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BCC Minutes 06/16/2000 B (Budget Workshop)June 16,2000 TRANSCRIPT OF THE BUDGET WORKSHOP OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Naples, Florida, June 16, 2000 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 9:05 a.m. in Building "F" of the Administration Building, members present: Collier County Naples, Florida, Government with the Center, following CHAIRMAN: Timothy J. Constantine Barbara B. Berry James D. Carter Pamela S. Mac'Kie ALSO PRESENT: Thomas Oilill, County Administrator Michael Smykowski, County Budget Director Page I COLL!l?~R COUNTY GOVERNMENT BOARD OF COUNTY COMMLqSIONERS FY 2001 BUDGET WORKSHOP SCHEDULE (REVISED) Wednesday, June 14, 2000 - 9:00 a.m- General Overview Ad Valorem Tax Implications Debt Service Funds (200's) Trust Funds (600's) MSTD General Fund (111) Special Revenue Funds (100's) Enterprise Funds (400's) Internal Service Funds (500's) Capital Funds (~00's) Friday, June 16, 2000 - 9:00 a.m- General Fund (001) Overview ,General Fund Operating Di ,visions: Courts & Related Agencies BCC County Attorney Management Offices Support Services Emergency Services Public Services Community Development/Environmental Services Public Works Airport Authority Operations Review of General Fund Supported Capital Projects ..C.,onsti.mulonal Officers: Property Appraiser Supervisor of Elections Clerk of Courts Sheriffs Office June 16, 2000 CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Good morning. Happy Friday. It's time to go to the ad valorem portion of the budget. Hi, Mr. Smykowski. How are you? MR. SMYKOWSKI: Good morning. Happy Friday. For the record, Michael Smykowski, county budget director. We are going talk about the general fund today. In addition to -- to programs and/or departments that are funded directly in the general fund, we're also going to talk about quasi-general fund departments that receive operating transfers in support of their operations, such as EMS, road and bridge, et cetera. In addition, we will cover the capital projects that are funded via transfer from the general fund as well. By way of orientation, if you would go to your summary book, the general fund tab, Pages A-2 and A-3, is the macro overview of the general fund. Page A-2 provides a summary of fund appropriations. Page A-3 is the respective revenues that would support general fund operations in fiscal year '01. As I indicated in my opening remarks, the proposed millage rate for the general fund is 3.5054, which represents a decrease of 4 cents per $100, 000 taxable value from the millage rate of 3.5058 that was adopted in fiscal year '00. What I would like to do at this point -- the court's representatives had asked to be heard first prior to trials starting this morning. So Judge -- Judge Hayes and Judge Blackwell are here representing the courts, in addition, Mr. Middlebrook is here. So I would like to have everyone turn to Page A-40, which is the summary -- summary of court's administration budget for the upcoming year. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: And, knowing they are on a schedule, we'll do that first. And then, after that, we're going to do some public comment, anybody that wants to, prior to getting started on this, we'll do public comment again just before we break at lunch as well. MR. SMYKOWSKI: That's fine. For administrative purposes, we do have speaker sign-up slips on the other table. So if they could be filled out and we'd be happy to call the speakers. COMMISSIONER CARTER: This is all for you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah. Thanks so much. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Good morning. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: For the record, Mark Middlebrook, Page 2 June 16,2000 senior deputy court administrator. COMMISSIONER CARTER: You may need to drag that. Those microphones aren't very good. So you may need to pull that a little closer. Thanks. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: For the record, Mark Middlebrook, senior deputy court administrator with chief judge, Honorable William L. Blackwell and circuit court judge, Judge Hayes. We're here to answer any questions you might have regarding our submissions. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Questions on the court budget? Thank you very much. Pleasure to see you all this morning. (Laughter.) COMMISSIONER BERRY: Have a good day in court, Judge. JUDGE HAYES: This is better than going to court. (Laughter.) COMMISSIONER BERRY: questions? JUDGE HAYES: No, no. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: while. JUDGE HAYES: Did you want us to ask you some I could have held you on it for a No, I get enough of those on the other-- other building. MR. SMYKOWSKI: court related agencies, well as the, the judges. On Page A-42 there are some additional the state attorney, public defender, as There is one expanded service on A-43 for the state attorney's office, essentially re-configuring the office area that they are moving into and purchasing a new phone system and switchboard for their operation for 66 -- CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Everybody fine with those? MR. OLLIFF: Just so the board is aware, on that state attorney's re-configuration, the original request is over $80, 000 and we actually were able to find as much of that work that we could do in-house through facilities management. It's already being done upstairs. So the balance of that is what you see in the budget as an expanded request. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Thank you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Good way to spend the money. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Thank you. Now you would like to go to public comment? CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Yeah. Do we have anyone who Page 3 June 16, 2000 has signed up for public comment before we go too far this morning? And there will one other -- there will be another opportunity as we take our lunch break today as well. I'll take that as a no. MR. SMYKOWSKI: We'll move right to A-6. That is the board offices, the county attorney, the other general administrative budgets. Expanded services are identified on A-7. MS. FILSON: Good morning. I'm here to answer any questions. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: And who are you? MS. FILSON: Won't be as easy as the previous. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: For the record? MS. FILSON: Oh, Sue Filson, for the board. COMMISSIONER BERRY: Mr. Chairman, I have one item on the Board of County Commissioners. Having served as a representative to this particular group, I'm not sure that it warrants us spending dues of $9,600 to the Coastal Coalition or Coalition of Coastal Communities. And my reason for saying this is that, as I attended the meetings, more and more it's smaller coastal counties, and I'm not sure that they have the same types of problems that we do. They certainly have difficulties, and they probably are benefiting perhaps a little more than we are. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Uh-huh. COMMISSIONER BERRY: We might benefit more if we had just a Southwest Florida coalition as opposed to joining even with the counties up in the Panhandle or -- as I said, we all have -- we have situations that are similar but they are different because of the size of our counties. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Any objection to taking that 9,600 out of the budget and focusing on the -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'd like to take it out. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: -- Florida Association of Counties instead? COMMISSIONER CARTER: Yeah. I have no objection to that. But sometimes I think we would be better to spend that money with a lobbying activity in Tallahassee than to be a part of that coalition. COMMISSIONER BERRY: I agree. COMMISSIONER CARTER: So -- COMMISSIONER BERRY: Well, we gave it a try and this of Page 4 June 16,2000 course was kind of -- we were enticed to do this by our senator, Fred Dudley and -- COMMISSIONER CARTER: Right. COMMISSIONER BERRY -- as long as Fred was going to be there, I felt that we were going to be in good hands. But Fred unfortunately departed the scene early on. And perhaps it's been beneficial for the other counties, but I just don't think that this is beneficial for Collier County. And I think $9,600 can be used other places. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Sounds like it will be. COMMISSIONER CARTER: I agree. I have reviewed our administrator's budget. I think one area where we are underfunded is in the area of organizational development. And, looking at the number of people that are going to be coming new to our office and the things that have been going on, I think it's underfunded and I would recommend that she have a budget of at least 2,500 or $3, 000 for the development of new people and for herself, which she has a tendency to put aside and take care of everybody else but Sue. And I really think that the success to keeping good people in the organization is spending development dollars on them to make sure that we train them and we that we preen them and develop them and don't lose them. Because latest statistics now are not 93 percent of a salary but it is like 18 months of your existing person, if you lose them. That's what it costs you to replace and develop them before you get them up to rather spend speed. That is a very heavy number. And I would 2,500 or $3, 000 a year keeping good people. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: What do you development, so that I understand? envision as COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, there are certain courses they attend to improve their technical skills. But also, in Sue's case, she would be looking at enhancing her management skills in running a much bigger operation, which she's going to have in the next year. So that's what I perceive as money spent in the personal development of the individual both technically and managerially to enhance an operation. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Jim, I agree with you. I think that the office has gotten bigger, the responsibilities are huge. And, frankly, one of the oddities is that Ms. Filson doesn't really have a supervisor and therefore has to sort of, you know, fend for herself. Page 5 June 16,2000 I think that's managerial kind of training, some HR training, there's some stuff that we could be doing better. And, in particular, to retain the great staff that we have. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Right. And she does use the resources that are most cost effective. Because, if you go to an external organization, an AMA or some of these others, they will charge you for one course can be close to $1, 000. She has been able to use other sources through government programs and university programs that are far the same objective, so -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Tom? less expensive but accomplish Do you have thoughts on that, MR. OLLIFF: If the board wants to make that budget $2,500, you would still end up with a net reduction of $7,600 as a result of your actions this morning. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: I'm just curious, when Ms. Filson arrives here about 7:00 a.m. and leaves here at the end of the day COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: About 7:00 p.m. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: -- when's the free time going to be to take those courses? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, and I agree. And you know, that's why another area that I wonder about, if, you know, if we're going to have adequate staffing is, I don't know what the number should be but we need more of some backup staffing, a floater kind of, is what we used to call it in a law firm, or some temporary staffing so that when they do -- you know, when somebody is out in our office, it's just -- everybody has to do everybody else's work. There's no -- it's not very well organized from that perspective. And so I don't know if we need some temporary staffing funding or if we need a floater, what we need, but we need some backup staffing too. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, I think what's happening in this case is the span of control is 5 to 7, and what you have is a person who is performing both the technical side and trying to perform the managerial side. And as we add more people to service the office for the needs of commissioners, she is going to be what I consider a full-time manager. She can't continue to do both. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Right. Page 6 June 16,2000 COMMISSIONER CARTER: That's the quickest way that I know, as you are pointing out, Tim, to burn out a person. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: I'm going to take chairman's prerogative here and make a suggestion. We have a 600 million dollar budget, and we probably don't need to have five-minute conversations on every 2,500 bucks, unless there's some argument. And, as we bring each item up, unless there's a debate, we don't need to convince ourselves, let's just try to -- I think everybody is with you on this one. And I think everybody was with you on cutting the 9,600. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So do we need to do something about -- to address Commissioner Constantine's concern and the one that I sort of added to? Is there a line in this budget that needs to also be increased for additional backup staffing, floater or something to back up Sue when she's out being trained? COMMISSIONER BERRY: Why don't you allocate X number of dollars? MS. FILSON: I do have a line item for other contractual, which is temp employees, for 2,500. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So maybe that will -- COMMISSIONER BERRY: So why don't you increase that? If you want to take some of this 9,600 that we've just cut, increase it and let Sue -- and I don't know if she wants to work with the manager or whatever, or the chairman, whatever, and decide what she wants to do with that money, what would best serve and what would best help her in that office. Because I certainly -- I'm not going to sit up here and tell her what she needs. She knows what she needs. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Absolutely. MS. FILSON: And I think with the addition of the two additional secretaries that will help relieve some of those problems. