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Agenda 09/11/2018 Item # 2A109/11/2018 COLLIER COUNTY Board of County Commissioners Item Number: 2.A.1 Item Summary: June 21, 2018 - BCC/Budget Workshop Meeting Meeting Date: 09/11/2018 Prepared by: Title: Executive Secretary to County Manager – County Manager's Office Name: MaryJo Brock 07/11/2018 10:09 AM Submitted by: Title: County Manager – County Manager's Office Name: Leo E. Ochs 07/11/2018 10:09 AM Approved By: Review: County Manager's Office MaryJo Brock County Manager Review Completed 07/11/2018 10:09 AM Board of County Commissioners MaryJo Brock Meeting Pending 09/11/2018 9:00 AM 2.A.1 Packet Pg. 20 June 21, 2018 Page 1 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Naples, Florida, June 21, 2018 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners, in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as the Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing board(s) of such special districts as have been created according to law and having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m., in BUDGET SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: Andy Solis William L. McDaniel, Jr. Donna Fiala Burt L. Saunders Penny Taylor ALSO PRESENT: Leo Ochs, County Manager Mark Isackson, OMB Director Jeffrey A. Klatzkow, County Attorney Troy Miller, Communications & Customer Relations June 21, 2018 Page 2 MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, you have a live mike. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Thank you. Welcome to the 2018 budget workshop, and we'll begin today with the Pledge of Allegiance. And, Commissioner Taylor, would you lead us in the Pledge. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I'd be honored. Can we do one thing before we start? CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Sure. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I'd like to have a moment of silence because we lost our dear Clerk of Courts. (A moment of silence was observed.) (The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And if I just may add, it's clear that our county has not forgotten it, because our county flag is at half staff. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, I didn't know that. Thank you for pointing that out. MR. OCHS: Good morning, Commissioners, and welcome to the Fiscal Year 2019 Budget Workshop. I'm going to begin this morning by providing a brief overview to the 2019 proposed budget. Following that, we'll have individual department and division directors come and present their specific budget proposals to the Board this morning. That will be followed this afternoon by presentations from your constitutional officers. So with that, Mr. Chairman, if I may begin. GENERAL OVERVIEW MR. OCHS: Commissioners, like every year, your annual revenue and expenditure plan is just one component of a larger integrated performance management planning system. It features, first and foremost, your annual strategic plan that lays out the vision, June 21, 2018 Page 3 mission, guiding principles, and the strategy focus areas that this board has identified not only for your agency but for the community. The staff then takes that strategic plan and develops a series of annual operating plans that lays out the programs, the services, the facilities that will be needed to carry out the strategic plan directives of the Board embodied in those six strategic focus areas; and then, finally, as we are today, we put together an annual expenditure and revenue plan that allocates or proposes to allocate sufficient resources to each of those service and program and capital improvement areas to make sure that we're successful in our larger planning initiative. Just by way of reminder, your six primary strategic focus areas identified in your strategic plan include: Quality of place; growth management; community health, wellness, and human services; infrastructure and capital asset management; economic development; and, finally, governance, including transparency and strong fiscal management. Commissioners, just a quick reminder of the annual budget cycle and the timelines. We started back in March with board budget policies guidance. We're here today in June for the annual workshop. That will be followed on your July 10th board meeting where we ask you to set the maximum tentative millage rates for the FY '19 budget, the Property Appraiser in late August will mail out the TRIM notices to all the property owners, and then when you come back in September, we'll have two statutorily required public hearings that will ultimately result in adoption of your budget. So let's take a look at where we are heading into Fiscal Year '19. We would say that the overall economic landscape is stable with moderate growth and a continuing trend of that moderate growth. Countywide taxable value has increased about 5.58 percent. This marks the seventh consecutive year of tax-based growth. We'll note that the new taxable value component of that overall taxable value June 21, 2018 Page 4 increase is down about $458 million, which may be an indicator of moderating growth into the future. Consumer spending remains strong. It continues to increase steadily year over year. Your sales tax and your state-shared revenues also remain steady and positive for the foreseeable future. Median home prices are in the mid 400,000s, remain in that level, slightly moderating year over year. Your visitation to the destination, your tourism industry, which is so important to our economy, was essentially flat this last year. New construction permitting inspection activity is remaining strong for the entire '18 and for the foreseeable future and, finally, we'll note that your unemployment rate here locally is 3.6 percent. It dropped .7 percent year over year, and that's essentially an indication of full employment. The budget outcomes for 2019, I'll run through a few of these highlights. I won't go through all of them, but your budget guidance that you gave us in March has essentially been met for the ad valorem supported County Manager operations. This budget is built around the millage-neutral tax rate that the Board established in their policy guidance in March. The unincorporated area is also millage neutral. It contains both a component for operating and capacity and a component to continue the median landscape program that the Board initiated a few years ago. I should say re-initiated a few years ago. Your General Fund and Unincorporated Area General Fund budgets had both shown substantial growth in your reserves, and we'll talk about why that's important in a few minutes. Your principal debt and annual debt service continues to decline. It's fully funded and compliant with your debt management policy. This budget, like budgets in the past, features a series of expanded services to allow us to staff some of the new capital facilities that are June 21, 2018 Page 5 opening and to meet the demands of our customers. And we'll go through those in a few minutes. We've continued for the fourth year to provide an enhanced level of commitment to public health, safety, and welfare services highlighted by an additional 183,000 support to the David Lawrence Center above and beyond what our statutory requirement is. We've also maintained the $75,000 allocation that this board made last year to help with wildfire mitigation to the State Forestry Service. And, Commissioners, despite some of the pressures we had this year dealing with the cash flow challenges related to Hurricane Irma, we were still able to provide about $18 million in new capital money programmed for both your General Fund and Unincorporated Area General Fund. I will note that your General Fund loans to impact fees increased about $1.8 million year over year. And this budget does include a 2 percent wage adjustment recommendation to keep your workforce on pace with the Consumer Price Index increases year over year. There's also no health insurance premium or planned benefit changes programmed or recommended for now the sixth consecutive year, and that's a good indication of our good claims history and our healthy reserves in that fund and the strong management by your Risk Management Department. Let's talk just for a minute about Hurricane Irma and some of the budgetary impacts resulting from that hurricane event. Now, the county has spent, exclusive of salaries, about $87 million through May 17th of this year attempting to restore the community and facilities in the aftermath of that hurricane. We have in the remaining budget about $37.6 million. Most of that will be programmed to continue debris removal primarily from the canals and waterways, and we spoke to you last board meeting about that in a little more detail. June 21, 2018 Page 6 It remains unknown when any significant reimbursement of FEMA funds will arrive. We are hopeful that some of the initial submissions by the county staff and the Sheriff may come in before the end of this fiscal year, and we're hoping for the balance of that money in Fiscal Year '19. And we'll watch that carefully and manage around that. And much of the funding that we needed to deal with the cleanup from the hurricane this current fiscal year came as a result of having to defer a long list of capital projects in the amount of $60 million, and reserve reductions of about $47 million. And we'll talk about the impacts of those as we move through the budget today. Just a quick summary: You can see kind of the historic rollercoaster ride on the changes in countywide and unincorporated area taxable values beginning in Fiscal Year '07 and then kind of running down through the great recession and then recovering back up through the last several years beginning to moderate from a high of 10 percent in FY '17, and we'll have to watch that trend moving forward. Your millage rate history, General Fund property tax rates have remained stable for the last nine fiscal cycles at 3.5645. Your unincorporated area tax rate also remains at 0.8069. Let's take a look at a few of the budget highlights. Your millage-neutral tax rate in your General Fund results in an increase of approximately $16.6 million against the property tax levy. That total General Fund -- excuse me, ad valorem revenues in your General Fund, $314,604,000. We also maintain a millage-neutral Unincorporated Area General Fund. The marginal increase over 2018 in your unincorporated 111 fund is about $2.4 million. As I mentioned, we do have expanded service requests totaling about $10 million including 61 new positions; 23 of those are attached to your new stormwater management program and will be funded separately by your stormwater utility revenues. June 21, 2018 Page 7 Commissioners, you are aware that the legislature in the last session passed a new law pertaining to school safety and the placement of law enforcement officers in each school. That is the new requirement of the Florida Legislature. That requirement is fully funded in the Sheriff's budget. There is no off-setting revenue reflected in the budget; however, the legislation did contain some dedicated state funding for that specific purpose. I've had meetings with both the Sheriff and the school superintendent within the last week. The Superintendent fully intends to recommend that the school board send that full allocation that they receive for this program over to the Board anticipating to get that revenue sometime in October or November of this year. So that will be offset, about 1.6 million, against the Sheriff's increase for that particular legislation. General government new dollars programmed for capital initiatives totals about $18 million. We'll point out that your water and sewer user rates in the proposed budget have been adjusted by 2.8 percent. That's based on the ongoing board policy to keep up with inflationary increases. Your tipping fees at the landfill are also proposed to increase by about 4.1 percent; 2 percent of that, Commissioners, we're asking to set aside to establish a new restricted revenue -- excuse me -- reserves in your solid waste fund. That's the fund that we go to first, typically, to help fund debris cleanup when we get a large storm. They haven't had a restricted reserve for that, and we've had to go to other areas to help fill that bucket. So we're going to use half of that increase to establish that reserve so we have that growing for the future. Finally, your mandatory solid waste assessments are set to increase about 2.8 percent, and your building permit fees are actually decreasing pursuant to actions of the Board earlier this year. I mentioned the stormwater utility. There's a non-ad valorem June 21, 2018 Page 8 special assessment that will be levied to fund the new stormwater utility program. That estimated levy will yield about $21 million annually, and you can see here that budget breaks out between in different categories of personnel, operating expenses, and your capital expenses related to the new program that's designed to now meet industry standards across the state, and we thank you for your support on that. Commissioners, just a quick overview of the changes in your General Fund and Unincorporated Area General Fund supported capital program. The highlights there, I think the changes from FY 2018 to FY 2019 proposed, you can see that we're trying to allocate some additional resources to our building repair and maintenance functions to get at some of our deferred backlog in that area. We've also made a concerted effort to provide additional funding for ours parks, our parks capital, to get after quite a bit of deferred capital maintenance that we've experienced over time in the parks that we've struggled to get back to current service level. You'll notice about three-quarters of the way down there's a $2.8 million appropriation in the recommended budget as the local match to the TIGER grant that we recently received from the federal government; and then, finally, as I mentioned, there's a slight increase, about a million and a half dollars of loans from the General Fund to our impact fee funds to keep them whole and paying their debt service in 2019. This is your proposed position counts. You can see the column of where we started in 2018 both for the Board and County Manager's agencies, the court system, and our constitutional officers, the changes that were made midyear this year and the expanded service request, and we can go into detail on those as each department and division comes up to present their budget. As I mentioned, the budget does include a recommendation for a June 21, 2018 Page 9 2 percent general-wage adjustment. As I mentioned at the outset, we're basically at full employment here. And as you read the papers and you see around the country, that there's increase in competition to retain talent in organizations everywhere. The labor force is shrinking, and the demand for talent remains high. So I think it's important that we at least keep our workforce level with the changes in cost of living. I mentioned the healthcare program fully funded, actuarially sound, no increases, again, for the sixth year. We do continue to maintain our employer/employee cost share in your agency and the Clerk's agency and in the Supervisor of Elections agency. There's still some other constitutionals that are providing a higher level of benefit and covering much larger percentages of premiums for their employees. That county budget is about $1.15 billion. This does not include the Tax Collector's budget, which is submitted under state law on August 1st. These are our famous pie charts we show you every year. This is the net budget. It tells you where the revenues are coming from. Thirty-one, almost 32 percent is from ad valorem taxes, you see another 20 percent in the brown slice of the pie for service charges from water and sewer charges, ambulance fees, refuse collection fees, we have designated carryforward and General Fund beginning balance as well, and gas and sales tax represent about 5 and a half percent, and your permit fees and fines, another 7.8 percent of your revenue streams in your net budget. Where that money goes: 22 percent is devoted on public safety services, another 21 percent to what we call the physical environment programs that deal with environment stewardship, you have 27 percent devoted to reserves, and another 9 percent in your transportation budget. Let's drill down now from your net budget and talk about your June 21, 2018 Page 10 General Fund budget. This is really the engine and mostly the services and programs that are supported through your ad valorem taxes. This budget totals about $435 million, and it represents a 5.3 increase from the 2018 General Fund budget. I'll show you at a high level the general pro forma for the general fund budget, point out a few things. You can see on the expense side, down towards the bottom of the list, constitutional officer transfers up $14 million. That includes mostly the Sheriff and all the other constitutionals that receive General Fund transfers. On the revenue side, you can see the ad valorem property tax new revenue of $16 million. You'll see in the middle of that box a repay from Hurricane Irma loans. Those are projected transfers back into your General Fund from other operating funds that the General Fund had to loan money to this year to get through the hurricane cleanup. If and when FEMA money comes in and goes back into those operating units, some of that funding will come back to slowly repay the General Fund and make the General Fund whole. We talked about the importance of reserves and the needed flexibility in the budget to deal with unexpected contingencies. I'm glad to report that we've been able to steadily increase your General Fund reserves over the years, and you see that in the bar chart at the bottom of this slide. Your 2019 proposed contingency and cash flow reserves and your General Fund total about $47.5 million. That's up over $40 million current year. Again, some of the reasons why: General Fund reserves is representative of our overall financial health and stability, and it is really examined closely by all the credit ratings and credit services, and you can see that we've been very successful as an agency receiving the highest rating of triple A for our corporate debt as well as our special obligation revenue bond debt. It also is the cash flow engine for the General Fund, it protects June 21, 2018 Page 11 against drops in our beginning cash balance, as I mentioned, is available to deal with unforeseen emergencies or unfunded mandates, and also contains reserves for your constitutional officers. Commissioners, your outstanding principal debt projected for FY 2019 continues to decline from a high in Fiscal '08 of 788 million projected down to about 427 million in 2018, a welcomed trend. I mentioned at the beginning your debt service is within your policy limits. This just demonstrates that. You have a debt service policy that says that your overall governmental ratio of debt to bondable revenues will be no more than 13 percent, and in the proposed budget, that ratio is 6.2 percent of bondable -- your total debt service is 6.2 percent of total bondable general governmental revenues which represents about 6.2 percent, and that's well within your established 13 percent cap. Let's take a look at your General Fund revenue sources. Obviously, we talk about this every year. You can see that 800-pound gorilla from a revenue standpoint continues to be your ad valorem funding. That is probably a little bit larger of a percentage than we'd like to see, and we continue to work at ways to further diversify our revenue streams in our General Fund. There's a look at some of the specific revenues in that General Fund. We mentioned ad valorem dollars are up about 16.6 million. Your sales tax continues to be steady and strong; projected to increase by about $2 million over 2018. State revenue sharing dollars are up about a million dollar. Your gas tax estimates are up slightly over 2018. Your impact fees, however, are projected down slightly, about $3 million. And, again, this is a fairly unpredictable revenue source, and it obviously varies with the level of development and construction activity, not all of which we can control locally, of course. And, again, I want to point out the impact of the hurricane and the efforts that we've had to make to respond to that this current year. You June 21, 2018 Page 12 see your General Fund budgeted beginning fund balance or what we call carryforward in FY 2019 is about $41.1 million. You can see the precipitous drop from FY 2018 as we've had to pull money from reserves and other capital accounts to deal with the cost of cleanup from the hurricane. Let's turn to your Unincorporated Area General Fund budget highlights. You have a $58 million Unincorporated Area General Fund budget. It's up about 1.2 percent over 2018. I'll just point out that a little under $5 million of that is earmarked to continue the median landscape capital program. We're making good progress in getting to all of those streetscapes that we had to defer during the recession, and we continue to move forward on that program. Your stormwater transfer in this Unincorporated Area General Fund that totals about $5.4 million in the current FY has been primarily redirected to parks capital and asset management and reserves in Fund 111. Your increase in reserves is about 1.4 million. This is the pro forma of your Unincorporated Area General Fund. I'll point out on the expense side, on the left-hand side about halfway down that box, you can see about $2.7 million of additional revenue programmed and transferred into your parks capital program to get after our backlog in parks, and also our reserves at the bottom of that box are up about $1.3 million. So you add those two together, and it pretty much offsets the reduction in the transfer to stormwater capital on the expense side. On the revenue side you see the increases in your ad valorem revenues at the millage-neutral level. And, as I mentioned, towards the bottom of the revenue box, you can see the decline in your fund balance, beginning balance into 2019. And, finally, Commissioners, here's the breakdown of a typical unincorporated area residential tax bill. You can see that the school district remains the lion's share of that tax bill at just under 42 percent; June 21, 2018 Page 13 your general government portion is about 21.6 percent; constitutional officers another 15 percent; independent fire control districts around 10.6. So it's pretty consistent with prior years. Commissioners, I want to spend a minute again on this safe school officer’s legislation Senate Bill 7026 that was approved during the last legislative session. You've probably read a lot about it, particularly up in Lee County, over the last several weeks. But, essentially, it's a mandate to establish a program for one or more safe school officers at each school facility within the school district. That includes the public schools and the charter schools. And the legislation gave the school districts basically three options. They could partner with local law enforcement to get that done, they could essentially create their own police departments, or they could engage in what was referred to as the guardian program where there would be some program to arm certain individuals in the school. The Sheriff and the Superintendent came out early after the legislation was passed and said they had no interest in the guardian program. I spoke with the Superintendent. Obviously, they don't have any interest in starting their own school district police force, so they'll be working under Option 1, which most of the counties do, and that's a partnership with local law enforcement. So the funding parameters of the bill, there's about 97.5 million in recurring funds that are provided by the Department of Education to the school districts for the program, and most of that is done through cooperative agreements between the district and county and municipal law enforcement agencies. I will point out that the legislation, at least according to the lawyers at the Florida Association of Counties, says that the cities and counties have no legal funding responsibility related to this legislation, so I think it's an opportunity for us to sit down, perhaps, with the school district and the Sheriff, maybe some of the police departments June 21, 2018 Page 14 in some of the incorporated areas, and perhaps look at ways that we can balance this ledger a little bit to -- what I'm referring to specifically is this next bullet, Commissioners, on the slide, the bottom one. FAC did a recent survey on this topic. They got 33 counties to respond around the state. The data came back showing that most of those counties or the overwhelming majority were sharing the funding responsibility for this program either at a 50/50 or 60/40 split between the school district and the county Sheriff's Office. Notably, Collier County was the only county identified in the survey where the Sheriff is providing 100 percent year-round coverage for the cost of this program. That price tag right now in the current FY 2018 Sheriff's budget is about $7-and-a-half million. He's requested in his budget an additional $2 million to add 10 sworn school officers in 2019. That's the first year of a three-year effort where he's going to be proposing to add 39 new deputies over that three-year phased-in period at about $2 million a year. So you can see that the costs of this program are going to continue to rise significantly. Again, I mentioned there is some dedicated funding from the state. In 2019, the Collier school district expects to receive about $1.6 million, and the Superintendent obviously is recommending that -- and I don't think they have much discretion, according to the law -- that that $1.6 million revenue stream come to this board to be allocated against the increased costs of that program in 2019. And the bottom line, Commissioners, at some point today, I think probably when we speak with the Sheriff this afternoon, we'll talk about this, and I'll be looking for some policy direction from you about whether you're comfortable with funding this as you have historically or whether you'd like me to spend some time this summer maybe talking with the Superintendent and the Sheriff to see if there's some opportunity to cost-share this particular program expense. June 21, 2018 Page 15 And then, finally, our ongoing budget challenges. We talk about these each year. The first one doesn't change much year over year. You saw that 72 percent of your General Fund revenue stream came from property taxes. About 90 percent of that revenue is generated from residential properties. We also continue to have the challenge of not only dealing with programs and services and capital requirements needed to meet the demands of an increasing population -- we're growing at about 2 percent a year -- but we also at the same time still have to look back and try to catch up on the backlog of capital asset maintenance and equipment replacement that we've had to defer during the recession. We're making some progress, but we're still not there yet. The outcome of the sales tax referendum in November will go a long way towards dictating whether or not we'll be back in front of you at some point during the coming fiscal year to recommend some additional debt service and borrowing to meet our capital requirements if that sales tax initiative fails. We also have the challenge of remaining competitive in the employment market as the labor force shrinks and the demand for talent intensifies. We always are mindful of unfunded mandates and state programs. This legislation on school safety officers is just another example where, while some funding is provided, it's unsufficient to cover the full cost of the Band-Aid. And then, finally, we're also keeping an eye, as usual, on the communications services tax, which is a large funding component in your Unincorporated Area 111 Fund. There seems every year at the legislative level to be some kind of attack or some move to reduce or eliminate that particular revenue source for local government. So with that, Commissioners, thanks for your patience. That's a 30,000-foot overview of the FY '19 proposed budget. I'm happy to answer any questions, or we can move into individual presentations at June 21, 2018 Page 16 this time. