see is the shortage of Baker beds, for example, for teenage kids and have them in juve instead. I mean, that just is not a good idea. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Can we address that first, though? Can we talk about, you know, directing Leo to find the funding? COMMISSIONER HENNING: I'm pretty good about staying on task. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yes. Good. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And I agree with you; I think we just need to task the County Manager -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Right. Page 58 June 28, 2012 COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- to look for funds. COMMISSIONER HILLER: That's exactly right. That's exactly what I want. COMMISSIONER HENNING: He doesn't have to go to Mr. Schimmel to work something out; however, what I heard is these patients would either be in jail or in the hospital. So there are partnerships in there. It's my turn, young lady. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I know. I'm just chomping at the bit on this one. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And I can say that, too. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Ooh. I like that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So I think we, you know, need to talk to the sheriff and hospitals. I mean, if it's a savings to those entities, there should be a partnership. But, however, I agree with Commissioner Hiller; I think we need to try to resolve this. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. You have -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: But it is a long-term commitment. MR. SCHIMMEL: If I could just add that we are in a partnership with the hospitals and the sheriff, and they do a lot now to help us deal with the overcrowding situation. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. MR. SCHIMMEL: The hospitals medically clear people at no cost to us before they come back to us for crisis care. The sheriffs done a phenomenal job of helping us divert people from the jail. So there is a true -- a partnership where dollars are being spent for the community well-being. They're not directly coming to the David Lawrence Center. But this is not a David Lawrence Center problem. This is a community problem. So I look forward to working with staff to try to find some solutions. Page 59 June 28, 2012 COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, Leo's going to come back on that. And I did hear, if they didn't -- if you didn't -- you didn't have that capacity, staffing, that the extra capacity you build, they're going to be in the sheriffs -- or they're going to be in the jail or the hospital. So there are partners. MR. SCHIMMEL: Yeah. And that's actually happened for the last five years. COMMISSIONER HENNING: That's great to know. I think that we have willing partners. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. You have three nods, at least, for the County Manager. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Make it four. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Make it five nods, at least, to have the County Manager give us a report next time as to how we can do this, okay. MR. OCHS: Will do. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I'm not done yet. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, go ahead. Go ahead. COMMISSIONER HENNING: The -- if we're off that topic, I'd like to get on other topics that -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: We still have one speaker. COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- Mr. Carnell is dealing with. You know what, you're right; we need to go back to the speakers. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. We have one more speaker. Mr. Woodward. MR. SHEFFIELD: Craig Woodward. MR. WOODWARD: Thank you, Commissioners. COMMISSIONER FIALA: But then Henning should be first. MR. WOODWARD: Thank you. Craig Woodward, Marco Island -- past president of the Marco Island Historical Society. And I want to mention that -- regarding the museum system. There really is no free ride here. As Patty Huff mentioned from Everglades City and Page 60 June 28, 2012 Lodge McKee from Naples and myself from Marco, millions of dollars have already been raised by the community for these museum systems. On Marco we raised $4.3 million to build the museum system. We've had thousands of hours of volunteer time -- which I can't value that -- for supporting the museum system. We have a gift shop. All the money coming from the gift shop goes back into your system. And as you-all may recall, we have a contract with the county that I worked with you in negotiating between the Historical Society and the county and the City of Marco to keep the museum on Marco open, and part of that contract was it would be funded. Regarding the TDC's recent action in the idea of charging to get into the museums, you know, that would be a problem. We have had a lot of attendance at the Marco museum, enormous amount of attention and attendance, which is great. Part of the problem with charging to get in is that a lot of people, many people on Marco gave money to the museum. It was a wide, wide, broad support of the community. And these people who donated, to be charged to go in when they've given thousands of dollars, it would be a problem. Secondly, most of the items we are getting to display are coming and being donated by people from Marco or people with historic connections to Marco. And, sort of bringing the family in to see the items that you've donated and being charged is, sort of, a problem. The other thing is, the vision of this museum was to get the Cushing items there for the Key Marco Cat, being the most famous of the Cushing items. And we're working on that. And as you all know, a lot of that is at the Smithsonian or Florida Museum of Natural History. The Smithsonian, of course, is our national archive; no charge to get in to see that. Florida Museum of Natural History, our Florida archives, there is no charge there. And here we have our Collier County archives and Page 61 June 28, 2012 our history here, and I would emphasize we should continue with the same path as the federal and the state governments. The -- we have a park system that's available in our county for physical fitness, which is at no charge. We have libraries, which are free, to improve literacy, and this is sort of a part of that same concept. Museums support culture and history. On Marco I can tell you our museum is a magnet and has worked out well. We have great speaker programs. The Rose History Auditorium is full with a lot of programs and we've had great traveling exhibits, thanks to your county who's done a super job. And we'd like to keep the momentum going. And what we have going is going very well. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: As far as the museum, the TDC did recommend not to fund the museums; however, they advised the Board on expenditures. They advised us on illegal expenditures. I don't think the museum funding out of the TDC is illegal. In our budget book it's fully funding of the museums, correct? MR. JAMRO: Correct. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So I don't see a need to change it; however, I know that there's a subcommittee, and Jack Wert is talking to the county staff on an ordinance change to take the funding from the TDC funds that go to the museums over a longer period of time and put them on general funds. I would like that process to continue and see what it does for the future and not make a decision to defund the museums at this time. And I only had one question for Mr. -- Gary. The -- at the TDC we were talking about your reserve funding. Did you get an answer? MR. McALPIN: Yes. I think the question -- for the record, Gary McAlpin, Coastal Zone Management. Page 62 June 28, 2012 I think the question you asked, Commissioner, was what was our unallocated funding relative to beach-park facilities, which was Fund 183. And if you -- if you look on your budget book, Capital Page 19, you'll see that under the note section of there, it says capital reserves are budgeted at $8,285,000 for Fiscal Year '13. So this coming year that the budget is in right now, we have unallocated, unencumbered reserves of 8.5 -- 8,285,000, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. That's what I thought. Thank you. That's all I have. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, I just want to add that I had support the museums, and that's basically it. And as far as the David C. Lawrence Center, I support that also. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes, thank you. I, too, support the museums, but I have a few points that I'd like to make in support of them. First of all, I understand the TDC does not want to raise their bed tax, although I did go through and see what all the other counties charge around here as far as bed tax goes, especially all of those that are right in our corridor and even over on the east coast, and we're the lowest one of all, yet some people have to travel pretty far to get to the hotels, which is one of the concerns from one of the hoteliers. For instance -- go to Sanibel, for instance, from the Fort Myers airport. It's quite a long haul. Anyway, the second thing is, after the beach -- people come here for the beach; let's face it. They come here for the beach, and we have to keep the beaches up. And after the beach -- you can only sit in the sun so long, then where do you go? Well, they don't have plays during the day. And you just can't sit at a restaurant or a bar all day long and eat or drink. Page 63 June 28, 2012 CHAIRMAN COYLE: Sure, you can. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, you can. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Commissioner Coyle, I'm going to be there right behind you. I look forward to it. CHAIRMAN COYLE: It can be done. COMMISSIONER HILLER: It can be. You just tell me where and when. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I've seen myself do that. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I'm going to be there with you. I'm waiting. COMMISSIONER FIALA: But where do the people then go? And one of the things they love to do is see history, because they want to know what -- where we came from, what all we've been doing all through the years, and we've got five different historical places to go. And, you know, they've already paid for those museums through their bed tax. So I don't think we should ever raise -- you know, put a fee on it. They've already paid for it in their bed tax. And if you check any guestbook in any museum, 90 percent are from out of town. They're not local. So that tells you that people like to go see them. And I can -- by the way, I can even include in that museum even the Botanical Garden. You know, they -- people love to go see the Botanical Garden as well, and -- let's see. And with money that we wouldn't have to take out of the General Fund to then pay for museums, number one, then we don't have to raise the taxes, but we could use that money for DLC, for the David Lawrence Center. Okay. I've said it all. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Thank you. With respect to the museums Commissioner Fiala, it's not a function of the rate. It's a function of what the amount of dollars collected is. And we have one of the highest average daily room rates Page 64 June 28, 2012 of any county. So when you apply our tax rate to such a high average daily room rate, the tax becomes a high tax. So you can't just look at the rate in absolute. Just like you can't look at the millage rate in the absolute, because if our property values are much higher than elsewhere, if we have a lower millage rate, that doesn't mean the people are paying less tax. They're actually, at the end of the day, paying more. So that's something to keep in mind. With respect to something Mr. Woodward said, you talked about charging an entrance fee. And, you know, every time I travel -- and I don't know about you, when I go to museums, just about every museum I have visited, except those national, you know, museums, you know, in Washington -- and I wouldn't compare the Collier museums to, you know, the Smithsonian -- we pay a rate. I mean, you pay an admission. How many tourists visit our museum? By the way, you can't use tourist development tax if you're benefiting your local residents. The statute prohibits that. So when you said, we don't want to charge, you know, admissions to our local residents who are visiting the museum, well, if it's only local residents who are visiting the museum, then we've got a problem using the tourist development tax to fund your operations. So that's actually a -- not a very compelling argument. How many tourists visit the museums a year? MR. JAMRO: You're asking me? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yep. MR. JAMRO: Ron Jamro, museum director. I don't have an exact number for you, but it is anywhere, about 69 to 70 percent. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. So let's just -- 70,000 -- 70,000 people -- MR. JAMRO: Well -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- visit the museum, approximately? Page 65 June 28, 2012 CHAIRMAN COYLE: I think he said percent. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Well, I want to know the number. No, I don't want to know what percent. I want to know how many tourists -- MR. JAMRO: Yeah, I don't have the exact number for you. I can give you the percentage, but -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: No. I want to know -- give me approximately how many tourists visit. MR. JAMRO: Sixty-eight thousand. COMMISSIONER HILLER: So say 70 -- like between 60- and 70,000. If you charge -- and many of our services in the county are fee driven. Like, for example, the water park, people pay, you know, to visit the water park. If you charge $10 for each of those visitors for a week's pass to visit all five museums, which tourists would not buy that? I would pay $10 to visit five museums and have a week to do that in. To give you an example, the Children's Museum, which just recently opened, charges a $10 flat rate to everybody and anyone who comes to visit the museum, and that museum was built with donations, just like the Marco Museum was, and was done very successfully. I went to visit that museum, and it was right after, I think it was -- I think it was the Easter holiday or the Christmas holiday, I can't remember which one. It is consistently packed. And, in fact, during that one holiday there were people that were lined around the entire building waiting to get in. There was no one who was sensitive to the $10 admission. So, no, we shouldn't charge the General Fund, because we are, and continue to be limited. And I do feel that it is absolutely fair and correct to use tourist development tax for advertising and promotion for the advertising and promotion component of the operating budget to bring tourists to visit the museums. There's absolute merit in that. But to forego the revenue if you could earn $10 per visitor -- and Page 66 June 28, 2012 let's say, conservatively you only have 60,000 visitors, that's $600,000 a year. Who would give up that revenue? So I think -- I mean, you should try it. There's nothing wrong with, you know, suggesting that. You will have tour group after tour group buying those tickets, because it would be such a deal. If one museum, the Children's Museum, can charge $10 for one visit, I don't see why we couldn't charge $10 for five museums for an entire week. I think it would be a deal. And so just think about it. I'm throwing it out, not for discussion here today, but I think it's something that should be looked at. I think it's a great alternative source of revenue. And, again, you know, part tourist development tax, part fee. And you've got -- you know, I think at the end of the day you'll end up with probably a bigger budget than what you've got now and be more successful in promoting the museums. I support the museums. I've been a member of the Friends of the Museums in the past, and I think they're absolutely wonderful. And we just have to be creative. And, again, that fee would be strictly to tourists. Anyone who lives in the county, all the students, the residents in Marco, no fee. We're talking strictly an admission fee for tourists. So that's my suggestion on that. I'd like to talk to Gary. Gary? Hi. I'm astounded. When I look at your budget and I see beach-park facilities which last year -- well, I don't even want to get into -- well, I guess I could get into last year. The -- you know, where the adopted reserves were a million and, you know, the balance -- well, was for projects, to this year basically only having 355,000 for projects and $8,394,900 as your reserve, that's not budgeting. I mean, if I look at that number, you know what that tells me? That we are way high in our tourist development tax rate, and really what we need to do is reduce the tourist development tax, because to Page 67 June 28, 2012 have 8 million in reserves, or I should say closer to 8-and-a-half million in reserves and only 330,000 in capital expenditures make no sense at all. And here's the thing. My understanding is you're not going to be responsible for this budget, so I'm not going to hold you accountable for what I see here today. My understanding is this is now going to be under Skip Camp, wherever he is. MR. CARNELL: Skip's going to be managing projects delivered under those -- under those funds. But the responsibility for the programming and prioritization will be with parks and recreation and public services. MR. OCHS: Right. They'll handle the capital construction. Parks will staff them after they're built. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. But it won't be Gary. MR. OCHS: No. MR. CARNELL: Correct. MR. OCHS: Correct. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Because Gary is going to be -- so who's going to be developing this budget? Who's going to -- because you don't have a budget. This is not a budget. Having, you know, eight and a half million in reserves and 330,000 in projects is not a budget. MR. WILLIAMS: Barry Williams, parks and recreation director. I think one of the things that we'll do -- and, certainly, working with Mr. Camp -- and we've had preliminary discussions about that is -- taking a good, hard look at our beach-park facilities, identifying those projects in a five-year capital improvement cycle that are required. I know we had some projects that we brought -- that were brought forward last year that the Board felt like not funding was the right time to do so. So I hear what you're saying. I know part of what the discussion Page 68 June 28, 2012 has been in terms of that reserve has been how it relates to acquiring beachfront properties, and I know that's a question as well the TDC's been discussing about the legality of TDC funds for acquisition. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Well, that was eliminated. MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I mean -- and that hasn't been brought back for discussion. But it just -- this just doesn't make sense. This is not a budget. MR. ISACKSON: Can I make a couple of comments, Mr. Chair? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Go ahead. MR. ISACKSON: Mark, you've got a tourist tax ordinance that distributes Category A monies, one-third to beach-park facilities and two-thirds to Fund 195, which is beach renourishment and past maintenance. In September of last year the Board carved out $4.5 million from projects that were budgeted and put it back into reserves in Fund 183. COMMISSIONER HILLER: You're absolutely right, and it was my fault. You know why? Because they weren't legitimate projects and never should have been booked. There was no intention to move forward with them. And when it was uncovered, it was rolled back. MR. ISACKSON: I'm explaining why there is $8 million sitting in reserves. That's all I'm doing. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Well, the carryforward is the issue. MR. ISACKSON: And that's why you have $8 million sitting in reserves. Those funds have not been re-budgeted. You've got the ability to move money from one category to the other by your ordinance. If-- you're locked in. You're fenced right now. Unless you change Ordinance 2005-43, as amended, you're fenced. COMMISSIONER HILLER: So if I hear you correctly, what is being done here is you're holding that money because you want to see Page 69 June 28, 2012 the allocation shifted between beach-park facilities and beach renourishment? MR. ISACKSON: No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying this is what you're allowed to do by virtue of your Ordinance 2005-43, as amended. That money's sitting there because it has no place else to go right now. COMMISSIONER HILLER: There are projects here which need to be funded. MR. ISACKSON: Well, then -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: I'll give you a perfect example. The bathrooms at Vanderbilt don't have to be a million and a half, but we need more bathrooms, and the bathroom needs to be improved. There's absolutely nothing in that line item -- MR. ISACKSON: Commissioner -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- and yet you've got eight and a half million sitting in reserves. MR. McALPIN: Commissioner, the Vanderbilt Beach bathrooms are fully funded as we understand the cost at this point in time. So we have -- in previous years we have -- we have allocated the costs for those items. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. So there's no issue with that then? MR. McALPIN: No, there's no issue with that. COMMISSIONER HILLER: At what level are they funded? MR. McALPIN: I believe they're funded at 1.9 or 1 .7 million dollars. I would have to check. COMMISSIONER HILLER: 1.7 or 1.9 for the Vanderbilt bathrooms. Okay. MR. McALPIN: If you'd give me a minute, Commissioner, I can give you an exact number. COMMISSIONER HILLER: But those funds haven't been encumbered. Page 70 June 28, 2012 MR. McALPIN: Yes, ma'am, they have been encumbered. COMMISSIONER HILLER: On what basis? MR. McALPIN: They had previously been encumbered through budget amendments in the past when we developed the scope for the engineering construction. We also have encumbered the construction costs associated with that, so we believe that we have encumbered previously the entire -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: We have a purchase order? MR. McALPIN: No, no, no. We've just encumbered it. We haven't entered into a purchase order. The only thing we've done at this point in time is purchase the engineering for those. MR. WILLIAMS: Commissioner, if I may, Page 16 of your budget book, it's budgeted for -- as forecasted for FY 12, so it's in the budget is what -- MR. CARNELL: It's capital Page 16. MR. WILLIAMS: Yes. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I see that. CHAIRMAN COYLE: She's finished. COMMISSIONER HILLER: No. The beach park -- the -- sorry. I actually work at workshops. TDC -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: I think the rest of us do also. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Well, you do, Commissioner Fiala. Okay. The TDC beach capital, 195. Twenty-six and a half million in reserves. MR. McALPIN: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Can you explain? MR. McALPIN: Sure. The reserves are set aside. There's emergency reserves. I believe those are set aside at $5.5 million. There's beach renourishment reserves. Those are set aside at 14 million at this point in time. There's reserves set aside for potential reimbursement back to DEP of$3.4 million. Page 71 June 28, 2012 So we've identified each one of those reserves that are required by statute by -- the Board has asked us to set up by statute, and then to run the business. So all together it's $26 million, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. Now, there was an email that had been sent by Mayor Sorey to three of the commissioners, and in that he was proposing pulling the money out of those reserves to go to the beach renourishment project. Can you address that? MR. OCHS: I will, Gary. Commissioner, Gary was referring to Capital Page 33 under your public services tab. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Let me take a look. MR. OCHS: Commissioners, you can see under Project No. 99195 at the bottom of that page the itemization of the reserves -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Right. MR. OCHS: -- and fund -- again, we're talking about Fund 195, which is specifically dedicated to beach renourishment -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Right. MR. OCHS: -- and inlet pass maintenance, so -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: And what I'm talking about is where he specifically talked about pulling from those emergency reserves for the general renourishment. MR. McALPIN: I think in the letter that Commissioner (sic) Sorey generated, that was his -- his suggestion. There's nothing that's been done on that at this point in time. We haven't looked at it. We haven't -- we haven't come back to you with a scope of work for the next beach renourishment program or a cost associated with that or the options. And I don't think anything would happen till we do that, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And I would be very concerned if those emergency reserves would be pulled for the benefit of general Page 72 June 28, 2012 renourishment, because if we do have a catastrophic event, to pull emergency reserves and move them into general renourishment would be irresponsible. So I hope you consider that. MR. McALPIN: Understood. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Fiala, take us back to the bars now. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes, I will. First, you know, pour yourself a drink. CHAIRMAN COYLE: All right. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. I just wanted to say that -- oh, boy. First of all, you'd mentioned something about our taxes and how much -- even though we have our low millage rate, we still pay high taxes and we have a higher room rate, but the thing is that people choose to buy those houses and they choose to come to Collier County and stay in better hotels. They don't have to. They could stay cheap hotels, but they choose to stay in nice ones. So I think it's all in the way you look at it. The second thing is, you know, now, I'm -- I have to tell you I'm passionate about museums, so I'm a little biased, all right? But I really feel that tourists don't come -- if they can go to Washington, D.C., and not pay to get in the Smithsonian and they could spend a week there, right, why would they want to pay to get into one of our museums? I just don't think it's fair, especially because they -- museums are paid for by tourist tax dollars that they pay at hotels, so I just feel we must continue with the way we're doing it right now. I'm perfectly happy. And I don't even think we should be studying anything about eliminating that. I think maybe we should be studying about the -- maybe, maybe -- because here's what the hoteliers want to do. They really want to spend more money on advertising, and I understand that. You know, that's what -- that's what generates tourist tax dollars in the first place, and I understand that. Page 73 June 28, 2012 And one of the things they've been saying is, well, other counties spend more than we do. And, of course, they charge more than we do for their tourist tax. So maybe it is time that we found a dedicated source, just a dedicated source to advertise the hotels and destinations, charge one cent more, but just for advertising, and that will then take the pressure off of the rest of the dollars that we spend on the beaches -- you have to have the beaches or they're not going to come here, and the ancillary effects, whether it be museums or even parks -- I don't think many tourists go to the parks, but still for those things. So that's -- I would think that it would be a great idea to study that. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Just to wrap it up real quick. I think we have enough funds coming from tourist tax for what is being allocated today; however, that's a philosophy issue. It's not a reality issue. Now, we had a discussion a little bit about the unencumbered reserves for those beach improvements. We had a conversation at the TDC that those funds could be used for beach renourishment. Is that incorrect, the discussion we're having here now? It would have to take an act of the Board. MR. ISACKSON: Yep. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is that correct? MR. ISACKSON: Jeff, you might want to weigh in, but it's my opinion that I don't think 2005-43 allows the free interchange. I'm on Category A. COMMISSIONER HENNING: It is in Category A. MR. McALPIN: It is. MR. ISACKSON: Yes, it is. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MR. OCHS: Commissioners, you've moved money around before -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right. Page 74 June 28, 2012 MR. OCHS: -- with your TDC funding, and we've done it through ordinance amendments for specific reasons. So if that's the will of the majority of the Board, I'm sure that the county attorney and I can bring you back a document that's legally sufficient to do that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right. Well, you know, I'm just looking at what we have today, scrambled eggs on the beach and, you know, broken structures and stuff like that and no beach. So we might have to make that decision in the future, and I'm just trying to have options. That's all. MR. OCHS: I understand. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. I think you have a majority opinion in support of leaving the funding for museums for the budget. I would also express support for Commissioner Fiala's idea that we need to stop this food fight between hoteliers and beach renourishment people and decide on something, a formula, that lets everybody know exactly what they're going to get and quit trying to take it away from each other. I think that there are some fairly simple solutions to that, but that doesn't involve this particular budget, and we'll wait to see what the TDC comes up with. It would also -- and I commend you for the ability to work together and provide a mutually supporting structure here and sharing ideas and efforts. If only we could get the Board of County Commissioners to do that rather than one group having a plate of cookies down at one end that they fail to share with the rest of the people. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Cookie face. COMMISSIONER HILLER: We just didn't want him to lose his girlish figure. So we were just protecting him. This is sort of like government looking out for you, you know. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Good answer. CHAIRMAN COYLE: But anyway, thank you very much. I Page 75 June 28, 2012 hope we can get by the next one in 19 minutes. MR. OCHS: Yes, sir, I think we can. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I hope so. ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES — PRESENTED MR. OCHS: Your next division is administrative services. MS. PRICE: Good morning, Commissioner. Len Price, administrative services division administrator, for the record. What we do for you is generally behind the scenes and quiet, and that's the way I thought I would present our budget today. If we're doing our jobs, you barely see us. The budgets that we presented to you is within your guidance; it is one we believe that we can work within and continue to provide a good level of service to our customers who are generally the other departments. We've got a very strong working relationship with the other divisions. We work to prioritize and re-prioritize our work as necessary to streamline where we can and to provide a good service. If you've got any questions for us we'll be happy to address them. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Board members, any questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: They are very quiet, just as you are. You can't do that by holding up your finger. COMMISSIONER FIALA: She's going to give you a little piece of the cookie. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's the wrong finger. COMMISSIONER HILLER: It is not the wrong finger. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Go ahead. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I can't believe he said that. Okay. I just want to clarify again, EMS is shifting to Len? MR. OCHS: Yes, ma'am. The entire bureau -- Page 76 June 28, 2012 COMMISSIONER HILLER: We're going to talk EMS -- MR. OCHS: Separately. COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- separately. MR. OCHS: And then whatever changes, if any you make, will be incorporated -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: When it comes back in September, it will be under Len. MR. OCHS: Yes, ma'am, that's correct; yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Just confirming. MR. OCHS: And we're already working that transition. So thank you. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Wow. CHAIRMAN COYLE: We did it in less than two minutes. Thank you very much. MS. PRICE: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Wonderful job. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Set the timer on the other ones. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah, okay. MR. OCHS: Commissioners, that would take us to public utilities as your next division in order. PUBLIC UTILITIES — PRESENTED COMMISSIONER HENNING: It's going to take all day. MR. OCHS: If that takes longer -- if you think it's going to take too long we can skip around to debt service and management offices. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, no. That should be good. MR. OCHS: Board? CHAIRMAN COYLE: George, can you get through this in 14 minutes? MR. YILMAZ: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Remember, you've got leave -- Page 77 June 28, 2012 MR. YILMAZ: We'll do our best. CHAIRMAN COYLE: -- 13 minutes for questions by the commissioners. MR. OCHS: Hit it. Let's go. MR. YILMAZ: Commissioners, for the record, George Yilmaz, your public utilities administrator. First, we have met budget guidance, and our proposed budget is revenue centric, cost contained. One example being reducing 12 FTEs since 2009 while our system continued to grow, examples including, Fiscal Year 2009, we had 746 lift stations, and Fiscal Year '13 we will have 764. In Fiscal Year 2009, we had requests for 469 water connections; Fiscal Year '13, 1,038. These are just the two leading indicators, among many others. And I'm pleased to report that we have no proposed rate increase to our water customers, sewer customers, and solid waste customers for Fiscal Year '13. Secondly, we deliver performance driven, best value, quality and life-sustaining services that meet our customer expectations 24/7/365. Those services include, but are not limited to, reliable and compliant wastewater service, reliable and compliant irrigation water service, reliable and compliant drinking water service, and one of the leading solid waste services, under your watch, as of this year we just achieved our 50 years of landfill lifespan. That's very rare, if not the only agency in the state we could find where the Board of County Commissioners have control over their destiny when it comes to solid waste management in terms of disposal. This comes with service level, one of the highest in the State of Florida; twice a week solid waste collection, once a week single-scream (sic) -- I want to make that single-stream -- recyclable collection and above service as needed by our customers. Just one point, is that we were the first organization to initiate single-stream recycling, and there's only -- one other county followed Page 78 June 28, 2012 our lead. As well as our residential and commercial recycling program that reaches out to multifamily as well as businesses, as you see, every board meeting we have businesses coming before you so that we're moving volunteers first, enforcement as needed for ordinances that you have adopted. We have award-winning one active landfill and two closed landfills that we're managing risk. And first in Collier County, we have a LED certified landfill gas to energy plant that is, as we speak, operational and generating power to our FP&L power grid, and I think that has been one exemplary product and has been successful. We provide all-above services under your general guidance and policy, good neighbor policy along with our chief executive's directive that we will operate as a utility with no off-site odor emissions, dust emissions, and noise emissions, among other environmental compliance measures. Our planning and project management for best-value solutions for sustained compliance with concurrency requirements implements all CIPs approved by the Board and proposed before you. Worst come first to meet the demand now and for the future next five, 10, and 20 years, as you will see in your AUIR coming to you. And also our pollution control and prevention control department, including essential services, hazardous materials and waste management, non-tidal water resource monitoring and protection, and protecting future and current and well fields. Lastly, we continue to proactively manage expenditures, fixed and variable cost, and revenues to maintain optimal bond rating resulting in lowest possible interest rates to our customers as well as avoid the negative impact of potential rate shock (sic) through proactive financial fund management. Through moving forward with our integrated GIS-based asset management program as approved by the Board, our precision and Page 79 June 28, 2012 accuracy in terms of financial outlook is going to get better and better. And our job is to execute what our County Manager asked us to expedite, our asset management program, as much as possible, and our presentation to County Manager's schedule by the end of next week. And given the review by our County Manager, will bring something back to you how we can expedite with marginal costs or no additional cost, depending on the options, so that we can expedite that asset management program not only for public utilities, but for the enterprise agency-wide solution sets. As you can see on page, public utilities, step six and seven, overall public utilities budget shows marginal increase of 1.4 percent and Public Utilities Page No. 8, overall Collier County Water/Sewer District shows marginal increase of .6 percent, respectively giving the much higher increase in primary business cost drivers in commodity areas such as chemicals, fuels, parts. As you all know, they have gone much higher than .6 percent or 1 percent; however, through our cost containment environment, we have been able to manage our service level and meet the expectations of our customer as well as our County Manager and the Board. With that, I have all my directors here including myself to answer any questions that you might have. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. George, thank you for the wonderful job you do, and you do do a good job. We have the best tasting and best smelling -- we have the best tasting water in what? CHAIRMAN COYLE: The state. COMMISSIONER HILLER: The country? Not yet? MR. YILMAZ: Not yet. That's next. COMMISSIONER HILLER: But we're moving. And what was the other thing you got? We're the best smelling what? Was that -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Landfill. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Landfill, that's it, yes, the best Page 80 June 28, 2012 smelling landfill. I remembered there were two awards. George, I do have a couple of questions. One, you're right, your budget did go up about 1.4 percent, but it concerns me to a degree because the adopted budget for 2012 ended up being -- and I'm going to round -- 179 million. The forecast for 2012 was 149 million. The actual for fiscal year 2011 was 143 million. The difference between the actual for 2011 and 2013 is very significant. We've jumped from 140 -- 143 million to 181 million. Can you explain that difference? And then I have one other question after that. MR. YILMAZ: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: That's a material change. MR. YILMAZ: That has -- that has -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: That's about 27 percent. MR. YILMAZ: Yes, ma'am. That has multidimensional answer, including not only operational cost, 5000, 6000, 7000 series, but the dynamics in fund management in terms of reserves and how we manage our debt service. So I will have our chief financial officer, Mr. Wides, to address. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And you don't have to address it today, but -- because it is, I understand, a more detailed answer, but I would like it before the next meeting so that I understand it and see that it's justified. The other question that I have is with respect to a project that came before us that was turned down that you took back and haven't brought forward. And my question as to that project is, is it going to be in the current fiscal year or is it going to be in the next fiscal year? And that is the one where you proposed about $30 million in engineering to view the pipes to do about 60 million in capital improvements with respect to those pipes. Basically almost -- you know, it's going to probably be somewhere between ninety and a hundred million as a project. Page 81 June 28, 2012 That hasn't come back. Where is it? What's going to happen? What is the real price? You know that I've made inquiries into that and found out that we had, you know, TV trucks, and we've had them for quite some time, so I don't even understand why we're hiring these engineers to do the work. So help me with that project and where is it? MR. YILMAZ: I understand the question, ma'am, and I'll start with the short answer. We'll be bringing that project back to you targeting July meeting -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. MR. YILMAZ: -- with more tangible scope. Second part of the question was funding and cash flow for the project and it's been appropriated starting this fiscal year moving to -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: The current -- MR. YILMAZ: -- the next fiscal year, yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: So it's in 2012 now -- MR. YILMAZ: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- and you're going to carry it forward into 2013? MR. YILMAZ: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And that is accounted for. So, again, between now and the approval of this budget, I want to see where you have budgeted for that project in 2013. If you could take me through that, I would appreciate it. MR. YILMAZ: Yes, ma'am. We will do that, and also we will paint the picture for next five-year and 10-year program. First time, if I might, we do have for public utilities, 10-year, 80-percent-plus accurate CIP program that will be fine-tuned with the asset management program coming on board. COMMISSIONER HILLER: That's great. And the -- as the replacement of the asbestos pipes, which I think you estimated at about 40 million, which -- is it in the 2013 budget, or is it prospective? Page 82 June 28, 2012 MR. YILMAZ: It is five-year program. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. MR. YILMAZ: And you will also see some of the projects coming in terms of engineering and moving into construction starting this fiscal year, moving into next five years. And that has been ranked as Level 3 risk compliance, and that is a priority for us to go after. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Wonderful. Thank you. MR. YILMAZ: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Was that 13 minutes, Commissioner Coyle? CHAIRMAN COYLE: You actually have 30 -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. Then let me -- so, George, what else can we talk about, you know? It's like -- hey -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- that bar that we're going to, you know, you're invited. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. Just a couple simple questions. We were talking about gas to energy, which is a wonderful project there. How much did we get last year, or how much do we expect every year? MR. YILMAZ: Yes, ma'am. I will have our solid and hazardous waste management director to respond. MR. RODRIGUEZ: Good morning, Commissioners. For the record, Dan Rodriguez, your solid waste management director. Great news. The gas-to-energy plant has been up and running for a full year. It generated $480,000 in revenue to the county, and that came, as Dr. Yilmaz stated, at no cost to taxpayers for construction. COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's wonderful. Does that go then back into public utilities? Does it go to general fund? MR. RODRIGUEZ: It goes back into solid waste -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. Page 83 June 28, 2012 MR. RODRIGUEZ: -- and it's part of the funding for your airspace recovery fund. As you know, we burn airspace. We consume airspace every time we fill up our landfill. That -- those funds are specifically put towards replenishing a fund so that we can buy the next landfill or expand our existing landfill or the next emerging technology as directed by you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And the second question I have is, all the recycling material that we take now over to Pembroke Pines, do we have to pay them, or do we get paid for all of that stuff we take over? MR. RODRIGUEZ: Actually, Commissioner, that is part of a comprehensive collection agreement with Waste Management. And the assuming -- Waste Management assuming liability associated with managing the markets of selling that material, process it, transporting it -- as you know, the cost of fuel continues to rise and fluctuate. As part of that agreement, it was the Board's decision, as well as staff, to negotiate a rate of one of the lowest in the state, if not nationally, for the highest level of service, and they keep the revenue from the recyclables, but they also take on that risk of managing and processing that material. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And, of course, we have less going into our landfill, which saves us money in the end. Okay. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: The reserves -- and that's a policy in this budget or this administration just like it is in every other administration where that started up; is that what that is? MR. ISACKSON: Tom can explain, Commissioner, the nuances of his cash flow requirement, but I believe the same premise holds true for public utilities as it does the general fund. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is that true? MR. WIDES: That is correct, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. And it's -- all the other Page 84 June 28, 2012 departments depend on it because taxes don't come in until actually December, correct? MR. ISACKSON: In the General Fund, that's true, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right. But this department is an enterprise fund, and your cash flow comes in monthly. MR. WIDES: That is correct. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So why do you need high cash flow? If your funds are coming in monthly for that startup, to me you would only need one month of cash flow reserves. It doesn't apply to statute. MR. WIDES: Yes. Commissioner, for the record, Tom Wides. First off, from our cash-flow reserves, we do have approximately 73 days of cash reserves. If we get an event, a storm event, and we lose the ability to bill our customers and yet we have to continue operations, it will take no time at all to eat up that reserve position. We've made sure that we've stayed within statute, No. 1, okay, and we also continuously look to outside rating agencies to get their guidance and their benchmarking of how we're operating as a utility. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Isn't it true that your billing comes out of Ohio, not out of Florida? MR. WIDES: Currently, the bills are submitted to our Ohio one-single-location processor. COMMISSIONER HENNING: You get -- the billing comes out of there? MR. WIDES: No, sir; no, sir. The billing -- the billing part comes out of Fort Myers, okay, one single location there. The bills are sent from Fort Myers to the customers' homes. The checks, et cetera, are sent back to the outside location in Ohio. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So you have approximately two months of reserve cash flow? MR. WIDES: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Page 85 June 28, 2012 CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. No other questions? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Nope. Let's take a break. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You were one minute late. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Sorry. MR. YILMAZ: My apologies. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good job. Thank you very much. You're doing a great job. MR. YILMAZ: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And we're going to break for lunch. We'll be back at 1 :01. MR. OCHS: Thank you, sir. (A luncheon recess was had.) MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, you have a live mic. CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICERS — ELECTIONS — PRESENTED CHAIRMAN COYLE: Ladies and gentlemen, the budget workshop is now in session. I presume we're going to have the supervisor of elections next. MS. EDWARDS: Good afternoon. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good afternoon, Jennifer. How are you? MS. EDWARDS: Jennifer Edwards supervisor of elections. I'm great. Thank you all for the opportunity to present you my 2013 budget, which totals $3,269,800. As you know, you requested we reduce our budgets by 5 percent, we've reduced ours by 8 and a half percent, and we're able to do that because there's only one election in the next year's budget, whereas we have two in this year's budget. Any questions, comments? In addition to that, we are requesting $275,000 in 301 funds to fund the mandated purchase of ADA equipment. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Oh, Commissioner Hiller, go ahead. Page 86 June 28, 2012 COMMISSIONER HILLER: Are you out of space? MS. EDWARDS: We're always out of space, yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: How much space do you need? MS. EDWARDS: We need about between 50-, 60,000 square feet under one roof. It's inefficient the way we are now, because we're so spread out. We are in three different locations across the county. We train about a thousand poll workers for every election at the Golden Gate Community Park, and I have three staff members out there. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And the buildings that you're in currently, do you -- do you own those? Are those county buildings, or are we leasing those from outside -- MS. EDWARDS: We only lease about 3,000 square feet. The other two buildings are county owned, the Golden Gate Community Park facility, as well as the building here on campus. COMMISSIONER HILLER: So what's the total square footage you have now? MS. EDWARDS: I'm around 20, probably, or less. COMMISSIONER HILLER: That has been brought up in discussion, you know, when we were looking at the transfer station; one of the considerations was the acquisition of a larger facility would be shared with you, and I just wanted to confirm, you know, how much space you needed. That was that DeVoe property. COMMISSIONER FIALA: DeVoe property. Oh, I knew right where you were going. I was going to go like this. Good for you. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Expect an article by Brent Batten now that we've mentioned something like that, because that's usually what follows. I can't guarantee you it will be nice or true, but it will be written. MS. EDWARDS: Well, the word "transfer station" is intriguing, so -- we -- one of our challenges, and the reason I say space under one roof is so important to us is that to stage our equipment for an election, Page 87 June 28, 2012 we have to transport, about 20 different trips, the equipment to get it staged and the supplies at a warehouse where the moving company picks up everything and delivers it. So that's the inefficiency. Plus, having three staff members at a separate location and conducting training separate from our building is inefficient. And I like to talk to our poll workers and encourage them and thank them personally, but I can't drive back and forth to Golden Gate Community Park three and four times a day. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Well you know, to eliminate any question that you have a need, I think it would be beneficial if you put a report together that basically documented, you know, the issues and why you need 40,000 more square feet and, you know, what you see is, you know, the potential cost and -- MS. EDWARDS: We have that information. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. That would be great. Is that something you-all would like? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Sure. COMMISSIONER HILLER: If you could prepare that and then send that to the Board, we'd appreciate it. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I wouldn't approve it, but I'd like it. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. I mean, and let me just say what -- MS. EDWARDS: Most of you, you've heard my discussion before -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: And the only -- one of the reasons why it's timely to bring it forward is, you know, property values are at their lowest. And if we do need to acquire properties for future expansion, you know, as our economy improves and as we do build our reserves, you know, it's certainly prudent to do what's necessary now as opposed to later when it's more expensive and too late. MS. EDWARDS: I agree. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And I'll chime in, if you don't mind, Page 88 June 28, 2012 just exactly -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Are you finished? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. How many minutes was that? Was that 12 minutes? CHAIRMAN COYLE: It was too many minutes. All right. I'm turning your light off. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Give me two minutes, right. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Too many. Go ahead, Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: It reminds me of the gas station that was out front, the Texaco gas station. And in the '90s it was at a good low price at the time, and the commissioners said, no, no, we can't spend any money, we can't spend any money. So instead we got a bail bond there -- bail bondsman who has cars parked everywhere all the time. Makes it difficult for us. And they'll never leave that position. But we could have had a government office there. So I hate to see us miss another opportunity. Thanks. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And especially when interest rates are really low. I mean, obviously, we don't want to borrow if we don't have to. And so to the extent, if we have the cash, then it's great, and if borrowing becomes a necessity, it's the cheapest it's ever been. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Well you could finance it with a poll tax. COMMISSIONER HILLER: You know, that's a great -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: What are you doing here other than entertaining? COMMISSIONER HILLER: It's because all those cops are sitting out there. He knows he has to be nice to us. It's usually not this much fun. I just want you to -- this is just for you. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I have no questions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. No questions. Jennifer, you did a wonderful job. Thank you very much. Page 89 June 28, 2012 MS. EDWARDS: Thank you, Commissioners. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And, seriously, put together a little proposal on space, and let us take a look at it. See what we can do. MS. EDWARDS: Appreciate that. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICERS — CLERK OF COURTS — PRESENTED MR. OCHS: Commissioners, that takes you to your Clerk of Courts. MS. KINZEL: Good afternoon, Commissioners. For the record, Crystal Kinzel with the Clerk's Office. And I have with me Raymond Milum, who's the manager for Clerk's Accounting. And we would just like to start off by thanking county staff again. This year we worked very closely with office of management and budget, particularly Randy, who's our analyst, and Mr. Isackson. And so we're here to answer any questions you might have. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Surprise. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah. COMMISSIONER HILLER: What has happened with the state and proposed cut that they were going to challenge all the clerks in the counties with? MS. KINZEL: That's pending. They're supposed to decide that, what, the 15th of-- MR. MILUM: The 12th. MS. KINZEL: Oh, the 12th of July we will hear more, and the clerks are planning a meeting to discuss whatever action is taken by the 12th of July. But it will take us a little bit longer to see what Page 90 June 28, 2012 happens to us on the court side of the budget. COMMISSIONER HILLER: On the court side they were proposing, what was it, a 7 percent cut? MS. KINZEL: It's a 31 million statewide cut to the clerk's funding. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And how would that affect you locally on a percentage basis? MR. MILUM: It's almost $600,000 that they would cut out of our budget on the court side. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And what would that do to you? Would you be able to operate? I mean, how much would that erode your level of service? MR. MILUM: It will make things much more difficult. We'll have a lot more -- you know, as the article's been saying in the paper, there'll probably be longer lines waiting because there are requirements in the statute that criminal cases have to be handled first because they have deadlines. So the civil cases will be the ones that will probably suffer the most. COMMISSIONER HILLER: How much are you turning back now? You were -- in the past you were able to retain those -- was it the interest income on the investments? MS. KINZEL: But that's on the non-court side. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Right, I understand that. But that can't, in any way, be used -- that's getting turned back to the county now, right? MS. KINZEL: Correct. And if-- obviously, if we got to a service level that would be insufficient for the citizens of Collier County, we may have to look for other funding avenues, but right now we do segregate the court and non-court elements of our budget and look to the state to fund the court responsibilities. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Any other questions? Page 91 June 28, 2012 MS. KINZEL: Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Thank you very much. CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICERS — SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT — PRESENTED MR. OCHS: Commissioners, that brings you to the Sheriffs Office. Sheriff Rambosk is here, I know. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Afternoon, Chairman -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good afternoon. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: -- members of the commission. I think you know all of our staff, so I won't take the time to reintroduce you to them. You know, the quality of life in Collier County is known by all to be just absolutely terrific. Collier County sells itself, represents itself; however, it doesn't get there by itself. And we know that you know that because you are a strong part of our leadership, and we are your law enforcement representation. I have to move away for just a second. I'll keep talking. This year's been a very successful one, and what I'd like to do is just give you a couple of highlights of where we've been, how we've been able to work together with you and your staff and start by thanking you for your support not only throughout the past year but throughout the last several years. As importantly, the County Manager and his staff, because we know that as we've been working together with different organizations throughout the county, whether it be government and/or civic or otherwise, we have been able to do much more than we have ever been able to do in the past, and we've actually done it for less money. You know, one of the questions that's raised to me is how does law enforcement increase its service while we've been facing the worst economic downturn in recent history. And you and your staff were Page 92 June 28, 2012 faced with that; we're certainly faced with that. And, certainly, it comes from a couple of areas. One, supporting existing community partnerships, more importantly, establishing new partnerships. At the Collier County Sheriffs Office, we partner with business, we partner with government, we partner with civic organizations, and we do that in order to provide an increased level of service without having to use additional tax dollars to do it. As you know, but for the public benefit over the last four years, we have reduced our operating budget by $20.6 million. That is an aggregate savings of$48 million to the taxpayer, and we've not decreased services. And the thanks to that go to a couple of places. One, I brought with me today some of the men and women of the Collier County Sheriffs Office. You can see them in the back. They are, in fact, the people that actually do the job. They take what we can provide to them, and they expand upon it, and they do an absolutely terrific job. And I want to publicly thank them in front of you here today and in front of the public, because without their dedication and service we would not have been able to be as successful as we have been over the last couple of years. So my thanks go specifically to them. You know, when we talk about increasing services, there are a number of things I wanted to highlight for you. We have dozens and dozens of things we've done over the last four years, but some of our most successful areas have been the Summer Fest Program. We've gone from contacting about 5,000 of our young people to over 40,000 of our young people. Again, great relationship with parks and recreation, with the school system, with more than 200 business partners throughout Collier County. We have partnered in the business community with an organization, Collier County Organized Retail Theft Association, or CCORTA. That brings together all of our retail businesses. They Page 93 June 28, 2012 exchange information because, ultimately, we're all dealing with the same individual. And, again, the more we can share information amongst ourselves the better enforcement and, more importantly, the better prevention that we can provide. Community safety teams. We actually began with them about three-and-a-half years ago. We've created 30 community safety teams throughout the county. They do a tremendous job in looking at what their concerns are in their neighborhood, working together not only with us, but with the fire district that they're in or the fire service area, code enforcement, and any other entity that will help them resolve the issues that they have got. We've done a significant number of community cleanups. We do that with a neighborhood. It not only makes it safer; it gets rid of what potentially could be construed to be blight, but, you know, when people feel better about their neighborhood, they take care of one another, they continue to take care of their neighborhood, and we have a much better outlook for the community. A community safety plan that we built with our residents. We had town hall meetings; we created a plan with their input. It's not ever been done before that I'm aware of. We've actually been recognized for it with the innovation and industry award. It's an extremely good thing when we hear from our residents to let us know what's important to them. They have created this plan to safeguard our community with us instead of historically the way it's been done. Data-driven approaches to crime. We're looking at using technology and information to focus our resources, again, with the option of providing the best and highest quality of service at the lowest cost to the taxpayer. Online crime reporting. Again, saving tax dollars in responding units to a call force service. The second chance cell dog program has a variety of benefits both in the jail for getting our inmates ready to be released. More importantly, it trains dogs that the Humane Society Page 94 June 28, 2012 has had and provides them a better opportunity to get a home when they come out. And so you put those two things together. A social media platform. We've done a lot of work on that over the last couple of years. One of the goals we had coming in several years ago was how do we connect with each and every resident that wishes to in Collier County? We've done that in a number of ways, but our latest way this past year was CCSO To Go. It is an iPhone ap. We're currently creating a Droid application for it where you can actually take it in hand and get fed information, which is general prevention, emergency or other information, and you can have it right in your smart phone. So we equipped the remainder of our cars with AEDs with Commissioner Hiller's help and the Heart Association and the Friday family. That put us so far in advance of what most communities have throughout this country, it will -- it will and has made a significant difference. Again, working together in the budget reduction area was as much for efficiency and effectiveness as it was anything else. The dollars were not available to use, but I still have to provide you with a certification on how we can provide protection to the residents of Collier County, and we've been able to do that together. So to kind of sum things up, even with the budget reductions, we've increased our services, we've saved tax dollars in significant amounts, we've improved the safety in our community, and the one thing that is always on our minds, and that is crime, we are very, very fortunate because of the men and women here and the residents and the businesses that work together to have developed the lowest metropolitan crime rate in the entire State of Florida. And if I told you that our crime rate was 2,155, you might not know what that meant. But if you take a look at the map that we have up on the screen right now, you can see that we are the only county south of I-4 -- and the other counties that have a lesser crime rate than Page 95 June 28, 2012 we do -- and there are only 12 out of 67 -- they're all in the Panhandle. They have populations of 30,000 to about 90,000. And this position that we have all built in Collier County is something that you and the residents and businesses -- we can all be very, very proud of. And the main thing is that we do not want to lose the position that we have created. With that opening statement, I will open it up for any questions that you might have. PUBLIC COMMENTS CHAIRMAN COYLE: How many public speakers do we have? MR. SHEFFIELD: Six. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Let's hear public speakers first. MR. SHEFFIELD: The first speaker is John Lundin, to be followed by Mike Reagen. MR. LUNDIN: Hi, I'm John Lundin. I'd like to start with, today the United States Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Healthcare Act, a 5-4 vote. Judge Roberts, a Republican, is the deciding factor, which means in 2014, every American will have to purchase health insurance. It's a great day for President Obama and the Democrats. I am a Democrat. I live in Immokalee. As a Democrat, we are very sympathetic to minority rights and minority issues, and there's a big issue in Immokalee with Collier Sheriffs Office and your traffic checkpoints. People there feel they're being discriminated against because you do too many traffic checkpoints in Immokalee. They feel you're targeting minorities because they're minorities. So we analyzed some of the data. The Naples Daily News did an article. Since 2010, out of 18 of the traffic checkpoints, nine of them have been in Immokalee. Now, if you look at the population of Collier County, it's 322,000 Page 96 June 28, 2012 people. Immokalee has 16,000 people. That's only 5 percent of the population. So you're doing 50 percent of your police traffic checkpoints in an area with 5 percent of the population in an area that is all minority. So the people in Immokalee feel that they're being discriminated against. And I would urge the county commissioners to take this money out of your budget. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: For full disclosure, Mr. Lundin is a candidate for Collier County Commission District 5 in Immokalee. MR. SHEFFIELD: Mike Reagen, to be followed by Edward Morton. MR. REAGEN: Hi, Mr. Chairman, members of the commission. I'm Mike Reagen with the Chamber of Commerce. Thirty years ago I spent five years reviewing budgets for the Sheriffs Department in Onondaga County, Syracuse, New York, and the previous -- subsequent 30 years I've spent a good bit of time in two different states focusing on law enforcement and corrections budgets. There are 3,053 Sheriffs Departments in the United States. Few of them are full service. I'm here to tell you that from my experience as a person and in the job I have, this, without question, is one of the most outstanding Sheriffs Departments in the country. I spent part of the time this morning with people who are designated from the United States State Department about our -- work that the Sheriffs Department is doing here under a grant with human trafficking. We're delighted, as a chamber, to be a partner in the Foreclosure Task Force the past several years working with the Sheriffs Department. And replete throughout the whole history of our organization and Leadership Collier Foundation, the fingerprints of the Sheriffs Department is all over and they're absolutely outstanding. So the quality of life that we have here and our safety rests very much in their hands, and we're just here to say a kind word about that Page 97 June 28, 2012 agency. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. MR. SHEFFIELD: Edward Morton, to be followed by James Giles. MR. MORTON: Good afternoon. For the record, my name is Edward Morton. I am a business owner on 5th Avenue and the retired CEO of NCH where I've known most of you in my prior life. I've had the opportunity to work with the Collier County Sheriffs Office for almost 30 years now, and I wanted to lend my support to Sheriff Rambosk for the extraordinary work he and his team have done to manage this budget during these very challenging times. As you've seen from the numbers, we have had an extraordinary period of time in the Collier County Sheriffs Office in coping with reduced budgets and their ability to maintain service levels, to make the appropriate cutbacks because of the fiscal realities that we face together, are quite extraordinary. In my travels throughout the county, the support for the sheriff, his initiatives and what he has been able to accomplish is quite extraordinary, and I'm just here as an individual and as a business owner, and somebody who has spent the last 41 years of their adult life here in Collier County, to lend my support and my unqualified support of the Collier County Sheriffs Office and Sheriff Rambosk and his team. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. MR. SHEFFIELD: James Giles, to be followed by Dave Schimmel. MR. GILES: My name is James Giles, and I'm the district executive for the Boy Scouts of America, Southwest Florida Council. And I jumped at the opportunity to come here today and thank the Sheriffs Department and, through them, the Collier County Board of County Commissioners on behalf of 1,500 youth and over 500 Page 98 June 28, 2012 volunteers who appreciate all the support the Sheriffs Department gives. In addition to the support that the Sheriffs Department gives the Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts and venturing crews here in Collier County, they are our shining light in our explorer program, a program that serves youth in Immokalee, brings them to Corkscrew Elementary School, and teaches them about the Sheriffs Department and about law enforcement. This grows, obviously, their education career-wise. It also teaches them character development. Scouting is a partnership between the community, the scouting organizations, civic, and religious, and without the support of various government entities, including the Sheriffs Department, scouting wouldn't exist. So without you we wouldn't have youth character development and career education that happens after the school time hours. Thank you very much for your time. MR. SHEFFIELD: James Schimmel, to be followed by Kamela Patton. MR. SCHIMMEL: Good afternoon, Commissioners. As a 30-year resident -- I'm Dave Schimmel from David Lawrence Center. As a 30-year resident of Collier County, I've had the good fortune to work with all of our sheriffs, and they've all been outstanding, but the work with Sheriff Rambosk and his staff has revealed this Sheriffs Department probably does more community engagement than any Sheriffs Department that we've ever experienced. Our crime rate is low because of the incredible prevention efforts that are going on. And this sheriff and his staff have made a commitment to make this community safe and to work with its local citizens. They specifically -- in my area of mental health and substance abuse, they are involved in 40 hours a week of training so we can keep people out of the criminal justice, and they work hand in hand with us. Page 99 June 28, 2012 And I really can't say enough about their professionalism. We encounter deputies every day in our crisis unit, and their main concern is the safety of this community. MR. SHEFFIELD: Your final speaker is Kamela Patton. MS. PATTON: Good afternoon. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good afternoon. MS. PATTON: So I'm very glad to be able to be here with you this afternoon and very proud to now say I'm member of Collier County for just over a year. But I do want to let you know that, as you know, I came from a different county, and that in the 25 years in the education business, I've never seen a stronger partnership between two government agencies than the Collier County Public Schools and the Sheriffs Department. I would tell you that that's very important, because I think that what that does is it builds a sense of community right from our youngsters on. In particular, their YRD program is really a phenomenal partnership, and that helps build positive rapport with students and law enforcement. So what does that mean? That helps build relationships that last a lifetime. It's not that it just ends when they hit the end of high school. Those relationships that they've built will carry throughout their lifetime. They're very innovative. They've done things that have been around, the DARE program that continues to help build good character traits, but they always continue to take things to the next level. Even though there's a national curriculum, they step it up further than that national curriculum, because they always get the idea that we want to keep doing more to build those relationships to foster that in children, because that ultimately provides a more safer community for us here in Collier County. From that I would tell you just this year they came up with Page 100 June 28, 2012 another texting program. It's not that it costs a lot, but it's that innovative. What's yet another way. So that partnership is that when they develop something like that, to get with us, we help spread that word with our kids to use that, so that 24/7 they have an anonymous way to call in any tips or concerns that they have. That would be just one more example. I know that the sheriffs already mentioned to you the Summer Fest and Hot Summer Night. That would be one more time, again, that -- and I know, just like you, what it's like to try and continue to provide more services with less dollars and resources. There again, just a few years ago, they saw a need, started a program, and you heard those numbers, 4,000, and now -- or 5,000, now over 40,000 students that participate in that. I would tell you that, honestly, that these deputies, they build and foster those relationships so that students learn to share information to them. And it's not just information that helps in our schools. That information is information that's shared that also goes beyond the school walls, again, to make the community better. So if we didn't have their presence with us working together, a lot of things don't get resolved outside of the school walls. So I just want to, in closing, briefly, just say thank you to Sheriff Rambosk and for continuing to build that relationship with our students and our staff, because I think what that does, it's the proactive way that this Sheriffs Department really operates that in many other places, if you've had the opportunities that I've had, it's not proactive; it's reactive. So those dollars that you're investing now will just pay off way down the road and instantly, too. So thank you for letting me have this opportunity with you today. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you for being here. Is that our last speaker? MR. SHEFFIELD: Yes. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: I want to address Mr. Lundin's Page 101 June 28, 2012 concerns. We're forbidden to tell the sheriff what to cut from his budget. But I want to share with you, I -- and the Board, because of concerns in Immokalee and those safety stops -- Golden Gate is similar in the makeup of minorities -- I actually, one night, went out with the Sheriffs Department to one of those safety stops. They're there to protect the minorities. Many of the minorities from South America and Mexico don't trust putting money in their bank, so they carry it with them. And the deputies are there to protect them from being a victim. Furthermore, we have -- we're a walking community in Golden Gate. We have many families that only have one vehicle. And mothers with children are walking the sidewalks all the time. The Sheriffs Department is out there to protect those mothers and children. So Kevin, you know that I support the efforts that you and your deputies have done to make this a safe community and will continue to do so. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you very much. Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: I guess I'm going to wind it all up, because this seems kind of like a pat-on-the-back afternoon, doesn't it? You did a wonderful job with your budget, but you have ever since you came on as our sheriff. You've done just a great job. You've worked with us so well, and I can't tell you how often staff mentions it in talking with them. Second thing, I visited the schools a lot, you probably know that, and I just love the YRDs there. They work with kids so beautifully, Dr. Patton. Welcome, by the way. And it's good seeing you here. And they work so well with the kids, and that help protect these kids. I don't care if they're black, white, red, or green; doesn't make any difference. They don't care. They want to make sure that the kids are Page 102 June 28, 2012 safe, and that's all that's important to them. And, finally, in -- when I was president of East Naples Civic Association, one of the things we decided to try and do was clean up the high amount of traffic and crime that we could over on Bayshore. And you should have seen that Sheriffs Department with us. It was -- it was wonderful to see. We were all sitting there in amazement. We could actually see them tackling people right in the street. I mean, it was -- it was great. So I just want to say that I'm a fan, and I -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Police Brutality 101. Just kidding. CHIEF BLOOM: We weren't tackling. We were restraining. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Anyway, thank you very much for all that you do for us to keep us so safe. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Please make a note in the record everyone was laughing. It's important. You don't see that on paper. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. And I'm not going to let the day go by without adding my own personal congratulations for a job well done. And it seems like you've got the support of every commissioner up here. Keep up the good work. We're behind you. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Okay. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Well, I'll make it unanimous. I endorse all of the favorable comments made by the other commissioners. So thank you very much for the wonderful job you do to keep our community safe for everyone. No more questions from the commissioners, so -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You're dismissed. CHAIRMAN COYLE: No, I'm not going to -- if you'd please to leave, it will be fine. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Scott, did you see your picture out there? MR. OCHS: Thanks, Kevin. Page 103 June 28, 2012 COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Kevin, good work. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good job. Thank you very much. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Thank you for all you do, Sheriff. We appreciate you. That actually sounds like a good line, we appreciate all you do. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: I'll remember that. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Who's the next -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Looks like any other constitutional officer who wishes to address. MR. OCHS: The other two are, essentially, fee officers, Commissioner. We only reserve a spot in case they need to come and address you, but I don't see either the Tax Collector or Property Appraiser here. CHAIRMAN COYLE: So we'll go back to debt service as soon as we clear the room here. COMMISSIONER HILLER: One thing I'd like to mention, Commissioner Coyle is, you know, besides the law enforcement initiative these men engage in on a day-to-day basis, they do so much volunteer work, like Salley and Drug Free Collier, which is a great enterprise. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yes they do. They're a great group of people. COMMISSIONER FIALA: By the way, the reason I went out with them, did you see that picture on the wall that looks just like Scott Salley, Wes Dowling? I had to go out and take him. COMMISSIONER HILLER: That's so funny. DEBT SERVICE — PRESENTED CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Debt service. MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. Page 104 June 28, 2012 MR. ISACKSON: Thank you, Commissioners. Just a few remarks, if I may, on the debt service. The debt service tab is self-containing, and it includes our general governmental debt. That's debt that's supported by, essentially, coveted budget, appropriate -- legally available non-ad valorem revenues, sales tax pledge bonds, our gas tax pledge bonds; we've got our CRA debt in there. It's fairly self-explanatory in the pages that are detailed there. Just a couple of high-level remarks, if I may. And you've heard me before speaking on our debt position when we've talked about the individual refunding that we've had over the past two years; and those amount to about $217 million in refunding scenarios, and we've saved about $10.1 million in interest by virtue of those specific refundings. Our debt service specifically for '13 is down $5.3 million from the adopted FY 12 budget. That's about an 11.2 percent savings. That 50 -- or that, roughly, $41 million is there to support outstanding debt on the general governmental side of, roughly, $395 million. I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. You have done a great job with the refunding, and we have been taking advantage of the reduced rates to reduce our debt service costs. Do you project doing any more over the next year? Is there anything more you can do with our current debt portfolio? MR. ISACKSON: We're looking at a couple of different avenues, ma'am. One is to shift some focus over to the utilities side at this point, which we -- not that we've ignored, but the interest rates now are at a point where we might be able to achieve some savings there. And we've -- I've thought about, if I can continue just to set aside more money than the normal serial debt service payments on an annual basis, what might be the opportunities, for example, to retire debt earlier, for example, then. It's more complicated than I'm just -- Page 105 June 28, 2012 than I'm saying, obviously, because there's volumes of bond documents that you have to go through. But there may be some -- there may be some defeasance options that we could have to get debt off the books earlier than the normal serial schedule. So our Finance Committee's going to look at those also. COMMISSIONER HILLER: As long as it doesn't compromise the cash position, which we have to be sensitive to, because I do think we're going to be moving into an inflationary cycle, and interest rates will go up. So to that extent, yes, we want to reduce our debt, you know, to the -- as you point out, you know, to the extent reasonable and feasible. But at this -- and also reduce any interest rates on any outstanding debt, but not to the point that it prospectively compromises us if we do see those two things happen. So, I mean, there is a balancing. But yeah, I agree with you; if you can do more of it, that would be great. MR. ISACKSON: Certainly. Anything that we might devise at Finance Committee level, we've presented to the Board for review and consideration and as always, competing interest for dollars, certainly, going forward, asset management replacement. That's what I see are very high-level competing interests against the component, so -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Right, exactly. So it will be very interesting to see, you know, what that analysis brings forward. But you have done a good job in saving a lot of money. MR. ISACKSON: Thank you, ma'am. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And no further questions? MANAGEMENT OFFICES (PELICAN BAY) — PRESENTED MR. OCHS: Sir, that takes you to your management offices. If Page 106 June 28, 2012 you can get your management office staff to come forward. And, commissioners, if we could, in the interest of Mr. Dorrill's time, maybe start with the overview of the Pelican Bay Services Division budget. It's -- it begins on Page 43 of your management office tab. Hey, Neil. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, Mr. Dorrill, go ahead. MR. DORRILL: Good afternoon, everyone. My word, I may have more time than anybody in the room, but I appreciate you letting me go first this afternoon. I hope you're enjoying your summer and your time off here in a couple of weeks. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Not yet, but we will enjoy it when it starts. MR. DORRILL: Yes, sir. This budget, as you know, is essentially a maintenance-level budget. It has been thoroughly reviewed by both a citizens' budget and finance committee and then unanimously approved by our entire Board. I just wanted to make that point. You'll see in perhaps, your summary pages that the overall net operating budget has decreased from prior year. We are maintaining the existing per-unit assessment of$398, and we levy eight-tenths of one mill for streetlighting. So we have both a non-ad valorem assessment and also a millage rate for the streetlighting program. The overall budget, including capital and transfers, shows a modest increase. You may recall that we began a five-year initiative last year to accumulate cash to begin replacing streetlights. They have fancy, ornamental, architectural streetlight poles. They would like to pay cash for those as some of those streetlights poles near the end of their expected life in about another five to seven years. And so there's a 1.3 percent increase in the total budget. There's an increase in the reserves. That increase is deliberate and recommended to you because of the need to replace the streetlights. Page 107 June 28, 2012 One large and continuing capital item next year, they're in the process over the next three years of building some pedestrian crosswalks. That project is about 75 percent complete. They've done a nice job. And they're also renovating existing landscape medians there on Pelican Bay Boulevard and we intend to spend another $225,000 next year on landscape renovations as part of, again, their community improvement plan. I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Not for this one. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You didn't have any questions for this section. Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: I just want to say that this is an example of where taxpayers choosing to tax themselves for additional services above and beyond what the county provides does work. I mean, this is a successful MSTU, and you certainly have done a great deal for your community through the additional improvements funded by your MSTU dollars. And I'm glad to hear that you have unanimous approval on this budget by your constituents. MR. DORRILL: I tried to be a little more task and project oriented the last couple of years in order not to make the County Manager any more white-haired than he already is. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Couldn't happen. Could not happen. MR. OCHS: I had a lot of fun with Mr. Dorrill early in my career. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Well, actually, now, looking at your head, Leo, maybe there is some opportunity. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I'd rather not. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay, well -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Neil, maybe two years ago I had suggested that we get together and look at the possibility of just Page 108 June 28, 2012 turning over the services division to Pelican Bay and eliminating this heavy involvement by the county. What happened to that? Did everybody decide that it's not a good idea, that it doesn't have any advantages, or where are you on that? MR. DORRILL: In one minute I can tell you that I think we all missed the greatest opportunity to do that early in my tenure as County Manager. As you'll recall, the original district was an independent district, and it was very happy, but it was created on the primary condition and the caveat that at the time the county regional utility system had the ability to serve, that they would convey those utility assets. They have refused to do so, and the ensuing litigation went all the way to the Supreme Court. The county's position was upheld. But the regional county system was able to grow and meet its bond obligations based on the added customer revenues of Pelican Bay. But the fight was directed solely towards the utility system, and I think some of the Pelican Bay people there overlooked the aspect that all of the remaining public works functions, the roads, the streetlighting, the drainage, the landscape beautification, they could have remained independent. And I will tell you that that is still out there. It doesn't get discussed too much here lately. I think, for the most part, they're happy at the moment. But from time to time, you know, re-evaluating returning to an independent special purpose district is still out there, and from a governance standpoint, that might be a good thing some day when -- and as long as the foundation remains a partner as they are now. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. So you think it might be something to consider sometime in the future? MR. DORRILL: Could be, yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. All right. Thank you. That's it for the Board of County Commissioners. Thank you very much for Page 109 June 28, 2012 being here. MR. DORRILL: Thank you. Enjoy your summer. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. MR. OCHS: Thanks, Neil. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Thank you. MR. OCHS: It's good seeing you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: But we're going to talk to the rest of them, right? CHAIRMAN COYLE: No. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Then I -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Where do we go now? MR. OCHS: Commissioner, in your management offices, let's start, if you don't mind, with Mr. Wert, and we'll just work our way down the table. Jack. MR. WERT: Thank you, Mr. County Manager. For the record, Jack Wert, your tourism department director. And, overall, we've seen some very nice increases. People are starting to travel again, and the direct benefit of that is more spending in the community. That has definitely gone up, and it's in all kind of businesses. We're seeing a lot more activity. We are projecting about a 10 percent increase overall this year, the end of this fiscal year, and a like increase next year in the tourist tax. And you can see from the budget that we have submitted that we have put the majority of those dollars -- certainly leaving some in reserve for any kind of emergency situation, but as much of that into the marketing effort as we possibly can, and we're looking forward to finding some unique ways to invest those dollars this year and some new and different ways to promote the destination. I've gotten some really good input from our hotel and attraction community, and we're looking forward to implementing those as part of the plan we'll bring forward to you. Page 110 June 28, 2012 We're continuing to work with seven full-time employees. We do have a small amount of money in the budget there to bring on a job bank person to help us in contract compliance, which has become a big part of what we do in terms of administrating our portion of the tourist development tax and the grants and so forth. We feel that that would be a big help to us to free up some time for some of our staff to do the things that will help sell the destination. Thank you. I'll take questions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Questions of Mr. Wert? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. You've got two lights on. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I actually want to ask -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Wait a minute. We need to get -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- one of the others. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I got a question of Mr. Wert, if I may. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Go ahead. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Jack, if you would, please, the -- do you have reserves built up for advertising? MR. WERT: Commissioner Coletta, yes, we do. We have an emergency advertising fund that we keep funded at a million dollars so that we can invest those dollars. In past years we've used it after hurricanes in the awful 2000 -- 2005/'4 time period. We used it during the emergency situation that we had with the economy, and also during the oil spill. So those dollars -- and we replenish those every year with the reserves that we accumulate in our operating fund. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay. And I'm sorry. Let me phrase the question a little differently, too, if I may. MR. WERT: Sure. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And that's right, you do have emergency funds ready to go when the time is. Your general advertising fund that you do, the one you've got -- one for the summertime. Page 111 June 28, 2012 MR. WERT: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And I believe now we have one that we do in the wintertime to try to bring people in. MR. WERT: That's right. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: My concern is the fact that this industry is also driven not just by advertising but by demand. And you have some wild swings in your -- from one year to another on tourism, and usually it's the down years is when the industry comes to us and they say, we need more money for advertising. So is there a reserve for that particular account? In other words, when the times are going good and you have got reasonably full room rate -- rooms are booked up ahead, that money probably will be best not spent trying to advertise heavy but to put to reserves for that time when it becomes a little bit slow -- to try to even out the curve. Is that what your thoughts are, too? MR. WERT: And, yes, Commissioner, and we certainly do that. And one of the reasons that our carryforward this year is as large as it is, is we had a good year last year. We didn't invest those -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Good for you. MR. WERT: -- although asked to use a little bit of those dollars for additional marketing. But as much of those extra dollars get invested in things like more research so we can come back and tell you how well those dollars that we invested returned. We're spending more dollars on the public relations side, because that really is important and, frankly, was the reason we were able to get through that oil spill time, because we invested more dollars in public relations. So it is -- when we get extra dollars, we invest it in -- yes, in advertising and public relations. We also use it for those other services as well. So it's a well-rounded program. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: How about BP dollars; did you get any? Page 112 June 28, 2012 MR. WERT: We got no dollars from BP. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Have we got a claim in? MR. WERT: We have a claim in. And you may recall a month or so ago we actually asked permission to use a law firm to help us perhaps get those. It's not a lot of money, but if we get $400,000 back from BP, we would certainly put all of that back and reinvest it in -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And if I recall correctly, this is one of these types of deals where they only collect if we collect? MR. WERT: Correct. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Hiller, you have a question of Mr. Wert? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. I just want to comment on two things. The first is the critical need for the advertising and promotion of the tourism industry is driven by the fact that it is the number one industry in Collier County. It's the number one economic driver. I think -- if I'm not mistaken, it generates about a billion dollars a year -- MR. WERT: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- in new dollars, and it's the biggest employer. Now, one thing that I found out this year as a result of a lot of research done in cooperation with Mr. Wert is that, on average, the rooms are only occupied at 60 percent per year, which means year after year 40 percent of the investment in infrastructure that we have made in the tourism industry -- and that is a sunk cost -- is basically not generating a return. And so we must do everything possible to bring up that occupancy rate to justify the investment. And, clearly, one way to increase demand is to increase marketing and promotion. Now, what's not stated in this budget is that the budget is actually much bigger than what's on paper, because what the county does is it co-ops with the industry. And so instead of, you know, one hotel Page 113 June 28, 2012 going out and buying 10 spots and paying that cost, the county will join forces and they will share the cost and so, you know, we can actually double the budget with half the money, which is very, very important. Even doing that, we're not there. We are not there. We are not getting the return on the economic investment. So it is very important to focus on that industry because we're -- what we're talking -- really, if I can summarize it, what we're talking about with what you're doing is economic development. MR. WERT: Yes, ma'am, absolutely. And if I might, Mr. Chair, just a quick answer. That occupancy is starting to come up, and that, of course, was coming out of 2010 when we really were down and on top of the economic crisis. We brought it up about six points last year, and it looks like, at this juncture, six to eight points this year. So I think we're going to be over 70 percent in occupancy as an average for the year. COMMISSIONER HILLER: That's incredibly high, because year over year for the past 10 years, it has been, on average, at around 60. We have not -- we have not had much higher. MR. WERT: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: So I'd like to see that. We need to look at those numbers. MR. WERT: Right. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Do you know what impact that's having on employment? MR. WERT: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: How many people have the hotels hired back? MR. WERT: A good number of the people they had to lay off during real bad economic crisis have come back. We've been tracking those employment numbers every single month. And since January we've been up over the year before every month in the number of Page 114 June 28, 2012 hospitality and tourism jobs. COMMISSIONER HILLER: That is fantastic. If you could get me those numbers, I would be really interested in seeing those. Congratulations. That's wonderful. MR. WERT: It's all about jobs. It truly is. COMMISSIONER HILLER: That's fantastic. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. If we get into the medical tourism field, will you have a fund in there to whatever you need to do to spur that part of the tourism on? MR. WERT: Yes, ma'am. In next year's budget, we will have a special program to promote medical and educational tourism related to medical, because there's a lot of that going on as well. The medical procedure that the -- that kind of marketing that the hospitals are already doing with their centers of excellence, we want to help them grow that, and also the companies that are bringing physicians and scientists and so forth into the community for training and so forth and the ongoing training that physicians need, we want to support that as well. We have a lot of hotel partners that are, obviously, interested in helping that endeavor. So we do have a committee in place right now that includes all of the people I just mentioned. And so that will be definitely a tactic within our plan next year. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Can I comment on that? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Uh-huh. COMMISSIONER HILLER: You know, it's interesting, because medical tourism is not a growth industry in the country. In fact -- MR. WERT: True. COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- it's very much the opposite. Medical tourism is a growth industry abroad. And in a lot of institutions, all the notable ones, like the major university hospitals, are establishing facilities in foreign countries, the reason being, the Page 115 June 28, 2012 cost of medical care here is very, very high. So people don't come from, you know, Europe to Naples to have their kneecaps replaced, you know. Actually, like Sloan-Kettering will set up a -- that's a bad example. But some other hospital sets up a facility in Italy and, you know, they have it done over there. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's where they break kneecaps. COMMISSIONER HILLER: You're right. Well, that's probably why they have a demand. But -- so the point being is, you know, to the extent that, you know, there is any medical tourism here, you know, it should be encouraged, but by no means will it be a major economic driver, and I don't think it's going to bring in, you know, the level of business that will make a material impact on tourism here as we know it, and I think we have to be very cautious about that. And I'm happy to give you the report. I think the report was written by Deloitte Touche, and it's a few years old. It might be, like, I don't know, 2008/2009. But if I can get my hands on it again, I will go ahead and give it to you. MR. WERT: Thank you. COMMISSIONER HILLER: But it's a very important report. MR. WERT: I appreciate that. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Any other questions of Mr. Wert? (No response.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MR. OCHS: We'll go to Mr. Summers and his team, Commissioners. MR. SUMMERS: Good afternoon, Commissioners. Dan Summers, director of the Bureau of Emergency Services and Emergency Management. And as you know within the bureau we have several divisions. First of all, Collier County EMS, here with Chief Kopka representing Ochopee Fire; and Isles of Capri, Fire Chief McLaughlin. And I would Page 116 June 28, 2012 be remiss if I didn't tell you how fortunate I am to have the great budget team with the ladies in our organization: Artie Bay, Christine Chase Boni and, of course, Linda Swisher and Barbara Shea. So with that group, we worked very hard, followed the County Manager's budget guidance, and have met those requirements. I do think it's important to tell you that I'm very proud of this group in terms -- I think we're kind of the silent heros of Collier County. We're providing response to almost 38,000 calls for service a year of one level or another. I also take credit for the not issuing any hurricane permits this year, but at any rate -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you, thank you. MR. SUMMERS: I just couldn't resist that opportunity. But, Commissioners, we have been working very hard. We -- our level of service will continue. We are sustaining those levels of service, much like you have heard from the other divisions and departments earlier today. I think our -- everything that we've presented to you in the budget package is very straightforward; it has been very routine from one year to the next. The discussion on capital items for us are, indeed, very small, those things such as routine fire hose replacement; you've already discussed the ambulance needs that we have today, and we're very fortunate, and we thank you for that. That's very important for that reliability in equipment capability. So we continue to march on, we continue to do well, and we continue to find all avenues for efficiency and improvement in patient care, and we're very proud of the service that we deliver. And I'll stop there and see if you have any questions of our team. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Any of the commissioners who are registered here want to -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: We're registered. Page 117 June 28, 2012 CHAIRMAN COYLE: That was a dumb question, wasn't it? Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. I want to thank you for all you do, and you do do a great deal, a very important function of the county. We have EMS; we have Collier County Fire Control -- I think many people in the county don't know that we actually have our own fire department recognized by the state -- we have Isle of Capri Fire and Rescue, and we have Ochopee Fire Control, and then we have the Goodland Fire District. So my question is, since this is under our jurisdiction, unlike the independent fire districts, have you looked into consolidation of all these different MSTUs and these different fire departments to see if there would be any financial savings that could be achieved? Because with respect to consolidation, the Board of County Commissioners does have jurisdiction over the one, two, three, four fire districts that I just named. And so my question to you is, you know, have you -- and if you're not prepared to answer, you know, with numbers, I don't mind if you just want to bring that back. MR. SUMMERS: Well, let me give you a 5,000-foot level, and I think the manager needs to chime in on kind of the high-level care. One of the advantages that you have with the Bureau of Emergency Services is that I do serve as a focal point for those districts. So while they do have their own independent funding sources, every day I'm cognizant of finding efficiencies between fire and EMS and that district delivery. We, essentially, do that every day to the extent that the funding streams are dedicated to certain organizations. So, managerially, I manage in a consolidated fashion. Your budgetary components are different revenue sources, so I have to be very careful in that funds allocated for one area stay in that Page 118 June 28, 2012 area. But if I can find efficiencies in procurement or operations that are within that, I, obviously, do that. That's what the bureau was essentially -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: And that's a question of-- that's functional consolidation. MR. SUMMERS: That is functional, and that is a -- that's in our DNA. From the financial standpoint outside that governance or the policy of the Board, I would defer to the manager to comment on that. But you can rest assured that as those agencies are funded and report to me as bureau director, that is -- that's a constant source of review and effort by me to make sure that what we're doing can be efficient, and any economies of scale, albeit individual districts, we take advantage of that. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Well, I think one of the big discussions with the independent districts wasn't so much functional consolidation, because functional consolidation is occurring among the independent districts as well. The issue, I believe, was personnel and to the extent that there is, you know, a duplication of services because you have, you know, so many chiefs or so many deputy chiefs, or as the case may be -- MR. SUMMERS: Right. COMMISSIONER HILLER: So my question is, is if you had consolidation of your fire districts, would there be any savings? And what I'd really like, to be quite frank with you, is that you don't answer me right now and that I'd like you to take it back and look at the financial statements for, you know, each of the districts and look at your staffing and let us know, you know, if any -- if there would be any way to save any money if there was consolidation. And maybe there isn't. The answer may very well be, you know, you come back and say, no, there isn't and, you know, we are, you know, optimally structured this way or that way and it's indifferent financially. Page 119 June 28, 2012 And, of course, what I will say is whenever an analysis like that is done, that there is no compromise on level of service, because that has to be preserved. So it's not like you come back and say, you know, we're saving a hundred thousand but, you know, 200 lives will be lost. That's not an option. So -- but it is a question that I have, and I would appreciate an answer; not now, though. MR. SUMMERS: I understand. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Let me just make sure. Oh, yeah. The one other question I have -- and this is for you. I want to make sure that we are adequately funded for -- in the event of a major hurricane. We had a contract with AshBritt. And it was my understanding that AshBritt, in the event of some, you know, major event, would come in and do all the hurricane cleanup like they did in the past. I don't know where we stand with that contract, if that contract is in effect. And it's usually a very expensive contract and a complicated contract, so I want to make sure that is not being overlooked in this next year's budget. MR. SUMMERS: Ma'am, let me tell you that our public utilities division and solid waste group has the leadership role in that contract. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. MR. SUMMERS: However, I provide some of the technical support as it relates to the environment between local operations and state and FEMA reimbursements. That contract is in good shape, thoroughly reviewed, vetted, and actually those actions are also reviewed and sent to state and FEMA for approval. So I think our house is very much in order as it relates to debris removal. As was mentioned earlier today, the federal environment with reimbursements is not -- it's just simply tough. FEMA has -- we've seen a different operating posture in working with them. That is one of the main jobs that I have is to stay in touch and make sure that any changes in rules and interpretation, that we're prepared for with that, Page 120 June 28, 2012 and in light of any of the other FEMA budget consequences, I think we're in very good stead for the upcoming season for not only a catastrophic emergency event, but I'll call it the -- if there is such a thing as the garden-variety hurricane as well as making sure that we were well postured, just like we were on Saturday and Sunday for that short outbreak of severe weather. So I would tell you that, frankly, I think we're in very -- we are very well postured to respond appropriately. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I appreciate that, and thank you for letting us know that. Why is it coming out of utilities? I mean, to me it doesn't -- what's the connection there, Leo, between utilities and what, to me, sounds like an emergency management service? MR. OCHS: Well, Commissioner, all that debris is picked up and then taken to the landfill, and they have to manage the debris that's brought through there. So they usually manage the AshBritt contracts or similar contracts for the debris mission. Then working on the financial end of that contract with the clerk, with the budget office, with Dan and his staff to make sure that we get all of the administrative documents that we need to submit to FEMA so we can maximize our reimbursement. It's worked very well for us, ma'am -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. MR. OCHS: -- and as Dan said, those contracts are in place, and all of the off-site debris staging areas, we have all those agreements in place with the property holders and the leases in place. So, God forbid, if we do have an event, I think we're well prepared. COMMISSIONER HILLER: We're prepared? MR. OCHS: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And funded. Thank you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I have just a question. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Fiala? Page 121 June 28, 2012 COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. Do you know if they've identified sites to haul debris to? MR. OCHS: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Have they? MR. OCHS: Yes. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Is it -- we've had before Manatee Road, but a lot of people got sick then because they lived so close, and they were all elderly. You're not going to use Manatee Road again, are you? MR. OCHS: I will check on that, ma'am. I don't know if they have one in the inventory still or not. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Please. Okay, thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Who is next? (No response.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you very much. MR. OCHS: Commissioners -- MR. SUMMERS: Thank you, all. MR. OCHS: -- if I could -- and, Commissioner, I'm very happy to do that analysis. I just want the rest of the Board to understand that that may create some sensitivities between your Isle of Capri and your Ochopee advisory Boards, and they have, obviously, great tradition and history. So when we begin that analysis, you may hear some pushback from those advisory Boards, and I just -- I want them to understand what we're doing and why. COMMISSIONER HILLER: It's strictly informational, and no one is suggesting or proposing anything because, you know, at the end of the day it may turn out that when you do that analysis, it may show that consolidating doesn't achieve any savings. But until we see an actual financial analysis, there's really nothing to talk about. MR. OCHS: Right. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And even if we have an analysis, Page 122 June 28, 2012 there still may be nothing to talk about. So I don't think anyone should worry. And there's -- you know, there's no suggestion that anything is going to happen. It's strictly informational. MR. OCHS: Very good. COMMISSIONER HILLER: But, you know, you can't make decisions without the correct numbers. Thank you. MR. OCHS: Thank you. Good. Mr. Sheffield, communications and public relations. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh. We weren't going to talk to the fire department? MR. OCHS: I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, no. That's all right. I didn't realize, but I do want to -- MR. OCHS: Oh, sure. We'll take more questions. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'm sorry to interrupt, Mike. MR. SHEFFIELD: No. COMMISSIONER FIALA: But I wanted to talk to Ochopee fire, especially, because one of the things they've been wanting to do, of course, is to finish off their fire station. And as I've mentioned previously, right now they have to rent rooms in a motel because they don't have a place for their people to stay, and that's, of course, a drain on them as well. And we have PILT funds, payment in lieu of tax funds that come in every year. And I've got a letter here that talks about them a little bit. One of the things, Ochopee fire department helped purchase the Port of the Islands Marina with the promise of a fire station being located there, and renovation plans have been made, but approximately $425,000 is needed in order to finish them, you know, to get bedrooms in there and actually living quarters or whatever they Page 123 June 28, 2012 need. We get these PILT funds every year. I guess we just -- we get them for five years, and they're mainly because federal lands don't pay any taxes, so the federal government then gives us money because we have 500,000 acres of land that pays no taxes, so they give us some money every year. And I just wanted to say, they only -- of the five years that we've paid so far -- or, no, six years, if you took that and you took 6.5 percent of the PILT monies that was supposed to be, by the way, dedicated to this area, especially because Ochopee fire protects 455,000 acres of the 500,000 acres. So that's a lot to do with people that don't even have a fire station, living in a motel. And I was just wondering if this year, now that we're -- now that we're not so desperate to get any money that we can, could we use part of these PILT funds to finish off the fire station? I know we've been wanting to do this for a while, but our economy's been so bad we just couldn't, and maybe this is the right time. MR. OCHS: Well, Commissioners, it's, frankly, a little bit of a zero-sum game. Those PILT funds are part of your general revenues that support your general fund. So if we move all or a portion of those out of the General Fund to build this project, we either have to go to reserves or find some other way to replenish the monies that we would move out of your General Fund. The impact fees from the fire district are the primary source to build new capital improvements. Obviously, with the downturn in the economy over the last several years, we're not seeing impact-fee revenues coming in. You know, it is unfortunate that we haven't been able to complete the station; on the other hand, the mission is being accomplished, and the operation is still out there at the Port of the Isles. There -- as Commissioner Fiala said, unfortunately, operating out Page 124 June 28, 2012 of a different quarters than the station, but they're still there, they're on scene, they're able to respond in that area. We are hopeful over time that we can either begin to pick up some impact fees out of Port of the Isles and other areas in that district or perhaps, as a result of this larger study that Commissioner Hiller suggested just previously, we can look at a larger district, and maybe there's some way to pick up some additional dollars to support the completion of the station with a larger district than simply relying on the funding that's available through the current Ochopee Fire Control District. COMMISSIONER FIALA: One of the things that is difficult for them in particular is so much of their land is just vacant, and it's in preservation, but they don't have any taxpayers on that to gather any more money. That makes it very difficult for them, yet they must protect all that land. They have nearly half the county that they have to protect, but they only have a few smatterings of houses there in order to do that. And being that they helped us buy the marina, I think we should be, you know, starting to find -- I know we couldn't do it before, but I think we need to start finding the money to finish that now. And I don't know how much we get in PILT, but I think it might be a good idea to take a portion of it and start getting that work done. MR. OCHS: Well, we could work on it, along with the David Lawrence issue, over the next several weeks and see if we can come back with some ideas for the commission before you finalize your budgets, if that's the will of the Board. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning, do you want to weigh in on that? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah, I do. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Well, did you want to ask a question of these people? We've been going back and forth all the time. Who do you want to talk to? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I wanted to -- go ahead. Page 125 June 28, 2012 Commissioner Henning, go. Just that I've been waiting in line here. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Well, okay. But we're dealing with a specific issue here. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Exactly. CHAIRMAN COYLE: All right. Do you want to talk about that issue? COMMISSIONER HENNING: I do. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. COMMISSIONER HENNING: The -- if that's the guidance, I think we need -- in the past when we have done this, Leo has taken it out of the reserves, okay. Again, that's our start-up funds. So is it the guidance to get creative, or is it the guidance to also look at reserves? Because if it is, I think we ought to be specific on that. What is your thoughts, Commissioner Fiala? Do you want them to get creative on finding monies and don't touch reserves? COMMISSIONER FIALA: No. I didn't even want them to take anything out of reserves. I wanted them to take it out of PILT and put it in there. They're just getting their PILT payment right now. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right, but that's -- like the County Manager mentioned, that is the overall -- that's a part of the overall general budget, so it's already expended, okay. So, personally, I don't want to go into reserves, do like we have in the past where we have to have midterm cuts. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, right. We don't want to do that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So I guess the guidance -- and I guess I would support that -- is, you know, get creative. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. I think we would have to -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: And there could be grants out there. You could mention -- come back and say, you know what, we'll look at grants. Page 126 June 28, 2012 CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah, a question that may lead to a little bit of discovery as far as this budget goes, or even next year's budget. The emergency-response center that we've been working on for some time, where is that in the works? When is that supposed to happen? MR. SUMMERS: You're referring to the interstate facility, correct? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. MR. SUMMERS: Okay, the 63 mile marker. Sir, let me -- I'll give you a brief snapshot on that effort. We are seeing movement by FDOT. They are the project lead. As you know, they are adding a fire station as part of the rebuilding, essentially, the 63 mile marker fire station. We have been in active discussion with the FDOT officials who are putting out the construction bid at risk. I believe that will go to bid late July, early August, and they hope to build the fire station and the rest area simultaneously. So that's looking real good. And we're excited about that. As you know, that 63 area, all of that interstate from trauma life support is a paramount issue of mine as well as the team. We are still in negotiations for the operational funding and for the equipment funding from them. We have prepared a draft interlocal agreement for their consideration, and it's -- let's just say it's in the system in Tallahassee so we have not heard back. But the construction is moving forward. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Good. MR. SUMMERS: And, again, that is very -- you know, that will have a very specific mission scope for that interstate pre-hospital-care fire rescue service. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: One of the problems we've got is that the Ochopee Fire District is at their maximum millage. Was it Page 127 June 28, 2012 four mills? MR. SUMMERS: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And it's quite a burden on the taxpayers in that area. I mean, and they barely get enough for the service they need. It's a -- it's a very difficult process. But now here we go. If we get -- when this gets open -- and it will. Everything's -- we've had tremendous support on this. It's just taken a little bit longer than we thought. MR. SUMMERS: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: When that thing becomes open, the idea for this thing is not only for a better response time out on the Alley; it's to be able to relieve the fire department of having to have the few trucks that they have come all the way from Everglades City and drive all the way out to the Alley to be able to service it and lose a good part of the day. A tremendous distance that they have to travel. When we get to that point that this all kicks in and we're looking for the money to be -- to take care -- to take care of this to be coming from tolls, that will free up some of the money that we have that we'd probably be able to do this fire station. MR. SUMMERS: Sir -- and I'm going to have to give you a two-handed answer on that one. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Give me the right-handed one first. MR. SUMMERS: Well, I am, but let me share both with you. Number one is that the budget that we have proposed for that essential relief, if you will, from the Ochopee station, we don't have -- the ink is not dried on that. So we are still -- we have presented an updated proposal just as the proposal that you saw when you sent this to the legislative delegation. We just brought it to current dollars. As you know, that was about three years ago, actually, before we got that out front. So that dollar request is up there, and so when we get an Page 128 June 28, 2012 interlocal agreement from FDOT that will, obviously, come to you, we'll know what that budget relief is at that point. The other part of that is that the services at Ochopee are there every day. What is very penalizing to Ochopee, obviously, the response time, the length of the response time, the fuel, the turnaround time. So it will take a little while before we can see what those cost savings are. And trust me when I tell you that I'm working very hard in that program to find any relief or spare dollars for Ochopee that we possibly can. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I understand, I understand. MR. SUMMERS: So let me just say I'm with you, but I'm a little guarded until the ink dries from our commitment with FDOT and our partners. And we don't have that operational funding level agreement from them yet. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: But we're on -- we're on the way to doing it? MR. SUMMERS: It's up there and -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. Meanwhile, we have -- we do have a fire station at Port of the Isles. MR. SUMMERS: Yes, sir, we do. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Tremendous thing. It's helped those people greatly, the fact that the response time is just about instantaneous. MR. SUMMERS: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: They don't have a long wait. That's the positive thing. The negative thing is is that they have to live within the hotel. MR. SUMMERS: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No, that is a negative, but is it a pressing negative where we want to try to redirect funds from something else at this time? That's the question. And I guess the real question is, is can we -- if this becomes a reality, this could be the Page 129 June 28, 2012 whole saving grace for the whole district as far as their maximum millage being four. Maybe it could be reduced in time, and most likely you'll be able to come up with the funds you need to be able to finish off the fire station. MR. SUMMERS: Right. Sir, we are providing those services, and these are difficult times. So I will tell you, while it's not ideal, we are providing the service and we are doing the job there. There is some discussion that a permanent station has some implications on insurance. We've not evaluated that. But that station is well rooted and firmly providing services. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You lost me there. We've got a -- we've got a fire truck there -- MR. SUMMERS: Right. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: -- on a regular basis. Doesn't that have some effect on the insurance rating? MR. SUMMERS: Oh, it does, it does. That's my point. I mean, we are providing the relief that those -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That was the whole rational reason for doing it. MR. SUMMERS: Absolutely. No, absolutely. No. I believe you missed me there. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to jump so quick. MR. SUMMERS: In other words, the hotel is -- and the apparatus and the equipment there are meeting the needs of that community. Obviously, they would like to have them in a permanent facility. And, again, I hope we get that at some point in the future, but I'll leave that up to you-all as to -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Sure. MR. SUMMERS: -- when that can occur. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Now, let's go back to the response at the station that we're going to be putting on the Alley. Page 130 June 28, 2012 MR. SUMMERS: Okay. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Is this something that's going along well enough, or is this something we should be bringing up to our legislative delegation when we meet with them again? MR. SUMMERS: I would ask you to please keep this on the radar of the legislative delegation. We have acted on time and in good faith with this project, and I'm a little worried that we haven't had timely responses from Tallahassee because if that station -- if they stay on schedule with the station construction -- and we have less than 90 days slip right now to begin ordering apparatus and equipment. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: We've got another little problem with this whole thing that wasn't there before. We no longer have Senator Bennett and we no longer have Haridopolos. We've still got Garrett Richter, but we're -- I don't know how many ways we can work this, but we can certainly give it a try. MR. SUMMERS: And, again, that legislation, I think, is very clear. It does -- however, it does mention, I believe, the word "toll surplus" or "surplus revenue." So, again, that may be part of the subject of debate in Tallahassee. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: But it may need to be worked. MR. SUMMERS: But the issue I would -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Keep it up front. MR. SUMMERS: -- encourage you to keep it on the radar. And staffs met all the commitments in this program plan. And right now we're postured waiting on replies from Tallahassee. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Who's next? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Can I speak to this issue, too, before we move on? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Go ahead. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. You know, I was -- I knew that Ochopee covered land that was not developed, but I did not Page 131 June 28, 2012 realize how much. And to me it is very clearly an unfair burden to charge the residents of Ochopee 3.75 mills to basically have fire service that is intended to benefit 450,000 undeveloped acres, or is that not the explanation? MR. OCHS: That's not entirely accurate. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. MR. OCHS: I think there's some state and federal firefighting resources that covers that area on a primary response basis. Maybe the chief wants to -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. Chief, can you -- CHIEF McLAUGHLIN: Yeah. For the record, Alan McLaughlin, Ochopee/Capri fire chief. Yes, Commissioner. We have a cooperative agreement with the Big Cypress Wildfire; however, Ochopee fully is responsible for all federal buildings on federal property. They do no structural protection. So for all the years that every property's been built or bought on the Big Cypress that's federally owned, we protect with no income from them other than -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Why is that? CHIEF McLAUGHLIN: Well, that's what they -- if you were to talk to them, they would say that's what the PILT's for. COMMISSIONER HILLER: That's what what? CHIEF McLAUGHLIN: PILT's for. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Oh, I see. CHIEF McLAUGHLIN: That would be their response. COMMISSIONER HILLER: So this goes back to supporting Commissioner Fiala's argument that those funds -- CHIEF McLAUGHLIN: Well, I'm just telling you the response. I can only say -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: So how much of the PILT funds are you getting? CHIEF McLAUGHLIN: I'd have to defer that to -- Page 132 June 28, 2012 MR. ISACKSON: Ma'am, we get one point -- the project number for year ending '12 is $1.2 million. The budget number for '13 is $700,000. I think we're moving $435,000 to Ochopee simply to offset their operations. This has nothing to do with the capital side of the house. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. So we have two issues. One is the capital side, and the other is the operation side. So the PILT money is being used only for the operations and not for the capital? What is the -- what -- MR. OCHS: Correct. COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- is the rest of the PILT money being used for again? MR. OCHS: It's part of your mix of general revenues that supports your countywide General Fund. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Well, what I'm hearing chief say is those funds are intended to offset their cost to support and protect -- or to protect those federal buildings. MR. OCHS: No. I think what you heard the chief say is that that's what the Big Cypress firefighting service is saying. What federal law says is that those PILT funds are general revenue to the county government. They are not earmarked for any specific purpose or area. CHIEF McLAUGHLIN: Correct. COMMISSIONER HILLER: But those federal funds are coming to us to offset the cost the service we're providing, in effect. MR. OCHS: Well -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: What are we using those PILT funds for? Where are you allocating them in the budget? MR. ISACKSON: They come in as general revenue to the General Fund, ma'am. Now, if you want to get into does the sheriff provide service out there? Are there other services that are provided out there other than fire protection, you could probably make an Page 133 June 28, 2012 argument that there are other services that are being provided out there also. That's why it's a general revenue source. COMMISSIONER HILLER: What do you think your fair share of those PILT funds ought to be? CHIEF McLAUGHLIN: Ma'am, I couldn't answer that at this time. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Could you look into that and come back to us with an answer? CHIEF McLAUGHLIN: I could get back with Mr. Isackson. We could do that. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I would like to know, I mean, if you're getting your fair share based on the service you're providing. And you're right, there are multiple people who -- you know, multiple service providers out there. I had one other question unrelated to this. Are we going to switch from this subject? Go ahead. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Just one question then, leading from what you said. How much does it cost to pay for the hotel every year or every week or -- CHIEF McLAUGHLIN: We're paying $16,000 a year in rent, roughly. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Sixteen thousand a year. CHIEF McLAUGHLIN: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Just out of curiosity, what would a mortgage on a $400,000 house be? At today's rate. MR. ISACKSON: I don't have tables with me. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. Just go call your banker. I'm not saying we borrow the money. I'm just making a point. Can I move to another topic for these gentlemen? CHAIRMAN COYLE: No, we're going to take a break. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I can make it quick. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Can you do it in less than three minutes? Page 134 June 28, 2012 COMMISSIONER HILLER: I can. We've had problems, Chief Kopka, with collections on transport revenues, on the transport side. Where are we with uncollectible transport revenues? Are we seeing an improvement in the collections? I know we had disputes with two hospitals that claimed that, you know, they were, you know, improperly charged, that they didn't owe us, and I believe there were millions at issue there. Or I could be wrong; maybe it wasn't millions. Maybe it was one million. I'm not sure; my memory isn't quite accurate on that point. So where are we? Because, I mean, part of your budget is funded by us. Part of it is revenue driven. If your collections are a problem then, obviously, that's eroding your revenues, which is, in turn, eroding your budget. What are you doing about it, you know? What's the allowance for doubtful accounts, you know? What are your uncollectible writeoffs? Where are we on that? CHIEF KOPKA: For the record, Chief Kopka with EMS. Thank you for the question, Commissioner Hiller. Our collections are exactly where they're supposed to be. The billing company gives us an estimate of what they think we'll collect in the next year and, actually, we're a little bit above that this year, and that same amount is predicted for us for next year. So our billing is exactly where it's supposed to be. COMMISSIONER HILLER: What's your annual bad debt expense? CHIEF KOPKA: Nine point eight million is what's projected billing. COMMISSIONER HILLER: To write off? CHIEF KOPKA: Collections. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Or collect -- that's your total revenues? CHIEF KOPKA: That's revenues from billing, correct. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And what are you writing off with Page 135 June 28, 2012 what's uncollectible? CHIEF KOPKA: We don't know that yet for this year because there's such a lag in payments, how long it takes to bill insurance companies and Medicare/Medicaid; I couldn't tell you. We're about two or three years behind before we clear off those writeoffs. COMMISSIONER HILLER: So what's your allowance set at now; what percentage? MR. ISACKSON: Ma'am, we can get those numbers to you. COMMISSIONER HILLER: That's fine. No problem. You don't need to give it to me right now. But I just want to, you know, review where you are with that allowance and with the historical writeoffs and with all the disputes and make sure that that allowance is adequate, and hopefully it's improving. CHIEF KOPKA: I think it's important to remember that what we bill is not paid by insurance companies or Medicare and Medicaid -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Right. CHIEF KOPKA: -- and that's all considered a writeoff. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Well -- but part of-- part of your billing is Medicare and Medicaid and part of it is an overage which is, you know, an extra markup, if you will, that you tack on top of it. I mean, you're -- what you charge is just not Medicare/Medicaid. CHIEF KOPKA: Correct. I don't want to say it's an overage, but it's a fee for the ambulance transport -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Right. No, I understand. CHIEF KOPKA: -- a fee for mileage. COMMISSIONER HILLER: What I'm saying is the -- when you charge that total fee, it's actually more than what the Medicare/Medicaid allocation would be. CHIEF KOPKA: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: So if there isn't the collection, you know, whether it be on the government's side or the private side, it has to be accounted for. Page 136 June 28, 2012 MR. SUMMERS: Yes, ma'am. And that's referred to as taking assignment, and that is all computed as part of that, if that's referring -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Right. MR. SUMMERS: If that's your reference, yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I'd like to see where we are on that, because I know we had problems. MR. OCHS: Yes, ma'am. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. We're going to take a 10-minute break. Be back at 2:41. MR. SUMMERS: You done with us? CHAIRMAN COYLE: I'm not sure I'm done with Mike. Mike hasn't had the opportunity yet. The rest of you can leave if you'd like. (A brief recess was had.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: Ladies and gentlemen, the workshop is back in session. And we have Mike Sheffield. MR. OCHS: The chief stands alone, sir. MR. SHEFFIELD: I have all this room to spread out. CHAIRMAN COYLE: They ran out on you, didn't they? MR. SHEFFIELD: Welcome to the Mike Sheffield show. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Wait a minute, wait a minute. Commissioner Coyle, how many minutes do we have to grill him? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Two, two. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Two, that's it? CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's it. COMMISSIONER HILLER: That's not fair. I was hoping for at least 15. Just kidding. MR. SHEFFIELD: Commissioner, Mike Sheffield. As you know, for the past four months I've had the great honor to serve as your interim director of communication and customer relations department. I am very fortunate; I have a great team. And I'm very happy and proud to say that we have met budget guidance. We have reduced our Page 137 June 28, 2012 operating budget by 5 percent without reducing any services or adding any additional employees. And I just thought I'd take a minute to tell you a little bit about some of our goals for 2013 and some highlights. My staff and I have placed a great focus on improving public knowledge of county government. In recent months, we have produced several high-definition videos that are placed on YouTube. Such videos cover such topics as veteran services, how to get ebooks, recycling, sea turtles, the sailing program at Sugden Park, and the Naples Depot. As you know, we provide 24 hours a day, 365 days a year television and website operations. Our immediate goals for FY13, we'd like to work closely with Nick's staff in growth management division to produce information that is easy to understand in such areas as permitting, plan review, business operations, and code enforcement. We've increased our use of Facebook and Twitter. In partnership with the Collier County Sheriffs Office, we've upgraded and enhanced our website. We're very proud of the success of the North Collier Government Services Center. Public usage has increased from 67,000 in 2007 to 138,000 last year. And one area we feel that we'd like to improve on, we'd like to do more to inform our residents of county services and programs. One initiative that we're excited about is the citizen's academy. And our initial thought is to hold two classes a year of about 30 residents, bring them here to the government center, get a bus, have tours of different county operations; the landfill, traffic operations, water plants. The list is endless. It's a great opportunity to truly educate our citizens. We're submitting some more news releases. Just since I've been interim, these are the news releases; and not just meeting notices, but good-news stories. We prepare, track, and monitor BCC-approved Page 138 June 28, 2012 state and federal legislative priorities, continue to coordinate AIMS issues -- AIMS is our Agency Issue Management System -- and, of course, public records requests. We develop, design, and produce print publications. And this is our annual report which for the first time next year will be electronic. Last time we're going to pay for the printing of this report. So at this point I'm very happy to respond to questions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Does anybody have any questions of Mike? Okay. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I'd like to just make a comment. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: You're doing a great job, Mike. You really are. MR. SHEFFIELD: Thanks. COMMISSIONER HILLER: You know, you were thrown into this unexpectedly, and you have just taken the bull by the horns. And you really have, I think, made improvements over your predecessor. The AIMS program works exceptionally well. We use it religiously to service the needs of the community. And the turnaround time is exceptional. The North Naples satellite is absolutely fantastic. We have a satellite office there. And that office was there before I was elected, but it was never used. We, literally, flick the switch and are available to, you know, meet with constituents along with the other constitutionals, and it is absolutely a model operation. So I commend you for what you're doing. MR. SHEFFIELD: Thank you. COMMISSIONER HILLER: You're really great. And, Leo, I'm sure you miss him, and deservedly so. MR. OCHS: Thank you, ma'am. I don't miss him that much, because I just put double duty on him; that's all. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Oh, is that all? We're just Page 139 June 28, 2012 stretching the dollar, right? Well, I'm glad to hear you're being so efficient with, you know, the FTE. MR. OCHS: Yes. He is doing a great job, and I appreciate the feedback. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. MR. OCHS: Thank you. MR. SHEFFIELD: Thank you. And I appreciate all your support. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you, Mike. MR. SHEFFIELD: Thank you. MR. OCHS: Commissioners, that takes you to your Board of County Commissioners agencies, and -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: How about county attorney? COUNTY ATTORNEY — PRESENTED MR. OCHS: Excuse me. County attorney is first. I'm sorry, Jeff. That budget is found under your Board of County Commissioners' tab beginning on Page 11. MR. KLATZKOW: Commissioners, we're bringing you forward with Board budget. We're within budget guidelines with a 6.1 percent reduction from last year's budget. We're achieving that through the reduction of two of my staff people. And if there are any questions, I'll be happy to answer them. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Any questions? Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Did you find a replacement for your litigator? MR. KLATZKOW: What I did with my litigator was, Jackie and I had discussed her retirement two years ago, and we had brought somebody in for that to take over that role, Steve Williams. And while she was here, he worked with her extensively, and now Steve's Page 140 June 28, 2012 doing that job. So, yes, we replaced her that day. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. Oh, that's great. So you actually didn't have to go out and hire someone. You -- MR. KLATZKOW: No. What I did was -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- trained someone from within. MR. KLATZKOW: No. What I did was, I -- actually, I've hired a new person, Emily. She's out of FSU, recent graduate. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Excellent choice of law schools. MR. KLATZKOW: I thought you might like that. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I really like that. Good job. MR. KLATZKOW: Yes. And we're training Emily to take over eminent domain. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Oh, great. MR. KLATZKOW: That will free -- hopefully free Heidi up. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And they have an absolutely fantastic land-use program -- MR. KLATZKOW: Which she took. COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- up at FSU. MR. KLATZKOW: Which she took. COMMISSIONER HILLER: In fact, Hallum used to teach there. CHAIRMAN COYLE: What is it an English language program? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Hey, you're a grad from FSU. Didn't you go there? MR. KLATZKOW: I also hear they have a clown school, but -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: And the campus is amazing. So, yeah, that's really great. So I'm glad to hear that. So you, essentially, didn't have to bring in a high-level litigator, so your budget, as a consequence, stayed -- MR. KLATZKOW: No, we're good that way. COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- within -- MR. KLATZKOW: I try to think -- I try to think within a three-to-five-year time frame -- Page 141 June 28, 2012 COMMISSIONER HILLER: Good. MR. KLATZKOW: -- and plan accordingly. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Super, thank you. BCC (COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AGENCIES, AIRPORT) — PRESENTED MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, that brings you to your two Community Redevelopment Agencies and your Airport Authority budget review. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Who's going to be first? Penny? MR. OCHS: Whoever gets to the table first. Don't all rush up at once. MR. JACKSON: We'll bum rush you. MR. OCHS: There you go. I think we'll begin with ladies first, Commissioners. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. You know we've got to leave here at 3:30. MS. PHILLIPPI: I think Christie has a 3 o'clock doctor appointment, actually. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MS. PHILLIPPI: 3:15, so we're good. We're good. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MS. PHILLIPPI: I'm Penny Phillippi. I'm executive director of the Community Redevelopment Agency in Immokalee, and I have with me our CRA project manager, Brad Muckel; our admin assistant, Christie Betancourt; and Immokalee Business Development Center Manager, Marie Capita. As you know, we're working on a much reduced budget than we've ever worked with before. And so what I've tried to do is put together all the different budgets that you probably can't see on your budget. What you can see is the CRA, probably the MSTU, probably Page 142 June 28, 2012 Fund 111, and -- but in truth, we're looking at a $6.9 million budget for the upcoming year. And if you like, we can run through that very quickly. In our TIF and CRA, we're looking at 726,000. That includes salaries. And I would say really quickly that two of those salaries are funded not in TIF, but they're included in that dollar amount. We're bringing forward 200 -- $2.2 million in our DRI stormwater fund, and we received an additional $2 million for the second phase of our stormwater project. We've just recently been told we have received $61,000 to move forward with our business development center; as you know, 810,000 for the First Street Plaza; $140,000 crosswalk project to put lighted crosswalks on First and Main. And in the MSTU, we're working with $754,000; 178- in Fund 111 toward maintenance of what's already there and the MSTU received an additional 61,000 toward our Main Street site line project, which brings our total to $6,931,500. And the good news is, out of these grants we're able to recapture some of our salaries. For example, with DRI stormwater, we're able to recapture, currently, $24,000 toward our project manager. And that's our goal, to continually put money back into the CRA out of the grants to cover our salaries. The -- to brag just a few minutes about our business development center, we just had the ribbon cutting for our computer lab. As you know, 10 brand new businesses were created in Immokalee this past year, and we've documented 14 permanent full-time positions, we're required to track those for two years. So it -- it doesn't mean we hired Marie and she's one of our new jobs created. That isn't what it means. We really have created those. Our operating -- our operating expenses for this upcoming year will be about 250,000, just over 250,000. And, again, our funding for our salaries, we have in the CRA three full-time permanent positions Page 143 June 28, 2012 that are funded by TIF, and we have a full-time Immokalee Business Development Center manager, a job bank admin assistant and our MSTU full-time employee is of course, funded through the MSTU. So in a nutshell, that's all of our programs, and that's our budget for the upcoming year. And I might bring one other point to light in that I looked at the TIF funds for the Immokalee CRA, from 1999 to 2012, and the total amount was $6.7 million. And so that's why I'm trying to point out here, that in the past two years this asset that's here in front of you has brought in $6.8 million, just in the past two years, to work on projects and keep this organization moving forward. I want to thank Mark Isackson and Ed Finn for helping us with our budget and making sure that we're covered annually. Thank Leo for the tremendous amount of cooperation we get with all the departments, whether it's transportation or the stormwater department and all the assistance that we get moving these big projects forward. In the upcoming year we fully intend to get the rest of the stormwater plan designed, shovel ready, and we have a funding source on tap who is willing to work with us to fund every single one of those projects. So there's every hope that in at least two years all of Immokalee will be addressed with stormwater, which it never has been, as you know. So that's our biggest project we're moving forward with with the Immokalee Business Development Center. We're trying really hard right now to put together an EDA grant and a few other grants to leverage with the USDA and build a permanent Immokalee Business Development Center incubator where we can actually house businesses and build a regional commercial kitchen, because we have quite a number of folks who are interested in starting up that sort of a business in Immokalee. Naturally, I mean, we're kind of the produce center of the southwest. So with that, I don't have anything else to add. If you have any Page 144 June 28, 2012 questions, I'll be happy to try to answer them. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Obviously, it's going to be a challenge with TIF funds in the future. That's going to be a real challenge. I'm not just really sure how the -- when the east is going to come back. I'm assuming the extra FTE in here is from the MSTU; is that assumption correct? MS. PHILLIPPI: Yes, that is correct. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. I just want to say Penny Phillippi and her staff has done a remarkable job in Immokalee. You brought that community together in a way that has never been done before. I mean, the improvements we're seeing are remarkable, with your improvements to the storefronts, down through Main Street, the drainage that's taking place, drainage element, the business element that you brought in. Talk a little bit about that. I don't think people realize the fact that we have a full-fledged classroom set up within your CRA office to be able to train people. MS. PHILLIPPI: Well, I think I'm going to let Marie Capita talk about that, because she has been the life force of the business development center, and talk about those classes that we're having and attendance that we've received. MS. CAPITA: We recently had the cutting -- ribbon cutting ceremony for the computer lab, which we had 10 computers donated by Suncoast Federal Credit Union. And these computers are available to businesses in the community who do not have access to computers. We now have a full training classroom, because before we used to have classes in the conference room. Now we have another class available where we have workshops continuously. Last weekend we had a canning workshop. We partnered with IFAS, and they did a Page 145 June 28, 2012 canning workshop for individuals who were interested in doing food production. And we have other issuing workshops that were partnered with different entities, such as banks and attorneys in the community, and they come and they help the businesses in Immokalee. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. Remarkable. Thank you very much. MS. PHILLIPPI: I think, too, we need to commend Brad Muckel on the stormwater projects. It was a huge project that covered the whole south side, $3.5 million project. We weren't sure that we could get done in time. We weren't sure that we could have enough money to get it done, but he's got all the pipes in the ground now, and the only thing left to do is finish dredging the seven-acre pond. So we're very close to completion. It's not even supposed to be done until December. So I do want to commend Brad, because he's really being a good construction manager on this and grants manager on this project. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thanks, Brad. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank all of you. Very well. David, your turn. MR. JACKSON: Good evening, Commissioners. David Jackson, executive director of the Bayshore/Gateway Triangle CRA. I'm here today with Jean Jourdan, the project manager for the CRA. Starting off, I would like to say thank you very much to Mark Isackson. He's been a great help, and I will pass to Mark, even though he's not here, Ed Finn, he's been a great help. I'm calling him now the Grim Reaper, Jr. I'll be very brief, because there's been much focus on the CRA budget for the last six months. It's been through a lot of machinations and there's been much discussion. So I'll just hit the high points here and leave it up to the Board for discussion because -- looking at time. Totally, even though budget guidance came down to a 5 percent Page 146 June 28, 2012 reduction, our total reduction in budget was 62.3, 62.3. Some of the high points of that number is that we've reduced two positions, project manager and executive director position, for a total of 49 percent reduction in personnel costs. We've also reduced discretionary spending and operations; we've reduced it 76.7 percent. We also reduced grants and aid; we reduced that 70 percent. So that gives a total roundup number of 62.3 percent. This budget was written with the FY14 budget in mind, so that's where the numbers come from and why the reduction in personnel and cost. Looking at a two-year budget, FY13 in front of you, and FY14, and we're banking and looking forward to that portion of it there. And we know that we have a bullet out there, and we'll work with the budget office with the banks to make that happen, and I'll stand by for any questions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Questions? Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yep. I'm looking at -- and you need to help me out -- Page 16 where I'm looking at your payroll, your personnel services. And what I'm seeing is is that you're budgeting $251,000 or, let's say just round it, 252,000 in personnel services to administer $128,000 in grants. You know, the balance of the budget is the debt service payment. So help me out on that. MR. JACKSON: Please turn to Page 15. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. MR. JACKSON: If you will note, those three people will be managing a $6,396,800 budget. There are three budgets. They are not administering $128,000 in grants. They're administering a $6,396,800 -- budgets. There's three budgets in that, that those three people are working on, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: So shouldn't there be an allocation of those personnel services among these other budgets? Because that's not reflected here, or is it just the -- MR. JACKSON: If you look on Page 17, from MSTU 163, Page 147 June 28, 2012 Bayshore Avalon beautification, there's $125,500. That comes to the CRA to pay for personnel services, office expenses, and overhead. COMMISSIONER HILLER: So how much is left? Basically, 125- is coming over. That's 251-. That leaves another 125- to administer 128-? MR. JACKSON: And then if you look on Page 15 -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Uh-huh. MR. JACKSON: -- there's a line item that shows Fund 163 -- 164 brings 11,300 over for the same services, personnel overhead cost. COMMISSIONER HILLER: How much is that? MR. JACKSON: Eleven, three. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Eleven -- MR. JACKSON: So, essentially, ma'am -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: How much is being brought over? Is that the transfer from Haldeman Creek? MR. JACKSON: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Okay. That's 11,300. That still leaves, you know, $110,000 to administer 128- in grants. Something doesn't seem to be right there. Well, look. I don't want to put you on the spot. Go ahead -- don't even bother answering. Just go ahead and, you know, come up with the reconciliation for me. And I'm sure once you run the numbers you'll be able to explain it to me, you know before the formal hearing. Yeah. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Any other questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you, David. Appreciate it. MR. JACKSON: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good job. MR. OCHS: Commissioners, that takes us to your Airport Authority. Page 148 June 28, 2012 COMMISSIONER HENNING: You have nine minutes to make your appointment. MS. BETANCOURT: I know. I'm going. MR. CURRY: Good afternoon. Chris Curry, executive director of the Airport Authority. Joining me is my financial manager, Ms. Debi Mueller, and Mr. Randy Greenwald, the rest of my staff is working. The Airport Authority has met the requirement of the county to reduce our reliance on the General Fund by 5 percent. The airport staff, throughout the airport system, is a lean 15.8 personnel to support our three county airports. The primary source of revenue for the airport are fuel sales, land leases, hangar and tie-down rentals. The Marco Island Executive Airport has maintained a consistent air-traffic flow of approximately 18,000 operations per year. The airport recently completed the taxiway project and we project increased traffic in the future. Our T-hangars are at 100 percent capacity, and we are exploring opportunities for public/private partnerships for the development of new T-hangar facilities, and we have just completed an appraisal on the property. We're always working -- exploring innovative advertising opportunities in the terminal area. Approximately 18 months ago we implemented a new landing fee program which garners approximately $22,000 per year which will be used to offset local funding for federal grants. Fuel sales at Marco Island airport decreased from last year due to runway closures associated with the construction of the taxiway as a major contribution factor; however, with the new taxiway, we're expecting more new operations which will contribute to more fuel sales and tie-down fees. Proposed capital improvement projects for Fiscal Year 2012 include the design for the primary runway to be followed by a total Page 149 June 28, 2012 reconstruction of the runway. Projected funding for these projects are generally 95 percent FAA funded, 2.5 Florida Department of Transportation, and 2.5 percent local match. The Immokalee Regional Airport. The airport will complete an expansive lighting project in the next two weeks. Over the past 18 months the airport has doubled our traffic count from 18,000 operations per year to 36,000 operations with the substantial amount of new traffic coming from flight schools. Our T hangars are approximately 90 percent occupied. We have two new businesses that will be coming online within the next two months or three months. Turbo Services, turbine jet testing facility, will be finished with construction within the next two weeks. The 20,000-foot manufacturing facility will soon be occupied within the next 90 days at a rental rate of$140,000 annually. As you're aware 33 percent was funded by the USDA, and 66 percent was funded by the county. Enterprise Rental Car revenue has increased from the previous year, and the airport is exploring innovative ways to advertise. We have implemented advertising with Seminole Casino and last year started an annual balloon event in partnership with the Seminole Casino in Immokalee that was attended by approximately 14,000 people over the weekend. In Fiscal Year 2011 the airport sold 25,300 gallons of ay. gas. By comparing Fiscal Year 2011 through May, to May of Fiscal Year 2012, we have increased gallons sold by approximately 4,000 gallons. In Fiscal Year 2011, the airport sold 55,900 gallons of jet fuel. By comparing Fiscal Year 2011 through May to May of Fiscal Year 2012 the amount of gallons sold decreased by 2,000 gallons; however, with the emergence of Turbo Services, we expect to see the amount of gallons sold from previous year. Proposed capital improvement projects next year include design of a primary runway followed by full reconstruction of Runway 927. Page 150 June 28, 2012 Last, but not least, Everglades City Airpark. The airport has maintained a consistent flow of air traffic at approximately 5,000 operations per year. The amount of fuel sold is slightly above average, although last year we experienced approximately 40 percent increase, and T hangar occupancy has remained at 100 percent. Proposed capital improvement projects within the next year include the completion of the south taxiway. That concludes my overview. We're here to answer any questions that you may have. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. You said that you were expecting $140,000 in revenues at the Immokalee airport from a lease. Where is that reflected in your financial statements, in your budget, I should say? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Should be charges for service. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah, but I don't see it. Because the current year charges for services, the adopted, was $380,000 for 2012. The ac -- and the Fiscal Year '13 budget is 326-. So I -- MS. MUELLER: On the Capital Section Page 5 -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: On the capital section? Are you using it as an offset? Page -- you know, we don't have the same pages. MR. OCHS: Yes, ma'am. It's behind -- the capital is behind -- COMMISSIONER HILLER: Oh, in the capital tab. Okay, I'm sorry. Okay. So where is it? MR. ISACKSON: Capital Page 5, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I'm on Page 5. MS. MUELLER: Charges for services, 140,000 in FY13 current, about the middle of the page. If you remember, we received a million dollars commitment from you in order to fund that USDA building. So the revenue, until that million dollars is repaid, will be going back into the Capital Fund. Page 151 June 28, 2012 COMMISSIONER HILLER: Into the General Fund. But is it going to come back to the county? MS. MUELLER: It's going into our Capital Fund, and we'll hopefully be able to use those funds again for redevelopment of the Immokalee airport. COMMISSIONER HILLER: So it was pulled out of reserves. MS. MUELLER: No, it wasn't. In -- I'm forgetting the year now. MR. CURRY: 2006, but the Immokalee Development Fund that was funded, I believe it's 750,000 a year for three years -- MS. MUELLER: Four years, for four years. MR. CURRY: Yeah, it was funded for four years but only received funding for three. COMMISSIONER HILLER: So that's going to be reimbursed back to that development fund. MS. MUELLER: Correct. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Because I believe originally it was intended to be pulled out of the airport reserves. Okay. So it's actually a repayment then. I see that. You know, Leo, how much is the -- how much are these airports in debt to the county? How much do they owe the General Fund? MR. ISACKSON: $21.1 million. COMMISSIONER HILLER: $21.1 million. And are the airports covering the overhead allocation that is being funded by the General Fund right now? Are you getting reimbursed for the overhead allocation to service the airport operations? MR. ISACKSON: There's an indirect cost reimbursement, if that's what you're asking, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: It that being fully reimbursed? MR. ISACKSON: It's on Page 31, and it's budgeted in there. COMMISSIONER HILLER: But is it being reimbursed? Are you getting reimbursed for the overhead allocation? Page 152 June 28, 2012 MR. ISACKSON: Part of the -- part of the indirect cost allocation that you see budgeted in the General Fund is revenue. Comes -- part of that allocation comes from the airport. COMMISSIONER HILLER: So are you being -- are they covering their overhead in full? MR. ISACKSON: Based on our allocation cost plan, yes. COMMISSIONER HILLER: For each airport? MR. ISACKSON: It's combined in -- under 495 on Page 31. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Well, you know, it's interesting that you say that, because I had looked at those numbers earlier; it did not look like all the airports were actually covering their overhead allocation. I had some concerns about that. If you could look into that, and I'd like to, you know, compare the actuals to what you're budgeting to see if that's actually working out. In light of what you just said and based on, you know, what I have seen as the traffic volume at some of these airports, like Immokalee and Everglades, I don't understand why we have 16 full-time employees. I don't understand why there are five full-time employees at the Immokalee airport. I think you're overstaffed. You call yourself lean. I think you are heavy. And, again, I don't need a response right now. You can come back and justify your position when we come to adopt the budget. But I have serious concerns about your staffing relative to your performance financially. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you. Where -- are you recognizing Turbo Services' revenue for '13? MS. MUELLER: Yes, we are. It's included in our revenue budget. It's not -- it's not a line item on something that you see here. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is that charged for services? MS. MUELLER: It's in our fuel sales and, obviously, our fuel purchases in order to provide them fuel. Page 153 June 28, 2012 COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is that included in -- there is a land lease, right? MS. MUELLER: Yeah. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And you're putting that into the fuel services? MS. MUELLER: No. You've got fuel services, okay, and you have the land lease. There's two -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Where's the land lease at? MS. MUELLER: It's included in charges for service under the Immokalee airport. COMMISSIONER HENNING: That's on Page 32, charges for services. How much is that? MS. MUELLER: I don't, off the top of my head, know what they're -- approximately 12,000 a year. MR. CURRY: Yes. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Can you give us -- give me the historical breakdown for the last three years of the tenants in Immokalee, what that was -- what the -- budgeted revenue for leases is? And if you could provide it in a spreadsheet for me, an Excel spreadsheet, I would appreciate it. The last three years, just Immokalee. MS. MUELLER: Any particular types of leases, or all leases? COMMISSIONER HENNING: All leases. MS. MUELLER: All leases. COMMISSIONER HENNING: That should be in your charges for services. MS. MUELLER: Uh-huh. I can provide that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And that would -- would that include the user also? MS. MUELLER: I can include that if you'd like it. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Great, thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Coletta? Page 154 June 28, 2012 COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. Thank you. Chris, the airports: Marco, Everglades City, Immokalee. What is available as far as hangars? MR. CURRY: Well, at Immokalee right now, there are six available. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay. What about Marco and Everglades City? MR. CURRY: Marco is basically 100 percent, and so is Everglades City. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: All right. And Salazar, when do we expect to have him online? MR. CURRY: In approximately 90 days. We expect to issue a notice to proceed to build out interior modifications within the next week. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay. I'd like to remind my fellow commissioners that some time ago we decided we wanted to see the airport move towards a commercial direction to be able to be an incubator for businesses, and I think it's working. It's got a little ways to go, but the economy's picking up, and we've got some good tenants. And I think you're doing an excellent job, and thank you very much for being here. MR. CURRY: Thanks. We're behaving more like a real airport. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah, that's obvious. COMMISSIONER HILLER: May I ask, when you get your lease analysis, could you share that with the Board? COMMISSIONER HENNING: No. I think they can share it. MR. CURRY: We can send it to all commissioners. COMMISSIONER HILLER: If you could send it to all the commissioners. MR. CURRY: No problem. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Anything else? Page 155 June 28, 2012 (No response.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. Good job. MR. CURRY: You're welcome. Thanks. COMMISSIONER HILLER: County Manager, anything else? MR. OCHS: Commissioners, that includes all the items for review on our agenda today, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. COMMISSIONER HILLER: I have to say something. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Question. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning was first. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I thought Ian, per his contract, was supposed to present his budget to the Board. I guess he's on vacation; is that correct? Is that what I understood? CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's what I understood. MR. SHEFFIELD: He wasn't going to be here today, so he asked me to fill in and call the public speakers. But I don't know any more than that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: We have his budget. We got his budget back on May 31st. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah, I've seen his budget. I talked with him about it. I don't have any problems. It's pretty much self-determined. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, yeah, I know. I just -- I know the County Manager's supposed to be -- is supposed to attend all the Board meetings. Okay. That's all I had. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Hiller? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Yeah. I have a very important announcement to make. Today was a very important day -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Uh-oh. COMMISSIONER HILLER: -- for a reason some of you probably -- Page 156 June 28, 2012 COMMISSIONER HENNING: Don't care. COMMISSIONER HILLER: No, would care about if you knew about. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. COMMISSIONER HILLER: It's Mark's birthday. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Who? COMMISSIONER HILLER: Isackson's birthday. Can you imagine him spending his birthday doing this? Now, I'm sure he loves it and he wouldn't want to do anything else, right? Happy Birthday. MR. ISACKSON: Thank you, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HILLER: Happy birthday from all of us. Do we have five nods? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. MR. OCHS: It's unanimous. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I bet he's glad we're not going to sing. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And thank you for all you did today in pulling this together. We look forward to the final hearing. MR. ISACKSON: Thank my staff. They do all the work. COMMISSIONER HILLER: And definitely thank your staff. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Motion to adjourn. COMMISSIONER HENNING: No motion needed. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. We're adjourned. Thank you very much. Don't forget Politics in the Park. ***** Page 157 June 28, 2012 There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 3:20 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL FRED COYLE, CHAIRMAN ATTE , > , PW.Ofr'E-,.13ROCK, CLERK 's, as to Cheroot These minutes appr ed by the Board on S ,,,L I ) 201z , d presented resented or as correctt 1 Page 158