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: That's what I would prefer to do is -- let's see, we have a line item budgeted for that but we're going to have a couple of extra bodies there which ought to be a giant step in the right direction. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So see what you need to do and give to us on wrap-up. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Right, because it will never change the bottom line. It is just going to be a re-allocation of Page 7 June 16,2000 funds. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: The other thing, I hope our approach to the entire budget process is going to be, okay, we cut something here which means we can or will add something somewhere else. MR. OLLIFF: Yes. And in fact I think with Sue's budgeted amount for contractual services and, you know, attrition within the budget, perhaps in terms of trying to hire some of those new positions, there probably is enough. And there's also some pool workers down in HR that we also have. So we will work with Sue and then as part of the budget public hearings, we'll have that finalized for you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. SMYKOWSKI: So we are showing a reduction of 9,600 for the coastal communities and 2, 000 increase for development net decrease of $7,600. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But with that increased number being flexible pending wrap-up when you guys tell us what we need to know. MR. OLLIFF: Right. Our goal is, unless there are some major issues, that there may not be a need for a wrap-up session. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Right. MR. OLLIFF: It depends on what's left. So we would do that as part of the public hearing process in September. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Even better. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Let's just move on. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Management offices summary is on Page A-11. There are no proposed expanded services. That represents budgets for the county administrator, O and B, and board related costs for printing of the agenda, et cetera. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just for ease, would you -- can you give us the detailed page at the same time? I think in this case, it's A-147 MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Support services division summary is on Page A-14. Expanded service requests are outlined on Pages A-t5 and A-16 for the board. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And the detailed pages are -- MR. SMYKOWSKI: Beginning on Page -- excuse me. Page 8 June 16,2000 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: A-187 MR. SMYKOWSKI: Support services admin is A-22. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Go with the color coordinated. Pat made it color coordinated. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's good. MR. SMYKOWSKI: The light blue color. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Jean, can you explain to me just public relations, marketing, expanded position? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes, commissioner. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Jean, you will need to talk into that microphone. It's not very sensitive. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Thank you. We need a person, we believe, that can prepare and promote public education campaigns, to inform the public of various county services and how to access them, but also to tell the public some of the good things that are going on. It's very difficult to get press on good items. It's always easy to get the other kind. We believe that, with a concerted effort, we can get some of those things into the mainstream press. At the same time, we would like to be able to work with community groups to access some of their groups to explain some of the good things going on in county government. The other thing is we do need someone to help on the press side or on the newsprint side. We have one person who is doing that. We've done -- we did 35 different publications last year. She's also our photographer. I need someone to help relieve her in that area to do the day-to-day news releases and things of that sort. Frankly, we're getting a lot more requests from the various departments to help them show the good things that are going on there, and whether the term marketing is a good term or not, to help them get more to the public. We're also getting requests on some training on how to deal with the press and how to be -- to conduct an interview. And those kinds of things. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Thank you. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Mr. Chairman, I've only asked this question once, and I'm sure Mr. Olliff has probably evaluated that against the request for permanent positions versus contracting externally. So I'm always asking that question, what is more cost effective? I have no quarrel with the need but do we add people Page 9 June 16,2000 to the payroll or do we contract out to provide the same service? So I'll ask that once and if you are telling me that it's better to go internal versus external -- well, that's it. MR. OLLIFF: My recommendation is internal. I just think, in this particular case -- I'll give you the best example, most recent example. We just got done flushing lines at the end of Lely Barefoot Beach and the utility staff themselves was trying to do the education component of that with the residents of Barefoot Beach. They are utilities guys. They don't do that very well. And for me to be able to go to a contracted person and be able to respond to that would be very difficult. You know, to have somebody in-house that I can actually send there directly to the utilities division and help them get that information out in a way that so that everybody in that neighborhood was aware of it, would be very, very helpful for us. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Thank you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I have another question, too. we're kind of going through things so quickly that I'm not And sure when I'm supposed to ask these questions. So I apologize, Mr. Ghairman. You will tell me if I'm on the wrong page. One is the effectiveness of -- how much of the $100, 000, I think is what we allocated for the TV show last year, what did we actually spend? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: $65, 000 was allocated for that. And we expect to spend all of that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And do we have any way to measure the -- what do you call the readership when it's TV? Do you we know if anybody is catching it? Do we know if it's effective? Does anybody have any way of measuring whether or not it's -- because that's just a big chunk of money. I wonder if it's the right way to be spending it. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: I don't know if you've watched the show, it is very, very polished, very smooth. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes. Very nice. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: And just informally, frankly, the cable isn't going to get a reaction on Nielson. But from people saying different things, ]eez, I didn't know. I'm amazed at how many people watch these type meetings on Channel 54 but also those type of things. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I agree. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: I'm absolutely amazed at it. Page10 June 16,2000 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I agree about the meetings. I have not heard a comment from a soul about the television show. And I didn't know if others have or -- there's just no question everybody is wanting to continue spending that money? CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: I do. I think it's a very effective way to communicate. COMMISSIONER CARTER: I think it's effective. I think we just need to continue to upgrade what we do on that. And this was kind of a test run. And the feedback I've gotten is the same as Commissioner Constantine's, is that, hey, this is good, what are you going to do next? Are you going to do more of this, et cetera? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Good. COMMISSIONER CARTER: A lot of people watch it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: calls today then. COMMISSIONER CARTER: COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So it seems like -- I am surprised. I guess I'll be getting my phone Yes, ma'am. And the other -- 800 megahertz administrator goes to zero. What is that?Has it been moved somewhere or do I misunderstand that line? MR. SMYKOWSKI: That was consolidating to information technology. That was -- is frankly just an old line. There was nothing in the adopted FY '00 budget as well. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. SMYKOWSKI: So that is zero right across the board. You can frankly just eliminate that line. MR. OLLIFF: Shouldn't be on your sheet. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: I have questions on the information technology portion. There's ten new bodies there, unless I've under counted. Is that right? MR. OLLIFF: No, you're correct. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Didn't we see on our little slide show the other day that it had gone from 3 to 16 or something like that at this point? Ten just seems like a pretty substantial jump all in one time, particularly as I read some of this. Some of these things seem like they should be done by vendor, installing and repairing hardware. Shouldn't the vendor be doing that instead of our people? MS. LEAMER: Joanne Leamer, support services. Page 11 June 16,2000 We're broken up into three distinct groups, and I have each of the managers here to talk about their needs in their group. Maggie is with our project management area and her needs have to do with new software that's going to be coming on. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Let's go through each of these. I don't have too much trouble with the technical support for business applications on Horseshoe Drive, a hundred and thirty-four three. The next one I had put an X through, the 227, 000, as I read through it I just -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Before you pass that first one -- CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Sure. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -. my question was, anytime I see community development services, I'm wondering, shouldn't it be coming out of their fees instead of general ad? MR. OLLIFF: It is, actually, a transfer into this budget. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you. So excuse me. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: No, that's a good question. 227, I need somebody to explain to me in great detail what those three people are that we have zero people doing right now. MR. BERRIOS: Mike Berrios, information technology. The description in your book is not very good about what those positions are. Those are three positions. The first position is a network technology professional. That's like a network administrator. They maintain the infrastructure behind the scenes. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Is that -- MR. BERRIOS: I'm sorry? CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Go ahead. I'll let you finish, sorry. MR. BERRIOS: And that increase is requested because in 1998 when we commuted to our current staffing level, we had about 10 servers. We currently have 18 servers. So the workload is pretty heavy. We have three people who currently maintain that equipment and answer problems -- or answer questions, fix problems and things of that nature. And this position is intended to help with that workload to put in a tremendous amount of overtime to accomplish the goals that we need to accomplish to make sure everything works behind the scene. MR. SMYKOWSKI: I'll give you -- MR. BERRIOS: The second position is a database that -- Page12 June 16,2000 MR. OLLIFF: I'll give you a good example on that particular position. Mike Berrios is primarily responsible for a lot of that work today. And there is not a single day over the course of the last 365 days that he hasn't been called to come in and provide some support. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Wow. MR. OLLIFF: Vacations, holidays, every single day. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Speaking of not burning out the good employees. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Leave that beeper at home. MR. BERRIOS: The second position is a database administrator. We currently have about six or seven mission critical database applications, including community development services permitting, public utilities, work order management, human resources. And we currently don't have any dedicated staff to maintain the database and the integrity of the data. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's scary. MR. BERRIOS: We're taking care of it in terms -- with the resources that we have but we obviously cannot do everything and a lot of things are not being done. COMMISSIONER CARTER: So would this person then coordinate all of this? You know, you say administrator. That implies to me that we've got somebody who is coordinating all of that with the other people, so we know what we are doing here. MR. BERRIOS: It's more -- that's just a term that's used in the industry. It's more of a technical position associated with making sure the databases are running properly, making sure they are running as fast as they can, understanding where in the county all the data lives so that when you have requests for information or the public has requests for information, there's someone who can tell you where all of that information is and help put together the reports that give you the answers that you need to have. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That sounded -- sounds like, in the absence of that, we've spent a lot of money that we're not using effectively. MR. BERRIOS: Yes. Yes, I think that is true. And then the third position is a security network administrator, for lack of a better term. And that person would be responsible for making sure that the infrastructure is secure, things like the viruses, Love Bug, all the virus things. And that's Page 13 June 16,2000 picking up dramatically. You are seeing more and more of that type of problem. The risk of hackers, to use a term that's in the press, people who might want to try to attack the computer systems that we currently have. And as we move forward with trying to do business with the citizens of the county over the Internet and we need to be able to provide the public with information that's stored inside our network, that becomes increasingly important, especially as we may move to collecting things like water bills and things likes that. And there's a very big exposure. We just don't have the staff to deal with it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Those seem like important -- COMMISSIONER CARTER: And I would assume that if we get a virus, that we wouldn't even want to talk about the numbers it would cost us. MR. BERRIOS: It could be very bad. We have managed to do a pretty good job. We can't say that we haven't had problems, but we've managed to deal with them. But that's -- a number of very large companies have been shut down by viruses. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And I would like to see what you were saying, more ability for people, for example, to pay their water bills over the net. And as we do that we've got to be more attentive to security. So those three sound strong to me, too. COMMISSIONER CARTER: I'm there. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: A request below that, 279,8, I'm wondering a couple of things. If you can describe the five for me but also the brief description looks remarkably similar to the direct client support description. MS. BUCK: It does, doesn't it? Those people are -- CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: For the record, of course, you are? MS. BUCK: For the record, I am Sue Buck with information technology. Those people are simply to cover the volume of people that are using computers now. They have more than doubled in the past five years, whereas the staffing has not. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: This is the slide that we saw that said sort of the industry standard is one to something and -- CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: 75, and we were at 106. What does this put us at? MS. BUCK: The slide that you say the other day included Page 14 June 16,2000 people who are working on hardware who aren't actually working on -- in the help line or assisting people with software needs. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: And if we include those people again, what will it put us at now? MS. BUCK: Well, in 2000 we calculate the ratio I to 125. With adding the new people we will be at I to 85. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: And that's including using these -- are you comparing apples to apples?You are counting everybody, you are not just counting -- MS. BUCK: Correct. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Just changing the formula? MS. BUCK: Not changing the formula. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It still keeps us above what the industry's recommendations are of 175. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: I don't think that industry standard -- MS. BUCK: The one thing that should be noted is just within the last six months of the year we added 8 percent, 50 new PCs. The number of PCs keeps growing. That isn't a stagnant number, so-- CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Is there a build-out number there? I mean, we have a particular growth rate for employees, but, other than adding a handful at some point, you are not going to have another 100 or 200 year after year after year. What is the likely growth rate of that? MS. BUCK: Well, this past year particularly it was really very, very high. The growth rate, I'm hoping, will even off. It seems to be one of those things that's very hard to predict. And along with that, we now are expected to support other things that go with these computers, the Compaq arrows, the scanners, the printers. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Send mine back. MS. BUCK: CD burners, zip drives. None of those items are even included in this 650-plus computers that we support. We now have certain need for laptops. carrying laptops officers, builders increasing.You increasing. next year. high profile county employees that have the So along with a desktop, some of them are out in the field. Some of the enforcement inspectors take laptops with them. So it's know, there are very different arms of this It's very difficult to project what's going to happen Page15 June 16, 2000 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: How confident are you -- help me understand what the I to 75, the ratio. Was that an industry average, an industry standard, a private enterprise versus government? Where -- how good that number as a benchmark? MS. BUCK: That was a figure that we solicited from various professional help desk organizations that took both of those entities into consideration, government agencies as well as large corporations, and they all came up with something pretty much right in that ballpark. And that was an average that we took. We took probably three or four month's worth of information from various agencies and actually came up with that number. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: When we showed the other day the industry average as 75, is that government or is that all -- because -- and I know where you are going, but I mean, is that Art Allen's company-- MS. BUCK: It's both government agencies companies, like IBM, insurance companies, private small people. We try to take an average of everyone. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Do we have statistically average for government functions? I don't know that I have that all by itself. CONSTANTINE: That would -- would it MS. BUCK: CHAIRMAN available? MS. BUCK: CHAIRMAN Uh-huh. CO N STANTI N E: was -- we were at I to every 106. employees? and large industries, the be And the other day you said it That was based on how many MS. BUCK: That was actually based on six, including the manager of the department, I believe. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Because I just asked you, are we comparing the same thing, you said yes, and we are not. Because, if you take -- and you just said there were 650 of these. MS. BUCK: We're now way up over that. But -- CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: If you take six and you add five people to it, that's 11. MS. BUCK: Uh-huh. What we -- CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: We are now at 900 units, we've added 250 this year or -- MS. BUCK: The one that's -- CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: It's a fairly simple question. I Page 16 June ~6,2000 mean, either we're using the same formula or we're not. And, if we are not, then I want you to explain to me why not. MS. BUCK: 625. MS. LEAMER: This was -- the slide was based on six staff members and 625 work stations. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: And how many work stations do we have now? MS. LEAMER: We are up to approximately 675 with five people actually supporting those work stations. There's one person who just does hardware. There's another person, Sue Buck, who is purely in the management end. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: But if we add 5, that then becomes 10, which is 62.5 per work station. MS. LEAMER: Two people will be working on hardware next year. That will be approximately I to 337. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE:Oh, was nobody working on hardware this year? MS. LEAMER: We had one. MS. BUCK: We have one person working on hardware. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Because you're jumping all over with numbers here. If you're including hardware, you had six employees in this 625 number you have in front of you. So either you are consistent and you continue to include hardware or you don't. You can't take it away and then say wow, we have -- we come up with a worse number. MS. BUCK: I can clarify that. There's actually four help line people that cover, if you want to use 650 or 675, either way. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Let me tell you how I interpret this. You are going to double the number of people working on hardware, you are going to double the other people, and you are not coming anywhere near doubling the number of units, you are adding whatever you just told me, 50 more units, so -- MR. OLLIFF: Let me point out, too, that we haven't added any staff to this department in two years. We added one person in two years that has nothing to do with the support side. MS. BUCK: Right. MR. OLLIFF: I will tell you that, from an operational standpoint, when I looked at the organization, this was one of the places where I think we have become very reliant on our ability to do the work and I am critically concerned about our ability to Page 17 June 16,2000 support this. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: I don't disagree. I just want to have the same numbers each time.We're not being -- it's not being communicated consistently. MR. OLLIFF: That's fair. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: And, secondly, if that comes out to 62.5 not 85, point something, which is considerably below, and maybe we want to be better than the industry standard but the numbers -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Sounds like that -- the math is pretty darn simple, unless we're getting something wrong here. Right now, taking out the hardware, you got five to 675. Yes? Stop me when I'm wrong. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: No. You've got 5 to 625. MS. BUCK: There's six people in the section. One is the manager. That brings us to five. One is the hardware person who just does hardware. That's where you need to take him out. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. So we got four -- MS. BUCK: Four people supporting everyone. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: To how many work stations? MS. BUCK: 675. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Four to 675. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: So the slide for the presentation yesterday was completely inaccurate? MS. LEAMER: It wasn't comparing apples and apples. The industry average that they developed, the I to 75, was based on pure help people working in -- CHAIRMAN CONSTANTI N E:Doesn't management? MS. LEAMER: Correct. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE:And our management doesn't help at all? MS. LEAMER: She does. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: I know they do. I know you do, Sue. I mean, you are down here working on ours, so -- MS. BUCK: Right. Yes. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: If you're doing that, I would hope that we would count that in there. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So it seems to me we really ought to give it, say, 5 to 675, because a manager is not going to be include any Page 18 June 16,2000 purely managing. So 5 to 675 is what we have today. We're adding 5 positions, if we fund all of these. So it will be 10 to what, because we're going to increase the work stations by how many?. MS. LEAMER: Say -- if you took eight people working on -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: No, no, no. Stay with me with my question. MR. OLLIFF: How many total units will we have next year?. MS. LEAMER: We are currently at 675. If we add an additional hundred, probably, over the next year with staffing increases and -- CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: I don't understand why you can't tell me a number that we're likely to have. I never got an answer to my previous question. Is there a build-out number here? Whether you add Compaqs and things or not, there's still a specific number of work stations. They may have other uses to go with them. MR. OLLIFF: I can't tell you that. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: But at some point we have to know, okay, there are -- we have a thousand lobs, 800 of them are likely at some point to get work stations. MR. OLLIFF: I can't tell you that. And I'll give you a couple of good examples why. One of the things that we're looking at this year, for example, is a automated meter reading system where your meter reader, instead of going to each individual house, can actually drive down the street at 45 miles an hour and pick off the meter readings without ever having to get out of his truck. That's a whole new program that's going to involve probably a half a dozen different computers that are then going to be a brand-new program. Example, last year, the animal control, when we automated animal control, it may be one of those functions that originally we would not have anticipated doing, but now animal control officers can come in and dump their information at the end of the day on a computer and it allows us to prepare the database. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: What is this book? MR. OLLIFF: It's your budget. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: For? MR. OLLIFF: Fiscal year '01. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: So we ought to have in here some idea OF what's going to be '01. And when I hear, I don't know, we might add a hundred, somewhere in this book I ought to Page19 June 16,2000 be able to tally up, it's 20, it's 50, it's 100, that -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: For next year. MR. OLLIFF: I agree. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: That way you'll have an idea of how many next year. MS. BUCK: If we go by the past year's statistics, we've been averaging 100 computers a year. So if you -- CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: So where did the 625 come from on the slide that we are now at 675? Was that -- did that 50 just pop up in the last six months? MS. BUCK: 625 was what we had when all this paperwork was starting to be created. In the past three months there were at least 40 computers purchased, which is bringing us closer to the 675 mark. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: And for the year 2001, how many show in this budget as being added, whether it's the utility guys or somebody sitting at a desk? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: How many are budgeted to be purchased? MS. LEAMER: We don't have their budget information built into our budget. I don't know how many for our budget. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: How can you plan -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I see. They are by departments. MR. SMYKOWSKI: We don't have that totalled up. So I'll tell you what. Why don't we -- your numbers show that if we reduce the software support by one, we are down to somewhere around that industry standard. Let's take one of those software support people out for now. And if we go back and we do an apple to apple comparison for the public hearings in September, you can make a decision based on actual accurate information. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: And sometime in the next few days, can we find out how many we intend to add for that? MR. OLLIFF: Yes. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: It just kind of scares me, if your job is to support that and nobody has informed you of how many you're likely to see added on in the next year. MR. OLLIFF: That's fair. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: That's a tough way to plan. MR. OLLIFF: That's fair. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's fair. Page 20 June 16,2000 CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Next item is the 24,500 request for funds in program administration to pay for advertisement in the recruitment process and the cost of office supplies. I don't know about office supplies, but recruitment process, shouldn't that be in HR anyway? MR. OLLIFF: No. We don't have recruitment money in the HR budget. And what we're trying to do is, for those few positions where we have an exceptionally difficult time trying to fill them, IT in particular is one of those areas, we feel like we need to get out and be a little more aggressive about trying to get some of these positions filled. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: One question on this IT budget for personnel is, how in the heck are you going to find that many qualified people to add them this year? It's a very competitive market. I don't know how you are going to find them. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Let me stay on my question for a minute. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: They're related, as you can see. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: You're right. But shouldn't that go out of the -- it may be for the IT position, but shouldn't that go through human resources? If we have a handful of positions, I would still hope human resources is the one who is focused on how to do it -- do they know how to do it, where to do it? MR. OLLIFF: They do it. The actual bills, for example, for a trade journal, they get billed back to the department who actually pays the bill, simply so that, from a tracking standpoint, we know that's how much it cost us to run IT. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Thank you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And then the question of, are we going to be -- my budgeting question was, okay, we need this number of people. What are the odds that we're going to be able to hire this many people this year, are we over budgeting or am I going to see a big carry forward in this item next year because you can't hire ten great new people in this field? MS. LEAMER: We're already starting to talk to HR about doing some recruitment in the summer, trying to get the word out there, going to the universities, doing -- talking to their career people. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What's attractive about coming to the county that makes us able to get network administrators Page 21 June 16,2000 instead of, you know, big firms? I just don't know how we're going to be able to hire them. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Sunny 358 days a year, seriously. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Say it again? CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Sunny 358 days a year. COMMISSIONER BERRY: I don't think that cuts it anymore. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: I think a 22-year-old kid still likes the sun. COMMISSIONER BERRY: They may like the sun, but if they are working inside, they ain't going to see it. MR. OLLIFF: Yeah. We'll recruit in Michigan in February, trust me. But I think, you know, what we are going to try and do here is, we're showing you the need. You know, we'll be as aggressive as we can to try and fill that need. But I don't think we ought to under budget simply because we don't think that we can get those positions filled. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Except for, you know, that we tax and collect this money, and if the odds -- what are the odds we can actually spend this money this year? I don't want to tax for it if we can't. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, they will spend it. You're asking whether we'll be successful. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's what I mean. They won't spend it if they can't hire the people. It will be vacant, unfilled positions. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Well, that's not the way I read it. They are looking to use that money in a wide variety of ways to try to get to the end result. It's like asking Art Allen's group, will you get all the people you need this year? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And the answer will be no, they won't get all of the people they need and -- COMMISSIONER CARTER: Unless they aggressively recruit and spend money to go and find them. And -- CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: In the next four months, Joanne, will you find nine bodies to fill those positions? MS. LEAMER: We are going to do our best. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: What do you think professionally, what do you think the likelihood of that is? MS. LEAMER: It's difficult, but what I have learned is we're Page 22 June 16,2000 not recruiting very heavily at the universities which do have technology programs. So I need to get out there and talk to those career development people and find out what they are doing with their people. COMMISSIONER BERRY: Joanne, what's the starting salary? MS. LEAMER: Depends on the position. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE:Network administrator, for example. MR. OLLIFF: And you just recently, as part of your pay plan adjustments, made some pretty serious changes. COMMISSIONER BERRY: I just want to know. I want an answer. MR. OLLIFF: The other thing that I need to point out is that, keep in mind, organization wide, you only budget about 96 percent of your total payroll because we take attrition off the top, and this is factored into what we -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'll bet you a dollar attrition in this kind of area is going to be more than 4 percent. MR. OLLIFF: You're right. But it's balanced department that's not 4 percent. That's what Organization wide, we only budget 96 percent. out by another we're saying. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I guess I'm wondering why, you know, we -- even if we want all of these positions and we authorize them all, we shouldn't budget 75 percent of their total cost and -- because we're not going to have them all on October 1st. COMMISSIONER BERRY: Excuse me.Unless I'm chopped liver, I think I have a question here. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Forgive me. MS. LEAMER: Yes. In answer to your question, around 50, 000, which is above the minimum. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: How much? MS. LEAMER: Around 50, 000, which is above the minimum. COMMISSIONER BERRY: That is for a -- MS. LEAMER: Network type position. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: And obviously I far oversimplify when I say the sun, but I will tell you, we do have a great community. If a kid can come here -- COMMISSIONER BERRY: Oh, sure. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: -- and make a good living or go to Page 23 June 16,2000 Detroit and make a good living, there's a chance. You know, I came here taking less salary than I could have had elsewhere out of college to come here. COMMISSIONER BERRY: I think you need to look within the community as well because if you are going to offer those kinds of dollars and somebody doesn't have to relocate, I think that's important too, so -- MR. OLLIFF: I'll tell you two things, too. We wouldn't put them in here if we didn't think that we could fill them. And we'll have to make some decisions in the middle of year if we can't get them filled to find another way to do this work. COMMISSIONER CARTER: I think it's a management call and I'm with it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'll let it go. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: The next page resources. Any question on those expanded items? MS. MAC'KIE: What page are you on now? CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: A-16 in the summary book. MR. OLLIFF: Questions on HRR facilities management. COMMISSIONER CARTER: These are in addition to current positions that we have, right? MR. OLLIFF: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Request to is human the -- for additional building maintenance to outsource regular filter changes. Haven't we had this discussion before? $60, 000 to have somebody outside do that instead of our own guys? MR. RODRIGUEZ: Good morning, Commissioners. For the record, Daniel Rodriquez, acting facilities management director, support services division. Basically what we're looking at with this program is, we currently have three technicians in the field. That's three HVAC technicians for some hundred and some structures. What we're trying to do is bring consistency into our filter change program. During the spring months and the summer months, when our workload for HVAC technicians increases, we have a tendency to back off on filter changes to take care of the on demand call for air compressors and air handlers and things like that. And in addition to changing the filters, which total about 12, 000 a year -- that's a lot of filters, there are -- we're looking at incorporating preventative maintenance, inspecting the air Page 24 June 16,2000 handlers, the belts, indoor quality issues. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: How many buildings have we added in the last year?. And I ask that because we have had this discussion as far as -- you mentioned there are three people doing that. I don't remember what year, but we have increased that from two or one. And I'm wondering, you know, if we need to add another body, that would probably be cheaper than $60, 000. I'm just -- I don't completely follow the amount of the expense. I don't question the need. I just don't completely follow the -- MR. RODRIGUEZ: Right. If we add another body, that's $65, 000. But it's a lot easier for me to call a contractor and make him adhere to the contract to make sure that those filters are changed on a regular basis. When I have an employee that's sick, they are on vacation, you back up, and priority calls come first. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: How many buildings have we added in the last year?. MR. OLLIFF: The other concern is, if I add the probably have to add the associated vehicle to get that from -- body, I person CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: I'm sorry. I didn't hear you. MR. OLLIFF: I probably have to add the associated vehicle to get that person all around the county between place to place as well. If I can contract that out for the same price as my base salary plus benefits, it's probably a better deal. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: I'm just wondering if -- and maybe we've added a lot in the last year. But if we added a position or two in the last couple years and we haven't added a lot in buildings, I'm wondering what happened. It doesn't seem -- MR. RODRIGUEZ: I can tell you, on square footage, since '93, '94, we were at 944, 000 square feet. We're now up to 1,646, 000 square feet. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: And how many people did we have doing this type thing in 1993 and '94? MR. RODRIGUEZ: 1993, '94, we had 18 crafts. We actually had five HVAC. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: And now we have three? MR. RODRIGUEZ: Well, HVAC, I'm sorry. We had three in '93, '94. The other two are a plant operator and a supervisor. The managers and contractors. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: This math makes sense to me, Page 25 June 16,2000 Tim. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Yes. I don't-- I apparently completely imagined the addition to that in the last couple years. Maybe we had the discussion and didn't add them. I don't know. I remember a long detailed discussion on HVAC and -- okay. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Page A-18 and A-19 is the emergency services division summary. Proposed expandeds are outlined on A-19 and A-21. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Six helicopter pilots. How many do we have now? That may be necessary. I don't know. MR. STORR: Yes, sir. For the record, Tom Storr, emergency services administrator. Right now we have two part-time pilots and we're going to hire the -- interview for our last full-time position, which would bring us to four full-time and two part-time that need to be trained in the new helicopter. MR. OLLIFF: We're not increasing the number We're actually just trying to train them in the new craft. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Right. MR. OLLIFF: The primary expansion here is the of pilots. additional unit for Gray Oakes. And I do need to point out, even though that's not going to be constructed, that was the question I had. Until the end of the year, by the time we get construction started on that site, the call volume in the area leaves us exposed so many times that we believed it was warranted to add the staff and put them into the existing locations that are supporting that area. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I don't have questions about the expanded services. I just wanted to get reminded again at what ratio does ad valorem support EMS versus the fee, and is there ever -- I know this is not a popular thing to say, but how long since we raised the fee for EMS and when do we -- CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Actually, that's a great question. The one thing we've done, and I don't know if you have it included in this year's budget or not, is adjust as Medicare reimbursement adjusts each year. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: At least that. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: We went a couple of years in the early nineties where they did not make that adjustment, so we were picking up what we didn't need to. And three or four years ago, we set the policy of each year reviewing that and, as they Page 26 June 16,2000 increased their reimbursement, we increased what the local pay is, and so that our share is always the minimal it needs to be. Have we figured that into this as well and what are the new reimbursement numbers? MR. OLLIFF: I don't know that we figured it into this budget. I know that we recently just adjusted the rates based on Medicaid. In fact, since I've been sitting here, I remember that being as part of the agenda. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Do you remember that? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Absolutely. MR. AGUILERA: Good morning. For the record, George Aguilera, training commander for your EMS department. I believe there was recently -- with the Department of Revenue, there were some re-adjustments to include the new Medicare/Medicaid billing schedule, as well as the addition of mileage charge of, I think it's four or five dollars per mile with a cap on it. And that just, I believe, happened sometime last year. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Can we confirm those numbers when that was and when they are likely to be updated again before we finish the hearing today? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And I agree. That policy certainly needs to be implemented. My question is on the policy itself, about whether or not -- if I understand it, Medicare is very rarely going to pay for an emergency transport because Medicare basically covers pregnant women and children under 12. MR. OLLIFF: That would be Medicaid. MR. AGUILERA: That would be Medicaid. Medicare is the elderly. It is somewhat limited in what they actually reimburse for transports for emergency care. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But, as far as Medicare, the average transport in a 65-year-old male with a heart attack, does Medicare reimburse us on a regular basis for those transports? MR. AGUILERA: I believe, yes. The answer for that is yes. I mean, I think Medicare, for the emergency transports and care, has been really successful. We are at what Medicare reimburse, so as long as we do the billing correctly, Medicare has been pretty good and actually paying for those transports. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And what about -- CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: And just by way of review, what we had done was increase our pay each year to match that -- Page 27 June 16,2000 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Oh, yeah. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: -- so that if somebody doesn't have that, the level that is paid in by the customer is the same, whether they are covered by Medicare or not. MR. AGUILERA: Correct. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And what about private insurance; what's the average pay? Do they pay -- does that -- private insurance cover a Medicare payment amount? Is it the same? MR. AGUILERA: Yes. Private insurance companies usually follow the lead of Medicare and what their billing schedules are. So they are very similar. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So I guess that policy remains appropriate. So then my question goes back, is, what is the -- what percentage of that trip is paid for by the person receiving the service and what percentage of it is paid for by ad valorem tax? MR. OLLIFF: On average, your budget was supported through the general fund by about 63, 64 percent last year, and Mike is telling me 63 percent this year. So your ad valorem support has actually gone up by I or 2 percent this year. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And the dollar amount associated with that is what? MR. SMYKOWSKI: General fund transfer has gone up from 7.1 to 7.2, about $600,000. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So we spend $600, 000 of general tax money to provide ambulance service at the Medicare rate to the public? MR. SMYKOWSKI: Correct. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I just want to get the picture clear. And, again, to check on that question of, are we charging the Medicare rate to be sure we still are moving that up every time it moves. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: We can have that before we leave today. MR. STORR: Commissioner Constantine, just to answer your question. Medicare did have a rate increase in January. We will get the hard numbers for you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And be sure they are factored into the budget. And I'll -- okay. So you're clear on the instruction. I think the grant coordinator is a great idea. Page 28 June 16,2000 CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Can you explain that in some detail, because obviously, you know, John Drury has been the poster boy for grants and so on, and I think the board is more open to it. But just tell us what you had in mind there. MR. STORR: Well, that position, obviously we have been very fortunate to take advantage of grant monies in the past to fund programs and some of the stuff that's made us real successful as a provider. That is becoming an increasingly more specific area to write grants and there's actually more grants out there than we can actually get to successfully. So the point of this person is to get the person dedicated, trained, to start taking advantage of more of these grants that are actually available to us. As well as, with pretty much everybody in the county, we wear multiple hats. There are some extra needs with that position that we look to also take advantage of as with the AED program. Your AED program has been enormously successful. At this point in time we have about 80 active sites. We've deployed actually over 130 machines. We've trained over 1,800 people. And all of these activities, as it expands, has some support functions attached to that we have to be able to supply through ordinance. And as well as -- CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: some of that? MR. STORR: Yes. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: That person would help cover You're answering the question And obviously you've got other And for the audience, AED is an before I ever ask it, and that was, I just couldn't imagine sitting 40 hours a week working on grants. MR. STORR: Correct, yes. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: things in mind for him. COMMISSIONER CARTER: acronym for-- MR. STORR: Oh. It's the acronym for automated external defibrillators. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Okay. Thank you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I -- one other the question on that EMS budget is, I have heard from the health care community that there is -- there was a drug that should be in ambulances for heart attack victims that we are not -- that it would cost a million bucks, and we are not putting it in and people are going to die. I Page 29 June 16,2000 mean, I have had just really vocal objection to the fact that we are continuing to pay-- use a drug that's behind the curve on what's available and we're -- CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Have we had anybody die because of this? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, we have all of these medical protocols. I mean, supposedly docs in this community are going to send me information that says medical protocol is that there's this drug that should be given immediately and if it's not, more people are going to die. And we're not doing it because it's more expensive, and we can get them to the ER and let the hospital do it. But that the medical protocol is that -- COMMISSIONER BERRY: What does Dr. Tobor say about this? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm sorry? COMMISSIONER BERRY: What's Dr. Tobor say about this? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That was my question, is, what does Dr. Tobor have to say about that million dollar cut in the EMS budget? Because you asked for it, as I understand it. You asked for the drug and Tom cut the drug. MR. OLLIFF: It was a $78, 000 request for the drug. What I asked EMS to do was to go back and prioritize their request and I gave them a budget figure to go achieve, and, actually, frankly, I asked them for a I percent reduction in their operating budget. The items that you see is their expanded service request are a higher priority to them than was the $78, 000 for that drug. They did indicate that their rate of getting patients to the hospital and -- on heart related cases is frankly very high. And that was the decision. That was a priority decision that they made. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: And if we get irrefutable evidence that that's necessary, I bet our folks would work on that. But I know nothing about medicine and I don't think anybody on this board knows anything about medicine, and I hope that we're not going to try to second guess how and what you do there. I assume you know what's necessary and what's not. If we get information from the doc, let's pass it on and -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, that's the reason I'm asking the question is I've gotten some information from doctors that raised the question. And I want to hear, did Dr. Tobor agree with the prioritization of the-- MR. OLLIFF: Dr. Tobor recommended that this be in the Page 30 June ~6,2000 budget. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: He wants this -- MR. OLLIFF: He recommended $78, 000 in the budget for this drug. And he recommends that you will have better results if you put this in place. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: there. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Then I think that it might belong Let's red flag it and talk to Dr. Tobor and other people about it and -- because it's just -- there's always more than one side to a story. And, while we want to be safe, we don't want to assume the worst either. MR. OLLIFF: We'll make that a first public hearing item for you in September. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Mobile command vehicle. What's the latest and greatest on the Winnebago? MR. RODRIGUEZ: I'm not familiar with the mobile command vehicle. COMMISSIONER CARTER: I don't see it. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: The backup emergency off center and mobile command vehicle. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Are you in the detail book, Tim? A-50, I think. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Page 48. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: In the detail book. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Can provide on scene support for the incident commander. MR. OLLIFF: George? CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: What do we have for our mobile command vehicle? MR. AGUILERA: The mobile command vehicle we have right now is a large motor home type vehicle that is signed out of emergency management. And I can tell you, it gets used quite frequently. Most recently it was used on the North Naples fire. We had it out there for, I think, almost two days. I was present at that fire scene. And it's an incident command vehicle where all of the disciplines that respond to those type of incidents operate out of it. It has total communications, with cell phone, radios, fax machines and all of that, that provides that vital link back to the emergency services community. Page 31 June 16,2000 CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: What exactly do we spend $75, 000 on maintaining the mobile command vehicle? MR. AGUILERA: I know some of the maintenance issues are electronics upgrades. We have to maintain those. Gary Arnold, who is one of our primary individuals who cares for that vehicle, is constantly looking at the electronics packages in it, the routine maintenance on it. It is a large vehicle. It does require some maintenance upkeep. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm trying to think how you spend 75 grand a year to run it, though. I mean, I don't question that it's very important. We need to have it. It's very useful. I just -- MR. SMYKOWSKI: That includes the staff cost. If you'll notice, it does include .an FTE .there on Page A-48. That's allocated cost of that ent,re operat,ng budget to that program. So it is more than simply $74, 000 to -- in maintenance costs on an annual basis. That is not the case. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: That'sa emergency services department? MR. SMYKOWSKI: That is, yes. COMMISSIONER BERRY: And you also maintenance. Does that fall under this 74,6? maintaining a web page? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Not a lot. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Not much. person in the have a web page What's the cost of MR. OLLIFF: Not much, because it's Gary Arnold that does it. So it's part of what Gary does. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Speak of the devil. Ken Pineau here to save the day. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Gary's brother, Ken. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: His evil twin, Skippy. MR. PINEAU: For the record, Ken Pineau, emergency management director. There's a lot of other jobs in that one-third of a position, actually, that we do. The maintenance of the mobile command vehicle, that's taking very few dollars, actually -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Right. MR. PINEAU: -- on an annual basis. That pays his salary, his benefits. And this is something that we haven't -- it's not an expanded. This is something we have been doing year after year. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So is there one-third of a person in Page 32 June 16, 2000 that 76,6 or is there a whole person in that? MR. PINEAU: Well, there's -- there's a whole person. I'm sorry, yes. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. That kind of answers the question for me, for the maintenance of an RV. COMMISSIONER CARTER: And it does for me. And I can understand. I mean, as rapidly as we're developing software and equipment that can help us in these areas. I mean, what you put in today is probably outdated tomorrow. I'm pleased that we've got somebody that's on top of that, so -- MR. PINEAU: Gary Arnold's -- in fact, we're all on call 24 hours a day. And we couldn't -- if you're going to reduce one person, I don't think we could, could operate. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Everybody okay with that? COMMISSIONER CARTER: I'm okay. COMMISSIONER BERRY: Fine. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Thank you. MR. SMYKOWSKI: That moves us to public services division summary on Page A-23. Expanded services are outlined on A-24 through A-26. In a large part the expanded services here are driven by new capital facilities coming on line. The expanded domestic animal facilities component on Davis Boulevard. And, in the case of the Collier County library, you have obviously the North Regional Library expansion. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Thank you. Questions on any of that? Are we rationing up our books -- when we get to library are we rationing -- I'm fine. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: services. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: I don't have anything on It's easy today. animal On library, are we rationing up our -- we're going up 05, I think, in the collection every year; is that right? MR. JONES: John Jones, public library. We're right on target. I get confused because you're adding so many digits to it. I think it's 1.30725 right now. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Which is great, because we used to be -- I think we were at 1 -- Page 33 June 16,2000 MR. JONES: 1.05. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: One point zero. Yeah. MR. JONES: And in the last two years, I have been backing off holding so that we put the collection in the new branch. We will not exceed, lump way up. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I don't have any other library questions. Just my usual one, is that as fast as you can add them? MR. JONES: We won't spend the money any quicker. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. JONES: We're buying what we need. COMMISSIONER BERRY: When do you break ground for the new library again? MR. JONES: Right now it's scheduled for October, but we are at the mercy of animal control and their buildings. We were ready to go six months ago. MR. SMYKOWSKI: It will immediately follow the completion of the DAS facility. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Get the animals out, move the books in. MR. JONES: The present schedule calls for us to be open November '01. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Thank you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Good. MR. OLLIFF.' He's actually already done design on that building, so he's ready to go. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Should we see the architect here? Does it look anything like that Golden Gate building? MR. OLLIFF: You'll like this one. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. JONES: It's a Spanish mission. The Spanish mission has a courtyard with an amphitheater in the courtyard and a bell tower. Very attractive. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay, good. No more Star Wars buildings. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Community development,expanded services on our-- CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: No. We are still in -- MR. SMYKOWSKI: Excuse me. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Oh, yeah, we're still -- Page 34 June 16,2000 COMMISSIONER BERRY: What page? CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: We're through library. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: 827 is where I am. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Me, too. The extension service, $20, 000, that whole thing is offset completely by United Way. MR. SMYKOWSKI: 100 Percent, and Mr. Olliff was very clear when he approved that that the future of that position would be dependent upon continued receipt of that funding. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Anything under public health? You okay? Community development. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Community development on A-31 and A-32. There's one expanded service request on A-32, which would be an expansion of the economic development program. MR. MIHALIC: Good morning. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Hi there. Can you explain the communications manager and stuff? MR. MIHALIC: Yes, this is an expanded position to expand our economic development activity. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Of course, for the record you would be? MR. MIHALIC: I'm Greg Mihalic, housing and urban improvement department. And this is really the fourth year of our program, and this is really the first expansion with our partnership with the economic development council. They would like to add a staff position for a new program that would essentially try to outreach and assist in re-locating businesses to the community that are the suppliers and assets to the businesses we have now. Sort of a grow from within and use our supplier networks to enhance high wage job creation. Mrs. Paraeigas (phonetic) is here, if you would like a further explanation of this program. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Let me -- I know your offices are right beside each other. They will be located in your office. MR. MIHALIC: No. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: They will be located in Miss -- MR. MIHALIC: They would be employees of the economic development council. And, other than paying for them through our contract, we would have no other oversight relationship. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I just have one comment on this Page 35 June 16, 2000 one is, sort like in elementary school when you make straight A's and your mom comes to expect them all the time, you know, the return on the buck that we have gotten out of EDC has been so high that, you know, go forth and spend 150 grand, but come back, Susan, with the same kind of return on investment that you had on the first money that we've given you. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: What will -- the same question that I've had for eight years, what will the communications manager do eight hours a day? MR. MIHALIC: I'd like Mrs. Paraeigas to come up and address that. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Good morning. MS. PARAEIGAS: Good morning. Susan Paraeigas, president of the economic development council, for the record. On a daily basis, Commissioner Constantine, we have the communications manager at a full-time position that will design, coordinate and disseminate local and out-of-market recruitment and expansion information and collateral materials. In essence, they will help our other staff that we have respond to inquiries, trying to move jobs to the local area or for expanding businesses. In addition, I think it's really important for this position, with the performance measurements that Commissioner Mac'Kie mentioned, that they will make sure that we have that at any time for your review. So they will be heavily involved in that. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: There are very impressive statistics. But help me walkthrough the communication manager's day. I have, withbroad summaries or broad generalities, I still have trouble grasping it sometimes. MS. PARAEIGAS: They come in the door, they open the door. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Yeah. It's Tuesday, you know -- MS. PARAEIGAS: It's Tuesday. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: October 17th and they walk in at 8:00 a.m. and they go sit at their desk and what do they do? Help me. MS. PARAEIGAS: The first thing that they are going to do is look at their prospect files that they are working with on the business retention expansion, as well as business recruitment, find out which prospects we are supposed to send proposals to. And that is an extensive job. What we've been able to do so far is that, with the staff that we've had, use the staff what we have to Page 36 June 16,2000 do their own proposals. In essence, what we're trying to do is compete with the Palm Beach and the Orlando's and the Jacksonville's that have 15-member staffs and make sure that our proposals are professional. So, on a day-to-day basis, they will come in, the first job that they do will look at proposals and make sure that we are responding on time and that we're giving ample information. In addition, I see that they will be heavily involved in press releases, as well as a speaker to go around to the local community and make sure that our existing businesses understand or communicate with our existing businesses what the programs are that are available. COMMISSIONER CARTER: I understand. These dollars are not out of ad valorem taxes, these come out of what is raised through licensing fees; is that correct? MR. MIHALIC: No, that's not true. These come directly out of ad valorem taxes. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, they come from occupational licenses, which are supported in programs that are otherwise ad valorem. MR. MIHALIC: Occupational license may flow into a general fund account, but these are paid out of the general fund account. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Right. But, as a percentage of-- I mean, there's two ways of looking at it. The net bottom line is yes, it costs us from a property tax perspective. Another way of looking at it is, occupational license payors have not been getting anything business specific for their license fee, and this is a sort of pay for what you get opportunity for that license fee. MR. MIHALIC: When we look at surrounding counties, the job creation we get per dollar is substantially higher than theirs. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Incredible. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: The other way to look at this is, it's money well spent. MS. PARAEIGAS: Thank you, sir. MR. MIHALIC: Right. Better put. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you. Keep up the straight A's. MS. PARAEIGAS: Thank you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: A plus, right? CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Anything else for Mr. Mihalic? Page 37 June 16,2000 Thank you. MR. MIHALIC: Thank you. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Transportation is summarized on Page A-34. Expanded services is outlined on A-35. Based on the new reorganization, this would include the new water management component, which Mr. Olliff in his opening remarks indicated we are supplementing in the upcoming year, as well as our road and bridge component in transportation for roadway maintenance. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's too bad we're as dry as we are right now. Because if we were in a rainier part of the year, nobody would even blink. COMMISSIONER BERRY: They would be crying for this, and more. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Right. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: And maybe by September we'll be lucky enou9h that they will be crying. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE:Yes. I've got no comments. These are good numbers to me. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Just a question. At what point is the break even for doing it out of house versus taking and doing the desi9ns in house? Is there a formula that you apply to this process? CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: What's the outhouse formula, Barb? MR. McNEES: Mike McNees from your transportation division. I think generally, for larger scale projects, we consider continuing to do more contracted design. But the intent is to be able to, on some of the other smaller projects, be able to do those with some of the staff that's being added in stormwater. John may have something to add to that. MR. BOLDT: Well, that's well put. With larger projects, we want to use the local consultants. The smaller ones, we want to have our hands on. We think we can do that much more efficiently. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That was John Boldt. COMMISSIONER CARTER: For the record. MR. BOLDT: Stormwater management. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Fine. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Anything else? Thank you. Page 38 June 16,2000 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: out of those Poinciana Village canals? Thank you. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Let the record up. John, you going to get that grass reflect, thumbs Next item. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Airport Authority is on Page A-46. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I love the color coordination. It's so easy to find it, now that I understand what's going on, in the detail book. COMMISSIONER CARTER: I thought you were referring to John's tie. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I was. MR. BOLDT: Thank you for that. MR. DRURY: John Drury, executive director, Collier County Airport Authority. I'm here to answer any questions. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Questions for Mr. Drury? Thanks for coming by. Have a good day. He looks disappointed. MR. OLLIFF: They are armed for bear this morning. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Yeah. He comes and he briefs about his budget before they ever get here. He let's you answer your questions up front. He's terrific. Runs it like a business. COMMISSIONER BERRY: John, are you going to have Stage II jet bands for the air?. MR. DRURY: Send them to our airport. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Send them on over. COMMISSIONER BERRY: Let the record reflect that all Stage II lets should go to the Collier County Airport. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Are being encouraged. COMMISSIONER BERRY: And encouraged to do so. MR. DRURY: As long as they buy fuel. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: They fuel up. That's right. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Comes in dry, we'll take care of yOU, CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Next item. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Constitutional officers begin on Page A-50. Now, the property appraiser simply has his budget increases due to the additional costs associated with the development of a GIS system. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Any questions on property Page 39 June 16,2000 appraiser?. COMMISSIONER CARTER: None. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Any questions on the supervisor elections? COMMISSIONER CARTER: None. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Any question on clerk of courts? COMMISSIONER CARTER: None. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Let's welcome the sheriff. MR. SMYKOWSKI: The sheriff is summarized on A-55 and A-56, and I see -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Don't you wish you were the property appraiser, Don, so it would be just that easy?. MR. SMYKOWSKI: The sheriff's budget is, to summarize, is current service reflects the impact of the pay plan adjustments and his expanded services, as outlined in the budget policy discussion in April, reflect simply grant funded positions or positions that were previously funded by grants. The grants are ending and they are being absorbed in the general operating fund of the sheriff's agency. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Do we have a listing of those 34? I assume you're telling us every single one of those is necessary to continue the well-being in the community. MR. LEWIS: Yes, sir. Harvey Lewis, for the record. 28 of them are road deputy positions, six of them are gang and serious habitual offender positions. MR. OLLIFF: Just so you know, too, I have pulled all the -- we had all of the executive summaries pulled for every one of those grants because I wanted to know clearly if we had indicated to you as a board that these positions were going to be an obligation at the conclusion of the grant. And in every single case the answer is yes. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Seems pretty straightforward to me. We've already authorized the personnel increases. We understood in every case that we were going to have to pay for these grant positions as the grant ran out. I don't have any problems. COMMISSIONER CARTER: I really don't either, because I think -- I don't know, what percentage is it, Mike, if we look at personnel services? That's the adjustments, the grant replacement of his total increase. It's a pretty high number. Page 40 June 16,2000 There's very little increase in operating costs, as I remember. MR. SMYKOWSKI: That is correct. There's approximately a million-six in expanded services, again associated with those grants. And this is duplicative of the information that was included in budget policy and the cost match is what they had indicated those costs to be borne in the sheriff's general operating fund would be. So it was right on.So we certainly appreciate that, the consistency of the number. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Sheriff budget-related item, I don't really have any problem with the numbers here. This is one of the best budgets we've seen in eight years, and as far as layout and communication and so on. I appreciate that. The question I just had was, we hear all kinds of numbers bandied about out there publicly on vacancies. Of course, we did the budget -- the pay plan adjustment and we're doing stepped in one. How are we coming on that, just as far as, are you having better luck recruiting? SHERIFF HUNTER: Yes. We have some early -- Don Hunter, Sheriff of Collier County, for the record. We had some early indications that the wage adjustment approved by the board and early implemented in June has already had a dramatic impact. We had been running about a hundred application requests per month historically. And now we, in the first week after announcing the wage adjustment and the new pay plan, base wage, we had 130 application requested in one week. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Wow. That's great. SHERIFF HUNTER: So that's about, what, five times as many. And it has begun to average out around 75 to 80 per week being requested. We understand, or I understand, that whereas, for instance, we had had -- last time I checked, I believe it was February, we had something like three to five conditional offers outstanding, meaning we had offered positions to about five people. We currently have outstanding conditional offers of about 85. So a very dramatic turnaround for us by way of board action. And we very much appreciate what the board did. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Sheriff Hunter, I would also like you to share with the community some of the application from which you learned from Y2K, and how you had taken what you had to do there and now applied it into other operations to get a continued benefit to the community. Page 41 June 16,2000 SHERIFF HUNTER: We -- thank you, Commissioner Carter. I would like to expand upon what has happened with us with Y2K. I've given you a document also, if I may, and I'm going to refer to it. It's the Florida Sheriff's Star, Page 14. And it's a comprehensive program that we designed to attack the crime situation in Collier County. As you all know, we have had a very good year last year. Calendar year 1999 was a record year for us in a sense that we now have a crime rate that we haven't seen since 1972. We have the opportunity to set an all-time low crime rate for this county. We're going to do it in a number of different ways. One of them is by application of the concept that you see in this magazine on Page 14, which is Comstat. Using the Comstat analysis process, we use the Y2K plan, which we developed to address the New Year's Eve -- the predicted New Year's Eve problems. We're going to use that plan to operationalize the analytical capabilities of the agency to drive the crime rate down. What had happened, of course, was Y2K, there was a great deal of prediction that we were going to have mass -- CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Mayhem. SHERIFF HUNTER: -- disarray and mayhem, chaos. We had put together a plan to call in all agency elements, put them on a alternating shift pattern of 12 hours each, staffing up for the nighttime hours and for duration of the entire weekend. As a result of our efforts, and yours, we had very high visibility on the street and we had one of the quietest, if not the quietest, I believe the quietest, New Year's Eve ever in Collier County, or at least in the last three or four decades. We were very impressed by the fact that that happened the way it did. And what we're doing now that -- having had this experience, is, once a month, and more frequently if we can afford to do so, at no cost to the taxpayer, by balancing hours and working our schedules in a intelligent fashion, we multiply our force on the street for various enforcement applications. The early applications have been, the school board had all their proms on the same weekend, for instance, and we knew that historically those weekends have been marked by increased alcohol consumption and irresponsible driving. We put, during that prom weekend, something like a hundred additional deputy sheriffs on the street, looking at the proms, the prom locations, any places Page 42 June 16, 2000 where parties might be spontaneously occurring, and trying to suppress any kind of irresponsible driving by the higher visibility. We had a very safe weekend. We had very good cooperation from the shop owners and proprietors who were selling alcohol. We had very good cooperation from the sites where the proms were being conducted, and we had a very safe outcome. We also have been targeting our gangs, adult career criminals, and our serious habitual juvenile offenders with this Comstat idea and by targeting them, knowing that they are very high risk, high volume offenders. By targeting those high volume offenders, we think that we are going to have a very significant outcome in terms of further reductions in the crime rate. We have already had that kind of an outcome in the substation where we first implemented Comstat, out in Golden Gate, at a 20 percent reduction in the crime rate, over an 11 percent reduction in the raw number of crimes that were reported to the sheriff's office. And that has, we believe, a very strong potential for making this an even safer place. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Other questions for the sheriff? Thank you very much. COMMISSIONER CARTER: I just want to publicly thank Tom Schneider, who was a former Big 6 partner, who, on my behalf, has worked at Sheriff Hunter's office for the last year. And I think the sheriff will agree that, not only did he help educate me in the process, but I think we all learned something from Tom's experiences in how to improve efficiencies and how to do this even more effectively. SHERIFF HUNTER: Several advantages, yes. I would like to commend the efforts of Tom Schneider. He's a private citizen who is taking time out and thoroughly reviewing the budget. And I think it's a very important process because it makes you think and it gives us different perspective, added perspective on what is important. It's been a significant part of the process. And we appreciate your participation as well, Commissioner Carter. You have asked a lot of tough questions. We appreciate that because that helps us to, again, put it into proper perspective. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Sheriff, I know it's in capital, but -- or I think it's in capital, but your 800 megahertz coverage Page 43 June 16,2000 problem, is that being adequately addressed in this budget? SHERIFF HUNTER: Well, it's hard to fix a label to it. It's a moving target. We are addressing it with the aid of the board and board staff, working with the contractor, working with the State of Florida. It is being addressed. It's coming along. And part of the capital improvement program would be some of the fix, we believe. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And what I hope is the approach here, sort of like the beach rocks, is, first we fix it, then we decide, you know, if it's somebody else, if it's somebody else's responsibility, if we should be suing somebody, but let's not wait to figure out whose fault it was before we solve the problem, because this is certainly more important than beach rocks, and we did beach rocks that way. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Yeah. I understand there have been some practical difficulties. To the best of your knowledge, are they meeting their what they had said would be a 95, 95 obligation? SHERIFF HUNTER: I believe the most recent report we have indicates that there are some issues. If we can't address them contractually now, but there still remain some issues. And the monies that have been programmed, I believe, will go a long way towards fixing that. I will reassure the board, you have a very strong, aggressive hand in Tom Olliff. And Tom is working with us to see that those fixes are in place. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: And obviously the safety of the officers is the number one thing. But just from a finance standpoint, if they are -- have not met the obligation they met, I assume we will follow Commissioner Mac'Kie's suggestion and pursue whatever litigation may be appropriate. MR. OLLIFF: We will. But I need to point out that, from every indication that I have gotten so far, it was just an early model of that system. And I think that, from our perspective, they probably did live up contractually. But we'll continue to look at that. And our biggest concern was getting it fixed. From the stories that we heard about deputies in the field, we wanted to get that radio system fixed. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Anything else on the capital items, as long as the sheriff's here? Some of them are related to Page 44 June 16,2000 him, some of are county staff. MR. $MYKOWSKI: It begins on A-59, the capital 301. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Questions on any of those? MR. OLLIFF: The sheriff's projects are outlined at the top of Page A-60. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: I have none. Thanks. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Speaking of setting records, I think we just set a record, the fastest review of the sheriff's budget. I know it was in the last six years. COMMISSIONER BERRY: The least painful probably. MR. OLLIFF: I've got to tell you, that's the best relationship that we've had in terms of a budget submitted by the sheriffs department, and just a lot of credit goes to Don and Harvey and Crystal and Jean, both. They all did just a great job for us this year. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, I have to say some credit has to go to Tom Olliff, too, because some of the questions are the same. COMMISSIONER CARTER: We didn't have an adversarial relationship between the county manager and the sheriff this year, which was refreshing. MR. OLLIFF: Just to point out that, in the '01 budget on the third line on your right-hand side, right-hand column on the blue page is that radio number. So it's 1.5 number, and that's what we've put in there to both address our and the sheriff's systems. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Good. You're done. SHERIFF HUNTER: I'd like to thank the board for your early work on our budget and for the support you've given the agency relative to our wage situation. Very, very important step. And I think that you've secured public safety. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Is this when Kumbya? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Join in. MR. OLLIFF: If there's any other questions, presentation we have for you this morning. we all sing that's all the CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Mr. Olliff indicated at the beginning -- and we will go to public speakers, if we have any -- but Mr. Olliff indicated at the beginning we have a wrap up schedule for Monday. It sounds like we may not need to hold that. Page 45 June t6,2000 We had a couple of questions today. You can provide that in memo form to us. MR. OLLIFF: I will. I'll give you my concluding remarks, though, that today's workshop has resulted in our need to get you some Medicaid info in regards to the EMS billings. We've reduced the IT position and our participation in the coastal communities program. And then, for the final public hearings in September, we will come back to you with some IT support information, some heart drug information, and a finalized BCC office budget. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Our only speaker today will be Janet Vasey. MR. OLLIFF: Yes. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Hi there. MS. VASEY: Janet Vasey, for the record. I have a few issues that I came up with after reviewing the budget this year. And I was looking at things mostly from a policy point of view. It's always been the board's policy to charge those people that are benefiting from a service, charge them and make them pay for it. And so I was looking through the budget to see if there are areas where that's not occurring or where maybe we could do a better job of that. And so I came up with a few I wanted to discuss. Basically, Community Development, Fund 113, pays for services that are related to new development and the permitting and planning and inspecting. And those fees, of course, are paid by permits and development reviews fees from developers and passed onto owners. And these costs, of course, are not paid for then by homeowners through ad valorem taxes. The community development fund is also used to develop -- to reimburse other funds for costs incurred in support of new development. And this includes some of the comprehensive planning areas and in the code enforcement area, where code enforcement people go around and inspect new development. By the same logic, I think that some areas of transportation administration could also be reimbursed from the 113 account. I know Ed Kant spends a lot of time reviewing the PUD -- the PUD documents for transportation impacts. And I think there are probably other offices too that provide that kind of support that could and should be reimbursed from the 113 account. Page 46 June 16,2000 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's a really, really important point. And we looked at that hard a couple years ago, but it sounds like it might be time to look at it again. Because, if there is a nickel that can be paid out of community development fees and reduce property taxes, we want to find every nickel. MS. VASEY: Oh, I think there is some potential there. We would have to take a hard look at the numbers of people and the amount of time that they spend on it. But I think there's probably a couple of hundred thousand dollars there that could be reimbursed from 113 and then reduce the ad valorem by a like amount. Another area that perhaps would even have a bigger impact is the transportation engineering. This function currently is paid for from gas taxes. And it seems that, if you look at it in the whole picture, the transportation engineering is, in a large part, developing new roads, adding new roads, like Livingston, widening lanes, like on Immokalee. Those kind of things you could tie directly, I think, to growth, growth management, and reimburse from 113 also. The impact fees are used for the purchase of right of ways for the laying of construction, but they cannot be used for anything relating to pay and personnel and operating costs. But you could use the 113 account to pay for that. And I think there be would be upwards of maybe a million dollars that could be used in that regard. And how that would transfer is, the million dollars then would be a million dollars less that you would have to use in gasoline fees, gasoline taxes. And then that money would be used to pay for more in road maintenance fees, which would then free up a million dollars of ad valorem tax dollars. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Could we ask the county attorney's office to research that for us, because if that's legal, I'm certainly interested. Is anybody else interested? COMMISSIONER CARTER: Yes. Those are interesting points. I think we ought to take a look at. And if we can make it a better process and use funds more effectively, good idea. MS. VASEY: And I did look at the revenues that are available in the 113 account, and even though there is some new construction going on there, there is really sufficient money. And I've done an analysis and provided some of that information to Page 47 June 16,2000 Tom. But I think there is plenty of money there to take care of that. Also, one thing I would like to talk to you about is the motor pool capital recovery fund. And if I could direct your attention for just a minute to the detail book, Page F-24 and 25. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I remember this happened last year, too, didn't it? MS. VASEY: Well, it was a year -- I think it was two years ago. But there are some things happening here that I just have to bring to your attention. What's happening here is that, we're taxing taxpayers now to pay for costs that are needed four, five, six years down the road. And, in this account, on Page F-25, you've got the reserves going up to 4.2 million dollars. That's money that's in reserves. There's a lot of-- it is not totally ad valorem tax dollars, but probably 35, 40 percent is collected and not being spent. And it's just getting bigger. I guess when I was objecting to it a couple of years ago, it was a much smaller amount, but now it's just growing. And, let's see. Looking back, I think they are collecting too much money and they are not accounting for the revenues that are coming in. If you look under the revenue lines, there's miscellaneous interest and surplus sales. But $250, 000 a year coming in, and I suspect that that's not somehow getting in to reducing the amount that's collected for the new vehicles. So I would suggest that that could be looked at and perhaps -- I question whether we have a need for this at all. It's tying up a lot of money. It's -- the funds that actually pay for these vehicles have sufficient reserves, have sufficient money to be able to pay for these things on an as-needed basis without putting into a pool for them and having a situation where between one million and $1.6 million is collected each year -- that's including some of this interest in surplus sales -- and between 550 and $870, 000 is paid out. So every year we're collecting much more than we pay out in that year. So I would recommend that that be looked at with a view of perhaps even getting rid of the whole fund. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Is that something Mike could do today? I would love to know the answer to that. MR. OL. LIFF: I wouldn't recommend that you do it today. I will tell you that Mike and I were laughing at each other because it was one of the things, as we went through the budget this year, Page 48 June 16,2000 we've also had some questions about. I know that initially one of the answers that I was given -- and I will tell you that we want to take a little closer look at this reserve and how it works -- but you have to keep in mind that equipment replacement does not come on a -- if we're on a, for example, a six-year replacement cycle, does not come on a one-sixth every single year basis. And I know I looked at a couple of out years coming in, and you've got some major ambulance replacements coming in a couple of years, and ambulance replacements are in that $120, 000 per unit range. So when you start looking at a half a dozen of those, there are some spikes coming, and it's just not a consistent target. I will tell you I think that we probably have a little excess here. And one of those things that I think is part of next year's budget process, I think she's right, we need to go back and we need to work on this. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: My question, though, and I apologize for all of the interruptions, but I just wanted to get on the points. The other point that Miss Vasey made is that there is reserves in each of those funds. For example, is there already reserves in the EMS capital for those -- MR. OLLIFF: No. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. OLLIFF: There are reserves at the fund level, but there are certainly not reserves set type replacement. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: fund level for?. aside for equipment, ambulance And what are the reserves at the MR. SMYKOWSKI: Contingency. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. MS. VASEY: The point that I had there is that, to follow up on your ambulances, that is pretty much paid for out of the general fund. And the general fund has -- well, in the '01 year it has 17 million dollars. So it can pick up a couple of ambulances if it needs to. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That was the same question that you raised for us every year that I keep listening to, I really like it, and that is, are we overtaxing to keep our bank account full, and is it over full? Do we have too much money in reserves when you total up all of the reserves in the multiple funds and then the general reserve? And every year they talk us out of it, but I'm -- Page 49 June 16,2000 MR. OLLIFF: No. And I will tell you, as part of her recommendations, your reserves and your carry forwards were reduced by almost 3 and a half million dollars, and that's directly as a result of Mrs. Vasey's recommendations from years prior. And I won't tell you that we're done looking at those. But, you know, in this budget year, that's what we felt comfortable recommending to you. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: In the specific example that has been provided, is there an opportunity to look at that between now and September? I mean, I don't think anybody would argue if you actually lowered that millage at the final hearing. So, rather than say golly, we'll look at it in the next budget year, that's a long way away. That's an opportunity to actually do something We've got a couple of months, we can certainly now. MR. OLLIFF: take a look at it. COMMISSIONER BERRY: Last year there was a question that was brought up, or a statement that was made, that though things looked pretty good at this point in time, are we going to reach a point where we're going to start going the other direction? I remember, I don't know-- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: They showed us that, absolutely. COMMISSIONER BERRY: Do you remember that discussion, that we're biting into reserves? And I don't -- Janet, I don't know, you've looked at this. Do you see this as a problem that we're going incur down the road here? I think so far it's always been pointed out, I think, that, with growth and everything, we're -- you know, every year it always looks really good and but at what point do we reach where we don't look so good? MR. SMYKOWSKI: I'll respond to that, and be brief. I spoke with representatives from Moody's Investors Service, who rate municipal bonds, and to discuss with them the need or rules of thumb related to carry forward as a percentage of total fund appropriations, et cetera. In my memo to the board through Mr. Olliff, it was noted that at a minimum a Florida coastal community should carry approximately 10 percent. We're at like 11.1. So, in terms of carry forward, we are not overly fat, so to speak. We're right about where we need to be. We also -- as the general fund grows over time, you have to meet cash flow obligations during Page 50 June ~6,2000 that first six to seven weeks of the fiscal year, and the board's policy has been for us not to have to borrow money issuing tax anticipation notes to fund operations during the early part of the fiscal year. It was also -- the analyst that I spoke with from Moody's was also quick to point out that some of the issues affecting Florida communities were, you know, obviously hurricane and wild fire threats. Some of the other things he mentioned were uncertainty regarding the future of Article V court costs and the shifting of that. And those are things that they are concerned about. In addition, potential volatility, reliance on the tourism industry, as well as reliance on sales tax revenue to fund general operations were some other concerns that they have when they are reviewing county financial positions. And this was right off the cuff, and those were the few things he rattled off right off the top of his head. And I think we need to be cognizant of that. And, given the percentage, I think we're right about where we need to be. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But on these particular ones, is it something that we can look at for September, with regard to the motor pool? MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes, without question. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What else have you got, Janet? MS. VASEY: In conclusion, I just wanted to tell you that I think your staff has done an excellent job, especially in the areas that I like to poke around in, with the reserves and the carry forward. I couldn't find a single thing there in the general fund that I could take issue with. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yea. MS. VASEY: So I'm really pleased. Thank you. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Thank you very much. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Somebody send a tape of this to the governor, would you? CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Anything you want to wrap up with or are you okay? MR. OLLIFF: No, sir. I think we are good until September. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Mr. Olliff, thank you very much. You've get a great staff that always does such a wonderful job putting this thing together. But I'll tell you, I don't think it's any coincidence that the process this year has gone the smoothest of Page 51 June 16,2000 the eight years that I've done budgets. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Amen. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: The format is good. Communication, both before the hearings in advance so we could answer some questions and here have been fabulous. So everybody who has worked on this, great work. Thank you very much. MR. OLLIFF: Thank you. COMMISSIONER CARTER: I'll say ditto to that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Ditto. SHERIFF HUNTER: And may I make one more comment? CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: You too. SHERIFF HUNTER: Thank you. Don Hunter, Sheriff Collier County. I was remiss. I would like to also thank Janet Vasey for the work that she has done with the Collier County Sheriff's Office budget. She has been very thorough in her analysis. She worked very closely with budget staff. And we very much appreciate the work that she has done to stimulate the public perception of the agency to try to give us an idea of -- some other ideas of how to look at the budget. And it shouldn't go without having been said that she's done a very good job with that. Thank you for the extra moment. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: Thanks. SHERIFF HUNTER: Have a good weekend. COMMISSIONER CARTER: So we don't need to meet Monday. CHAIRMAN CONSTANTINE: No, we don't. We're adjourned. Page 52 June 16, 2000 There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned at 11:55 a.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS TIM HAIRMAN -.~. .!:.% ~ ~* ATTEST: ~ · 'DWIGHT:E. BROCK, CLERK ~ ~'i" These minutes~approved by the Board on as presented ~.~ or as corrected TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE BY: ELIZABETH M. BROOKS, RPR Page 53