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: I was just going to comment before we get to any questions, that regularly reviewing the health insurance costs for employees, the fact that we've had six years of no increases, is outstanding. So congratulations. I think that's an amazing result. I'm not aware of any other businesses locally that would have that kind of a result over six-year period, so... MR. OCHS: Well, thank you, sir. That's, in large part, due to the Board's allowing us to fund our wellness program. All the things we're trying to do on the front end to be proactive in detecting potential illnesses before they become severe and very costly as pay grade dividends, allowing us to have, you know, a clinic on the government campus where people can go and quickly get treated, now allowing us to provide some on-site fitness opportunities for our work force. All of those things combine to help keep our workforce relatively healthy. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Great, great result. And also the triple A bond rating is outstanding as well, so congratulations on that. MR. OCHS: Thank you, sir. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Just a couple little questions. As you read through in the unemployment rate and so forth, are we having problems filling any much-needed job opportunities because of the lack of people unemployed? MR. OCHS: Yeah. Commissioner, we're holding our own right now, but we're starting to see some leaks in the ship there, typically, you know, in our engineering and our planning areas, our accounting areas; those professional positions are the ones that we really get challenged in retaining because the private sector is looking for those folks. A lot of times we train them up, and they head out into the private sector to make some more money. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I was wondering about that. Also, June 21, 2018 Page 17 now we have the Sheriff's officers in the schools, and I would bet you that they have problems also finding the skilled workers they need for that same -- the trained officers to fill that position also. So do we have any kind of an effort to try and locate anybody? I mean, being that there's none available. MR. OCHS: Yeah. You hit it on the head, and I'm sure the Sheriff is going to talk about that this afternoon, because when he and I and Mark met a week or so ago, that was something that he had great concern about was, you know, even with the revenue coming from the school district to fund a portion of this program, he's not sure he can recruit enough new people fast enough to meet the requirement. He'll probably have to meet that with overtime, at least in the short run, and he'll talk to you a little bit about that this afternoon. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. MR. OCHS: You're welcome. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner McDaniel? COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yeah, just one quick question. And you and I spoke about it before. I mentioned it during the March -- when the first hearing that we had, or discussions that we had. I've not seen -- have we done a cost-benefit analysis with regard to the pay increase in relationship to an expense reduction? Has that been done for our staff? MR. OCHS: Expense reduction in? COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Well, you're proposing a 2 percent increase for salary increases. MR. OCHS: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And we have the option of affording the same benefit to the employees by a 2 percent expense reduction through some mechanism, health benefits and the like. And I just wondered -- I asked for it back in March and haven't seen it, and I was just wondering if anybody -- if it's been done so that we could June 21, 2018 Page 18 have a look at that. MR. OCHS: I have not done that. I can do that for the Board and have that for you. I think what you're suggesting is lowering their insurance contributions at some level that would equate to a 2 percent adjustment? COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Just to give us an opportunity to have a look at that methodology to see if it's plausible, if it's good for us as an organization. MR. OCHS: Sure. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: You know, the comment that I had made back in March was I noticed that the constitutional officers have different appropriations associated with the expense reductions for their employees. Our County Appraiser actually picks up close to 98 percent of the health benefits, and the Sheriff's Office the same. So -- and I know as an employer when you give pay increases, your FICA, MICA (sic), and federal withholdings travel up along with that on a percentage basis and just -- it was a question. MR. OCHS: Yes, sir, we'll get that for you this afternoon. Thank you, sir. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Any other questions? (No response.) MR. OCHS: I'm going to turn this over right now, Commissioners, to Mr. Isackson. He'll get us started on individual reviews. COURTS AND RELATED AGENCIES MR. ISACKSON: Thank you, County Manager. I think the first up is our court system, Mr. Rice. MR. RICE: Good morning, Chairman, Commissioners. For the record, my name is Chuck Rice, the Court Administrator June 21, 2018 Page 19 for Collier County. With me to my left we have Kathleen Smith, our Public Defender. MS. SMITH: Good morning. MR. RICE: Steve Russell, our State Attorney. MR. RUSSELL: Hello. MR. RICE: And our head of the Collier Department, Nicole Mirra with the State Attorney's Office. As always, we'd like to thank Leo and Mark and their staff for their continued support throughout the year. We'd also like to thank the commission for your support and interest and what you're showing and the leadership you're showing in what we're doing with the courts. I know a couple weeks ago you had a very productive mental-health and addiction symposium, which is really, you know, cool to see the hospital, law enforcement, the public defender, the state attorney, the courts all together in this. I mean, that's the true definition of community policing, community corrections. Call it what you want, but we're providing hope for these people. So I think it's really cool what we're doing as a community. And with that, I want to thank you-all. Last year you provided us with three full-time employees towards the treatment court: One to the public defender, one to the state attorney, and one to court administration. The direction for those positions was to basically expedite and expand and identify bottlenecks to treatment courts. I think you heard a couple weeks ago our Judge Martin provided some stats that were pretty, you know -- pretty successful, and that was -- you know, we had an 18 percent increase in drug court participation, and we had a decrease in wait time of 27 percent, and an overall success rate from the start of the treatment court back in 2014 of 60 percent. That's a national average. That's not good enough for us, and I think Judge Martin made that clear, the Board made it clear, and the Sheriff. June 21, 2018 Page 20 Everybody's on board; we want to do better. Because as far as the public safety component, that's huge. I want to introduce -- Judge Greider just arrived. She had court. She's our administrative circuit judge here in Collier County. JUDGE GREIDER: Sorry I'm late. MR. RICE: Any committees she needs to be appointed on for being late or anything? Committee chair or anything? With that being said, we're here today to present a budget that places a priority on the highest level of service and lowest possible cost to the taxpayers. We've always been good stewards of the county's money. We don't take it for granted. We're here to present a $5.5 million budget request, which is basically a 2 percent overall reduction on the overall request from last year. This year's expanded positions consist of one computer tech position under court admin. We currently have one person serving 73 users. The best practice and national average is one computer tech to 34 users. So we're requesting another additional computer tech, and the state attorney's requesting an assistant attorney that Mr. Russell will elaborate on here in just a minute. I also want to highlight some of the stuff we've been doing in the courts, and I'll be brief. Some of our diversionary programs. You've heard what -- the success we've had with treatment courts and everything. But, first of all, we serve -- over 30,000 people a month come through the doors of the courthouse that we serve, and we treat them all as customers. You know, the goal of the court is to deliver fair and timely justice, but we're also here to provide, you know, hope, change, and reunite families with our unified family court, and we've been successful doing that. We have a teen court program which is a juvenile diversion June 21, 2018 Page 21 program, which we had 104 defendants go through this past year, 223 student volunteers, along with 30 adult volunteers. The state attorney, we manage their misdemeanor diversion program for them. We have 236 cases a month on that diversionary program with a success rate of 80 percent. Our Probation Department, we supervise 1,200 cases per month, and we have an 80 percent success rate and completion rate on that, which is one of the highest in the state. And that goes along with our relationship with the Sheriff's Department. We go out in the field with deputies. We work hand in hand, you know, with the state and public defender, and it's been great. We have one of the most aggressive probation departments in the State of Florida. We also have an in-house mediation program which handles family, county, civil, dependency, and small claims. We've basically had over 2,500 cases referred to that program with a resolution rate of 66 percent. And we continue as a court system to move to 100 percent paperless. So those are some of the things that we're doing in the court system. And after -- we'll turn it over to Kathleen, if you have any comments. MS. SMITH: Sure. We are holding kind of steady. We're not asking for any new positions this year. I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your partnership with us and having the -- having the panel a couple weeks ago, I think you really see that you're changing people's lives by investing in these treatment courts, and I just want to take this opportunity again to thank you. MR. RICE: Steve? MR. RUSSELL: Excuse me. Good morning, Commissioners. I just wanted to address briefly the State Attorney's Office is asking for one additional position, which would be an increase of June 21, 2018 Page 22 $61,600. This is an assistant state attorney with felony-level experience for our Collier office. Primary responsibility would be case prosecution and sentencing recommendations for the Collier County specialty courts: Drug court, mental-health court and veterans court. This is a key position which would coordinate the functionality of this program including, but not limited to, training, community service, grant administration, agency liaison, all in an effort to meet the growing needs of our community, going hand in hand with Chuck's comments on the importance of these courts and its growing importance and a growing need in that regard. The public defender has a similar position which they need and had, and this would help coordinate with that and, I think, make the programs each more efficient. The actual cost of that position is a $53,000 base salary with benefits. It would be 86,400. We're only asking for 60,000. We made some reductions in other areas in utilities and things to help offset that. In general, let me just reflect, as we all work together, we're very happy that for the 20th Judicial Circuit, not only Collier County but our five-county area that we have jurisdiction over, for each of the last six years now, through 2017 calendar years, the 20th circuit has had the lowest crime rate of all 20 circuits in the State of Florida. And to give it a little bit perspective -- because we're in this day and age where we read about, sort of, every crime that happens every day, every night, every hour. To put it in a little perspective, this is an ongoing trend from the late '80s when Florida had a very high crime rate, and at that time we had less than 13 million people, but the index crimes, actual crimes; that's property and violent crimes kept under uniform crime reporting system by all the sheriffs and police departments. In '89 there were 1,100,000 reported index crimes and 1,400 murders, and that was in '89; less than 13 million. Last year with over 20 million there were only 1,100 murders in June 21, 2018 Page 23 raw numbers and only 600,000 index crimes. So it's not just the rate. The crime rate in '89 was over 8,000 reported crimes per 100,000. Our circuit last year had 1,700 per 100,000 almost 30 years later. So when you put it in perspective, we've come a long way. That's not to mean that there's no crime. There's obviously crime, or we wouldn't be here, and we have to continue working on it. But it puts it in a little perspective that I think gets lost over time, and particularly in the legislature where you have term limits, and people weren't here in 1989, as former Senator Saunders knows, going through some of those. So I wanted to just take the opportunity to put it in perspective. Collier County certainly leads the way in low crime rate for our circuit, so we're very happy about that, and it really reflects a partnership. What we do in the court system, along with excellent law enforcement, particularly here in Collier County, and law abiding citizens who provide support. So it really is a partnership in that regard. And it also is a testament to your support of that system. So I'm coming to end of a career here, so I may not see you after this year, at least in this setting. So I, too, want to thank you, the County Manager, the County Attorney, for all the help and support that my office has during my 16 years as State Attorney. I think we're on the right path. We still have a lot of work to do. We'll continue to work together, and I think, as has been reflected here, we have an excellent working relationship in the justice system. Thank you. If there are any questions, I'll be glad to answer them. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SOLIS: I would just say, on behalf of my colleagues, thank you for all of your service over 16 years to the circuit. It's -- we're all the better for it, and it's indicated by our crime rate and also the wonderful things that you're doing, and you're all working together. I mean, this -- you know, it's a passion of mine June 21, 2018 Page 24 supporting the treatment courts. And, you know, I'm just reminded of the speaker at the mental-health workshop that told his story of -- in a matter of five years going from just having a pair of jeans and a T-shirt to owning his own business and employing 10 people, five of whom are coming from the treatment courts. I mean, just the return to the community on this investment that we've made in the treatment courts, I think, if we could measure, that would be astronomical and certainly more than the investment that we've put into it. So thank you for all you're doing in that regard. It's really wonderful. Thank you, Judge, for continuing this on your side of the bench. So thank you. Anything else? COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I was just going to reiterate what you said in terms of Mr. Russell and his service. Thank you. I remember the first time you ran, so -- as a matter of fact, we were at a -- MR. RUSSELL: So do I. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: -- little forum, and I was introduced as a candidate running for the state attorney, and I was quick to point out that that was not me; that was you that was running. I was not running against you. But thank you for your service. MR. RICE: Well, thank you. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Thank you. MS. SMITH: Thank you. GROWTH MANAGEMENT MR. ISACKSON: Mr. Chairman, next up will be our Growth Management Department, Mr. Cohen and his staff. June 21, 2018 Page 25 COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Extra reading material? COMMISSIONER FIALA: We read this before you start talking; is that it? COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: We can go ahead and go to break while we read this. MR. COHEN: I'm missing Amy Patterson. MR. OCHS: There she is. She's on her way up. MS. PATTERSON: I don't usually get to sit at the table. MR. COHEN: Okay. Well, thank you, Manager and Commissioners. For the record, Thaddeus Cohen, Department Head, Growth Management. Before I start, I would like to have our team introduce themselves to you and the public. Without their tremendous support and effort, I would not be able to do the things that I do. So since Amy is like the last one, was a little late, she can start with the introductions. MS. PATTERSON: Hi. I'm Amy Patterson. I'm the Director of Capital Project Planning Impact Fees and Program Management. MR. JOHNSON: I'm Christopher Johnson. I'm the Manager of Financial and Operations Support. MR. SHUE: Good morning, Commissioners. I'm Gene Shue. I'm your Operations Support Director on the Transportation side of GMD. MR. FRENCH: Good morning, Commissioners. Jamie French, Deputy Department Head. MR. KOVENSKY: I'm Ken Kovensky, Director of Operations and Regulatory Management. MS. AMANN: Good morning. Stephanie Amann, the Manager of Finance and Operations. MR. COHEN: Again, Thaddeus Cohen, for the record. I want to thank you first for the opportunity to be able to talk to June 21, 2018 Page 26 you about our budget. We're excited about the Fiscal Year 2019. And I'd like to thank the manager and you-all for the support that you've given me over the last 10 months as the new person here that's just joined the Collier County team. As you can appreciate, a budget reflects the priorities of an organization. The Growth Management Plan recognizes this statement better than most. This past year we met the challenges of Hurricane Irma, the pressures of continued growth in the county, the stress of maintaining the infrastructure and services in one of the fastest growing communities in Florida. But this Fiscal Year '19 budget message, I think, highlights our path forward and what we will build upon, which is our successes, and that's why I'm excited to be part of this team here. Stability, continuity, sustainability are high values of this community, and we think that this budget reflects and upholds those values. The sustainability in the 2019 budget allows our department to capitalize on our assets by providing resources for continued road capacity expansion such as the design of the Vanderbilt Beach Road extension, being able to move forward with the design build of the Golden Gate Boulevard, and the re-pavement programs that we have to resurface the lime rock roads and intersection improvements and to respond to the current and projected growth. We're also paying attention to the health of our aging bridges. We've got 14 that are currently under design that we'll be able to move forward on. And, again, I think that -- we've just hired a new individual to be able to help us move that program forward. Technology upgrades of our traffic management systems: You've seen that when I first arrived on Airport Road the way we've been able to synchronize our lights to be able to help folks during the peak season move around our community a little bit more easily. Our crews are working to repair and replace and restore the traffic June 21, 2018 Page 27 signs. We've heard from the community. We're still working our way through some of the damages that occurred during Irma, and we're looking at being able to have a better way-finding throughout our community, being able to coordinate that as we go forward. The budget reflects a commitment to the maintenance of our current systems. And as the Manager talked about, the stormwater utility fee provides us with an opportunity to integrate the technology for weir automation. We're working with the Big Cypress Basin and the South Florida Water Management District on a collocated facility at the EMC for remote monitoring of our systems during the storm. We're excited about that partnership. We will be bringing that to you shortly, and accelerate some of the work that we have in Golden Gate City and projects such as Naples Park. With this dedicated source of funding, we'll be able to deploy the necessary resources to improve the stormwater network. And this past hurricane season pretty much showed us some of the areas where we need to pay more attention. We started working in areas such as the Goodlette-Frank ditch and being able to work at Freedom Park to be provide some of that basic relief to our community. And that stormwater utility fee, as I traveled the community and met with Commissioner Saunders and you-all in various other community meetings, there's excitement about the prospects of us being able to move towards industry standards, and this budget gives us that first opportunity to move forward in that direction. We place a high value on the quality and sustainability of the environment. That's a high priority for our department as well. The pollution control, which is something we don't talk much about, but they've got -- excuse me -- garnered state as well as national recognition for the work that they do. The challenges of the changing rules, regulations, and permitting condition. This budget provides for continuation of a robust sampling, June 21, 2018 Page 28 testing, and monitoring program, so -- we just had a meeting yesterday of our team in which we're looking at our website. And one of the things we found interesting is that a majority of the hits that we receive was for development services for building permits, but the No. 2 was red tide. Who knew? And as you can appreciate, it peaks during the season where people are able to go directly to that page to get information on the red tide. So, again, it's one of those unsung heros that we have folks in partnership with Public Services and the Recreation Department. We've teamed up to be able to have daily monitoring of what's taking place there through mobile applications, on their phones, that they're able to get the information back, and then our citizens and visitors are able to see on an updated basis what's happening in our water and what the conditions are. So we're excited that our budget allows us to continue to do those kinds of things. Sustainability of a healthy coast has made it more difficult in the aftermath of Irma, but the Coastal Zone Management Team is adapting to the changing environment. We've worked continuous to plan for the beach renourishment mitigation strategies, working with sea level rise with our partnership with the university to be able to start to think in terms of restoration projects related to storm and be able to be more resilient. The Development Services team is focused on strengthening their process. We currently have Plante Moran working with our team to be able to look at how we interact with our customers, that first contact, and then how we move people through the system to be able to be more effective and efficient, and I think as we continue those things, we'll be able to deliver better services to our community. The budget supports the E-permitting; 40 to 45 percent of our Building Department submittals are now done electronically, and we're hopeful over the next year or two that we can move closer to 100 June 21, 2018 Page 29 percent. So being able to have that inter-activeness with our customers and clients, I think, is important. And, again, this budget supports our ability to move forward in that direction. So we've been working with our industry partners on those technology improvements and front line offerings to increase resident and business access to information and improve document review and coordination. Again, technology improvements will assist our code enforcement team who, as you know, averages 70 cases per offices, which is a tremendous load. But I had a chance to ride around with our team and through the deployment and taking a look at the data that they collect on a monthly basis, we're able to put people, for example, down in Commissioner Taylor and Commissioner Saunders' areas to hit some of the hot spots that become known to us. So I think that we're improving and continue to improve in our response to be able to more readily meet the needs of the communities and particularly when you-all get calls. Mike Ossorio has done a great job of managing his team to be able to be responsive on a daily basis to some of the issues that you have pointed out to us. Intergovernmental coordination and public interactions, I think, is one of the keys for us going forward. The public will see continued benefits from the efforts of our certified flood managers. As you know, there was a reduction in our insurance, which is important, so that's savings for our community. And as Jamie's team continues to work with FEMA in taking a look at the flood issues and education, we think that there's opportunities for us to raise that community rating which, again, lowers the insurance cost to the community. So those are tangible benefits that I think you'll be able to see. As you know, Collier County is connected to the world. That June 21, 2018 Page 30 statement is reflected in the new terminal. So we were excited about the ribbon cutting that you-all attended most recently and the ability for us to move forward with the improvements at Marco airport as well as hangar replacement and repairs that we'll be doing out in Immokalee and improvements that we'll be able to make down at Everglades. The budget reflects the priorities for which we've highlighted. The accomplishments, however, can't be done without the tremendous talent and dedication of the women and men that work for the Growth Management Department. So with that, we are appreciative to you and to the Manager for the 29 expanded positions that we have that will allow us to be able to continue our mission to serve the community to the best of our ability. And with that, again, thank you for your support and that of the Manager's Office as we respectfully present our budget for your consideration. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Thank you. Questions of Mr. Cohen? COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I'd like to talk a little bit about Code Enforcement. You mentioned the caseload. If you could go back over that number again. MR. COHEN: My understanding is we have some 70 cases per officer. And one of the things that we've been able to do working with Jamie and our division director is to assess where those calls are coming from. We have data on the nature of those calls, how frequently various types of calls have come through, being able to follow how long it takes for us to get those through the system and then with that, to be able to do a deployment to be able to be sure that we're making the coverage on a countywide basis and then, from time to time, focusing where we see -- these are my words now -- where there may be a hot spot, where there may be increased activity where we can bring more folks to bear on whatever the cases or situations June 21, 2018 Page 31 are. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I guess one of my concerns is I want to make sure that we have sufficient code enforcement officers and sufficient ability to prosecute code violations. That's one of the areas that we do get a fair number of complaints about. Not complaints about the quality of our the code enforcement officers and how things are handled, but just the fact that there are a lot of code violations, some of which are not attended to as quickly as I would like, and I think that's probably because of the high caseload. My question is, do you need more resources? Do you need more equipment? Do you need more technology? Do you need more people to be more effective in code enforcement? I personally consider that to be one of the more important functions of county government. MR. COHEN: Let me answer that briefly, and then Jamie can kind of fill in more specifically. I think there's a couple things that are going to be able to help us as we go forward. We're looking at a mobile application that will allow us, I think, to interact between the field officers and -- these are my words -- the home base a little bit more effectively. That is being deployed, hopefully, within this calendar year. And I think Jamie can then speak to how his working with our team is able to address some of the issues that you've brought up. MR. FRENCH: Thank you, Thaddeus. Commissioner, so currently we have -- we've recently -- Thaddeus and I have recently signed off on four additional field inspectors that are job bankers. These are full-time employees. So we have two part-time people that work nights and weekends that primarily look at parking on the grass. They look at the snipe signs. They look for noise complaints. But in the event that we needed to move them into a full-time job bank associate, we would. June 21, 2018 Page 32 The budget currently reflects two additional vehicles that will support those job bank. And what I would respectfully ask is that in the ability -- or if we have the ability to measure this, we would be able to come back to you in the next budget year in the event that this does work out for us, and we would want to make them full-time. However, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that most recently the team and I hosted an event with Collier County Sheriff's Office with all of the community policing officers, and it was coordinated through Jim Bloom's office and my office to where we actually are looking at using the Sheriff's Office as well as they use us to be force multipliers to both agencies, because there's just certain things that they can't do. But if we can be alongside of them or, better yet, if they can be alongside of us, that way we could actually address a number of different things such as blight, potential crimes that may be going on in those locations, but also what we're doing is as we roll out our CityView mobile application, which we recently did in the last year -- and we were awarded as 100 brilliant ideas by the National Association of Counties for building. Well, we're taking it a step further, as Thaddeus mentioned. We're rolling it out into code enforcement to where it could actually be used by a tablet or cell phone or something like that by an employee, but we also intend to give the Sheriff's Office a number of licenses so their staff in the field -- if they're seeing things, they could also put in that activity that they're witnessing. And they may be actually answering a call. So we're not looking at using the Sheriff's Office to augment our responsibility, but it allows us to be able to share some visibility on what we're seeing in the field. Because most times there's a relationship between a code violation and a crime. So we've -- as you've recently re-awarded the contract to Brenda Garretson, I've met with Brenda on a couple of different occasions, and June 21, 2018 Page 33 that's one of the things that we do have Plante Moran going to look at is not so much efficiency -- because I think our guys are -- ladies and gentlemen in the field are doing a pretty good job, but we want to look at quality of input as much as we look at quality of output. So we can sharpen the pencil a little bit better, write a little bit more clearly and actually use some better verbiage, some handouts, things like that, from the educational side -- we're seeing a great deal of compliance just come to term just by -- through that educational opportunity. Now, again, part of our caseload is that we were a little relaxed because of the hurricane. We were giving businesses and owners of their properties a chance to be able to recover. Now that time is over. So we're starting that educational process. We're starting to get a little bit of complaints, and so we are starting to process those, and also we offer our help. So whether it's a dumpster in the neighborhood, such as down in Chokoloskee or East Naples or Golden Gate, we'll continue those educational offerings. But right now, sir, I know I was long-winded, but I do think that we're on the right track. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I just wanted to emphasize that again -- and the County Attorney may need to take a look at some issues as well. If you have problems in the neighborhood with your neighbors that are violating codes, that does affect quality of life in a very negative way: Noise, weeds, trash, whatever the violations may be. We were having some problems with lights, neighbors getting angry with their neighbors shining lights into their homes or that sort of thing. So I just want to make sure that from a code enforcement standpoint that we're doing the best that we can. And if it requires more resources, then I would support doing that. It sounds like, from June 21, 2018 Page 34 what you've said, that we're in pretty good shape right now, but -- MR. FRENCH: Yes, sir. MR. COHEN: We'll continue to monitor that. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Keep an eye on that. MR. COHEN: Sure enough. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner Taylor? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yeah. Code enforcement again. The challenge that I'm hearing is it's still there, and then when I look sometimes in our agenda, the fines are maybe a $100,000 and the decision is for $5,000, or whatever, to settle that, which means it's gone on for a long time. How do you address that? I mean, this is -- this is a conundrum. But, again -- and let me interrupt. I think however you address it, if you could make it public on a website so that folks -- and our office could refer to it also, that would be very helpful. MR. COHEN: Let me start by saying -- and then, again, I'll have Jamie fill in the blanks a little. What we're looking to do is to get compliance and, as Jamie's talked in terms of we need to have the ability to have that education process with the offender to be able to, I think, probably outline more clearly the steps that we're going to take in order to look for that compliance. If it winds up being a fine mechanism then what it is that we believe the responsibility is on our side to be able to move those folks through the process maybe more expeditiously so that the fines don't stack up, as you're saying, so they wind up being hundreds of thousands, that we can move them more quickly through our notification process that if this doesn't happen within a reasonable period of time, then a more specific action can then take place. And I think that provides for more resolution ofttimes for how this can be resolved as well as a certainty as to what the outcomes hopefully would be. June 21, 2018 Page 35 So I think our staff has gone with the doorknockers and other things to be able to help folks understand what the process is, and I think through that education we can provide a higher level of certainty as to how these outcomes will move more quickly. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Well, I think there's been a market change on my side, at least in the CRA. MR. COHEN: Yes. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Because when I came to a meeting, I was handed a list of code violations. That has never happened before. And so when our office gets the calls, we can say, okay, it's in the process. It was so helpful, so helpful that we know what you're doing, you're documenting it, and then we can, you know, become that liaison between Code Enforcement and the community. MR. COHEN: Absolutely. And I think as you were indicating, it was beneficial when Jamie and Mike attended that CRA meeting, and then I also had the opportunity to travel with Deborah Forester through the community to understand what some of the issues are. And as you're indicating, communication helps, and that's what we'll try to focus on being able to keep you-all aware of our steps and where we are in the process. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you. MR. COHEN: Thank you. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. I just wonder about the active or reactive -- proactive or reactive response to things. For instance, I hear people saying here and there where in order to go to, say, for instance, a code complaint, they're passing by two others, and they don't do anything about it because they can't proactively pursue it. They have to wait for a report that comes in, number one. June 21, 2018 Page 36 And I was wondering if we would ever -- you know, if they're allowed to go ahead and pursue something that they can see is glaring. You know, they'll see it quicker than anybody else because they're pretty familiar with it. And that was one thing. And the second thing is along about identifying themselves. People who -- there are people in these neighborhoods who are afraid to call because they're afraid of the retaliation. They'll call us. I don't -- I guess everybody else gets those calls, too, because they don't want to mention their names, but somehow a couple of them have gotten back to them as to who called us. And I know, in my office anyway, we prefer never to mention a name. We'll just -- it will be me that complains about it, and I was just wondering those are two blips, I think, that we could correct if you so deem. MR. COHEN: Yes. I believe I can answer the second one, so I'll do the second one first. And, again, if I'm off base, I'll be corrected here. But, yes, it's -- folks who do not want to self-identify are able to come to their commissioners, and then we're able to respond as part of an AIMS issue or other mechanisms to be able to be sure that our folks are aware and are able to get out within that five-day period or less to be able to start moving forward on the issue. The proactive/reactive, let me have Jamie speak to that. I'm not -- being new, I'm not sure where we are. I believe I know, but let me be more accurate with having him address that first case. MR. FRENCH: Thank you. So on the -- I'm going to just call them patrol cases, things that we would see. If anything is a life-safety issue whatsoever that would be considered a violation of code that would be considered life safety, despite whether or not we get a call, the code enforcement officer should put in a report, and that could be tall weeds, broken down car that could be leaking oil. When we look at life safety, we don't just look for human safety; June 21, 2018 Page 37 we also look at the safety of the environment. So if you've got a car that's leaking oil or perhaps you've just got signs, we call them snipe signs, things that would take your eyes off the road that would potentially cause damage, we react to those. And also if you -- and we do track and we report out to the Development Services Advisory Committee as well as the CRAs in the communities. If you were to go back and measure where we were five, 10 years ago with proactive case reporting, as far as how many cases were up, ma'am, I can tell you that we're up a significant amount. That's where a majority of our cases come from responses. So if there are things that a code enforcement officer might be missing, we can certainly sharpen their eyesight, and we can go into training on that. But we will most certainly -- and I know you and I recently, just by driving through the community across from where the pickleball was held, that was -- there was no complaint necessary. That was an opportunity for me to be able to reeducate our staff to go into that community. COMMISSIONER FIALA: They responded to my call. I have to tell you, they really -- Mike Ossorio, as soon as I called him and told him about the condition of that place, he was out there toot sweet; the next day he was in there. And it wasn't easy, because everything around it was also in bad shape. MR. FRENCH: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And he took care of them. Then I called him with the derelict vehicles that were being used on Del's property, and they got that taken care of. And maybe -- maybe officers that go by them don't see that or maybe you get so used to seeing it that you don't fix it. But, you know, I would say if they got direction from you, if you see something, just grab it and, you know, something simple like grass growing tall or something. June 21, 2018 Page 38 MR. FRENCH: And that is the message that we're sending ma'am; yes, ma'am. MR. COHEN: Point well taken. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner McDaniel? COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. And it's -- you-all brought up some really, really interesting points. One of the things that I would like to ask you is you're the boots on the ground, you're the ones that are dealing with our codes, you're the ones that are dealing with our LDC on a regular basis. I would like to see more adjustments that we can make as policy makers to help you do your jobs more effectively. Anything -- when we're managing our code, when we're managing Code Enforcement, we've had discussions along the way but, please, if you will, let us know how we can make adjustments, because there's -- sometimes our codes are antiquated. Sometimes our Land Development Code hasn't been touched in a long time, and that causes issues that could be, relatively speaking, easily effectuated without as contentious of an item. So that's the comment that I would like to make to you today, so... MR. COHEN: And we appreciate that. Thank you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you. By the way, you have great staff. Here I am talking about Code Enforcement, but everybody's been great. And, you know, I go to them with a problem from something or another, and they're out -- they're all over it, and I just have to say you guys work really hard because the community sees what you're doing because it affects them personally. So if I was talking about those, that doesn't mean that you're not doing a good job. They're doing a great job. Everybody. I'm talking about even when they see little slipups here and there and they go and fix it, you know, I really appreciate that. June 21, 2018 Page 39 MR. COHEN: Thank you. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yeah, and I echo those comments. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: And just so we're clear, the -- I'm looking at the recommended budget. The total support from the General Fund is a decrease. MR. COHEN: Yes. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Right. I just want to point that out. I mean, this is good news. It's well done, so thank you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, we didn't even talk about their budget, did we? CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Right. I mean, it's showing a decrease in the budget and, obviously, a lot of this is fueled by, you know, the collections because it's run as -- what do you call it? MR. COHEN: Enterprise Fund. MR. FRENCH: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: An Enterprise Fund. So it's well run. I mean, I think it reflects -- it's good policy and good decision-making. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Superior management. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Yeah, that's it. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And a million-dollar reduction in the stormwater advance from the General Fund because of the non-ad valorem fee all help. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: So while we're here and looking at this page, the Southwest Florida Regional Planning Council, are we continuing on, or what are we doing? COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Well, it's a Board decision as to whether we continue on or not. And if you want to talk about it for a minute, I can, unless you wish to. MR. COHEN: No, go ahead. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: You and I haven't spoken about June 21, 2018 Page 40 the -- MR. COHEN: No, we haven't spoken about it. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: -- Council. There was legislative or legal opinion that if you're a member, you have to pay, and that was -- already necessarily been decided. Now, whether some of the counties who have chosen to give notice and not pay are going to not pay or not, that's yet to be determined. But when you saw me sneak out earlier, they were having an issue getting a quorum this morning, and we were passing the budget for the RPC and the audit report and the like -- and it, by the way, did pass. But we are -- the organization is up for a relook. We established, back a couple of months ago, a relevancy committee, because since I've been serving as our representative there, the discussion about relevancy has been every month. We go and have a discussion as to what the organization is, in fact, doing, so -- and we actually had our first committee meeting in the relevancy committee yesterday, and we're going to come to the full board. So there are changes coming with regard to the RPC and what it does. As you all know, it's been moved from an authoritative organization formally approving comp plans and DRIs and things that are of regional impact to more of an advisory group to discuss matters that have a regional impact. So it's coming. So there are changes coming in what the RPC is going to look like, the Regional Planning Council. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: But nothing has changed or nothing's on the horizon. It's mandatory membership, and if you're a member you have to pay. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Statutorily, yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yep. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That change isn't going to take June 21, 2018 Page 41 place until there are adjustments made in the statute. MR. OCHS: And the county's annual assessment is part of your -- COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. MR. OCHS: -- budget. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes, it is. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And we didn't change that. I mean, that's going to take board direction, in fact, to do that. MR. OCHS: Yes. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. Thank you. MR. OCHS: Okay. Thank you, Commissioners. Mr. Chairman, would you like to take a 10-minute break, and then we'll move on? CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Yes. Why don't we do that. We'll be back at 10:35. MR. OCHS: Thank you. (A brief recess was had.) MR. OCHS: Chairman, I have a live mike. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Thank you. So we're back on the record -- MR. OCHS: Proceed. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: We'll proceed. MR. OCHS: Mr. Isackson? PUBLIC SERVICES MR. ISACKSON: It's Mr. Carnell and his Public Services team. MR. CARNELL: Well, good morning, most of the Board of County Commissioners. I'm glad to be here today. And this is -- you're looking at the leadership team from your Public Services Department. These are the faces of a very front-facing group in our community. These are the June 21, 2018 Page 42 faces that only a customer could love. They've done a great job this year. And last year ended and this year began with a big colossal disruption as Hurricane Irma blew through our community. Finally, finally the big one hit. And we were all impacted by it, and particularly your Public Services group we had some substantial impacts. The Museum of the Everglades -- Amanda Townsend, your Museum Director -- was closed, and we were able to re-open that from flooding damage in December, and the Everglades City library was closed until February -- MS. WILLIAMS: February. MR. CARNELL: Same reason, and they're back in city hall and up and functioning now. And the University of Florida extension building, as we speak, is still closed, and Twyla Leigh, your Extension Director, is homeless at the time. She's in rented space, and hopefully we're going to try to get her back in by the end of 2018 and her staff. But these folks have not only -- not only do they work well with your customers and your stakeholder and community groups, but they work well with each other, and you're going to hear a little bit about that from me as the proud papa today. They all have worked really well together, especially this year. Just to tell you about each group briefly. I'll start with Stephanie Vick, our Health Administrator, at the end, and the Health Department. The Health Department came through with a budget meeting compliance to the tee; two-and-a-half percent increase for the county portion of the funding of her operation. Our Health Department just continues to do a terrific job. Mostly off-the-radar behind-the-scenes stuff to keep our community healthy. They had a terrific response in Irma. So my appreciation to Stephanie for all she does and her team. June 21, 2018 Page 43 Tanya Williams is your Library Director, and our libraries going forward with some important capital improvements in the coming-year budget. We're going to be installing fiber-optic at five of the library branches which is going to greatly improve the speed and capability of our Internet service, and it's also going to enable us to enhance security and other type functions at the library that are tied into fiber. You'll remember we completed a community-wide assessment of our library systems a little over a year ago, and there were really three priorities that came out of that that we heard from our customers. People wanted books, books, more books; they wanted study rooms, areas people could meet and study and talk together; and they wanted to see more hours and possibly extended hours for our libraries. So we're going to be addressing all of those things in the coming years. Over the next two years, we plan to spend a little over two-and-a-half million dollars on book purchases. That breaks out to, like, a million and a quarter a year which, to give you some perspective back in the good 'ole days, prerecession, we were spending about two million a year, and then during the recession we fell all the way down to zero one year, and we've been building back up. So I look at it as being about 60 percent of the way back in terms of that spend. But we're getting there. And one area this we are investing more in is e-books, which is our biggest growth demand in terms of circulation in the library system, books online. So we're moving forward with those things. We're going to be adding two positions or asking your approval on two positions in the budget this year; one at Immokalee and one in East Naples. And what we want to do collectively in the library system in the coming years is -- in the coming year is to take a look at strategically extending service hours. Most of our facilities have Saturday hours now, but we're actually trying to look more -- going back to a little bit more of an evening schedule at some of our June 21, 2018 Page 44 locations. So we'll be addressing that in the coming year. I mentioned cooperation at this table. The library's very excited and very engaged right now in some partnerships. One with Parks and Rec. That guy over there. We're extending our summer reading program into our summer camps this summer, and we've had a huge response to that so far, and so we're very pleased with that. And then for the adults we're going to -- we're doing more book reading and book sessions at our museums. We've done five of them at different museum locations, very well attended, and we're going to be doing more of that in the coming year through the library system and with the cooperation with people like Barry and Amanda. So that's the library in a nutshell. Twyla. I mentioned Twyla is homeless at the moment, University of Florida Extension, but that has not deterred her or her staff from continuing to deliver service. We're in the middle of summer camps already. We've got our very famous and popular fishing camp, which is going like busters right now. We have Master Gardener clinics, some of them being held at the Collier County Museum here in the government center. Thank you, Amanda. And we continue to provide service. One of our more popular things that University Extension participates in Immokalee, the Ciclovia. That thing just continues; 200-plus people attending that thing every Saturday. It's huge; very popular. And so the University Extension remains engaged. Our goal is to get them moved back in by the end of the calendar year. You'll be seeing an agenda item on July 10th for a contract to fix the building, so that's the next big thing for Twyla. Then you have Michelle Arnold. Michelle is the Director of your Public Transit and Neighborhood Enhancement Division, and Michelle June 21, 2018 Page 45 is the proud recipient of a TIGER grant, along with other divisions and departments and, specifically, Michelle's group is going to be working the design of a new transfer site in Immokalee for CAT in the coming year. We'll be focusing on the design in the coming year. And we're also looking in our fixed route system to add mobile ticketing. I mean, the purchase of tickets. When I say "mobile ticketing," I almost think of a cop ticketing me, but it's buying tickets for the bus. We're going to be able to do that on your phone this coming year. And then on the MSTU side, the Vanderbilt cul-de-sacs project and cable burial project continues, and we expect to have most, if not all, of the MSTU community energized, meaning underground cables, by the end of '19, 2019. So Michelle's working very closely with our Public Utilities colleagues on that project. Then next to me is Darcy Andrade, our Director of Domestic Animal Services. And the DAS continues to just do amazing things in terms of advancing the quality of the animal care and animal outcomes in our community. Our live release rate has been running around 92 percent and in the month of May was 97 percent, which that would mean 97 out of every 100 animals got adopted out, found a home. That's amazing. And when you consider that many, many years ago a majority of them are being euthanized and now practically all of them are finding a home. And not only is Darcy connecting dogs and cats to families, but she's improving the care on site for the animals that visit us. And the coming year budget's going to include some improvements to the animal clinic to continue to improve our protocols, improve our lighting, and some of our other equipment in the clinic. So we're looking forward to that. We are also getting ready to bring a contract forward to the Board, negotiated architectural services contract for design of a June 21, 2018 Page 46 prototype building to upgrade the building capacity at the Naples shelter and get a building that's fully compliant to what would be current standards for animal care. So you'll see that design contract coming soon to an agenda near you. And then we have I'm Sean Callahan to my right. He is the Director of Operations and Veterans Services. And Sean's been involved in a couple of very important projects. One is the enterprise asset management project. Haven't heard about that for a while a whole lot, but we're moving forward with our implementation and public services, and Sean and his group are spearheading that, and we're really looking forward to getting that system up and running in the coming year. It's going to enable us to keep better track of all of our equipment, assets across the county and really manage how we replace and fix them over time in a little more systematic way. Additionally, in the veterans services piece, Sean's working right now on a self-service portal for our veterans that's going to enable them to be able to get more information online and assistance directly for themselves. So then we have Barry Williams, our Parks and Rec Director. And, of course, our Eagle Lakes pool is open. Our grand opening is next Friday, 10 a.m. Commissioner Fiala has promised me that she's going to do a double-reverse somersault off the 3-meter diving board. So we'll be there next Friday. You won't want to miss that. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: She's going to do that while hitting a pickleball. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I can do that. MR. CARNELL: So the pool's official grand opening will be next Friday. We have free admission through the month of July as a way of getting the community acclimated to that facility. In addition to that, Big Corkscrew Island Regional Park, the biggest park in Collier County history, and one of the most impactful June 21, 2018 Page 47 when we're done. We're in the process right now of -- we've completed the 60 percent design phase of that project, Phase 1, and we're going to be bringing a contract soon to the Board for beginning -- for negotiating a contract for Phase 2 services to develop the southern half of the park. But when that's all done, you're talking about over 150 acres. It's nearly double the size of North Collier Regional, the total land mass, when it's all developed. But we'll be building -- the intent will be to get Phase 1 out to bid next summer and start construction in the fall of 2019. Big, big impact that park's going to have on our total community. Additionally, we've got some unfinished business down at Caxambas Park. We've budgeted a million-and-a-half dollars to replace the old Coast Guard auxiliary trailer with a more broad-based, broader-reaching community building, and a similar kind of model to what you have at Cocohatchee Park right now. And the idea would be to -- the Coast Guard will be a tenant, but there will be a much broader use beyond the Coast Guard at this building, and we'll be -- working on the design right now. We're going to be starting construction sometime in 2019. Great partnership with the Coast Guard Auxiliary. Again, they're one of the tenants. They have raised $75,000 towards the project that they're going to use to improve the inside of the building when they take occupancy of their portion. So that one's moving forward as well. You know, one comment, and then we'll talk about this more in the coming year, is that with the Corkscrew project and, of course, the Eagle Lakes pool finishing up and the Caxambas project, by the time we line up the contracts and spend the money there, that's going to occupy a great deal of the available impact fee money, parks impact fee money for the next several years. So we're going to talk to you-all about that as we bring the Corkscrew contract forward. You'll remember your master plan presentation that you saw back June 21, 2018 Page 48 in May. There are other projects that need some attention down the road. The good news is that Corkscrew's going to be expensive, but you're going to get a tremendous bang for your buck in terms of service impact that this is going to have across the whole eastern half of the county. If you remember the presentation from Tindale Oliver, it really fills a lot of our service gaps for the foreseeable future in active recreation, but we'll need to talk about that, and be talking about that when we bring the contracts forward for construction. With that, let's see. Parks and Recreation. I think those are the hot items for the moment. And then I mentioned the museums system earlier. Amanda's big thing for the coming year is the return of the cat to the Marco Island museum in November, and we're getting and readying the facility for that now. And then she's also got a multi-year strategic plan that she and her staff have developed with public input that we'll be bringing to the Board in the fall for discussion. And you may remember last budget hearing last June I told you that we were going to be hosting the Florida Association of Museums state conference and that we were going to have over 300 visitors, tourists here for that. Well, we got hurricaned out. That event got canceled, but we're going to try it again. So no hurricanes this summer. And Amanda will be participating and hosting that event this fall as well. Per previous board policy, we have capped the tourist development tax revenue going to the museum at $2 million. So in order for us to be able to maintain service in the future, Amanda's on a very purposeful path right now to look at developing additional revenues for the museums to make them a little more self-supporting, so she's going to be doing that work and bringing a report to the Board during FY '19 to talk about that and the future of the museum as we go. June 21, 2018 Page 49 I mentioned the partnerships that she's involved with in the community as well. And then at the end, last but not least, Kim Grant, your director of Community Human Services. Your CHS budget for this coming year includes two important additional services. One is $100,000 set aside per previous board direction to develop and establish a land trust for workforce housing in our community, and then with that another $80,000 for us to develop a communications plan and a website that focuses on affordable housing availability opportunities in the community. Those -- again, that's also per previous board direction. So she'll be moving forward with that. She's also going to be continuing to work with the David Lawrence Center. As County Manager mentioned in his opening comments, we're increasing our funding support to the David Lawrence Center by almost 10 percent this year. It's now over $2 million, over $2.1 million, and Kim works with them very closely on a number of their services and projects. And I think -- did I miss anybody? We got everybody. That's us in a nutshell. Your questions? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Just a couple little comments. First of all, South Regional Library. MR. CARNELL: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I hear about all of the programs that you're doing over there out in the community. And I keep hearing about them, and I just want to tell you that they've made a lot of news. And I understand you have a lot of attendance to them, so I just wanted to mention that. Let's see. The pool. I know it's not really officially open, and yet I read -- you've got a lot of news coverage there that the pool is really coming along and a lot of kids are already there and loving every minute of it. So I want to say congratulations on all the news coverage June 21, 2018 Page 50 when the pool isn't open. But it kind of is. I think they're just practicing. Let's see. I had a couple other things. Gosh. Oh, I wanted to ask you, Stephanie, do you guys ever go out and inspect some of these mobile trucks that deliver ice cream in the neighborhoods to the children? Some of them look so filthy, and I'm thinking, I don't know if you guys ever go and take a look at them or not, but you worry about the kids getting stuff off of a filthy truck. I mean, I realize they're not our trucks but, still, do we inspect them? MS. VICK: We do go and look at the mobile -- we go and look at mobile food establishments. We do. So if you see some that you think are a problem, if you'll let us know. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes, I will. I was driving next to one of them, and it was so awful, and I thought, how could they even put food in there it was so filthy. So I'll mark it down. Thank you. MS. VICK: Thank you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I think that's all for now. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: I'm not sure who was next but, Commissioner Saunders. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: A couple questions. In reference to the parks, I think we've had some conversations about some of the cosmetic improvements. We mentioned Vanderbilt -- I mean, not Vanderbilt, but the Vineyards Park. There was still some Hurricane Irma tree damage there and that sort of thing. It just gives a very bad impression when you drive in. And I know you're working on that. In reference to Sugden Park, it seems to me that I didn't see anything in here in reference to the capital improvements there or much -- as a matter of fact, I don't think it was mentioned at all in this booklet. We had talked about the possibility of getting that canopy June 21, 2018 Page 51 replaced. Perhaps that would help in terms of attracting the powerboat races and other activities. It seems to me that that's a park that, with the beach there and with the sailing and skiing, that that really is a gem. That this is sort of just sitting there kind of going to seed, if you will, and I'd like to see something done there, if that's at all possible. MR. WILLIAMS: Absolutely. Barry Williams, Parks and Recreation Director. And thank you for your comments and appreciation for Sugden. We, as well, think it is one of the jewels of our park system. And we do have a couple projects that may not have the visibility that -- but I did want to mention to you. You know, one of the things that we've done this year and next is in terms of purchasing sailing vessels, you know, to continue the support that effort there. We're also doing some work in the piers right now. We have an assessment going on where we're doing a physical -- or an engineering assessment of the piers in and around the lake. We see that they are near needing replacement. But part of what we can do as well is look at that -- that canopy. We priced it a couple years ago. It's probably about a half million dollars to replace, but we can look at that in terms of looking at exactly what we need and come back in our next budget cycle perhaps with a recommendation to you. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: All right. In terms of the beach facilities there, I don't know if that would have a positive impact on taking some of the pressure off the Naples beaches. MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: But if you've got a really nice facility there, it seem to me that people in that general area would be able to enjoy that type of a beach. MR. WILLIAMS: And we actually, just to mention, Coastal June 21, 2018 Page 52 Zone Management, as part of their renourishment, were able to help us this past year, and they renourished that beach and really made a tremendous impact. We had a watercross event there in the fall that we were trying to get that beach ready. So they've indicated a willingness to continue to help us with that beach and maintain it at that quality, so... COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: In reference to the Big Corkscrew Park, I think you said that the plan is to begin construction in 2019, at least to have the planning done and actually, perhaps, begin some construction. If the sales tax on services does not pass, is there a funding source? I know you're using impact fees, but what would be the funding source in order to make that schedule a reality? MR. ISACKSON: Commissioner, maybe I can take over a little bit. If the sales tax fails, now you're left with having to supplement from about -- I think we'll have about $20 million in impact fees available on a pay-go basis. Depending on what the eventual cost of the project is, you may be borrowing up to $60 million or more to complete that project. And that borrowing, I would prefer that it be borrowed up front rather than doing it in phases. Now, that's still in discussion. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: What would be the source for paying the debt service on -- MR. ISACKSON: Well, certainly impact fees would be used, not as a pledge source of payment, but as a source of repayment. This will be a special obligation bond, a revenue bond, that we would go out with, which we would use impact fees in order to pay that debt service. Impact fees would not be a pledged source. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: So you'd have to pledge sales tax? MR. ISACKSON: All legally available non-ad valorem June 21, 2018 Page 53 revenues. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: All right. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner Taylor? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes. With -- regarding Big Corkscrew, what are we -- we're building ball diamonds first, are we? Tell me how that's set up. MR. CARNELL: There are four multipurpose fields, two baseball fields, and a warmup field in Phase 1. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Good, good. That's important. And as far as Sugden, I echo my colleague's concern about the park. I think if you haven't -- I think, because it backs up to Bayshore and the CRA, and there is a plan to -- at some point to connect the Bayshore to the park through a pathway through the 17 acres that we own, I think it's very, very important that you interact with the Tindale Oliver if you haven't already, because it is the community's park, and I think it would help facilitate interest in the park. I'm delighted that there are more sailboats on the bay, on the little water. I think that's so important. And so forgive me, but Domestic Animal Services, with all the challenges you have, why are you putting artificial grass, which is hot for dogs and to exercise on? Why not mulch? MS. ANDRADE: Actually, the artificial turf was a project that we planned in 2017. We had it scheduled; it was postponed. It was actually a donor-specific improvement. The volunteers actually had a lot of fundraisers for that. Several reasons for that was the yard flooded, it was a tripping hazard with the large tree that was in there, and also the disease, parvovirus, coronavirus in the yards. That is the only yard that we allow people to bring their animals in to meet -- potentially meet the dogs they're interested in adopting. So that yard, now that has AstroTurf in there, we're allowed to actually -- we can actually sanitize June 21, 2018 Page 54 it to protect those animals. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. So it's the reverse. Because I'm thinking, no self-respecting dog is going to use artificial turf. MR. CARNELL: We thought about having Jack Wert organize out-of-town tournaments with dogs and cats there since we're re- turfing, but we haven't gone there yet. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: We could have dog games. What a great idea, and he's here. Dog games. And, finally, with the Public Services for human -- for seniors. That, Ms. Grant, you are very much involved in. And I think -- I hope I have consensus here. I think we really have to focus as much energy as we possibly can on our senior population in our community. Driving through neighborhoods you'll see folks that are still yet to repair their houses. Maybe they're on a fixed income, and they don't have the money. They're going to stay in their house, by gosh. They're not going to move out of it. I don't know what can be done, but I would like to see if there is some way that we can start moving funds that are available to help folks that are still -- have not yet recovered from Hurricane Irma. I'm concerned about them. And there's a lot of them, a lot of them in the county off of U.S. 41. Granada, that whole area, you can see it. A lot in Rosemary Heights. And we just need to figure out how we can do the outreach. Maybe it is through the senior centers; maybe that's the way. But if there is an agreement up here to start looking at seniors in particular who are probably -- who are homeowners but cannot repair after Hurricane Irma. I'm turning to you, ma'am. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, I agree with you, and I've been kind of doing some checking. I know we've had some funds set aside, June 21, 2018 Page 55 but I haven't known how they're expended yet, and so I was just checking on that to find out if -- you know, because that's exactly what I'm worried about, too, in that whole corridor as well as in Immokalee -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes. COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- and in Everglades City and Chokoloskee. And you've got a lot of people in trailers that are half trailers, and they're really not good. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes. COMMISSIONER FIALA: But they're not going to move. They're seniors. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: That's their home. COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's right. And they can't leave, and so I was wondering where the dollars went. I've just started that inquiry. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. COMMISSIONER FIALA: So maybe I'll ask everybody that I've started with to make sure to copy you as well. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: All right. Thank you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And the information that I've gotten from Everglades City and from Chokoloskee and from Port of the Islands I'll send over to you. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Good. MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, if I might on that issue, staff did prepare a status report that we sent to Commissioner Fiala a couple weeks ago. What I'll do is get that out to the rest of the Board. It shows the current status and disposition of that $3 million in CDBG disaster assistance that was awarded late last year. Kim will send that out to each of you today, and it will give you a little bit of an update of where all those repairs are in the pipeline with that $3 million. June 21, 2018 Page 56 COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's good, because when I got that status report, it was just a list, and it said ZIP codes and dollars, but it didn't tell us what they were doing or where we were doing or who they were doing, and there was no author to it, and there was no date to it, and so it didn't give really much of any information. That's why I sent out some more inquiries. MR. OCHS: Okay. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And I think I'm looking at it -- clearly, you're way ahead of me in this, but I think I'm looking at it from more of a 10,000-foot view where -- we're an aging community, and this is becoming more and more of an issue, I think. But I think that the damage that houses have received from Hurricane Irma that are still sitting out there damaged are even visible -- even more visible. Maybe it is to ask the county to work with the senior center, perhaps, and Dr. Faffer directly in terms of -- because I think that organization has their finger on the pulse of the senior community. They are an amazing group that will reach out whether someone is -- asks for it or whether neighbors -- which is what I'm experiencing even in the city, neighbors will say, this person is living alone, terribly -- there's no air-conditioning, the pool cage is still damaged, and they're there. Not to do anything but to provide that liaison. So perhaps that's the way we work. Maybe we just need this assessment brought to us to see if there's anything more that we can do. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Or maybe there's a way to register for people who -- you know, I don't know that we've done this before, but maybe there could be -- somebody could sign up online or -- if they don't use online. Like, I can't ever use a portal. We were just talking about portals. I can't ever get my doctors' things because I can't get into the portals anyway. So maybe we could use something a little simplified, like a Donna Fiala simplified, you know, so that they could sign up and say June 21, 2018 Page 57 what they need to do yet or at least, you know, let somebody recognize that they're people in need. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yeah. Because there is money for seniors. I mean, it's budgeted in here. You know, what you use it for is another issue, but -- I mean, you use it for seniors, but what areas. I know you want to speak. MS. GRANT: Well, one comment I'll make, because this is a public meeting, is that my understanding is that right now, still today, the Salvation Army is running a program helping people make repairs where the repairs have not been made. So anyone who still is needing repairs, you may be able to go there right away. I think you're right, we would need to do an assessment of what is remaining, look at what our resources are that are available, what gaps we have. But if we're directed to do that, we'll certainly undertake that initiative. MR. CARNELL: Yeah. If I could add on to that; that Salvation Army, they just have received an additional $1.5 million grant from the Home Depot Foundation, and Collier County United, that the -- well, the Home Depot Foundation is to pay for the materials to fix the houses and also replace appliances, and then the United Way of Collier County is providing additional money to pay for contractor labor. And post-Irma you'll remember that Salvation Army set up that disaster recover center across the street, and that thing's just running like a machine and an engine, and this is now the next wave funding, if you will. They've already got the caseworkers in place. They're already preapproving people for previous grant funding they had, and now it's this new wave coming that's going to direct that -- address that specific problem: Housing. COMMISSIONER FIALA: How are they notifying people that they have it? MR. CARNELL: I'm sorry? June 21, 2018 Page 58 COMMISSIONER FIALA: How are they notifying people that that is available? MR. CARNELL: Well, I've seen some media releases and announcements about it just recently in the last week, and there's more coming, I think. COMMISSIONER FIALA: You mean, like, through the newspaper? MR. CARNELL: Yeah. COMMISSIONER FIALA: That a lot of people don't take anymore, yeah. I was just wondering, is there -- I don't know. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Always -- it's always the outreach. And maybe that's the issue. Maybe that's how we as a government could assist through outreach, you know, not that we would shoulder the responsibility 100 percent, but that we were able to grease the wheels to reach out into the communities. I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. MR. CARNELL: Well, we'd be happy to reach out. I mean, you're looking at a United Way board member. I'll be happy to take that back to the United Way board and see if we can coordinate between them and the Salvation Army and us. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. You know, they're everywhere. MR. CARNELL: Yeah. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: They own their house, and they've paid for it, and that's where they're going to stay. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Maybe just throw -- I'm sorry. We're getting on just a myopic subject. Maybe, like, in the city, for instance, you're talking about them, and maybe there are more. Maybe the city could be a drop off point where people could come in and just sign up because they have a problem, and then by handing that list over, they could pursue that. And same with Everglades City and June 21, 2018 Page 59 Chokoloskee and Paradise Island, they could all go into the city hall there, because it's close enough, and they could sign up for whatever it is. Even over in -- well, like in East Naples, they could come over here if we had a certain designated point. So if people wanted to have some place to sign up -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: There's some needs. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, but -- and it isn't too far for anybody to get. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: You know, not suggesting that we are going to make it all better but that we become the conduit, perhaps. MR. CARNELL: Understood. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Just -- if I could just ask real quick, because, Leo, you had mentioned CBDG (sic) grants, and I may just be having one of those moments, but in looking at the budget, there's a reference at the -- that the CDBG grant fund will be shut down as the older grants are closed out. I'm trying to recollect why that's happening. MS. GRANT: Perhaps OMB should answer this question but, in general, the grant funds used to be in one fund, and now they are managed in another fund. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. MS. GRANT: So until -- so the one fund that talks about them being shut down is just tracking the older funds up to the point where we made the switch over to another fund for management. MR. OCHS: No change in the annual entitlement program. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. I was hoping that was right. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Fiala, your light's on? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Just a quick one, and that was with boats over at Sugden Park. We're talking about the sailboats for the June 21, 2018 Page 60 children who are, like -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Handicapped. COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- handicapped -- MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, ma'am. MR. OCHS: Disabilities. COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- is the best way to say it. Is that what you -- and I know I tried to see if I could get some free donated ones, because somebody kind of told me that she could get them, but that never came through, and she just -- even though I asked a few times, I couldn't get an answer. So I guess we have to go to square one. And maybe you could apply for some kind of granting to buy -- because they all are handicapped in one way or another, maybe we could get boats through some kind of a grant for handicapped children. MR. WILLIAMS: That's a very good suggestion. U.S. Sailing has some grant programs that we certainly can look at. And we have benefited from people donating boats over the years, a pontoon that Mr. Carnell was able to help us get that we use on the lake, and it's great. You know, in terms of getting a wheelchair on the pontoon boat and giving that experience to folks, you know, with that disability, it's a tremendous asset. So we were able to purchase three Precision sailboats this year, and these are the boats that you can teach, you know, several children at a time, you know, that were getting tenets of sailing. So we've budgeted next year for some additional boats, as you mentioned, for our special-needs sailing program. So we're going to keep after it, and we appreciate your suggestion of the grant. It's a very good one. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Oh, as we're talking about special needs, as we have talked about maybe two years ago with the city staff regarding the extraordinary job they do in the city for special-needs June 21, 2018 Page 61 kids during the summer camps, how are we doing with starting and helping share that burden? Because the city is not exclusive. They take these special-needs kids from everywhere in the county. MR. WILLIAMS: Absolutely. And thank you for that question. I've spoken to Dana over the years since he's become the director there. And it is a unique situation with the city in that they provide a level of support that honestly is a bit of a concern; it was to Dana. They have children with extreme needs in terms of feeding tubes and medication. It is a program that they have a couple staff members who have children themselves that they manage those type of disabilities, so they're very comfortable with it. For us, we don't have those resources to support that level of care. It really -- in some instances, it's medical care that's being provided in those instances. So we have -- in our program what we do is we provide adaptive programming for people of all disability types. You don't see them in one particular location. We have them in a variety of recreational situations where we do provide support if they do need accommodation, or if they have that special need where they have a feeding tube or something like that that's needed, we do work with their assistant, you know, to engage them in those recreational pursuits. Our home base for our special-needs programming is at Golden Gate Community Park. It's not the same setup as what we see with the city and, certainly, we talk frequently with Dana in terms of looking for ways where we can work together and manage, you know, that special recreational need in our community. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Does Eagle Lakes Community Park have a wheelchair -- so that someone in a wheelchair can swim there? MR. WILLIAMS: The pools all are ADA accessible, and there are special lifts that are attached to each pool that allow you to, if you're wheelchair bound, to transfer to that lift and be lowered into the June 21, 2018 Page 62 pool. So we certainly -- in every way that we are able, we look for accommodations. Our beaches as well, we have wheelchairs that we'll give to people at the beach. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes. MR. WILLIAMS: So certainly we -- if anyone needs an accommodation, we strive to provide that. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Good. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: How many public speakers do we have? MR. MILLER: I have just one speaker for this division, sir. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. Well, if they want to come up. I just have one other thing that I'd like to mention -- MR. MILLER: Mr. Brougham. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: -- as we get ready for the speaker, and that is in speaking with Scott Burgess at the David Lawrence Center, while we're very appreciative of the funding that we're providing and the increase, as a result of some additional cuts from the state, you know, we've, again, taken two steps forward and three steps back because -- and I don't know if it's affecting NOMI as well -- Pam Baker's in the back -- but about $450,000 worth of funding is going away from the state. It's just more of the same, so I just wanted to throw that out there. MR. MILLER: Mr. Chair, your registered speaker is Phil Brougham. MR. BROUGHAM: I assumed it was. MR. MILLER: Yes. MR. BROUGHAM: Good morning. Like most folks, I'm here to ask for a few things, but I also want to convey some concerns that I have. My name is Phil Brougham, and I'm the Vice Chairman of the Collier County Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, and I live in Fiddler's Creek. June 21, 2018 Page 63 And the parks board met yesterday, and there were a number of things that came up. And I'm not representing a consensus from them specifically, but I did state to them I was going to convey our concern and our discussion on our direction to Barry and staff. The first is, I just want to smile a lot about the increase in capital repair and funding budgeted to parks for next year, yea, and I also want to smile a lot about the comments on directing funds towards Sugden Park and fixing up some of those facilities. And that's a hot button I've had, as you all know, for years and years and years. Our parks are 20 and 30 years old. We've got to continue funding their repair and their replacement, and I'm very happy with the direction that we're going. Three or four years ago I mentioned an option for an optional sales tax, before anybody else did, that could possibly be directed specifically and dedicated to that specific purpose, capital repair and replacement of our parks, as many other counties do. I'm happy that it's on the ballot, but I don't see a lot of funding directed towards capital repair and replacement. End of story, okay. A concern. We talked yesterday regarding a new change to fee policy for Parks and Recreation that's going to be coming to you for approval, and it's primarily to put fees in place for the Eagle Lakes aquatics center and update the fee policy, which is a good thing. My personal concern is that we have a disparity in the fees charged at now our four different aquatic centers across the county for children. And I'm concerned because, in a way, it's sort of a subtle discrimination. In the Immokalee area, for three to 17-year-old children, the fee is a buck and a half, in Golden Gate it's $3, and proposed -- I might go over here just a second. Proposed is $3 to Eagle Lakes. I think the fees, at a minimum, should be consistent across the county. I think my suggestion would be that anybody under 12 years old can swim free. They do that in Lee County, as I understand it. They do that in June 21, 2018 Page 64 Naples. And I do realize it would be an impact on our budget, but we have supported swimming from all perspectives, and I think this is something you should consider. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Thank you. MR. BROUGHAM: Thank you. MR. MILLER: That was our only speaker, sir. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Any other questions? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. How much did he say we are going to charge the children to swim at Eagle Lakes? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Three. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: This will be coming up, I think -- this will be on the next agenda. MR. CARNELL: July 10th agenda we'll be bringing this to you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, okay. Fine. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Let's keep with the budget, and we'll keep moving forward. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Sure. I didn't realize. I'm sorry. MR. OCHS: Thank you. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Thank you. MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, if I might, in checking the public speakers, I think the only other registered speakers, there's two more, have to do with your management offices, Pelican Bay in particular. So if we could bring the management offices ahead on the agenda and allow those people to speak when we're done. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Absolutely. MR. OCHS: So if we could bring our management office directors forward. Mr. Isackson will give a little overview. I don't know that we need individual presentations here, but it will be the pleasure of the Board after Mark gives an overview. MANAGEMENT OFFICES (PELICAN BAY) June 21, 2018 Page 65 MR. ISACKSON: Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, the management office consists of a number of different departments and operations, specifically the County Manager's operation, my operation, Corporate Compliance and Internal Review. They're all funded directly out of the General Fund, and those particular programming elements meet your budget guidance and, for the most part, your remaining departments and operations are either what we call revenue centric, for example, like your Tourist Development Council, your Pelican Bay Services Division, which is assessment driven with the exception of the lighting district, and then your CRAs, obviously, are predicated on their tax-increment revenue. So I think, as Leo mentioned, on an exception basis, if you wanted to ask questions of your division heads here, that would be fine. The only other thing I'll mention, and on a 30,000-foot level is a new program for our amateur sports complex. You've got some programming in the amount of about $2 million sitting in your budget for FY '19 within this particular section. So I'll turn it over to you, Mr. Chairman, for comments to the group. MR. OCHS: Sir, I think your two registered speakers are both specific to the Pelican Bay. MR. MILLER: Pelican Bay, yes, sir. Would you like to hear the speakers now? CHAIRMAN SOLIS: We can take the speakers first. MR. MILLER: Sure. Your first speaker is Mike Shepherd, and he'll be followed by Ed Staros. MR. SHEPHERD: Good morning, Commissioners. My name is Mike Shepherd. I live in Pelican Bay where I've owned property since 1993. I am the chair of the budget committee for the services division. The proposed budget for Fiscal Year '19 is -- does represent a large percentage increase over the previous year, but you should know June 21, 2018 Page 66 that it is actually a budget with two parts: A conventional component which, by virtue of its size and increase over last year, would be unlikely to cause anybody's hair to catch on fire, and a one-time component that is exclusively required to retire the costs of dealing with Hurricane Irma. In fact, 70 percent, nearly, of the budget increase which has been proposed is intended to cover those natural disaster expenses. The special portion of that, that 70 percent that I'm referring to, is really no different than the special assessment that almost every individual association in Pelican Bay has already imposed on their owners to cover their individual costs of recovering from Hurricane Irma. So of our non-ad valorem assessment, that portion, essentially, is a special assessment. No different. Unfortunately, the services division has no mechanism to pass the hat midyear to recover those kinds of costs. Our only option is to include it in the annual budget the following year, and that's what we've done. So hopefully those one-time expenses will not likely repeat themselves in 2019, and so those expenses should drop out in the next fiscal year. So our intention would be to actually lower our special assessment accordingly. So if there's any good news, your deliberations, at least as far as Pelican Bay budget approval goes, should be substantially more palatable next year at this time than they are right now. So I would respectfully recommend that the proposed budget be approved as presented and would argue that it's prudently crafted and acceptable to the vast majority of our owners who have taken the time to familiarize themselves with the particulars. Thank you for listening. MR. MILLER: Your final speaker for this section is Ed Staros. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Now you know who he is. June 21, 2018 Page 67 MR. STAROS: Hi. I'm Ed Staros, Managing Director of the two Ritz-Carltons here in town, and I'm here representing my 1,300 employees that work for the two hotels. I'm also here to talk about the special assessment, and I don't see it as an appropriate one-time increase. It's a 56 percent increase which is exorbitant; whereas, everybody within Pelican Bay and all of the commercial operations within Pelican Bay already had to repair their own issues, et cetera. I had $500,000 worth of damage; just $500,000 worth of landscape damage between the two properties. I assume some day I might see an insurance settlement. Normally on vegetation it's about 20 to 25 percent, so I took the 20, guessing that it would be 20 percent, and I replaced $100,000 worth of vegetation and left the other $400,000 to find out what's going to happen in the future rather than just replacing everything and wishing -- hoping for the best. So I just think -- by the way, my assessment -- you know where my location is, on the corner of Vanderbilt Beach Road. The lion's share of this is -- if I'm not mistaken, and the previous gentleman could possibly qualify that -- is that it's for the berm on 41, which has been hit pretty hard and many of the older trees and so forth have been gone away. And my portion of the assessment, just so you know, just for the Ritz-Carlton Naples is $60,000 that I don't have budgeted and so forth. And so I can't speak for the other commercials, but I also know that they get their fair share as well as every resident, or ERU share, equivalent residential unit, I believe that is for, gets their fair share. So I would recommend a much lesser amount, somewhere in the vicinity of what the probable insurance claim would be in -- whenever that might happen, and that's the end of my presentation on that; however, if you'd allow me three extra minutes on another special assessment that's brewing that's eventually going to hit you, maybe not June 21, 2018 Page 68 -- could I have three more minutes for the second one? MR. MILLER: Chairman's discretion, sir. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Go ahead. MR. STAROS: All right. It's the fire department and their change of -- they're going around -- going around talking about their new -- is that all right? CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Well, it's just that's not an issue that we have -- MR. STAROS: Okay, fine. I'll come back and talk about that. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: With all respect -- and I understand the issue, but it's just not something that we have any say. MR. STAROS: Well, eventually, it would be there for your policy change, you know, in the future, wouldn't it -- CHAIRMAN SOLIS: No, no. MR. STAROS: -- when you change millage rate to -- CHAIRMAN SOLIS: They're independent. They set their own millage rate. They're completely independent -- MR. STAROS: I thought that eventually you had to vote on that. That was my understanding. MR. OCHS: No, sir. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: No, sir. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: It's going to be in your hands. MR. STAROS: Okay. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Yep. MR. STAROS: Fine. I'll take care of it then. Thank you so much. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Thank you. MR. MILLER: And that was all the speakers we had for that section, sir. MR. DORRILL: Mr. Chairman, if you don't mind, I can at least elaborate a little bit on that, because there is one significant change, June 21, 2018 Page 69 and then there's one small change. I think there might be some additional opposition to this million-dollar payment one-time special assessment. I think some of those people are across town, and so this is apt to come back at the first public hearing when you return from your summer recess. And so if I could just, perhaps, elaborate on that a little bit more. Earlier in the year we had about 1,800,000 total in Irma-related damage. There's substantial damage to the street signs, the architectural street signs in Pelican Bay. There's substantial damage to the streetlights that are owned by the services division, and there is substantial damage to the U.S. 41 berm and landscape buffer. In addition, we are beginning to see rather significant infrastructure failure of the roadside drainage system and also the pathways within Pelican Bay. They're now, believe it or not, 40 years old. And while we are not responsible for either the pathways and sidewalks or the roadside drainage, the county really does not have a funding model to replace infrastructure that is now at the end of its useful life. So we've been in some negotiations preliminarily with the County Manager's Office about our assuming the responsibility for that and reconstructing infrastructure that was originally paid for by the services division through their own bonds and then required to be conveyed to the County Commission. So when we borrowed the million dollars from our street-lighting fund earlier this year because of some cash-flow concerns for work that is underway or will be underway this summer, both your staff and the advisory board who voted 7-3 to advance this budget, they would like to repay the million dollars to their streetlight fund. We borrowed that. It's an inter-fund loan. You approved that earlier as a budget amendment in the spring. But there's a second issue that I, again, want to tell you our June 21, 2018 Page 70 willingness. We have a blended revenue source. Our primary source of revenue is a flat-rate non-ad valorem assessment that in many respects is similar to the way that you will fund the new stormwater utility fee or the solid waste fee, and not only our district, but CDDs use a flat rate of assessment. We have 7,900 assessable units in the community. About three-quarters of those are residential, and then about 20 percent are commercial, and then about 10 percent, frankly, are institutional. For example, we charge the Arch Diocese of Venice a non-ad valorem assessment for their church. The same is true for your park at the north end of Pelican Bay and the library and the utility site. They are paying a non-ad valorem assessment in support of the services division. But we also levy a millage to pay for the streetlight program. Recently we converted all the streetlights to LED, changed all the fixtures, and that's the source of funds that we borrowed to meet some of our Irma-related obligations. I will tell you, the community is willing to reevaluate the assessment methodology to see if there is not, 40 years removed, a better and a fairer way of assessing not only the commercial properties, but the different varieties of high-end residential property that is there. So they're willing to evaluate that. But in terms of our primary operating budget, the overall increase is very, very modest and, frankly, a reflection of your cost-of-living increase; 2.7 percent increase in the operating side of our maintenance obligation, but then, yes, there is an overall 50 percent increase in the assessment, and while it's large, it's a little more than $300 per unit. And as the budget chair indicated to you, that is going to go away this time next year because that's a one-time refunding of the money that was borrowed to meet the Irma issues. And so I just -- I appreciate the opportunity. As we look out on June 21, 2018 Page 71 the horizon, Pelican Bay has some severe infrastructure responsibilities that would otherwise be the role of the Growth Management Department for Pathways and Roadside Drainage. We're willing to explore the replacement of that in addition to the other obligations. And then the final little thing that I'd like to share with you has to do with personnel. The staffing model there historically has been about half county employees and half contracted day labor. And in this marketplace, trying to acquire and equip and then expect production daily from contract day laborers is a very poor model in a high-end residential community with a pretty sophisticated landscape palate and installation. So two years ago our advisory board asked us to begin converting day laborers to county employees, and we're in the second year of that. And we would hope over time to where all of these positions would ultimately be groundskeeper county employees. And so I just -- I want to highlight that again, because we only get a chance to come see you, you know, once a year. There are some pretty big policy initiatives that are out there. This, believe it or not, is a complex community with a variety of political constituencies. And with that, I'll just -- I'll tell you I'm quite sure I'll be back at the end of the summer because we'll need to discuss these a little further. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Any questions? (No response.) MR. OCHS: Thank you. We move to Administrative Services at this point. Ms. Price. COMMISSIONER FIALA: We don't hear from anybody else, huh? Okay. That's unusual. So I guess that means all their budgets weren't questioned. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Well, they didn't have a presentation. June 21, 2018 Page 72 ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES MS. PRICE: Good morning. For the record, Len Price, Department Head for Administrative and Emergency Services. And as I see the clock getting closer to lunch hour, I will endeavor to make this as brief as possible. But I would like to start off by just quickly having my staff introduce themselves for anybody who doesn't know them. We'll start at this end. MR. SHEFFIELD: Mike Sheffield, I'm your Director of Communications. MS. HERRERA: Good morning. Sandra Herrera, Contract Manager here on behalf of Ted Coyman. MS. LEIBERG: Good morning. Amy Leiberg, Human Resources Director. MR. SUMMERS: Good morning. Dan Summers, Bureau of Emergency Services. MR. CROFT: Good morning. Dan Croft, Fleet Management Director. MR. WALKER: Good morning. Jeff Walker, Risk Management Director. MS. PRICE: Good morning, folks. Just very briefly and as a reminder, your Administrative and Emergency Service Department provides the logistical and day-to-day operating support to ensure the missions of all the divisions and departments throughout the county. We help to identify requirements, options, and solutions to address critical business needs; we provide leadership and direction during -- before, during, and after any emergency situations; we handle public records requests and provide information to the public, you know, on a daily basis through a variety of mechanisms: Traditional media, social media. June 21, 2018 Page 73 We're working on push alerts and getting information into the hands of the public as quickly as we have it, and we're endeavoring to start a 311 system that will provide a single number for anybody to dial in the county to get the information that they need, get the answers to their questions directly without having to search through our directories. We're also leading the fund recovery effort trying to get back the hundred million dollars that we've spent on our hurricane, and I'm happy to report that we're told we're this close to getting the first check back from the state. So I will let you know as soon as that happens. I'm personally not holding my breath on that. We also provide world-class first response through our EMS system, and we do that with a staff. Our staff for logistical support encompasses about 8 percent of your total staffing and, of course, EMS is the rest of it; more than half our staffing is through our EMS. Our total budget for this year is about $195 million, and with that, the net impact on the General Fund is only about 9 million, which is about 5 percent of our revenues, and that's due to a number of strategic approaches that we've taken as well as fees that we recover through EMS and others. We are leading the efforts not only for the Irma recovery but also the after-action items, and Mr. Summers has provided you with updates. And you'll be seeing as the summer goes on, there'll be contracts coming before you, there'll be other zoning and ordinance changes to try and be as well positioned as possible for any storms that should come up in the future, although I have put a moratorium on all storms until we're fully recovered from this one. But in the event that one squeaks through, we want to make sure that we're fully prepared for it. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I hope it works. MS. PRICE: We've got a lot of people pulling for us. Big fans June 21, 2018 Page 74 that are going to push everything away. With that, I will open it up to your questions. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Questions? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Do we ask questions of everybody, or is each person giving us a report or -- the last time we only heard from one person, and everybody left, so we didn't get a report from everybody, so that's why I'm asking this question. MR. OCHS: Commissioners, if you notice the format, the division director or, I mean, the department head's giving the overview for the division. I think Thaddeus and Steve and Len, and I think you'll hear Dr. Yilmaz do the same thing. But if you have a question for anybody up on the table, please feel free to ask it. But they're not all going to present separately. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, yeah. Oh, I see. Okay. I know with Steve Carnell, everybody did present, so I was just assuming that that's what -- MR. OCHS: No, they didn't. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: He introduced them. MR. OCHS: He introduced them, but they didn't present. COMMISSIONER FIALA: They didn't -- MR. OCHS: No, ma'am. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Questions? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, that's what it was. We had questions. Okay. Okay. No questions, sir. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: No questions. MR. OCHS: If no questions, sir, we can move on to your Public Utilities Division. Thank you very much. MR. SUMMERS: Thank you. PUBLIC UTILITIES June 21, 2018 Page 75 DR. YILMAZ: Good morning, Commissioners. For the record, George Yilmaz, Public Utilities. To start, I'd like to thank you individually and collectively for your continued policy support and guidance. A special thanks to our County Manager's Office for their clear guidance during this challenging budget cycle due to Irma that drained our cash flow, not just Enterprise but General Funds. So what you're seeing in front of you is both private sector experience as well as public sector experience. I have close to a financial miracle. So we have a balanced budget. And I'm pleased to report that the proposed Fiscal 2019 budget for Water/Sewer District, the Solid Hazardous Waste Management Division, and the Facilities Management Division meets the Board's budget guidance, and all are revenue centric. We thank you for your attention today. Respectfully request tentative approval of your budget as presented in your packet, and I have my chief financial and director of operations, Joe Bellone, will make a very brief presentation, or we move to questions at the pleasure of the Board, and my directors on my left and right all standing by 24/7. MR. OCHS: Joe. Go ahead, Joe. MR. BELLONE: Good morning, Commissioners. With that, for the record, Joe Bellone. I am the Director of the Financial and Operations Support Division. As you remember, that Public Utilities Department is comprised of two enterprise operations. It's the Collier County Water/Sewer District, the Solid and Hazardous Waste Management Division, and also includes -- our department budget also includes the Facilities Management Division. We'll address the highlights of each of those -- they're very different businesses -- and I'm going to begin with the Water/Sewer June 21, 2018 Page 76 District. And as George mentioned, this year has been one of the most challenging for the utility. The demand has been at the highest levels since prior to the peak at the recession. In the current year, you'll all remember that we acquired the Golden Gate utility system. We have connected that system to our regional water system and are serving the citizens there with our regional potable water. The utility provides essential life-sustaining services, including potable drinking water to over 64,000 accounts, wastewater collection and treatment for over 66,000 accounts, and irrigation quality water service to more than 1,600 accounts; that includes county medians, bulk service customers like golf courses, pressurized customers, and that's all on a continuous 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 364 days -- 365 days a year. To give you a magnitude of the utility's needs to meet the demand this year, we're going to produce and distribute 9.4 billion gallons of potable drinking water, transmit and treat over 7 billion gallons wastewater, and distribute a little over six billion gallons of irrigation quality water for our customers and visitors all meeting agency requirements, rules, and regulations. So as an enterprise fund, district revenues represent fees for services across eight different funds. To that end, as County Manager mentioned, staff engaged Public Resources Management Group to perform a use rater study. That was last completed in 2014. That rate study will come to you at your next board meeting on the 26th for your review and approval. PRMG recommends and staff concurred with a 2.8 user rate increase to provide the sufficient revenues in 2019 to recover the costs to operate the utility, meet all of our debt service obligations, and fund the capital repair and rehabilitation program to sustain a reliable utility June 21, 2018 Page 77 whose asset base is approaching $1.4 billion. The FY '19 proposed revenue budget for the budget includes that recommended 2.8 percent increase across the board to potable water, wastewater, and IQ user fees. And these minor rate adjustments, as you know, allow the district to keep pace with inflation and avoid rate shock in the future. Hurricane Irma, unfortunately, made landfall in late 2017, and the financial impacts are lasting through '18 and into '19. The water and wastewater capital funds loaned the debris recovery mission $41 million. These loans will be repaid, as mentioned, to the capital funds once those reimbursements are received. That does hamper our ability to have a very robust repair and rehabilitation capital program, including capital reserves, until those reimbursements are received. So speaking of -- the Capital Improvement Program for Fiscal 2019 is $45 million. We've allocated that on a risk-assessment basis. We've had to defer some projects, and those include some Naples Park wastewater basin collection system and water main replacements as well as improvements to the wastewater collection systems in Bayshore and East Naples, 305 and 306 basins. Reduction in scope to several other projects have been implemented, but we'll get back to that as soon as the funds are received. However, the Capital Improvement Program for Fiscal '19 does include some significant projects such as rehabilitation of portions of the water distribution system, the wastewater collection system infrastructure, capacity expansion at the wastewater plans at the Orangetree site, high service pump improvements to improve pressure there, improvements to the headwork and grid system at the north wastewater treatment, as well as for compliance programs at all of our regional plants as well as at the Orangetree and Golden Gate sites. In terms of our debt service, it's $20.5 million this year. It's fully June 21, 2018 Page 78 funded. We have no new debt programmed in Fiscal 2019; however, as Mark mentioned, additional debt may be considered at some time when growth places demand for incremental capacity. The Fitch's bond rating remains a Triple A, and Moody's rating for those bonds is Double A1, just one notch under Triple A. Here's where we get into a bit of a niche. Unrestricted reserves in the Water/Sewer District for operations and capital total $15.9 million. That represents 41 days of operating capital. That's below your Board-approved budget policy of 45 to 90 days. We will replace those capital funds when we receive monies from FEMA and insurance. And just a note that we did donate $16.3 million of those reserves to the recovery fund for Irma. So despite those challenges brought on by Irma, the Fiscal 2019 Water/Sewer District budget is revenue centric. It meets your guidelines other than the exception of reserve balances, as I've noted, okay. So, Commissioners, with that, I'm sure you're tired of my voice. I'm going to turn the presentation over to Amia Curry, who's going to discuss the Solid and Hazardous Waste Management Division budget. MS. CURRY: Good morning, Commissioners. For the record, Amia Curry, Manager of Financial and Operations Support Division. In Fiscal 2019 the division meets all federal, state, and local regulations for solid and hazardous waste collection disposal to ensure public health and safety while increasing public awareness of the importance of recycling and waste diversion. As an enterprise, the revenues represent fees for service across multiple funds. Tipping fees, which represent fees for services at the landfill, the Immokalee transfer station, and the recycle centers will be adjusted by 4.1 percent to meet the customer demand at the landfill and recycling centers to fund the Capital Improvement Program, and to establish the first year of a multi-year effort to build restrictive reserves June 21, 2018 Page 79 that will fund a disaster recovery debris mission. The proposed FY '19 budget includes $3.7 million of reserves with restricted use for disaster recovery. For residential curbside customers, the proposed annual assessment in District 1 is $213.24, an increase of $.49 per month. In the District 2, the proposed annual assessment is $205.75, or $.61 per month more than the prior year. These rates are driven by increases in anticipated tonnage per account, which has been consistently rising over the past several years, the contractual collection rate by the April Consumer Price Index, and the need to build sufficient reserves to fund disaster recovery. The Solid and Hazardous Waste Management Division work tirelessly preparing for, responding to, and recovering from Hurricane Irma and its aftermath with over 3.6 million cubic yards of debris removed from the Collier County right-of-way. Customer accounts at the recycling centers anticipated to exceed 78,000 in Fiscal 2019, including the anticipated opening of the newest northeast recycle center later this summer. We anticipate serving over 15,000 customers, which will contribute to our national award-winning hazardous waste collection program. Collection projections for Fiscal 2018 include over 2.2 million pounds of hazardous waste for compliant disposal, contributing to our sustainable efforts to protect the environment. The FDEP projected certified recycling rate for Fiscal 2017 was 68 percent, within reach of the state goal of 75 percent by 2020 with enhanced multifamily and commercial recycling initiatives. Tonnage at the Collier County Landfill and Immokalee Transfer Station continues to increase concurrent with county growth and the demographics of our new residents. We expect to serve nearly 129,000 residential customers by the end of Fiscal 2019 with twice-weekly trash collection, weekly recycling and yard waste June 21, 2018 Page 80 collections, tires, as well as on-demand electronics, brown goods, and appliance pickups. The Capital Improvement Program is funded at 2.7 million to ensure compliance at the landfill and recycling centers and to continue to fund the Resource Recovery Business Park mitigation clearing and platting. Operating and capital unrestricted reserves are budgeted at 6.5 million representing 51 days of operations and capital, below the budget policy guidelines of 60 to 90 days; however, 3.7 million of restricted reserves have been set aside to begin to build the necessary funding to respond to a disaster recovery mission. Solid waste has no external debt, continuing with pay-as-you-go in Fiscal 2019; however, the loans to fund the debris mission from the utility in the General Fund will be repaid with Hurricane Irma reimbursements. Solid and hazardous waste management is revenue centric for 2019. MR. BELLONE: And, lastly, Commissioners, the Facilities Management Division, which is a division that funding comes primarily from the General Fund, and that meets your guidelines. The division's dedicated to providing secure, clean, and comfortable facilities. It established a preventative maintenance program this year that refurbished six facilities, including Sugden Park, Domestic Animal Services, your Golden Gate aquatic and fitness center, Golden Gate Community Center, and the Immokalee sheriff's substation. The division provides maintenance, construction, and capital renovations for the county structures not only for the Board's agency, but also for Sheriff's Office, Clerk of Courts, judicial officers -- offices, Tax Collector, Property Appraiser, and Supervisor of Elections. It also provides professional property acquisition management leasing June 21, 2018 Page 81 services. Their capital improvement program this year is about $4.4 million in '19, focus -- and the project management for '19 is primarily focused on jail and structural improvements for the Collier County Sheriff's Office. The fiscal year proposal will help us begin to address the division's capital backlog of deferred maintenance. And with that, Commissioners, we're here to answer any questions you might have. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner McDaniel. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. And just as a quick -- I was -- it might have -- Amea, you spoke of a rate increase, I think, on a percentage basis. I missed that amount. MR. BELLONE: 4.1 percent, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: 4.1 percent, okay. MR. BELLONE: 2 percent of that is to start to build that disaster recovery restricted reserve. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay. And the second point I wanted to make, and this is as much of a notice to my colleagues here on the Board, Dr. Yilmaz and I and County Manager, we've had quite a bit of communication going on with Everglades City. And it's just to put you on notice there is another utility that's in dire need of some love. And so as we move through that process -- and we have more specific information -- I just wanted to give you notice that we'll be coming forward with some -- well, ultimately, some reimbursements or some expense support there, staffing, along the way based upon what the needs, in fact, are. Everglades has made -- Everglades City's made some enormous strides in hiring a new operator. You know we have a new mayor. We basically have a new council. DEP is -- if you can make DEP happy, June 21, 2018 Page 82 they're happy. They've allowed for an expansion of some additional units to be tied into that system just with the new operator and the like. But we see some things that are still in dire need. So that -- I don't want to belabor the point now. I just want to put you on notice and just to be aware that we're going to come talk to you at some stage. Yes, ma'am? COMMISSIONER FIALA: And what all cities -- not cities, villages, whatever you want to call them, around there does their utilize system support? COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: From a potable water standpoint, it basically takes care of Copeland, Everglades City, Plantation, and Chokoloskee. The wastewater -- and, Dr. Yilmaz, you feel free to jump in here at any stage. And from a wastewater facility, a portion of Chokoloskee, none of Plantation Island, and Everglades City are taken care of in the wastewater side. COMMISSIONER FIALA: How about Copeland? COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Copeland is included in the potable water but not the wastewater, to my understanding, at this stage. And we are -- I mean, we'll talk about it some other time, not during the budget hearings. I just wanted you to know that there is an enormous effort going on to help enhance that. I have another point, if I'm allowed. It has to do with Dan. I think you're in charge of facilities, correct? MR. RODRIGUEZ: Good morning, Commissioners. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Good morning. MR. RODRIGUEZ: Dan Rodriguez. Yes. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: We've still got five minutes. MR. RODRIGUEZ: That's part of one of our sections within the Public Utilities Department. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. I just -- well, I just thought you were in charge. I don't know who's in charge of the -- June 21, 2018 Page 83 DR. YILMAZ: He's in charge. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: He's in charge, okay. How are we coming along with our capital budget management plan with regard to the facilities of Collier County? MR. RODRIGUEZ: As Joe Bellone outlined, we have a pretty robust capital program outlined for next year. We're working on catching up with the backlog of projects that have gone from year to year, and we're actually executing those. So thanks to our procurement division and some other divisions and Growth Management, we're designing and building that capital backlog. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Great. Thank you. MR. RODRIGUEZ: Yes. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Any other questions for staff? DR. YILMAZ: If I might, just what our great leader, Dan Rodriguez, indicated here is that I'm pleased to inform you what we have GIS-based asset management system is going to be rolling out to Facilities Management floor by floor, vertical as well as horizontal, and we're looking forward to see that being ready for next budget season. So we will be able to drill down to each floor and be able to identify red, green, yellow assets conditions, and we'll be able to give you much more informed stochastic (sic) recommendations with cost benefit and risk-based management decisions presented for next five, 10 years. What we've got now, 80 percent good. What you're going to have, close to 90 plus. More to follow. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: And I'll just add, you know, a round of applause, I think, is in order for your department in how you handled the debris mission and, I mean, what a monumental task, yeah. Really, I can't say enough. I mean, I'm still amazed at what you were able to do. June 21, 2018 Page 84 COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Not to mention, you know, they assimilated two utilities. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it is inspirational. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Orangetree and FGUA. Never missed a beat, so... CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Great, great job. MR. OCHS: Working on our third. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yeah. We kind of -- MR. OCHS: Thank you, Commissioners. Thank you, George. Appreciate it. DR. YILMAZ: Thank you. MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, before you break for lunch, you have a couple of small items left. I think Mark could cover these in, literally, five minutes, if we could get those behind us. That is your debt service and then your County Attorney and board offices. DEBT SERVICES MR. ISACKSON: Commissioners, I'll let Jeff cover the county attorney stuff, but your debt service, when you look at it, a couple of highlights. As Commissioner McDaniel said, on the enterprise side you've added the Golden Gate Utilities System, certainly, so their debt service is up just a little bit. You've also issued some commercial paper on the general governmental side, which ratcheted up just slightly your debt service for that to the tune of about $700,000. That commercial paper note was $12 million. Ultimately -- for the land for the amateur sports complex but, ultimately, we'll roll that out into a longer-term debt issue at the appropriate time. We've still got issues to flesh out depending on what happens with the sales tax referendum. So we'll be back before you with an infrastructure financing plan, depending on what happens with the sales tax referendum. June 21, 2018 Page 85 But all in all, your debt service is within policy guidance, as the County Manager had mentioned. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS MR. ISACKSON: On the Board of County Commissioners' side, you're probably looking at what are all those increases sitting on the Board's side for? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yeah. MR. ISACKSON: Probably thinking it's raises for the commissioners. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, right. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: We can only wish, right? MR. ISACKSON: What you have, in 001 you have a section called other G&A that sits in both 001 and 111 that's shown underneath the Board of County Commissioners. MR. OCHS: G&A stands for? MR. ISACKSON: Other governmental and administrative. Things like property insurance is paid out of there; your DJJ, which is your Department of Juvenile Justice payments, that come out of there; your contributions to the Naples CRA comes out of there on the General Fund side; and also, there is an additional component for the beach parking agreement that was just approved by the Board. Additional $500,000 that's in there. So that's why you're seeing those increases in the other G&A account in the general fund side. On the 111 side, the stormwater utility, much like utilities pays a payment in lieu of taxes because of their facilities, the general governmental side will have to pay a payment in lieu of taxes, essentially, for the stormwater assessment. So there's an $800,000 appropriation sitting in 111 to support what we would normally pay if we were going to get assessed for that June 21, 2018 Page 86 stormwater utility. That's what's sitting in the 111 other G&A, and that gives you a summation of why your increases are sitting in there at such a high level in your board-paid items. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Can we put that under the County Manager's division? MR. ISACKSON: That would make us out of compliance, sir. I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Good one, though. MR. OCHS: I think the County Attorney has room in his budget. He's done such a nice job, I think he's got some room there. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Oh, is that what it is? MR. OCHS: Jeff's going to -- MR. ISACKSON: If there's no questions there, Commissioners, I'll let Jeff give you a brief on his budget. COUNTY ATTORNEY MR. KLATZKOW: And, briefly stated, we're under budget this year. And, you know, I've got the -- I've got the benefit of working with all the County Manager's people that you see here, and I've got to tell you that you're blessed with a really good staff here, hard-working people, and I'm blessed with working with them. It's really been a pleasure. I'm blessed with a good staff myself. And, really, I'm here to answer any questions. No? CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Any questions? Very good. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Pretty easy. MR. KLATZKOW: Thank you. MR. OCHS: Okay. So we're pretty much on track with completing the morning portion of the workshop. The afternoon is scheduled to begin around 1 p.m., and you'll hear from your constitutional officers at that point. June 21, 2018 Page 87 CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Very good. MR. OCHS: Fair enough? COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: We'll come back at 1 o'clock? MR. OCHS: 1:05. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: 1:05, yes, sir. (A luncheon recess was had.) MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, you have a live mike. Sir, we're moving to the afternoon portion of the workshop where we hear from your constitutional officers. SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS MR. OCHS: First up on the list is your Supervisor of Elections. Ms. Edwards, good afternoon. MS. EDWARDS: Good afternoon. MR. OCHS: And Melissa. MS. EDWARDS: For the record, I'm Jennifer Edwards, proud Supervisor of Elections of Collier County. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Hard working these days. MS. EDWARDS: And my Chief Deputy, you all know her, Melissa Blazer. MS. BLAZER: Hi. MS. EDWARDS: We have a 5.1 percent increase in our budget; that's $193,000, approximately, and that includes adding one staff to my IT department. You may have heard that they're saying cyber security is the new normal in the world of elections, so we have a lot more things to be aware of and to implement over the next few months and years. That also includes the 2 percent salary adjustment for our 22 staff members, and we're replacing a server in our IT department. We have requested $350,000 in capital funds in the 301 funds, June 21, 2018 Page 88 and we appreciate seeing that on the list. Thank you. That's for voting equipment. And going forward -- and we always let the budget office be aware that -- of our future capital plans. In the next budget year we will need $400,000 for more ADA equipment, and then the following year we will need $550,000 to replace our Pitney Bowes sorter, and that's a machine we purchased in 2006, so it's reaching end of life. Those are all my comments. Do you have any questions? CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Any questions? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, how can you question somebody that never has a problem with the state elections office and who always does us right, and we never have any rumors? I say "great going." MS. EDWARDS: Thank you, Commissioner. And, again, I'd like to say thank you to the County Manager and his staff and to you-all for our wonderful facility. We are so proud of it, and we are so much more efficient because of it. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: It's a great building. MR. OCHS: It is. Thank you very much. MS. EDWARDS: Thank you. CLERK OF COURTS MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, next up on our roster is the Clerk of Circuit Courts. Ms. Kinzel and her staff. MS. KINZEL: Good afternoon, Commissioners. How are you? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Good afternoon. MS. KINZEL: I have with me today Derek Johnssen. He's the Assistant Finance Director. MR. JOHNSSEN: Good afternoon. June 21, 2018 Page 89 MS. KINZEL: And Raymond has been here before. He's the Accounting Manager, and he prepares, actually, the budget for the Clerk of Courts. First of all, I do need to thank everyone. I would like to also do it Tuesday at the board meeting but, obviously, it has been a rough couple of weeks for the Clerk's Office, and we have really appreciated the full support of your staff. It has been a rough road. It's felt a little bit longer than less than two weeks. But we're here to answer any questions you might have on the Clerk's budget. We submit our budget to the Board on May 1, and I think we've provided every commissioner with a book that provides a lot of detail department by department on the needs of the Clerk's Office. The Clerk to the Board function is really contingent upon exactly that, the growth of the Board and our services to you. So we try to keep those at a minimal cost. We follow your policy for wage adjustments. We follow your policy on insurance, percentage applied to the employees. And other than that, our growth in the budget, including four expanded positions that were outlined in the book, we tried to stay within reasonable means for the budget. So we're here for any questions. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Anyone? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: No. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: No questions. MS. KINZEL: Thank you. And, again, thanks to the staff in a very difficult time. It has been incredible. Troy's group, we can't say enough about their assistance with the technology. And I know that many of you were able to attend, and we really appreciated that. I know the family did also. So thank you. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Thank you. And congratulations. MS. KINZEL: Thank you. June 21, 2018 Page 90 COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. SHERIFF’S OFFICE MR. OCHS: Next up is Sheriff Rambosk and his team. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Good afternoon. Kevin Rambosk, Collier County Sheriff, for the record. Thank you for the opportunity to address you regarding our budget request today. As in years past, I just like to give you and the public just a little highlight of some of the things that you have enabled us to do throughout the previous year, identify for you a couple of the areas that we think are going to be critically important in the coming year. So thank you for that. You know, as a team we've been able to create and implement a mix of policies, practices, programs, partnerships and services which allow us to have created an environment in our county and our community that is unlike most other counties in the State of Florida and, really, the nation, for that matter. Our basic tenets remain when we talk about community safety service. It was a significant philosophical change as we entered the last 10 years. The last 12 months have been a trying 12 months. We'll talk about that in a second, but I'd like to introduce who we have with us today. And I know you know most of our leadership team. Chief Bloom from operations. CHIEF BLOOM: Good afternoon. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Our Chief Attorney, Chief Hedberg; Chief Roberts from Corrections; Chief Smith from Administration; Chief Spell from Community Outreach; and Chief Williams from Investigations. June 21, 2018 Page 91 And along with them, I'd like to start with a great thanks to all the men and women of the Collier County Sheriff's Office. The command staff and our chiefs who, as I tell you each and every year, do a terrific job and enable me to get a little bit of sleep at night because they take the first set of calls most of the time. They have all done an outstanding job this year, and we continue to embrace our philosophy, and probably more this year, of service to others before self, as much and equal to what your staff did through the challenges that we've had this year. We also recognize that we can't do this by ourselves. In order for the community or the agency to be successful, we have a lot of partnerships: Residents, businesses, the Board, your staff, fire rescue, EMS, the constitutional offices, because we do not have a thriving, great quality of life until and unless we all work together. And, you know, that has been a basic tenet of mine for years, having started in the city. I also wanted to make specific mention and thanks to the County Manager, his staff. Every single member of your staff, I think this year, we have worked together with. Mostly good stuff. There was one little visit from a young lady named Irma that we weren't really wild about, but with all of their help, we were able to provide the service that we needed to provide. So I want to thank you for all of that. It has been a challenging, successful, but exhausting 12 months. You're already aware of that, but the results have been really extraordinary and, particularly, in the crime and safety arena because, again, last year, crime was down 2.1 percent. And I get a chance to talk to a lot of people like you in the public, and I always refer to this map, because over the last dozen years, we are becoming an island unto ourselves, and we are surrounded in a sea of orange. All of those 67 counties are on this map, and only seven June 21, 2018 Page 92 have a lesser crime rate than we do, and we are surrounded by those that do not. That is a terrific accomplishment for this community. It's also a big challenge to keep it that way both now and in the future. Our traffic-crash fatalities are down 29 percent this past year. It was down last year. That makes our roads safer and better. Our traffic crashes are up about 3 percent. We know we need to work on that. There were so many cars and people here this year. Even with a significant increase in enforcement, 15 percent citations alone, and we're still not having the impact that we want to have, but we will. And we've added, just for those who might be listening, another five traffic motorcycles. So just a word of warning to everybody. Not here. You know, throughout the community. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Just sayin'. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Our volunteer efforts continue to be significant; over 30,000 hours volunteered, or just under 30,000 hours. That's about three-quarters of a million dollars in savings. Our Summerfest programs, engaging our young people, giving them a safe environment to gather to meet and relate to our deputies, ongoing, full operation. Even though we've had some damage at some of the gyms we were unable to use, some hardening of the school system that's going on, and our commitment now to ensure that there are deputies at summer school, which we've not had to do in the past. After 35 years of requesting to be designated as a HIDTA, high intensity drug trafficking area, we were granted that award this year. That will enable us to continue to fight the drugs and the opiate problem, as well as others, that are continuing to plague the United States. We've been ahead of it. We're staying ahead of it. Keep your eye on the news tomorrow, and you'll see why we're staying ahead of it. We were the first in the State of Florida to employ overdose mapping; heroin tracking real-time to see where we need to allocate June 21, 2018 Page 93 our resources. It saves lives. It saves money. We did it right here first in the State of Florida. We created and executed a redistricting reallocation program, and you-all know why, because the population of the county is changing, particularly the southern part of the county is changing dramatically. So we're looking at how to use our resources and the dollars you give us in the most effective way that we possibly can before we make any additional request. We have finally completed our CAD infrastructure. City of Naples came on this past year. All of public safety now, fire rescue, EMS, and law enforcement on one communications infrastructure, so we thank you for your support over the years for that. We became the first drone licensed law enforcement agency in the State of Florida. So there was a lot of work that went into that. A lot of people went up and using these things that were not licensed; we don't do that. We get licensed first. Again, the potential for increasing our effectiveness for lost and missing people particularly is tremendous, and it will reduce the amount of person resources and redirect those we have to where we need them, so that's going to be a good one. We created the Mental Health Intervention Unit in November of last year, and that is to the next step beyond crisis intervention training. Even though we hit a milestone of 1,100 trained law enforcement officers, mostly from Collier County, Naples Police, Marco Island Police; we also work together with Hendry County. But that is the most number of trained people I think per capita in the state, maybe beyond the state. Sergeant Weidenhammer was awarded the medal of honor for working -- by the Collier County Bar Association for working together with the specialty courts like mental-health court. Again, another good investment there. And, you know, this new group is going to allow us June 21, 2018 Page 94 and has allowed us to identify those individuals in need before they go into crisis, before the 911 call comes in, and before they wind up in our jail, and gets them redirected, should they need to be, to the help that can help them. And in our case, that's generally David Lawrence Center. Again, getting people to where they need to be before crisis saves us time, effort, money, and lowers our potential for injury or other tragic event. We need to keep going in that direction. As you know, from your presentation just a couple of weeks ago, the high percentage of individuals in the jail currently that need mental-health referral, you know, that 28 percent of our jail on any given day, that's a challenge. So I am going to increase and add an additional clinician to our intervention team, and we're going to work more with our children in the county as well as those in the jail. So we're going to make a significant difference there. Also, working together with the court; Judge Martin has a great concept, and I'm not going to get out in front of that. She'll brief you on her concept, but we would fully support it and look forward to making changes there. A lot of the things we try and do to transition people out of the jail so that they don't come back. Again, safety and money. We have a traveling classroom now that was implemented this year. We get people ready, trained to go out and get a job and become self-sufficient. We do a lot of things we've mentioned in years past, but all of that goes into our final number and the map that you ultimately saw. Last year, for the first time ever in our history, which is about 30 years, through the accreditation process we received the highest ranking possible from the Commission on accreditation for law enforcement, and that's known as the Gold Standard. So your public-safety agency here in the county has now received that June 21, 2018 Page 95 recognition. That is for best practices for law enforcement. We were also accredited for correction and communications. So we have the full gambit of that. You were gracious enough to allow us to purchase a Huey helicopter last year. This spring we have flown 15 missions, 490 water drops out of those, and one hoist rescue of a missing person. That already is paying for itself many times over, because working with fire rescue -- and they control and direct what they need -- we get out much quicker, much faster, and knock down things, fires -- and particularly this year had gotten into places you could not get with a vehicle. And had it stayed and burned, it just would have finally came out to the place you could attack it on the ground. But we have a terrific partnership and terrific fire rescue staff throughout Collier County. We continue to have demand for active-shooter training. We have now trained over 3,200 people last year. We had 83 courses that we put on, but the more interesting point of information is that one of our participants was at the concert in Las Vegas, and she utilized the training was provided to help get -- keep her calm and get her out and escape. You know, it doesn't have to be here. You can be on vacation; you can be anywhere. We just want to continue to get as many people trained as is possible. So that leads us to school safety. And as you know, we've had a very challenging time with that. So let's, if I could, take a minute to just talk about school safety, because school safety for us, as you all know, is not new. We've been doing this since 1971. School safety in Collier County is also not just about security. We hear a lot of talk out there. That's not what our program has developed over the years, alone. In fact, our program, your program, is all about mentoring. It's about developing positive relationships with young people. It's about character building. It's about drug awareness and avoidance. It is June 21, 2018 Page 96 about identifying those with emotional or mental-health questions, needs that we can refer. So it's much more than security. And, in fact, it's all about addressing those things that ultimately lead us in our community into building a strong, resilient, and safe community as a whole, because we hope a lot of our kids go through our system. They have a good interaction. They stay here in our community, and they continue to be on the right side of the law, because our kids are great. I will tell you, though, tactically, we're professionally trained, equipped, practiced, and proactive, because our policy says you go to the shooter, that's it, and you eliminate the threat. So immediately following Parkland, we got together with Superintendent Patton, Naples Police Department, Marco Island Police Department, and we created, within two weeks, a plan to address the fears that were occurring in our school system and the false reports and threats that were occurring in our school system because, like the rest of the nation, we were experiencing those, and we probably had, of the significant ones, about 30 threats to teachers, to schools. The majority of them were not ever able to be carried out, but we did have some people that needed some help and referral, and we did that. Also, the plan we put in place ultimately met or exceeded what became law three months later. So we've been in it, and we've continued through summer school, and we will be prepared in August when school opens to cover what we need to cover, and that's important. And we're -- so far, and through the summer, through this budget year, we've done it with our existing budget, and we've done it without having to reassign deputies from other essential functions, because we want to keep all of our communities safe: Our schools, our kids, our communities, our businesses, and we found a way to do that, and we're going to have to do it over a couple years. And I know the manager's going to talk with you a little bit about that. June 21, 2018 Page 97 So we've created a long- and short-term plan, and it's not because the law requires it. It's because our community expects it and, more than that, our kids deserve it. So there's a lot of other things that they see day to day that you support us with. I want to thank you particularly again for your support of public safety, because you have always been there. We're looking at the same challenges you are, growth and all of its impacts, and how do we keep all of what we have built together today in the future? School safety, we talked about that. Threats against your deputies, law enforcement. It's a daily job for us looking at what technology's out there, what protective equipment we can get. Cyber advances. You heard today from the Supervisor of Elections, cyber is great. There are a lot of technological advances that we have got and that we're looking to make. On the other side of that, there are more and more crimes each and every day, and we're just trying to keep up with them and to stop them, much like your IT group has to do. And the emerging mental-health and substance abuse crisis. So a lot of things on our plate, but we have the people to do it, and they are right here and throughout the streets each and every day. And, again, I thank each and every one of the deputies for what we do. So where are we? We're up to budget request. Each and every year we work together with your staff to utilize what dollars are available in that particular year and not negatively impact other functions of government, and that really probably comes from my city history about making sure that everything works together. A little unique this particular year with the addition of school safety needs. So beyond guidance -- or when I looked at what we needed for our budget, we were probably just shy of $4 million over what guidance was. We went in, we looked at what could we do on our own, how could we realign, restructure, save, and we got our June 21, 2018 Page 98 request down to $2 million above guidance. But we did that knowing that we would be getting $1.6 million from the school system as their contribution, and so that -- and absorbing about 1.3 million, so that leaves about $400,000 difference than where we would have been had we not made that request. But I will tell you that that $400,000, it's not only a need, but I think it's a good investment for what you will get out of it in return this coming year. So you've got our book as well. I've got everybody here. I finished my part. Now all the hard questions are over here. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Direct them at them. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner Fiala, you were first. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay, thank you. Just a couple things. First, you talked about a traveling classroom. I hadn't heard about that. Just briefly, could you tell me what they're teaching? CHIEF ROBERTS: I'll take that one, ma'am. Yeah. The school system, as you know, we partner with them to do GED for inmates that don't have a high school degree. So the traveling classroom just expands the number of inmates that can get into those GED programs. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, that's great. CHIEF ROBERTS: To give you an idea, they went from, like, 20-something to over 100 inmates that were taking GED classes within the jail out of our population of 800 and change. COMMISSIONER FIALA: That helps them find jobs and keeps them off of the -- CHIEF ROBERTS: That keeps them back out of jail, yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, that is a wonderful thing. I'm sorry that we hadn't heard more about it, but we should tell everybody June 21, 2018 Page 99 about it. Then the second thing is, I just want to give you a little kudo. We happen to have the world's greatest lieutenant that happens to work in our district. He is -- I want to tell you, he's a credit to your agency, and he's got a tough district. He does an outstanding job. Lieutenant Maholland. I didn't want to mention your name, but there you go. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: All right. Thank you. He appreciates that. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner McDaniel? COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. I was reading the package that you put out, and one of the things that I saw in one of your slides was the staffing officers per population, and in -- and I've lost the page that it was on, but just for reference purpose, there's an allotted amount of deputy -- or positions within the Sheriff that are appropriated and underfunded by about 160. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Yes. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Can you elaborate a little bit on that. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Yeah. You know, when we were going through the economic downturn, we all had to readjust, and we did. We became much more efficient with the staffing that we were allotted. We have been slowly rebuilding that number, and we will continue over the next several years to do that. Part of that is recruiting and the ability to recruit the right people. And we have a great Human Resources Department, but it is very, very tough for a variety of reasons to recruit people -- COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Sure. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: -- into our community, but we're getting back there. But none of the functions that we performed in the past were lost. They were just reassigned. And a lot of it is what I think you, as businesspeople, would expect us to do anyway, and that is look June 21, 2018 Page 100 at what's not working. If it's not working, let's not do it anymore. Let's do something that's more effective. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Well, that leads me -- I have another question, sir, if I may. And that leads me to my next question, was, what technological advances can we help assist with that are going to make your officers that much more productive? Commissioner Saunders and I were in Washington, D.C., back in March, and I know that we had an adventure down the road with traffic signal cameras that wasn't all that successful, I recall. I recall you turning flips when that all went down. But I also noticed in an extremely heavily populated metropolitan area, even the taxi drivers thought that the light was going to turn yellow and stopped. Nobody proceeds into an intersection and clogs up the traffic because it's just an automatic $350 ticket that you get in the mail. And I -- so I wanted to ask you if you could -- and maybe not today. But I just -- I would like to -- I believe in enhancing our law enforcement officers at every juncture that we possibly can. You're overworked, you're underpaid, you're under -- you're -- there's too much population for the amount of bodies that we, in fact, have. So at some stage I'd like to hear about technological advances. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: And we are absolutely into that. There are a number of things that we're looking at, particularly in the forensic capabilities with computers and phones and digital. Digital forensics is going to become one of the most critical investigative tools, but it will also become a preventative tool where we'll be able to ship data, which is what our CAD system will be able to do, once the vendors can do it. We can do it. We built a system that would do all of this. And as soon as the phone vendors are able to ship photos and GPS location and other things, we will be able to respond more quickly. We have a lot of computer-generated reporting capability so that June 21, 2018 Page 101 you don't even have to leave your home to make those reports that are matter-of-record reports. But the proactive, as you mentioned, capabilities, along with the investigative capabilities, are going to become the number one things over the next two or three years. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay. And my last statement -- question, was -- because we have borne -- if I'm not mistaken we've borne the entire expense of the law enforcement officers in our schools up until recently, if I'm not mistaken; is that a correct statement? SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Yes, sir, that's correct. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And, obviously, we're ahead of the curve. And is there any opportunity of speaking with them to assist at a greater level than what is currently budgeted for? SHERIFF RAMBOSK: There absolutely is. I mean, we have certainly discussed with the superintendent that direction, but we've had a chance to talk with your manager regarding that direction as well, and I don't want to get in front of him, but -- MR. OCHS: We talked about it this morning. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Oh, okay. All right. So we need to all sit down together, I need to be able to overview what's necessary, and then we can figure out how to pay for it. It's that simple. And we actually have the plan, and we can project it out. So, again, we've got to work together as a community to make sure that our schools are safe. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Did that happen while I was off on the phone call? Did you speak about that then? My apologies if that's the case. MR. OCHS: Yeah. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I was -- MR. OCHS: Well, I gave an overview of the program and the statute and then indicated we'd probably talk about it more when the Sheriff was here this afternoon, so you're right on time, sir. June 21, 2018 Page 102 COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okeydoke. And I'm done now. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner Taylor? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Sheriff Rambosk, we have put forensic -- the new forensic facility on the sales tax initiative. I've heard a lot of pushback about that. Would you please explain why this is needed. What aren't -- what is it going to do that you're not capable of doing right now? SHERIFF RAMBOSK: There really are a couple of things. I will tell you, I don't want to pay another tax either, but when you look at our ability to store evidence, number one, which is necessary for successful prosecution -- and you've got a couple of attorneys here in the room -- we need to be able to do that. More importantly, part of this digital forensics capability and our capability to investigate immediately in Collier County rather than sending devices to Washington or to Tallahassee so that we can develop a case and make the quickest arrest possible to stop the potential for additional crimes occurring, those are the two largest needs for that facility. We have, Chief, what, three or four different buildings now throughout the county that we're -- or more that we're storing evidence. CHIEF WILLIAMS: Far more than that. We're literally storing evidence in appropriated spaces that we put locks on and whatnot. The Commissioners toured the facilities, if you will. We are -- when you look at the growth that's coming, we're not going to be able to keep up with the evidence. And there's many things in evidence that might be minuscule, but God forbid if you lose the knife that was involved in a murder. So every piece of evidence, 200,000 pieces, whatever it is, is an important piece of evidence. It has to be tracked and kept, and we desperately need that building and what that building will bring to us. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Now I'm going to ask -- if I June 21, 2018 Page 103 could, ask the manager a question on that particular building. If the sales tax doesn't pass, is there any funding mechanism for that? What would be the next step for that type of facility? MR. OCHS: We'd have to roll it into a long-term debt obligation, just like some of the roads we talked about that are on the list, if they don't get funded, because we don't have sufficient law enforcement impact fees to pay for that. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Or raise impact fees. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Sure. That's what you can do is raise impact fees. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Raise the law enforcement fee. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yeah. So this is a must must have? SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Yes. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Very good. Anything else? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Thank you. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: And I'll put in a plug, too, for Lieutenant Hampton. I think he's the greatest. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: How about Lieutenant Carroll and Lieutenant Martin, since we're naming them. Oh, and Lieutenant Prisco. Let's see. I've got three. That's three of mine. I'm forgetting one. I know I'm forgetting somebody. SHERIFF RAMBOSK: And absolutely on the record, I completely agree. We have the best district lieutenants anybody could have. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Hear, hear. COMMISSIONER FIALA: There you go. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Thank you. June 21, 2018 Page 104 PUBLIC COMMENTS MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, that takes us to your public comments. MR. MILLER: Yeah, I just received two slips for public comment: Dr. Joseph Doyle, and he'll be ceded three minutes from Mrs. Sandy Doyle, who is here in the audience. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Who is waving. We always wave back to Sandy. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Let me see. I would suspect you are here to talk about Pelican Bay. DR. DOYLE: You're correct. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And you were really pleased that we changed agenda maneuvers and moved them ahead, weren't you? Yes. DR. DOYLE: Good afternoon, Commissioners. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I was thinking about him when that happened. I was, like, I wonder if Dr. Joe is scurrying our way. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I actually thought they must be on vacation. DR. DOYLE: Good afternoon, Commissioners. Dr. Joseph Doyle representing my mother, Sandy Doyle, who is the property owner in Pelican Bay. And to your point, we were making our way down. We were at the Planning Commission. And I think you're going to like what's going to come to you before July 10th regarding the trees at the Marketplace. We have two Pelican Bay issues today, and I couldn't clone myself to be in both places at the same time. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: You're here at the appropriate time, because it's public comment. DR. DOYLE: Oh, okay. So I'm here to talk about the proposed June 21, 2018 Page 105 Fiscal Year 2019 budget for the Pelican Bay Services Division. And I had previously sent you-all emails on May 3rd and May 27th. And, luckily, when I was at the Planning Commission, I was able to watch the television, so I saw the remarks of the previous speakers. And on April 30th there was a meeting of the Pelican -- special meeting of the Pelican Bay Services Division, and over 150 residents attended. And it was mixed, but primarily a majority, or a little bit more than a majority, are against this huge 56 percent increase in the assessment to the proposed $1,017 this year. As you've seen in my email, and I believe others have emailed you, too, 1.3 million of that is to replenish the reserves that were borrowed from the Lighting Fund. We don't feel that has to be replaced in the manner with a special assessment of the residents and the commercial properties. We say, let the insurance and the FEMA money come back to replenish that and get that part of the assessment down. If that 1.3 million is taken out of the budget, that will reduce this assessment by $170. So I'll read you something here, too, from the Pelican Bay Property Owners Association. It was in the Pelican Bay Post of June 2018, and I'll give it to you as a submission. It was written by Robert P. Sanchez, who's the president of the Property Owners Association. And, basically, he said, so that while the PBSD Board voted 8 to 3 to approve the increased assessment at its regular meeting on May 2nd, we believe it should revisit its budget plan to find ways to reduce, eliminate, or spread out expenditures prioritizing projects that need attention and using more creative and savvy ways of obtaining funding. As you know, Pelican Bay is about 40 years old now, and it's one of the original MSTBUs; however, the aging infrastructure needs to be June 21, 2018 Page 106 replaced, there's no doubt about it but -- it's really long-term projects. And we're talking about trying to use short-term funding from year to year to do that. I think in the long-term -- and this is not the discussion necessarily for this year's budget, but it puts it in context -- Pelican Bay really needs to be converted into a CDD or some type of independent district so they can undertake these long-term projects and have the bond funding to go with it, because that's long-term funding for long-term projects, so that we don't see these huge increases from year to year. And also, the people who will be living in Pelican Bay 10 years from now when there's a resale, they'll pay that portion of what they're getting the benefit for. So we believe that at the very minimum you can find $1.3 million this year to cut out of the budget, because it's the Irma money, and there's some other projects in there that haven't been vetted by the community that could come down. So people are, as you know -- and to put this in context, you heard about the commercial interest still trying to recover from Irma, and even the residential people. We had a lot of out-of-pocket expenses that did not meet the deductible. People are still recovering. But, quite frankly, the services division borrowed some of that million dollars and still has not really spent it all on the projects. So a lot of that could be returned. That's why we're saying that we would like the Chairman of the Budget Committee and possibly the Chairman of the Pelican Bay Services Division Board to sit down with Mr. Isackson and go over this budget and find some ways to cut that makes sense and get that assessment down into maybe the 7-, $800 range and get it out of that 1,017. So that's what we're seeing, and we will be back in September. But we're hoping that you do this before September so that when the June 21, 2018 Page 107 notice comes out in August, that that assessment is down to something that's more reasonable. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Any other speakers? MR. MILLER: That is the only speaker we have, sir. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. Mr. Manager? MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, in terms of wrap-up, I just wanted to follow up on the discussion about the school resource officer from a policy standpoint. I mentioned this morning, and the Sheriff went over what the historic expenditure allocation has been and that his budget has absorbed 100 percent of that, and the policy question for the Board is, going forward, would you like me to meet with the Superintendent and the Sheriff and attempt to negotiate some kind of a permanent cost-sharing arrangement, or are you satisfied with the current arrangement? CHAIRMAN SOLIS: I mean, I -- if no one's going to jump in. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Well, you're the Chairman. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: I think -- I mean, I would be in favor of at least sitting down and having the conversation with the Sheriff, the Superintendent, and the municipalities that would also, you know, have some input into this, because some of the schools are within the municipalities. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Me as well. Thank you for saying that. That was the path that I was looking to have a discussion about when the Sheriff was here, so... COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Let me ask -- if I could ask a question. In terms of overall impact on the delta between where we were with school resource officers up until Parkland and where we're going to be, that delta minus the 1.6 million? How much are we really talking about? And just a rough estimate. MR. OCHS: Well, I think it's going to take another $8 million to June 21, 2018 Page 108 roll out fully the balance of the Sheriff's intended plan. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Eight million in addition to -- MR. OCHS: In addition to the seven-and-a-half million that he has in the current year's budget, because he said he needs another 39 officers over the next four years, and it's -- he's starting with 10 in FY '19, and that's a $2 million price tag, so carry that out. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: The 2 million that he's talking about, do we deduct from that the 1.6 million that comes from the state? I'm trying to get an idea -- MR. OCHS: Okay. The delta? COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: -- what the difference is that we're going to be appropriating this budget year, and it sounds like it might only be 400-, $500,000. MR. ISACKSON: I would agree with that statement. I would agree with that. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And the reason I wanted to bring that out, you know, obviously, as we go forward, the number gets bigger, and we don't know what the state's going to do going forward. The state may stick at the 1.6 million, in which case, you know, that certainly helps, or they may increase that. What I don't want to get into is any kind of a public argument over how to fund this, especially in light of the fact that we're really not talking about a big number in the 2018/2019 budget, but you should try to, you know, see what you can work out that everybody is agreeable with, because that will set the table for going forward. MR. OCHS: Understood. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yeah. That's good. I'm glad you ended with that. I wasn't sure where you were going. I agree with, you know, going and doing that. Now -- then there's another question, and that's this Pelican Bay issue. Is there any interest in asking our staff to talk to the leadership June 21, 2018 Page 109 in the Pelican Bay Services? I don't know. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: My understanding is that, I mean, those conversations have been ongoing. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Right. Have you gone and met with them yet, Commissioner Taylor? COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: No, I haven't. No, not me. I'm talking about Mr. Isackson. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: No. I'm talking about you. Have you gone and met with Neil Dorrill and Mike Shepherd, I think is his name? Mr. Shepherd. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: No. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I recommend that you do if you have not yet taken that time. It's -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: No, I'm just -- COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And from an edification standpoint, if nothing else, hearing from those that are proposing this budget, I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but there's a lot more that travels into the decision that's coming up with what they're proposing this year than what we were able to glean just out of the budget request. If you haven't taken the time -- I don't know -- they said they were going to talk to all of the commissioners. I actually got to go see them yesterday. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Well, is there any appetite to ask our staff to talk to -- as Dr. Doyle requested, to talk to them to see if there was some way of carving this differently? Are we -- CHAIRMAN SOLIS: The carving has to be done by the PBSD Board. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Correct. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: I mean, that's the whole thing. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Correct. June 21, 2018 Page 110 CHAIRMAN SOLIS: And the meetings I've had, I think, sounds like the same meetings you had; they've carved it as much as they can -- COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: -- given the hurdles. I mean, my understanding is, Leo, you've had conversations with Mike Shepherd and Neil Dorrill, haven't you? MR. OCHS: Yes, I have; yes, sir. Again, they have a fairly rigorous budget review process developed there in the PBSD, and they've done all of their homework and gone through their public hearings at their level and neighborhood hearings. They've voted, I think, certainly with the majority favoring the budget as proposed. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And that was a discussion that I had with them yesterday when I met, and that was -- I questioned it, to be honest -- CHAIRMAN SOLIS: I did as well. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: -- I mean, Commissioner Taylor. I asked about the different ideas, the different plans, the different methodologies; was this a requisite to do this right now? I do feel, personally, they've been a little silent, from a budgetary standpoint, when the reimbursement and/or insurance money comes to them, what they're going to do with those funds. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Well, I was persuaded by Mr. Staros' comments. I mean, we're talking about Mr. Staros. And when he comes in and says, you know, take a look at -- there's something not quite right here, I paid attention. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Well -- and I'm not refuting that. I just -- if you haven't spoken to the folks that developed the budget and find out the entire history, then I highly recommend that you do, in fact, do that. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: But if staff has talked to them, June 21, 2018 Page 111 then that's -- we don't need to go there again. MR. OCHS: I mean, I could talk to him again, but I don't think the results are going to be any different. COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I'm just going to follow the lead of the district commissioner. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: I've talked to them at length about it, and I raised the same questions. It is a significant increase. They had a significant increase last year. But once I sat down and understood exactly what it is that they're having to address, they've got a lot of things to address. And Dr. Doyle is right, the infrastructure in Pelican Bay is aging, and there's a lot that needs to be done proactively because, as we know, doing things on an emergency basis makes it more expensive. So, you know, it's a big increase. I understand the reservation. And I've -- I understand the reservations of the commercial owners, and certainly when Mr. Staros raises an issue, we need to pay attention to it but, also, they have their process. It's a process that, you know, we've been following for years since the creation of the PBSD. You know, I wish there was some room in there that we could say, you know, this -- you don't really need to do this. One, I'm not sure how we would do that, given the way this is set up to work but, secondly, all that money in there is -- they have a lot of things to take care of. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Exposures, responsibility. And I do really highly recommend, if you haven't gone to meet with them -- it's a PowerPoint presentation, and it's fairly succinct. So if you have a chance, go meet with them. It's worth your time. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Their budget committee is comprised of some very sophisticated individuals with a lot of finance. I mean, Mr. Shepherd and a lot of them, they've got some serious brain power, I think, on the committee and have looked at this extensively. So I'm June 21, 2018 Page 112 not -- COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And they, themselves, admittedly talked about some different funding methodologies on a more pro rata basis. This door fee that they're currently operating off of right now is not the most equitable way -- CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Right. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: -- to actually be -- potentially be funding how they're managing their operation. And Neil even spoke about that today. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Right. They're trying to look at different ways to take care of what they see coming down the pike and some ways that, you know, they haven't traditionally been doing things like this. So, you know, I know one of the things that I had not thought of is that a lot of those lakes in there haven't been maintained in the 40 years that it's been created, since it was created. And there's a lot of work in the future that they're going to have to do. But, anyway, I've talked to them. I think it would have to be up to them to come up with some reductions in that, because it's their budget, and they've done the analysis. COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. MR. OCHS: Last thing for me, sir, this morning Commissioner McDaniel asked for some analysis of a comparison between the proposed wage adjustment and some offset to health-insurance premiums. I spoke with Ms. Price and Mr. Walker and Ms. Leiberg at lunchtime and quickly learned that there's a little more to that than just giving you a quick answer, and I'd like a little time. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I kind of wondered about that when you said you'd have it after noon. And we don't have to have it today. MR. OCHS: Okay. Thank you. We have 42 different rates, and June 21, 2018 Page 113 there's a lot of tax implications. COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: We talked about it back in March, and I didn't get much response, and we talked about it a while ago, and I didn't get much response, so -- MR. OCHS: Well, you asked me if I favored it, and I said no. And that's kind of my response, so I said I'd -- COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Right. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I see two people back there at the ready just in case they need to -- COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: No, we're okay. We don't need to have it today. MR. OCHS: Okay. Thank you. We'll get that to you soon. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Thank you. We're adjourned? MR. OCHS: That's all I have, sir. CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Great. We're adjourned. MR. OCHS: Thank you very much, Commissioners. Adjourned. ***** June 21, 2018 Page 114 There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 2:04 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL ___________________________________ ANDY SOLIS, CHAIRMAN ATTEST CRYSTAL K. KINZEL, CLERK ____________________________________ These minutes approved by the Board on ____________, as presented ______________ or as corrected _____________. TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF U.S. LEGAL SUPPORT, INC., BY TERRI LEWIS, COURT REPORTER AND NOTARY PUBLIC.