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BCC Minutes 06/15/2005 B (Budget Workshop) June 15, 2005 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BUDGET WORKSHOP Naples, Florida, June 15, 2005 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 and 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: Fred Coyle Jim Coletta Donna Fiala Tom Henning Frank Halas ALSO PRESENT: Mike Smykowski, Budget Director Jim Mudd, County Manager Leo Ochs, Deputy County Manager Marjorie Student- Stirling, Assistant County Attorney Page 1 ____M"._ NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING Notice is hereby given that the Board of County Commissioners of Collier County will conduct Budget Workshops on Wednesday, June 15, 2005, Thursday, June 16, 2005 and Friday, June 17, 2005 at 9:00 a.m. Workshops will be held in the Boardroom, 3rd Floor, W. Harmon Turner Building, Collier County Government Center, 3301 East Tamiami Trail, Naples, Florida to hear the following: COLLIER COUNTY GOVERNMENT BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS FY 2006 BUDGET WORKSHOP SCHEDULE Wednesday, June 15,2005 - 9:00 a.m. General Overview Courts and Related Agencies (State Attorney and Public Defender) Administrative Services Public Services Transportation Services Community Development Public Utilities Debt Service Management Offices (Pelican Bay) County Attorney BCC Airport Authority Thursday, June 16,2005 - 9:00 a.m. Constitutional Officers: Property Appraiser Elections Clerk of Courts Sheriff Friday, June 17, 2005 - 9:00 a.m. Wrap-up (if required) June 15, 2005 CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, ladies and gentlemen, the Budget Hearing is in session. Will you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. (Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you very much. I see we have a number of elected officials and other dignitaries in the audience -- that doesn't include you, Sue Filson; you can't hide from us, we know who you are -- and we will introduce you whenever we get to the budgets. Otherwise, I'm afraid I'm going to miss somebody. We have an item left over from yesterday. County Manager, will you guide us through this? Item #3A THIS ITEM WAS CONTINUED FROM THE JUNE 14,2005 BCC MEETING - A PRESENTATION OF THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE OUTSTANDING MEMBER AWARD TO RUSSELL A. BUDD, CHAIRMAN OF THE COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION FOR JUNE, 2005 MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. This was a continued item, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, from yesterday. It's Item 3(A(I). And it was a presentation of the Advisory Committee Outstanding Member award to Russell A. Budd of the Collier County Planning Commission for June of2005. And I'd ask Mr. Budd ifhe would come forward to the dais. And the reason we continued is he was out of town and we wanted to make sure that we gave this award to him. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Now, how long has Russell been serving MR. MUDD: Sir, we will -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: -- the public? A long time, right? Page 2 June 15, 2005 MR. MUDD: It seems like forever. The -- Russell demonstrated his belief in community service by his active participation -- now, Mr. Budd, you need to come over here so everybody can see your picture, okay? CHAIRMAN COYLE: We're even going to get a picture of this, Russell. MR. MUDD: -- demonstrated his belief in community service by his active participation in numerous organizations. He is the immediate past chairman of the Board of Directors for the Greater Naples Chamber of Commerce; he has served on the Collier County Planning Commission for 11 years, and is currently the Chairman. His service as a Planning Commissioner will terminate in July. In addition, Russell is currently serving as a volunteer on the selective service Board, and is a member of the Board of directors for the Bank of Florida. He was elected to the Board of Commissioners in the Golden Gate Fire Control and Rescue District in 1993 and served a four-year term, acting as Chairman for three of those years. Russell is a past member of the Naples Golden Gate Rotary Club, and the Paul Harris Fellow in 1988. And the 1987 through '88 club Rotarian of the year. He served for six years as a member of the Board of Trustees for Seacrest Country School -- Day School. He is a former member of the Board of Directors for the Greater Naples YMCA. Through Russell's efforts over the past 11 years, the overall effectiveness of the Collier County Planning Commission has increased significantly, and the impact that he has had on the Commission primarily over the past three years has improved considerably the Planning Commission's effectiveness in formulating recommendations regarding all land use petitions and all proposed amendments to the Collier County Land Development Code and the Growth Management Plan that ultimately go to the Board of County Commissioners. Page 3 ..~-~'.~..... June 15, 2005 Mr. Budd has had a positive impact on this community and has contributed significantly to our efforts to promote trust and confidence in local government. His professionalism, patience, confidence and integrity have ensured that government continues to look out for the overall well-being of the citizens of the County and not simply the petitioner's needs and desires. His overall effectiveness performance and participation on the planning -- as a Planning Commissioner has in one word, been outstanding. His actions validate that he is truly deserving of receiving the advisory committee outstanding member for his overall contributions to the citizens of Collier County. Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, I present to you Mr. Russell A Budd. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Russell, it's a pleasure -- (applause). Russell, it's a please to present to you this plaque to indicate our appreciation for the many contributions you've made to Collier County Government and to the citizens of Collier County. Probably the most valuable part of this presentation is a parking space. CHAIRMAN BUDD: Handicap parking. CHAIRMAN COYLE: No, it's not handicap. No, it's not handicap. Parking space and an J.D. card to get you into our now secure parking, since you probably spend as much time here as we do. Thank you very much, Russell. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And Russell, can I tell you from the Planning Commission how much they all admire you and your leadership. And just a message from them that they have enjoyed every bit of time working with you. You've been a great leader, thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Now, we want to get a picture with you, if you wouldn't mind here. MR. BUDD: Okay. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, Mr. Mudd? Page 4 June 15, 2005 GENERAL OVERVIEW MR. MUDD: Commissioner, if you'll notice in your packets, the first page is the Notice of the Public Hearing. And I'm going to focus in on Wednesday, June 15th. This is a three-day meeting. Hopefully it won't go three days. But for today, we'll start with a general overview . We'll go to courts and related agencies, we'll go to admin -- and then we'll start into the County Manager's organization, Administrative Services, Public Services, Transportation, Community Development, Public Utilities, we'll turn to Debt Service, Management Offices, with Pelican Bay included, the County Attorney. Ms. Filson gets to do the BCC side of this, and then the Airport Authority will close out the day. So without further ado, we'll start on that particular item, and we'll start with a general overview. Commissioners, I normally start this, and I don't have any secret beans or any dust today. But we normally talk about how well we did. You gave the budget guidance out. The Board sent budget guidance out to all the agencies, including the constitutional officers. And we want to go over -- we want to make sure that you have a kind of a tally of how well we did on that particular budget guidance. The general fund millage, the Board told us they wanted to have that millage neutral. And that's that first bullet up there. And indeed we came forward with a budget that's millage neutral. The same millage neutral approach was applied to the MSTU general fund. We like to call that the unincorporated general fund. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And by the way, millage neutral means not requiring a tax increase. MR. MUDD: A tax rate increase, yes, sir. I use the word rate on that particular -- some people have some properties that have appreciated values that have gone up significantly this year. General fund capital millage, the Board sets aside a .33 mil. Page 5 June 15, 2005 equivalent. And again, that .33 mil. equivalent has been kept, and our score card is over here on this column. Stormwater millage, the Board basically set aside .15 mil. equivalent, and the .15 mil. equivalent has been applied. For the County Manager's Agency, there's a limit on new positions, with the exception -- and the Board made that exception with the North Naples Regional Park -- excuse me, the North Collier Regional Park. And you can -- and we've come in at 25 net positions, and you can see the math. The Board approved seven positions here in May of -- May 24th that had to do with unfinanced requirements for the '05 budget. The 46.1 -- I still have to find that .1 person yet -- at North Naples Regional Park, and it basically nets out at 25 positions. Now, we have received a request from the Big Cypress Basin Board. Last year's budget, '05 budget, they had asked for two positions that they would fund in transportation in the stormwater department. To date we have not added those positions because the money has not been forthcoming from the Big Cypress Basin Board. This year they asked for two positions worth of work out of our pollution control section. And so I don't count those positions because I count those as contract employees. But I just let you know, right now Big Cypress Basin has an FTE ceiling, but they have money in order to get the job done. Adherence to the general fund budget allocation is the next item that we'd like to talk about. The Board basically said that our assumption was to keep the budget at 11 percent assessed value. And what -- and that was our guess at what the assessed value was going to come in, because in '05 the assessed value came in at 11.3 percent, I believe. So our 11 percent was pretty much a little less than it was last year, because our assessed values had been going down over the last couple of years. This year it spiked up to -- well, it's good news for the County. Page 6 June 15, 2005 You can see who brought their budgets in at the 11 percent taxable rate. And then if you take a look at what the rate finally came in at from the property appraiser, you can see who came in under those particular -- and that's kind of the pie, you know, the slice of the pie based on what their allocations were in the '04 general fund. You basically told everybody to stay within those percentages. And I'll talk about that a little bit more as we move on. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning, did you have a question you wanted to ask now? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah. I didn't notice when public speakers are going to talk about the budget. CHAIRMAN COYLE: At the end? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay, at the end. MR. MUDD: Or Commissioner, would you like to do it after -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: After each budget? MR. MUDD: -- after each presentation, if it's directed at that particular area? CHAIRMAN COYLE: We can do that. But if it's the budget in general, we'll do it at the end. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir, at the end of each day? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah. MR. MUDD: Okay. And if you'd turn your speaker slips into Leo Ochs -- put your hand up, Leo -- okay, that sits over there, and he'll get those things arranged. The next part of your budget guidance was to take a look at budget metrics. And this was an effort that we started last year to try to compare ourselves to other counties, comparable counties, to see if our budgets are in the ballpark or not. You know, you take a look at what need that you have and then you take a look and see how everybody else is doing it and try to measure yourself against it. As far as proposed budget and who sent in metrics: County Manager, yes, Sheriff elections; Tax Collector, no, Clerk, no, Property Page 7 June 15, 2005 Appraiser, no. And some of those three constitutional officers have some issues. The Clerk's under Article 5, part of it's state funded, very difficult as that system starts to work its way out. And then you can see by the different highlights, the Tax Collector's budget is submitted on August 1. You've got the Clerk on Article 5, and the property appraiser has a budget approved by the state. One of the other things that you talked about in your budget guidance was overtime. One of the other things you talked about was overtime. And the guidance was to basically -- in previous years we had worked on a fill of 96 percent. And we assumed there would be a four percent attrition. In this particular budget, we assumed that our fill would be at 98 percent and that that two percent left over, that we would have to fill that particular slot that was vacant with an overtime position. And sometimes folks are at double time, okay, when they do that. Sometimes it's time and a half. To try to work that in the guidance to figure out what percentage that is gets to be very tedious, so we basically said okay, that two percent would be double time for budgeting guidance. Now, your departments and agencies exceptions, I've put down my departments that didn't meet it as an agency in the County agency overall. I meet that guidance. But I did highlight those departments within my organization that had problems meeting that particular guidance. And I knew it would be an interesting piece of guidance that -- to have people meet in the budget for some of the departments that I have. But again, from a County Manager's agency overall, I -- in some departments I have no problem making it. So overall, those departments basically group up under the County Manager and we make the guidance. The Sheriff did have some problems with this particular item. Discretionary operating expenses. Current service discretionary Page 8 June 15, 2005 operating expenses limited to 3.9 percent. I had three departments that had some issues with that particular item. And they will talk to you. All are in the Public Utilities division, and they will talk to you about that today during their particular presentations. Graphically how did we do as far as the guidance is concerned? I did mention that we had some issues with making the pie in three particular places. We had it with the road program subsidy. That basically is -- reflects the debt service on the road bonds and the use of the 14.1 million road reserves. Commissioners, as you know, you just did the second bonding item on the road program for gas taxes. And I've got a slide that will talk about that in just a second. What that basically did is it let us pay that second bond issue back, and we did it inversely. So the first one we paid up front higher interest in premium payments, and then in the second one, they were easy in the first part and then they were heavy at the end. So that basically leveled out both payments to the tune of about 14 and a half million dollars a year. With that, we don't have the spike that we had contemplated with that road reserve. And you remember last year, we had it up to $14.1 million in order to capture that spike so that we could smooth it out to $26 million. We didn't have to add new money in, so we kept it at 24 million, and we're moving that reserve out into transportation to do pay-as-you-go. But again, next slide that I show you will talk about that particular item in details. The -- on the Sheriffs particular -- oh, by the way, that road subsidy was off some 19 million, but we moved that money out and that's why you see that difference on the road subsidy. Then you run into the debt that reflects the full 1.5 mils in storm water. The '04 budget pie did not include a separate millage for the stormwater. It also includes $1 million from the Big Cypress Basin to offset cost of the debt associated with the Fleischman property on Page 9 June 15, 2005 Goodlette and Golden Gate Parkway. And if you remember correctly, that's also part of the settlement for the South Golden Gate Estates roads, where the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, South Florida Water Management District basically, for turning over those roads to them so that they could add that to the comprehensive Everglades restoration program, they give us $1 million a year for 20 years. We got them to agree that the first 10 years would be used against the Fleischman property, and they give us a million a year on that, and that basically talks about that particular item. Everybody else. The Sheriff is, based on the pie figure of 39.6 percent, is over his percentage by $917,269. I said I'd talk a little bit about the road debt service. And I wanted to make sure that we at least keep an acting total that's going on. If you take a look at the shortfall -- and I want to you think back, and I don't want to get you into the nightmare side of the house, but if you remember the half penny sales tax referendum. The shortage on our road program for not keeping our impact fees up to speed for about a decade was some $257 million. That was defeated in the referendum. It seemed that we had a clear direction from the voters that they wanted to make up that shortfall by using current revenues. What the Board did in 2003 is they borrowed $98 million using gas taxes. It was a revenue bond. And then we did another revenue bond on the remaining gas taxes here this year, just about a month ago, and we're finishing that up right now so the chairman can sign all the papers. And that basic bond issue went for 96 million. If you subtract those two bond issues from the total of 257 million, it leaves you $62 million left. And that was the part that we were going to pay-as-you-go out of ad valorem taxes and sales tax revenues. Well, it all goes into the ad valorem -- or goes into the general fund. First year pay-as-you-go we were able to free up 5.9 million. So Page 10 June 15, 2005 we've paid in '03 5.9 to the pay-as-you-go. '04 we paid 4.2. And '05, we paid 10.8. This year, by pulling that money out of the reserves, we're able to pay $21 million. Now, what does that do for us? Our original plan was the pay-as-you-go amount, we would have to go for commercial paper. We have pulled a lot of that money in previous years, so we freed those dollars up and we don't have to do the commercial paper. So we don't have to go out and pay interest on that fund. And so in '07 our projection is 9 million and that would leave 11 million. By '08 we'll be pretty well paid up as pay-as-you-go. So there's really no need to do that commercial paper and then have that steep spike that you'd need to have those reserves. So I just wanted to give you a full read-out of where we sit as far as the pay-as-you-go is concerned. And you pretty much have put away $24 million now in recurring dollars going to transportation every year out of the general fund in order to pay that. The difference is off the debt payment for the two bond issues, we'll use those to get at the shortfall and transportation as we move along in the future; may that be east of951 as a result of that study. And I think I briefed all the Commissioners at one time on that particular issue. Commissioners, if you'll look in your booklet, you'll notice under the general fund, there is a -- there is a page -- Mike, can you give me the page on that? There is a page that has a highlight. And again, this isn't an eye test. MR. SMYKOWSKI: A-5. MR. MUDD: On A-5 there is a highlighted number in the middle of the page that basically talks about capital outlay UFR, unfinanced requirement. Based on the budgets that have been submitted, you have $7.8 million to go against unfinanced requirements. And we'll hear about those a little bit. Plus you have an unfinanced requirement list that's also been attached under my tab. Mike, where does it start on the pages, please? Page 11 June 15, 2005 MR. SMYKOWSKI: It begins on A-IO. There's an itemized listing, and that is followed in the same order. There's a description of each of the UFRs. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, and what we've done is we've taken all of those that have been brought forward in the book and summarized those on one page. Then if you turn to the 111 expense summary, you'll notice there's also a highlighted box -- Mike, page? -- that says capital outlay, unfinanced requirements on the 111 expense summary. And you have $991,000 that's unspent that you can use against those particular UFRs. MR. SMYKOWSKI: That's on A-6, Commissioners. MR. MUDD: And now I'd like to talk about my particular agency, or we can go to the layout as it sits in the book. On A-2 and A-3, you've got the Collier County '05 budget summary in a macro look. And what -- we've designed the book, and we've kept to that format so that you can go from there to any division and you can drill down and get the specifics on any particular issue that you want in that budget. The budget that you have at the bottom of A-2, the total net County budget is minus .3 percent. And the total net budget, without the Tax Collector, who we don't get a budget until the 1 st of August, is at 1.4 percent increase. So we're doing pretty well holding our own as far as the budget is concerned from a macro view. What I'd like to do a little bit now is to take a look at the County Manager's operation on the top part, and take a look at the operating budget and talk a little bit about what I tried to do was drill down some of the things that seemed to have caused some anomalies in the budgets and some things that we can't control. If you'll look up here -- and again, it's a little bit of an eye chart, but not too bad, if you're looking at it in your computer screens. At the County Manager's agency, you'll see a 4.1 percent. When you Page 12 .__.._.~ June 15, 2005 take -- and it's basically the same 4.1 percent that's sitting on the page that sits on A-2. When you take a look at that and you take out the Collier County fire districts and the County fire -- you take out Ochopee and the Isles of Capri and the County fire, which are all controlled by MSTU, and then you take -- and you move those things, those particular items out of the budget, then my particular items turns out to be around 2.9 percent. In Administrative Services, you'll see that it's at 12.6 percent. Up here you come down to Administrative Services, and there's some things that seem to want to stick out that aren't really controllable. The budget reflects four special revenue funds: Driver's education, the 800 megahertz, the GAC land sales and the ADA compliance, which increased our carry forward. Fleet fuel distribution increased by $454,000. The risk management fund, the reserves increased by seven million, reflecting better claims, experience and increased cost. In property insurance market and in the value of assets, because we've had some new facilities that have had to be insured. When you take those particular items out, that 12.6 percent comes out to be about 8.9 percent. Public Services Operation, and in each one of those, the division administrators and the department heads will talk about those in particular, but I'm trying to give you a macro. The Public Services Operation, the museum budget increased by some $365,000. Almost 366, due to a strong tourist tax revenue stream. The North Regional -- the North Collier Regional Park operation has an operating fund of about 2.4 million in expanded service. If you take those particular items out of Public Services operation, that 14 percent goes to 6.8 percent. Transportation Services operation. Let me take it down just a little bit. Transportation Services operation, the landscape programh Page 13 June 15, 2005 increased approximately 1.6 million. The Transportation Disadvantaged Program increased approximately a half a million dollars. And you have $1 million for lime rock road paving program. We have about 107 to 110 miles of lime rock road that we're trying to get paved out into the estates and other areas of Collier County, and you can just go down in the Bayshore area and you can see dirt roads down there, too, so we don't have to go too far to see that. That million dollars basically will pave around seven miles of road. And it's going to be something to get at that particular program over a series of years. If you take those items out of Transportation Services operations budget, that 5.9 percent comes out to be a negative 1.5 percent as far as this budget is concerned. Community Development, Environmental Services is next. You'd look at that thing and you see 40.4 percent, you go, oh, my goodness. Conservation Collier maintenance reflects the third year of program, the total appropriations increase by approximately $2.2 million. The Immokalee CRA increase by $163,000. CDS reserves increased by $9 million, due to strong activity in building, planning activity and bonding for capital facilities last year. That 40.4 percent, if you take those particular items out of Community Development's budget, brings that percentage in at 13.3 percent, as far as the increase is concerned. And last but not least is Public Utilities Operation. And that utility reserve increased approximately 6.4 million. They've got continued system growth, and they do get some line breaks, especially on U.S. 41. We have three recent examples there. And they're doing some major pipe changing out in that particular area. If you take that 6.4 million increase out of their reserves, that 13.7 turns out to be about 8.8 percent. If you take a look at that from a County perspective, if you take all of those particular items, as they seem to be a little bit of an anomaly from the County Manager's Page 14 June 15, 2005 budget, that 14.5 percent that sits for the County Manager Agency turns into about 6.8 percent. And we'll hear from each one of those division folks as we move forward. One of the things that I'm also required to do is basically talk to you about metrics a little bit. And what we did, we asked to be compared in the budget guidance to Lee, Manatee, Charlotte, Marion County and Sarasota County. And this basically talks about the number of employees you have in the County Manager's agency against 1,000 people population. Right now there's 6.34 employees per 1,000 in Collier County into the manager's agency. Lee is sitting at around 8.6, Manatee, at 7.1, Charlotte around 7.08. Marion County's big, but it's also pretty rural, and Sarasota County is sitting at around 8.17. From what I see from those particular metrics, we're trying to do more with less, and we're trying to hold our head count down in some areas as we talk about the budget today. We might have held it down a little bit too tight. But from an employee standpoint, we're under everyone except for Marion County. If you talk about adjusted budget per capita in unincorporated, you take a look at Collier against that same menu of counties. Collier is spending about 1,207 per person, and that's what's in their budget; Lee is around 1,500; Manatee's at 1,366; Charlotte's at 1,300; Marion's at 806; and Sarasota's at 1,952. So I would say from this particular metric, you should take a look at it, I think the citizens of Collier County are getting some great service for a minimal expenditure of dollars on their part. One last thing I'd like to talk about is -- and, you know, I'm going to wait for this part. There's a lot of people waiting here. We'll talk about this particular innovative project. I'd like to transpire maybe at the end of the day and we'll get after it then. Without further ado, sir, the next presentation that you're going to get is from courts and related agencies: State attorney, public Page 15 .._~-_.. June 15, 2005 defender. Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd just take those seats that are on that table right there. COURTS AND RELATED AGENCIES (STATE ATTORNEY AND PUBLIC DEFENDER) MR. SMYKOWSKI: Commissioners, there's a summary of the Courts and related agencies on Page B-1 on the Courts and related tab in your budget binders. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And if you wouldn't mind, for the benefit of the public, would you please introduce yourselves, starting with Judge Manalich. JUDGE MANALICH: Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the Board. I'm Judge Ramiro Manalich from County Court. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Good morning. Mark Middlebrook, Senior Deputy Court Administrator, the 20th Circuit. MR. RUSSELL: Morning. Steve Russell, State Attorney for the 20th Judicial Circuit. MR. JACOBS: Good morning. Robert Jacobs, Public Defender, 20th Circuit. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you very much. Welcome. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Commissioners, basically I'm going to give you the overview for the courts and let the state attorney and public defender answer any questions for their budgets. Our submission went down about $500,000 from last year. We're doing a lot more work with a lot less resources. Fortunately the state has stepped up and is picking up a majority of our court costs. We still have a few outstanding bills out there from cases prior to July 1 st, 2004, and that requires us to carry some money in our court cost budget. Other than that, we really have no additions to our submission from last year. Page 16 June 15, 2005 MR. MUDD: Mr. Chairman, this is a really good budget as far as the courts are concerned. They've done a great job making sure that they're almost paying for themselves. And the reason I say almost, if you look at B-1, you'll notice that the general fund outlay for their particular item -- I'm looking at revenues in '04, '05, they were at 870,000. If you look at '03, '04, they were 3.4 million. A lot of that has to do with Article 5 and some different fees that Article 5, revision seven let the Board enact and let the court system enact. And if you take a look at the '05, '06, that's down to $371,000. Pretty much we've given them everything they wanted, okay, in their budget. And we even increased, based on a committee that's taking a look at jail overcrowding in which you were the chair. We've even taken a look at increasing the staff in the State Attorney's Office and the public defender in order to work on those case loads so that we can try to help and maintain and decrease the amount of inmates that we have in our jail. And so I believe that's an initiative that will serve us well. Now, if we could only get some more judges to help out with the caseload, that would be great, but I believe the legislator's going to take care of that. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah, I think that's going to be taken care of. But with respect to our program that we've been discussing in the public safety coordinating council meetings, has any money been included in our budget or the courts budgets to help with that? Are we at the point where we need to be considering that in this upcoming budget? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. There are expanded positions in the state attorney and the public defender's budget in order to bring on sections that can help with the caseload and work that out, so we've added those in these particular budgets. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. So that the public understands Page 1 7 June 15, 2005 what we're talking about, we of course have a problem with overcrowding in our jails. Some other counties have developed programs which have resulted in the reduction of j ail population by expediting some case handling procedures and assuring that only those people who need to be incarcerated are actually incarcerated. And then those who represent no threat can be released on their own recognizance, and thereby begin to solve some of the problems with jail overcrowding and the high cost of building jails and staffing them. So I understand we are planning some additional resources, financial resources for that program, and hopefully will it will yield the desired results. Since the County Manager is in such a generous mood today, is there anything else you need as far as money is concerned? MR. JACOBS: I thank you for all your help with us. MR. RUSSELL: From the State Attorney's end, we appreciate Colonel Mudd's leadership on this jail management issue. Mr. Jacobs and I have been working in another County with a similar project and have find it very successful trying to keep much larger costs down to avoid millions of dollars. I do want to just make one note, and the County Manager is certainly well aware and working on this, but space -- just to make everyone aware, space in the State Attorney's Office is becoming a critical issue. And we're working on it with the County Manager. But we're subdividing and subdividing, and cutting up conference rooms and file rooms, and it's just getting to be a very critical matter. And again, I don't mean to imply that it's not being worked on, but I just wanted to make the Commission aware that that's the top priority for my office. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good. Thank you very much, Mr. Russell. Any questions by the Commissioners? (No response.) Page 18 June 15, 2005 CHAIRMAN COYLE: Are there any public speakers on this section of the budget hearing? MS. FILSON: No, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. And thank you for working so closely with us and adhering to budget guidance and making things a lot easier for all of us. Thanks for the work you do. MR. JACOBS: Thank you all. Thanks to Mr. Mudd as well. ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES MR. MUDD: Commissioner, that brings us to our next presentation, and that's -- that now down into the County Manager's Organization, and that's the Administrative Services. If you could please come forward to the table. MR. SMYKOWSKI: While they're getting assembled, for the benefit of the viewing public, the Administrative Services Division is comprised largely of the internal support functions of the agency, things like Human Resources, Purchasing, the IT functions, the Fleet Management supports, and Facilities Management Services. Ms. Lynn Price is the Administrator. And we would be on Page C-1 under the Administrative Services tab in your budget binders. MS. PRICE: Good morning, Commissioners. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Lynn, how are you this morning? MS. PRICE: In deference to last night's meeting, I'm going to try and make this as brief as possible. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. MS. PRICE: I just wanted to let you know that as a division, we were able to follow the guidance that was given to us. There were two exceptions in the overtime formula, and that was under fleet services and facility services, both of which are responsible for 24/7 service to make sure certain facilities run; for instance, the jail, the ambulances Page 19 June 15, 2005 and the buses. Not all of that can be done during the routine day. As so when emergencies come up, we have to take care of them. As a division, however, we were well under the guidance for our overtime budget. As you go through, Mr. Mudd identified certain areas where there were significant changes from last year's budget. I want to go over those in just a little bit more detail. Under the driver's education grant, the first year the school district chose not to make a grant request. We now have about 15 months worth of revenues, and they have in fact made a request of $200,000 to provide driver's education services during the summer. So that is a pass-through from monies that we collect from moving violations on traffic tickets. So that passes from us onto the school district. Last year we budgeted $2.10 a gallon for fuel. This year we've brought that in at $2.20. As you know, there's been significant changes. We believe that that will be sufficient to cover the ups and downs in the fuel. The 2.10 this year has worked out for us, remembering that we don't pay, you know, full retail prices that you see at the pumps. Under maintenance and campus utilities, those increased, based on adding several new buildings, some this year and some that are coming on line next year. The annex parking garage, North Naples Regional Park, the jail addition and some others. That is what spurred those increases. You'll notice a significant difference in GIS support. That was a capital proj ect that this year is falling under the operating budgets of the departments. We've made a significant increase in investment for IT security. Most of the problems that we face with IT security would be more of an annoyance basis, but in truth we're looking at approximately $20,000 an hour in productivity if our systems are hacked into. That's Page 20 June 15, 2005 not an acceptable amount, and so we are making some investments to ensure that our systems are as secure as we can make them. The 800 megahertz system has for years gotten its funding from -- also from revenue from moving violations. That revenue stream has decreased. Or let me say that our investments are now outdoing our monies coming in, and we're going to have to start supplementing that some from the general fund. The health insurance premium rates have actually gone down for employees and for the County. However, we were able to meet all of our reserves because of some aggressive planning on our part, as well as our wellness program that's working real well. Our experience has been very stable. And so that's allowed us to meet all of our state requirements as far as that goes. Those are the significant changes in our general fund budget. And there is one item under the unfinanced request that I'd like to call your attention to. It deals with records management. With the proliferation of documents that we deal with, as well as the documents we create through all of the computers and programs that we have, the time has come, I believe, to take some significant steps in managing those records, making sure that they're properly stored, properly disposed of when the time comes, and easily accessible. And so I'm hoping that after you've sorted through everything, that you might give some priority to putting together a formalized -- more formalized records management program. At this point I'll open it up to any questions that you might have. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: GIS support system, huge increase. I didn't understand, can you explain that a little bit better? MS. PRICE: First three years of that project, it was a capital project. None of the funding came from the general funds or from the operating departments. This year the capital part of that is over and we're charging all of the departments for the upkeep, for the licensing. Page 21 June 15, 2005 And Barry can speak to some of the other expenses. That's why you see such a big jump. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So that's maintenance. You did the capital, now you're doing the maintenance and applications for the GIS. MR. AXELROD: If I may, Commissioner, the bulk of the cost that you see there in that shift was due to a tactical reorganization. We moved -- we had a separate section last year for the GIS staff. We merged that in with our development staff so it shows as an increase in that cost center. So the personnel, there were no additions, we just merged them and moved them so it shows up as a larger expense, plus the addition of the termination of the -- or the ending of the capital project did result in the addition of operating expenses to that budget as well. But the bulk was due to a reorganization. We moved about eight people from the business application section, where you see a decrease, to the GIS section. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes, Commissioners, to give you a -- to hone in, on Page C-l, the business applications, the adopted budget in '05 was 1.83 million. The proposed in '06 in current service is down to slightly above $1 million. And the GIS system support went from 375,900 adopted in '05 to over a million dollars. So you're just seeing that shift from that business application systems into GIS. And so that kind of offsets each other. And then the expansion is geared towards some of the maintenance that Ms. Price was eluding to. THE COURT REPORTER: May I have your name, please. MR. AXELROD: Barry Axelrod, the IT director. COMMISSIONER HENNING: You stated that's billed out to the other departments -- MS. PRICE: Right. COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- is that correct? Where is that? That would be a revenue source, correct? MS. PRICE: Mike could help you identify where all that's Page 22 June 15, 2005 coming from. The general fund departments themselves aren't billed out, but the -- all the enterprise funds and all the separate funds actually have an IT allocation, and it's wrapped up within the IT allocation. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Commissioner, on Page C-2, under the funding sources, you see total operating revenue. Then there's -- the second kind of grouping is total inter-County billings, the second one down is department billings, information technology, and they're billing out almost $1.8 million in offsetting revenue from that department for -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: And that's up $200,000 -- quarter of a million. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: That's just billing to enterprise funds? MR. AXELROD: Non-general funds. MS. PRICE: Non-general funds. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Non-general funds. MS. PRICE: Right. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes. As we add system applications in other areas -- obviously if utilities is adding a supplemental billing system, the general fund taxpayers should not bear the cost for a utility system application. Therefore, that cost is paid for in part by those utility and community development system users. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Did you finish? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yes, thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Is the nature of the GIS support that you're providing such that it will -- it provides a service which will result in cost reductions for other departments? MR. AXELROD: Yes, sir. The-- CHAIRMAN COYLE: In what ways? MR. AXELROD: It actually makes information more easily Page 23 June 15, 2005 available. Where staff spent research time in a lot of cases to get information, now the GIS system makes that more available. If I could give you an example. We found that in a number of data bases throughout the County, customer records were also annotated with Commissioner district, okay? So if there were to be a redistricting of any case, there would need to be changes in many data bases throughout the County. What happens now is we have a spatial way of showing Commission districts, so now the address points that relate to those customers just flow into the Commission districts. If there was a change in boundaries -- and this goes for zoning or anything else, those things would just flow out without having to be independently changed within each application that we have across the County. And again, we're seeing the traction with the GIS system start to take off right now. The infrastructure is complete. It's a matter now of getting the business processes that were manual before converted to using this automation. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Did you expect any substantial increases in the future as a result of increased utilization, or do you think it's going to taper off? MR. AXELROD: What we're seeing now is this will be pretty stable. What we did see this year was extra demands, so there are extra licenses and license fees, which carry maintenance associated with them across -- I believe there were 35 extra licenses this year for some of the more advanced users. We might see more of that in the future, but generally I think the operating cost will be pretty stable. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. Now, let's switch to another category . Insurance and health care insurance. It shows about a $15 million increase over last year. Our current running rate for this current year is actually less than budget. But we're forecasting a substantial increase over our current running rate. And I'd like to Page 24 June 15, 2005 understand why. MR. WALKER: Jeff Walker, Risk Management Director. What has occurred, Commissioner -- Mr. Chairman, I'm sorry-- is that what we have seen is an improvement in our claims experience. And the rates that were budgeted in the previous fiscal year and this fiscal year have actually exceeded the claims experience need. So what we -- there were two issues there. One was that we had to meet a department of insurance funding requirement to make the fund comply with state insurance requirements. Our goal was to do that by the end of '06. We did that by this summer. So we're a couple -- year or two ahead of that schedule. That's one thing. The other is, from the standpoint of trying to keep costs level over several budget years, what we have decided to do is to take that good claims experience and use it to offset rate increases, so that the budget remains stable. What we did in the '06 budget is we are using some of those reserves to keep our costs down. And we actually decreased the allocated premium by six percent in '06. So the increase you're seeing in that budget is an increase in reserves, not operating expenses, due to improved claims experience. And those will be used to offset future rates. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, that's a good news item. I mean, if we're holding down our claims for our insurance policy by having a County nurse -- and we're going to have a nurse and a half here, if you approve the expanded position that's there, because it's turned out to be a really good program that saves us almost a million dollars a year, because they use that nurse versus going to an emergency room or whatnot. And our wellness program is taking off. That's good news. And so the claim history is less than what we had budgeted. And so we're trying to hold that down. And as you know, in previous years the increases in our health insurance as far as to our employees has been significant. And in some years their CO LA increase has been Page 25 June 15, 2005 used based on increases in their medical program. So it's a good news item. And if they're holding their claims down, then it shouldn't be driving our health insurance fees through the roof. So there's some savings for everybody here in this particular area. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I guess I just don't understand it. But it's a $15 million increase in cost. MR. WALKER: Actually, it's not. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, tell me-- MR. WALKER: In terms of costs that are allocated to the various departments, in other words, let's for example say in the Board of Commissioners budget for health care, those rates actually went down six percent in the '06 budget. What you're seeing in my budget is really that good claims experience being retained in the form of reserves from actually the '04 budget and the '05 budget, the improvement in that claims experience. And so what we're actually doing is decreasing the rate in '06 in the aggregate of about a million, two. And those are real dollars that are allocated to department budgets of participating departments and agencies. That rate went down six percent. So we budgeted a rate, we came in below it. That differential, we're going to hold in reserve so that if our claims experience does either deteriorate or we can use that to offset future rate increases. Because the trend nationally is still about 12 percent. Fortunately we're nowhere near that because of a lot of things we've done internally among the staff to try to keep our cost down. So what we're trying to do is manage that program and take more of a long-term look at it and use those reserves to help us keep our costs level. I hope that makes sense. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, if you could get your attention to Page C-45. And Mike's going to help a little bit here. MR. SMYKOWSKI: I'll try to simplify this for you. But I do understand your direct question, Commissioner Coyle. On C-45, this Page 26 June 15, 2005 is the detail of the Workers' Compensation fund. And your questions specifically from the C-l page was, you know, we had a budget of 5.8. Our actual expenditures are about 2.3, but we're budgeting 5.8 again. Why are we budgeting 5.8 if our ongoing expenses are only 2.3. A very legitimate question. What you see in essence is the reserves that are required by actuaries for our self-insured plans to be held in place. Those -- we don't plan on spending those unless you see some abnormal activity. And actual claims are running about where we budgeted them. If claims were at a million 850 in forecast, we would have a million dollars less than to carry over on the revenue side, and our reserves would have been reduced by a million dollars. So what you see here again is that actuarial claim requirement that was budgeted at 3.6 in essence being re-budgeted at 3.6 in the subsequent fiscal year. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You're just using this as an example, because this is not what I was talking about, right? I'm talking about MR. MUDD: C-43. MR. SMYKOWSKI: We're going to get to -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: -- $38 million versus $21 million or $23 million. MR. SMYKOWSKI: That's in the group -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's what I'm really talking about. MR. SMYKOWSKI: We're on Page C-43 for that example. You had an adopted budget of 31, call it $31.9 million in the group health insurance fund, of which approximately $22 million was budgeted for claims expense. $3.8 million was a reserve for health claims, and we've been under a program that -- a negotiated agreement with the state who monitors all self-insurance programs, we've been in catch- up mode. You will recall about two years ago, mid year we were doing Page 27 June 15, 2005 budget amendments from all the operating funds, because the claims experience was so adverse in that year that we were actually in danger of running out of money. And Jeff worked out a remediation plan with the state regulators who monitor our plan on a recovery mode. Yes, our actual expenditures forecast are $23.1 million. Next year we're budgeting 38.5. Based on the actuarial study, we're expecting claims to increase to $21.7 million. That differential largely in part because of good claims experience. We're spending $3.4 million less in claims than were budgeted this year. That's rolling over into our fund balance and appropriated as a reserve next year. Our actuarial requirements estimated is about $7 million. So we are above our actuarial requirement for this plan, which, you know, strength in your self-insurance plan is not a bad thing in and of itself. And what Jeff has recommended to the County Manager is that that extra reserve be used to offset the need for future rate increases, again, claims that kind of run in cycles. You have a couple of good years and then just the general age of our workforce and the people that are available to work in Collier County tends to be geared toward a higher age bracket. And frankly, as you age, you tend to need more health services. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, I will -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Can I try to simplify this somewhat? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. And one other thing I will say to you and that is the reserve amount that sits there in '05, '06. A previous County Manager once gave a premium holiday for a whole year, okay, to the folks, and it brought reserves down and they had real troubles. And I joked with the previous finance director, I said premium what? I said that will be a cold day someplace. And I was referring to Dante's inferno. And so the -- what I was trying to get at is that that's not the way to do business. When all of a sudden that reserve fund's up there, you just don't blow it all and give everybody a free holiday as far as their Page 28 June 15, 2005 premiums are concerned. That's not right. And what it does is it really gets you in trouble. So this has been an ongoing dilemma for us. Again, Mike mentioned to you, two years ago we were three million in the hole. And so this -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: All right. As I understand it, and you tell me if I'm wrong. I'm struggling with your accounting logic here. You have accumulated a reserve that is far greater than you think you will need this year because you think that sometime in the future premiums will increase and you want to smooth out those premium increases. Have I got it right so far? MR. WALKER: That's right, Commissioner. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Absolutely. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. And in order to do that, you're taking a larger portion of this year's general funds in order to do that than you otherwise would require. MR. WALKER: No. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Right? COMMISSIONER HALAS: But I believe it's mandated by the State, too. CHAIRMAN COYLE: No, it's way beyond what's mandated by the State, I think. MS. PRICE: We are over what's mandated by the State. And what we did was try to level out the costs so we don't have peaks and spikes. CHAIRMAN COYLE: The important consideration here is that it won't be spent unless it has to be spent -- COMMISSIONER HALAS: That's correct. CHAIRMAN COYLE: -- if there is a higher claims history for next year. MS. PRICE: That is correct. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. And if you do not expect that higher claims history next year, you will roll that reserve over into the Page 29 June 15, 2005 following year and hopefully not take as big a chunk of the general fund revenue from revenues next year, right? MS. PRICE: Absolutely. COMMISSIONER HALAS: That's it. CHAIRMAN COYLE: So there's no loss to taxpayers, but it is-- it is a safe but strange procedure. But okay, I understand it. Just as long as it's not going to be spent unless there is unfavorable claims history or unpredictable claims history in the future. MR. SMYKOWSKI: That is set aside solely to pay future group health claims in this program and for nothing else. COMMISSIONER HALAS: It's a rainy day. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Absolutely. MR. WALKER: I would promise the Commission that that's how those funds will be used and for nothing else. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And if we have a problem with a need for reserves in some other category, we can move these funds to that category, if they're not needed here. Is that true? MR. WALKER: That -- I would agree with you, Mr. Chairman, that that is an option that you have. What we have tried to do is to think strategically two, three, four years down the road so that we can keep our health budget at more of a level state rather than seeing spikes of 30 percent, 20 percent, even 10 percent. But that certainly is an option that the Board has. Obviously the only caveat I would place upon that is you do have to meet your department of insurance requirements. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I understand that part, yeah. MR. SMYKOWSKI: And Jeff does evaluate the rates on an annual basis. And obviously if our claims experience continues on and the wellness program generates some additional benefits to the plan itself, that would be taken into consideration in the health rate Page 30 June 15,2005 that would be budgeted in fiscal year '07 a year from now as well, and could theoretically be reduced if the claims were continuing on this -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: I hope you see my concern. We're locking away money that we don't currently need in anticipation of some event that might not occur. And that's okay, because you're being safe. But if those events don't occur and you've gotten more reserve than the state requires and your future projections don't anticipate an extraordinary increase, those funds are locked away. We could use them on something perhaps more important to the County and to the taxpayers of Collier County . We have that flexibility . We can transfer that money, if we need to do it, based on changing priorities, right? Everybody understands? MR. WALKER: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. All right, then I'm okay. MR. WALKER: I only have one other thing to say, which is important. Health care costs are very cyclical. And it would not take very much for two or three million dollars to disappear within a period of a month or two. That's really what happened to us about three years ago. So I just want to point that out that you have good times and then you can have some really bad times. And so that's just for edification purposes. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, thank you very much. I think we've covered it. Commissioner Henning? MR. MUDD: Commissioner, one thing we haven't covered and I didn't lay it out clearly, this is the last year to get us to 80/20. So your '06 budget is at 80 percent government funded, 20 percent employee funded as far as the County Manager's agency is concerned. And I believe the Clerk and the supervisor of elections has got that same plan. So we over the last five years have gone down, increased the Page 31 June 15, 2005 employees share of the health benefits by two percent a year over the last five years. And we went from a 90/10 split where the government was paying 90 percent of the health insurance program and the employees were paying 10, to an 80/20 split. And we promised the Board that we would do that and we would take that under, and I will say the '06 budget is -- we got to that level that we promised you five years ago that we would be at. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Thank you very much. And Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: I'm ready to go to expanded services. But I don't know if we answered all the other questions. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I just wanted to add one thing, if you don't mind. And you're paying this ahead of time. You actually didn't have this projected until actually 2006, right, but you wanted to just catch up in advance, is that it? MR. WALKER: Yes. Commissioner, when we were going through particularly bad claims experience, you have to produce actuarial studies that reflect that. And we had to set rates at levels that anticipated that that trend would continue. So that's how we budgeted for it. Fortunately our claims experience modified, it improved, and we've been able to actual decrease our rate as a result of that. So I hope I'm answering your question. COMMISSIONER FIALA: But what you said was actually you took like two years and put it into this year, right? COMMISSIONER HENNING: State reserve. COMMISSIONER FIALA: So that you're there already, you don't have to -- MR. WALKER: Yes. COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- worry about catching up -- MR. WALKER: Absolutely, yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Page 32 June 15, 2005 CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning, did you defer to Commissioner Fiala and still have a question, or -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah, I just -- we have some expended services and the Administrative Services, and I just had some questions on that. I didn't know if we were going to -- no, no, it was good to stay on that topic. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: One last question, and I do agree that it's good business sense to keep a contingency, the contingency that we have in dollars and cents in our insurance fund. In the case of the worst scenario, how long would that last us? What's that bill for? Does it last for like six months, three months, two months? MR. WALKER: Well, we've set a reserve requirement of about $7 million, okay? We're about 11, a little over 11 and a half, thereabouts. I will tell you that if our claims experience deteriorated, just like I said, I mean, in the period of two or three months you can see your claims experience double. It's not difficult to do that. Now, we do have a very good reinsurance program in place now that wasn't in place a couple of years ago. But even at that, even if you exceeded your anticipated claims expense, you'd have to still incur about a million and a half dollars more before you got into the excess carrier's money. So there still is a need for a cushion there to be financially secure. I guess, Commissioner, what I'm saying, is it's not difficult to eat up what looks like a lot of money. And that's the reason that we need to continue to pursue aggressive plan management, aggressive wellness programs. Our average age is about 48 years old in this organization. So, you know, we've got train wrecks that we need to be ready for. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I hope when you're referring to train wrecks, you're not talking about the people that are over 48. Page 33 June 15, 2005 MR. WALKER: No, no, no, absolutely not. I'm one of those, so I'm -- I may be the train wreck. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That only includes these two. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You're looking at about 300 years of wisdom. MR. WALKER: That's absolutely right. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, you could easily have -- a couple years ago we had two preemies that came on Board. I'm not talking about 48-year-old people, I'm talking about a problem with birth. And, you know, the kids, they're real healthy today, and I'm glad of it. But when you do preemies, it costs a lot of money, because you've got incubators and it's an intense period of time. You know, you could run into a double or quadruple bypass, okay, for somebody that maybe is over 48; somebody could be 34 and have that. You can't predict that. That kind of happens. And when it does, you get a whopping bill, and it goes against -- it basically is taken out of this -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And in all honesty, we have a number of County employees that are on the payroll for one reason, and that's for the insurance benefits. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning, back to you. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Did you want to go line by line (sic) on the expanded services or just questions, Commissioner? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Go ahead and take your questions and we'll see where it leads us. COMMISSIONER HENNING: You have electrician for the new jails, expanded? MR. CAMP: For the record, Skip Camp. Yes. COMMISSIONER HENNING: How do you build a new facility and request a professional position to -- I would guess replace new Page 34 June 15, 2005 light switches or add new light switches or whatever? I mean, I don't understand. Maybe can you help me with that. MR. CAMP: Yeah, it's twofold. One is that there are -- in a new facility you have all kinds of what I'll call warranty items that we'll take care of right away and back charge the contractor. But you also have -- the more important thing is the overall square foot increases. And the jail is the biggest user. Right now we won't have a dedicated person in the jail, for instance. He'll be for the entire old jail and the new jail. Your old jail is a 20-year old electrical intensive nightmare. So it's for -- the new square feet justifies the position, but it's also for the entire jail and for the entire County also. His primary responsibility, though, will be for the jail, both the old and the new. And also, you know, when we ask for new positions on these new facilities, they're all prorated for the amount of time that they're actually going to be on line. There was another point I was going to make. It will come back to me in a minute. MR. MUDD: One of the things that bothers me a little bit, when I went through and I drilled Mr. Camp about these particular items for the people for the jail, I said, why can't you get an outside electrician to go do that? And then his response is, yeah, we can go get an outside electrician, but it takes one of our employees to guide him around through jail because he can't be on his own. And so I'm going, well, I'm burning a body in bringing an outside contractor in that could be working someplace, so I'm kind of -- it's costing us dollars to get the electrician in, but it's also costing us the employee time in order to be the guide for the electrician, to make sure -- and oh, by the way, our employee has to be certified by the Sheriffs Office in order to enter the jail. So it's kind of a double-edged sword. You're paying double duty if you're doing it that way. MR. CAMP: Absolutely. Page 35 June 15, 2005 There's two things there: One, one of our electricians has to be with a contract electrician. And Commissioners, you can imagine, most of what we do now in facilities is contracted out. And number two, they also have to know where the panels are and all the feeds and all that. So we use a lot of contractual services. Unfortunately, we still have to have a skeletal electrical staff to show those contractors around and escort them. COMMISSIONER HENNING: You'll have to do that with a new employee anyways, correct? MR. CAMP: Well, the new employee will come on relatively quick. And quite honestly we'll use a veteran. We'll just rotate him. A veteran will be in the jail, because it's so high intense, and then we'll use the new electrician for some of the less intensive facilities, the community center or something like that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: The -- so we have a, I think what you coined, a wiring nightmare over at the old jail? MR. CAMP: Well, it's -- you know, as you can imagine over 20 or 30, in this case over 20 years, things happen. And we have to change the original electrical architecture, if you will, based on the current needs. That building originally, incidentally, was very computer intensive as it relates to the doors opening and closing. That has all been redone for operational purposes. So we have a lot of in-house institutional knowledge that a general electrician would not have. When an electrician comes to your home, he doesn't really know where the electrical panel is until you show him. And if you've made changes over the years, he wouldn't know those changes either. Those are the kind of issues we have, especially in the jail. COMMISSIONER HENNING: His mode of transportation is golf cart. MR. CAMP: For on campus, yes. We try not to use vehicles if we can get away with a golf cart. The problem is most of the times Page 36 June 15, 2005 electricians and plumbers work out of their vehicles. So if it's on campus and we can get away with it, we'll use a golf cart, because they're, you know, less than half the cost. Otherwise, we try to put a person in a vehicle so that we can use them off campus, if we have to. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And you have a vehicle for this person, because it says he's going to be for the Immokalee Jail and the Naples Jail. MR. CAMP: That's correct. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. And a lot of your expansions are costed out? I notice that custodial maintenance for the new facilities. MR. CAMP: Yes, most of our services now, the majority of what we do is contractual services. And we do that on a task-by-task basis. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Any other questions? Commissioner Halas? COMMISSIONER HALAS: The question was answered. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, thank you. Any other questions by Commissioners? (No response.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MR. MUDD: Do we have any public speakers on this, Mr. Ochs? MS. FILSON: No, sir. MR. MUDD: Do you wanted to talk about admin. service capital? Commissioners, do you need a briefing on that? I think you need to talk about that a little bit. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yes, I do. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, that's the last two pages in that section. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes. It follows that -- Page 37 June 15, 2005 CHAIRMAN COYLE: Beyond the chartreuse divider. MS. PRICE: Beyond the chartreuse paper. I'm going to defer to the department directors to address those. Barry, if you would start on information technology? MR. AXELROD: All right. We have a variety of capital projects. They're basically driven by infrastructure needs or departmental applications. Some of them are agency wide applications. I don't really have a presentation on this. If there's any questions on anything in there that's not clear, I'd be happy to answer them. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Which one of these are applicable to GIS support? Any at all? MR. AXELROD: In an indirect way. Like I said, the GIS capital proj ect is over, all right, so the capital investment in GIS is completed. Things like, you know, Microsoft licenses which are there, fiber expansion of our network, which are there, you know, support all of our applications, it makes GIS available to our remote facilities in a more responsive manner. So at that level, yes, but otherwise it's just another application at this point. CHAIRMAN COYLE: So if you have to license or purchase additional software packages, those are really treated as operational expenses rather than capital expenditures? MR. AXELROD: After the initial investment. We include -- when we implement a new proj ect, the initial license loading, if you will, is included in that capital expense. But after it's what we call stable in production, where it's been there and it's in use, if there's additional users that come on Board, they will pay for those licenses, but not as a capital cost. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. All right. And so at least here you have not identified any that are specifically related to GIS support that you're -- MR. AXELROD: In a lot of those cases, they'll be in other Page 38 June 15, 2005 people's budgets. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I see. MR. AXELROD: In my department, we're covered within my budget. But as other business processes come on line, usually they'll be from the rest of the agency. They will have license costs to bear, and it will come out of their budgets. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And so that should appear in their capital expenditures. MR. AXELROD: Or operating expenses. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Or operating expenses. Okay, thank you. MR. MUDD: That brings us to facilities management. COMMISSIONER HALAS: I have a question on the software. Is that -- does that mean we're getting updates in new software? MR. AXELROD: You're referring to the enterprise agreement line -- COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes. MR. AXELROD: -- item? Yes, last year we entered into an enterprise agreement with Microsoft which covers a broad variety of software work station operating system in the office suite that we use, plus a whole variety of infrastructure software. And there's a -- they spread the license cost over three years, and then after that it reverts down to maintenance. So again, there will be a component of this that will show up in our operating expenses year after next. And for that, we get upgrades of all of the things that we have licensed under this agreement, so we will not be paying extra for new operating systems, new data base systems, new office suites as we go into the future. But it will show up as an operating expense that will cover those things going on in the future. COMMISSIONER HALAS: The other item that I see here is AC repairs. That looks like it's going up. Are we replacing AC systems? MR. CAMP: That's correct. Throughout your over 600 buildings, we have a spreadsheet that they all get replaced "X" number Page 39 June 15, 2005 of years. What we do, though, some, for whatever reason, maybe it's in an air conditioned environment, their life expectancy is a little longer. But then some of the other ones that we expected to last longer fail. So that's what that is. And we feel that's going to stabilize in about two or three years, but it continues to go up right now. COMMISSIONER HALAS: The other question I have is the sewer upgrades and complex upgrades. MR. CAMP: That's correct, that's budged this year. We're working -- COMMISSIONER HALAS: Stormwater issues out here? MR. CAMP: Sewer. Especially with the new jail coming on line. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: No allocation for the courthouse annex. Or was that last year? MR. CAMP: That's last year. COMMISSIONER HENNING: At what height? Is that the maximum height that we expected, or -- MR. CAMP: The proposal on the table for this next year is to go ahead and shell in the upper floors. That makes economical sense. You're actually funded currently for the bottom three floors and the fourth floor shell. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. But next year's budget, if I hear you correctly, you're going to ask for the whole thing just to -- MR. CAMP: The upper floors shelled. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir, that's on the capital page, Page capital 2, and you'll see where it says courthouse annex, and you'll see requested 13 million. That's basically to go on the fifth, sixth and seventh floors in order to shell them. Page 40 June 15, 2005 COMMISSIONER HENNING: Oh, I should have seen that, 566 percent. MR. CAMP: Commissioners, that is one of the things that has served you well over the -- at least the years I've been here when you shelled this floor twice in two different decades, when you shelled the courthouse fourth floor, when you shelled the health building that has served this Commission very, very well. Especially at today's dollars versus when you actually -- and you don't have to redo all the civil work, the landscaping and the sidewalks and the streets down the road. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, when we -- I don't mean you going back and forth between Skip and I, get a sore neck. When we took a look at this, originally it had come in at three floors, and I asked the question last year, well, how -- when you go up and do another floor on this thing, how the people on the third floor -- well, we have to move them. I mean, you just moved them in, you're going to move them out because you're doing a fourth floor or the fifth floor? They said, yeah, because it's too noisy. So with the money that was available, we went with a four-story first three floors were going to be done, and we'd shell the fourth so we'd at least have the buffer. This year I asked -- I guess I'm getting smarter as the years go on. I asked Mr. Camp, how long is that fourth floor going to last? And he said, as soon as the building's done, two years later I'm going to be in here looking for the fifth, sixth and seventh. And I go, wait a minute, I just put the roof on this thing at four stories. Now I'm going to have to go five, six and seven and build another roof and tear the new roof out in order to do the other? He says, well, that's the way the growth thing's going now. You heard the state attorney this morning saying he's running out of space and he's on the fifth and sixth floor of this courthouse annex. And I'm going, that's an interesting concept. So I've already got folks that are asking for more space because Page 41 June 15, 2005 they're starting to live on top of each other, so I'm going, you know, it isn't prudent that if we're going to start this construction that we only going to four and as soon as we're done two years later I'm taking off the roof again and then going up to seven. I said, let's be smart, how much is it going to cost? He said, it will be an additional $13 million. And I said, well, this is within that .33 mils that we have for the capital program. That's where you're seeing most of it. There's a little bit of parks that's out of this fund. But in this particular case I said, fine, we'll do capital pap -- we'll do commercial paper, excuse me, and we'll take out a loan for about five years or so in order to fund that. Hopefully we'll get some relief from the government building impact fee. But the revenues on that particular impact fee are nowhere close to what's needed. So it's going to be a little bit of an ad valorem drain. But we'll do it in such a way that if the impact fees become available, it can be used to payoff that debt on that commercial paper. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Just put some blue tarps over the fourth floor and then you can expand it anytime you'd like. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Charlotte County's worked well with that. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's right, Charlotte County's been doing real well with that for a year. MR. MUDD: The last news reports, it doesn't look like they were doing too good in this last rain storm. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioners Henning, do you have any other questions? COMMISSIONER HENNING: No. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I have a question concerning the local area and watt area and fiber optic installation. Does the County get to participate in the technology incentive program when we install technology features in buildings, new buildings or retrofit buildings? MR. MUDD: Sir-- Page 42 June 15, 2005 CHAIRMAN COYLE: Is there any benefit to our participation? MR. MUDD: From having the County pay the County, which is already -- that doesn't make a lot of sense, but if we're able to get federal or state dollars, because we do that, we will apply for those particular grants in order to bring that forward. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Well, that's what I had in mind. Not the County side, if we can get some federal grants or state grants, that would be great. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir, we try to do that. And that's why we have a grants manager, Marlene Ford -- where are you at? She's right there. And she's doing a great job. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Why doesn't it make sense to take advantage of the broad band expansion? MR. MUDD: Because the -- because in this particular case, ad valorem dollars are paying for this wide area expansion and land. If you went and applied for that $25,000 increment, you're taking it away from a fund category that's supplied by the general fund. So what we would be doing is moving dollars out in order to move dollars back in again. So it would just be -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, all you would be doing is saving money from the general fund and taking it from another fund. MR. MUDD: No, that $2 million that you have for economic initiatives and incentives are basically funded by the general fund. And what we do every year -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: It's an allocation. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: It's an allocation of money. And somebody's going to apply for it. We're using the existing dollars, everybody else is using allocated dollars. I don't understand why we don't use it. MS. PRICE: It's my recollection that in order to qualify for that, Page 43 June 15, 2005 you'd also have to be creating new high-tech jobs based on-- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Don't tell Barry that. CHAIRMAN COYLE: We do that every year. We're creating new high-tech jobs here. But nevertheless -- MR. MUDD: Commissioner, part of the ordinance says that you also have to show your ad valorem tax bill in order to get it over a three-year period of time. It was basically set up -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Very well. Any other questions? (N 0 response.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: It looks like we're finished, unless the County Manager has other information you think we need to have. MR. MUDD: No, sir, I think you basically covered that. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thanks. MR. MUDD: How's our court reporter doing? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah, I think we need a break. It's been an hour and a half now. Let's take a 10-minute break and we'll be back here at 10:36. (Brief recess.) MR. MUDD: Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. Mr. Chairman, you have a hot mic. The next item we're following along our agenda today -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Hold it. Can you do something with that mic? Turn that thing off. PUBLIC SERVICES DIVISION MR. MUDD: The next item is Public Services Division. And you'll find the Public Services Division budget starting on Page D-l. And Marla Ramsey, the Administrator for Public Services, will lead off. MR. RAMSEY: Good morning, Commissioners. Page 44 June 15, 2005 First I'd like to do some introductions, in case you may not know everyone that sits at the table. We'll start here and work our way down. MS. KRUMBINE: I'm Marcie Krumbine, Extensions. MS. CASTORENA: Margo Castorena, Domestic Animal Services. MR. WILLIAMS: Barry Williams, Human Services. MR. JAMRO: Ron Jamro, Museum Director. MR. SMITH: Mardo Smith, Parks and Recreation. MR. MEZZATESTA: Joe Mezzatessta, Health Department. MR. RAMSEY: Also in the first row in the back I have Marilyn Matthes, who's with the library, and I have Peter Kraley with Veterans Services. Commissioners, as a department, we have followed your budget guidelines, except for one exception, and that was the DAS overtime budget that you heard a little bit earlier this morning. We're about $33,000 over in our overtime there. But when you look at the accumulative of the division itself, we are $190,000 under our maximum on that line item as a division itself. What I'd like to do is that the departments in and of themselves all have some unfunded requests and some expanded elements, and there's also some speakers, I understand. And I wanted to go division -- department by department and I wanted to start with the extension services, and let them tell you a little bit about what they've got on their list as an expended, as well as what they might have as an unfunded request that wasn't involved and allow you to ask some questions. And I know in this case the extension service has a couple of speakers. If that's okay with you, I'll turn it over to Marcie. MS. KRUMBINE: Okay, Commissioners, I'm working on Page D-6. And I want to draw your attention to our expanded position request for $30,000 for a multi-County agricultural agent. And I'm not Page 45 June 15, 2005 going to speak any further on that, because we do have some industry representatives that are going to speak, and they are the experts on it, so I'll give the floor to them. But I'd like to draw your attention to our unfunded requirement. This is our second year of request for a marine agent. And if you'll indulge me, I want to take you on a little trip. And we're going to go to the beach. What better way to go to the beach but to use a Naples/Marco Island/Everglades beach bag. Pretty cool, huh? Got to go with me here. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Were you a teacher in your previous life? MS. KRUMBINE: Well, I'm a teacher now. And I'm going to wear some sunglasses, because it's a beautiful day and it's going to be bright and cheery. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Always is. MS. KRUMBINE: Because we live in Collier County, right? Some sun screen. And if I want to go out in the boat, I want to make sure I have a hat. So here I go to the beach and I'm ready to go. There's only one problem. When I get there, it's not because I can't park or find a parking space, but I can't get to the beach because it's no longer environmentally presentable to be there. Commissioners, do you know that on the west coast of Florida we are the only County that does not have a marine agent? If you look at the lovely reading material that I gave you to of course take with us on the beach. If you go to Page 27, you'll see a map of Florida. And if you look on the west coast, the only County that stands out green is Collier County, because this is an agent position that has not been funded. A marine agent is a joint funded position. We're asking for 41,200 from Collier County, and the rest is being paid by the University of Florida with sea grant money from the federal N.O.A.A. They'll been contributing over 52,000 for it. Page 46 June 15, 2005 We feel that educating Collier County citizens about their coastal environment is essential to protecting our ocean resources for the future of sustainability, and so we can go to the beach, we can boat, we can fish. The extension agent position is twofold: One is an investment in coastal and marine education, and the second is really tapping into a network of university based researchers that will bear on coastal problems. And of course last week or the week before we had pages and pages in the Naples Daily News of a conference that was just happening locally right on the Gulf of Mexico and the issue. And so if you look on Page 6, there's a nice little pie chart of how this position -- what this position does. There are -- 20 percent of it, it goes to educating the community, 21 percent to the scientific and professionals. Industry is a quarter of the activities that are planned. And so on behalf of extension we are just encouraging you to fund this position. It would be housed at Rookery Bay. And it's going to also work in conjunction with the Florida Gulf Coast University. So you've got a lot of partnerships that are coming together on the federal, state and local resources and expertise. It makes great business sense. It's a sound investment. It partners with the money that we're already spending. We're putting millions of dollars into beach nourishment and other things, so why not have the education so that the citizens of Collier County know how to use the resources properly. And then you can join me at the beach. Thanks. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: I don't want to give anybody the -- or anybody to have the impression that we don't -- there is no education of natural resources in Collier County. Maybe just not in your department. Now, I know our natural resources department educates at our Page 47 June 15, 2005 boat ramps about sea grasses and manatee. I know that the marine industry educates about safety. I know that Jack Wert educates on echo systems. So, you know, I look at it as do we want to expand it to another agency to do some more education. I know the City of Naples is also doing that. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Well, there are a number of people. Conservancy, Rookery Bay. Florida Gulf Coast University is committed to establishing the marine research facility at Rookery Bay. Our parks and recreations staff, I thought, to conduct programs. I don't know why we don't -- yeah, we have programs. Maybe the problem is consolidating them or coordinating them better, I don't know. Marla, what's your take on that? MR. RAMSEY: My personal take on that is that we do have a lot of people that are teaching various segments of it. But we probably don't have the fishery side of it covered, including the reefs, as well as the oyster beds and some of the agricultural elements that are starting to come into place in our area. And when I talked with Gary Litton with Rookery Bay and the gentleman out of Florida Gulf Coast, they thought that this was one level of expertise that we were missing. And maybe we have other levels, but they thought that one person that could help coordinate all that, especially in the aqua farm element of it, was essential for this community. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Halas? COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yeah, I think this is something that's greatly needed here in Collier County. And I think you brought up a couple of good points and that was the marine recreation and fisheries. And I really think that we've been cutting ourselves short. I think we need to look at the whole estuary system. And this is part of the function of the marine agent. And especially since it's tied to the University of Florida and Gulf Coast University, I think it benefits not Page 48 June 15, 2005 only the commercial aspect of it, but I think it also would benefit greatly the pleasure fishing, the charter fishing people, too, in knowing what's -- understand a better idea of what's going on here in the Gulf area. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes, I'd like to echo what Commissioner Halas just said. I can understand the concern. Commissioner Henning was also right in the fact that we do have a number of agencies that provide an educational service, but I can see that they specialize in one or two things. The Conservancy is very big on the sea turtles. We have the Audubon that works with migratory birds and does a lot of work around Marco Island. This is something that would be a collaborative effort probably to bring all the entities together. I'm especially interested on the commercial aspect. As you know, we've got clam farming taking place in Everglades City and Goodland. It's going to be a cooperative effort. And the County's offering some assistance to it, but I think we're falling a little short when we're relying on the state to be able to help, but I know they're undermanned to be able to do the function, and this might be just the catalyst we need to be able to keep this going in sustainable industry, so I'm supportive. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Marla, what can you cut from your budget to -- if the Board wants to fulfill this unfunded request? MR. RAMSEY: Well, I'd have to take a look at that for you. I did send a letter to the university, asking them to fund two existing positions to a higher -- to a level as they do with some of the others, because we felt that the state could give us a little more support on the 4- Hag. position, as well as the consumer product position, which is dealing with educational elements here in the community. With some funding from them, I think then that you would see a wash in this area here. I'm not sure that they're going to fund those two Page 49 June 15, 2005 positions though, at this point in time. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So we want to make that as a condition? COMMISSIONER HALAS: Not me. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. But let me ask a question here. This marine agent position is going to do what? MS. KRUMBINE: I included a job description for you in your reading material. So you're looking at educational programs for marine and natural resource education, a focus on fisheries and industries, including boating -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: I understand that. But is this marine agent going to formulate and teach these programs, or is the marine agent going to coordinate with all of the people who currently teach similar programs in Collier County? Is it going to be a coordinated effort, or are we just deciding that what everybody else is doing is not adequate and we're going to go do it ourselves? And my other question is, why should that be done through extension services rather than through parks and recreation? MS. KRUMBINE: I could try to answer both of those questions. First of all, extension agents operate with a local advisory committee, and the advisory committee looks at what's being done in the community so we don't duplicate services, and then looks at areas that are needed, as fishing, boating marine, that area. So they'll focus on programs that aren't being done but then connect with and cooperate with those that are being done, perhaps adding additional resources and the expertise at the university level and the research base that the universities, all the public universities and also some private research facilities are going to bring to bear for this. So they could add those resources to programs that are currently being focus -- functioning right now. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You know, my preference would be to collect that information first before we make a decision. You know, Page 50 June 15, 2005 I'd like to see who is doing what in Collier County; what they're focusing on, what they're doing, how the programs are developed and administered, and then decide how we can bring them all together in some coordinated way and decide whether or not that should be done by a position that is an extension service position or if it's an addition to the fundamental parks and recreation staff. And, you know, I'd like to have that information first before I decide on funding somebody's -- you know, another body. MS. KRUMBINE: And I would like to add that one of the reasons to connect it with extension is because it's also being funded at the university level. So you get that $52,000 that you're getting from the university to add to the position, so it's not strictly just County money. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MR. RAMSEY: Commissioner, we can provide you with that information in a wrap-up, if you would wish us to. And I'll talk a little bit more with the University of -- Gulf Coast University, as well as Rookery Bay. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And the Conservancy. MR. RAMSEY: And the Conservancy. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And the Marine Industries Association. MR. RAMSEY: Urn-hum. I know that the-- CHAIRMAN COYLE: And the City of Naples. MR. RAMSEY: The Rookery Bay was very interested in this particular position, which I thought was a little bit of a surprise, because I thought they would be more of a conflict. But they embraced this and are willing to give I guess office space at no cost. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And the park rangers. Park rangers run programs, too. MR. RAMSEY: Yeah, that's correct. CHAIRMAN COYLE: So at least for me, I'd like to have that. But other Commissioners will have a different opinion, and Page 51 June 15, 2005 Commissioner Halas wants to talk. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes. One of the other things that this would do is it would be a coordination of an effort where the marine agent would work with MOAT in regards to one of the problems that we incur here every year, and that's red tide. So that's another function of the marine agent. Because what the resources of MOAT and also the Florida -- University of Florida, they have quite a data bank. And talking with one of our neighbors to the north, Lee County has had this for a number of years, and has found that this has been very beneficial in regards to addressing issues of their concerns. And their marine agent's been working very closely in regards to problems that they're incurring at the present time on the Caloosahatchee River. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I don't see that in the job description. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Well, I think that's the reason we need to clarify this probably some more. We really need to understand where it goes. And the Commissioners have differing opinions on what we think you ought to be doing. So if you come back with a report to us, then we can make a final decision before the approval of final cut. COMMISSIONER HALAS: I think it's a very beneficial position. MS. FILSON: Mr. Chairman? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yes, ma'am. MS. FILSON: I have three speakers on this issue. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. I've got two more Commissioners who want to speak first. Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: My question's been answered, thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, thank you. Page 52 June 15, 2005 Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: I think that was from a previous time. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And then let's take the three speakers. MS. FILSON: Tim Nance. He'll be followed by Jason Schiveler. MR. NANCE: Good morning, Commissioners. My name is Tim Nance. I work with Gargiulo, which is a Collier County based producer of fresh market tomatoes in Florida and.in the United States. I would like to thank the Public Services administration, and I'd like to thank the Commission for consideration of really what is a very small expanded services item in your budget, but that is the multi County agent, which would be an agent that would help ensure that technology is going to be received by the agribusiness industry in Collier County, together with Lee County, Charlotte County, Glades County and Hendry County. The industry very much appreciates this support. And as a plug for the University of Florida, the Commission should understand that the University of Florida is the agribusiness window to technology. And that's what's going to support us in the future years. Collier County and Southwest Florida as a whole has taken on a very much expanded importance as far as perishable fresh market vegetable production is concerned, and those industries have declined in south Dade County and the lower East Coast. So basically between the months of November and April each year, Southwest Florida produces almost all of our perishable vegetable commodities that are available in the United States. So I wanted to thank Public Services Administrator Ramsey and yourself for consideration on this and thank you very much for your support. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. MS. FILSON: The next speaker is Jason Shiveler. He'll be Page 53 June 15, 2005 followed by Dallas Townsand. MR. SHIVELER: Good morning, Commissioners. My name is Jason Shiveler. I work with 6L's Packing and 6L's Farms. I too would like to thank you for your support and just show a continued support for the extension service in Collier County, as well as other counties in Florida and all up the eastern seaboard of the United States. 6L's Packing, we grow a large number of acreage of fresh vegetables and different products. And to reiterate what Tim had mentioned, the extension service offers us a valuable link to the university and other industries as far as technology to solve our problems, keep us up to date on the government regulations that continue to come down upon our industry, and it's a very valuable tool for us to continue to make an impact on the economic status in vegetable production. Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. MS. FILSON: Your final speaker is Dallas Townsand. MR. TOWNSAND: Good morning, Commissioners. Certainly appreciate the opportunity to make a few remarks here on behalf of the extension service. I am actually representing Dorlash (phonetic) Ranch. My wife and I own a small grove and cattle herd, but I'm also representing the Collier County Cattlemen's Association. I wear a lot of hats. One of them, I am a retired extension agent. So I'm fully familiar with what the Collier County extension service does here. And, you know, I'd like to just go on record as supporting not just this component here, although I am representing agriculture today. That multi-County extension agent program is a new concept in this area, but we feel like it's going to be a very efficient mechanism to provide the greatest expertise to these industries that we can possibly do. Page 54 June 15, 2005 And as Tim and Jay both shared with you, this area's going to be more important as the east coast gets built out into urbanization as opposed to agricultural production. I'd like to also thank Marla Ramsey and Jim Mudd for their guidance. We're not familiar with County governmental processes, and we appreciate them guiding us through this process and getting this into the budget. And just I'll close by just saying that the industry of Collier County contributes nearly 400 million to your annual economy, and the industry of Southwest Florida contributes almost 1.3 billion. So we do have a very important agriculture industry here. And we would like to thank you again for putting this funding into the budget. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. MS. FILSON: That's your final speaker on this issue, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Questions from Commissioners? Commissioner Halas. COMMISSIONER HALAS: This is funded in the -- put in the budget this year; is that correct? MR. RAMSEY: Yes, Commissioner. We have it in as an expanded -- as a contracted service. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Any other questions about the primary budget before we go to capital budget for public service? MR. MUDD: Are you doing directors by director, Marla? MR. RAMSEY: Yes, I was. MR. MUDD: Then you need to -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: We've got a lot more to go then. MR. MUDD: You need to pick it up. MR. RAMSEY: Okay. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I still want to hear about their budget, not just your unfunded requests. You got some expanded Page 55 June 15, 2005 positions. MR. RAMSEY: They most definitely would -- that's what we're doing is we're talking about the expanded requests as well as unfunded, and allowing you opportunity to ask questions. The next area that we have is the Domestic Animal Services, and she has some expanded that she would like to share with you, as well as probably some good news. MS. CASTORENA: Good morning, Commissioners, my name is Margo Casterina, I'm the Director of Domestic Animal Services. As Marla requested, I direct you to Page D-12, and the expanded FY '05, '06. The expanded request was for $11,300, and this is to purchase radios for communications for our shelter technicians. Weare requesting five communications radios at a cost of a dear $2,100 each. The reason is that at this moment we do not have a mechanism for communications between the shelter technicians and the mainstay of Domestic Animal Services or the Animal Control officers. We believe that this is a health and safety issue because the fact that many times our shelter technicians are working alone in buildings with potentially dangerous animals. We have had in the past situations where the shelter technician has literally been pinned by an animal or has had to, you know, quickly defend themselves by an aggressive animal when they're cleaning or moving the animal. Weare asking for five -- these radios will also be used for communications with the Sheriffs office and for hurricane preparedness and in communication with the EOC's. These radios allow us to go to a mutual channel that will allow us communications County-wide. As far as unfunded requirements, we are looking to add a new shelter technician. Currently we are greeting approximately 2,700 Page 56 'm .,.,__,_._,~~ ,"'"_ June 15, 2005 visitors to the shelter per month. That averages out about 300 persons per day. On a shelter technician, we have really increased the requirements on our staff. Not only must they do animal handling, cleaning, they must also greet customers. We do adoption counseling, we do return to owners in which owners are looking for their animals. Weare requesting them to do lab testing, fecals on animals that are being -- that are going to our adoption kennels. We require that they do vaccination, micro-chipping. Our new computer system, Chameleon, which is a database that has recently been installed at DAS also requires that they expand their computer skills so that we know what medical treatments have been given to the animals. Lastly, we ask that they also perform euthanasia as well as cremations for both -- this is for private animals that are brought to the shelter. To date, our inventory of animals is 431. We are at 125 percent of capacity. Right now our kennel attendants -- like I said, we have 10. However, we have not added to the number of kennel attendants since the year 2000 . We have added Animal Control officers, which increases our impounds and our customer services, our activities that we extend to the public; however, we have not increased our kennel staff since the year 2000. The next unfunded requirement is for a fiscal technician. This fiscal technician, we are looking to create a position in which we can move our services down to the level that we need them. Domestic Animal Services has nothing but working supervisors and working managers. This includes all of our customer service representatives and their supervisor, who is an administrative assistant. The administrative assistant acts as the supervisor. She does bank reconciliations, she does deposits, revenue accounting, customer services, and when we were short of staff, she also does customer Page 57 June 15, 2005 service work, meeting and greeting people, performing adoptions, return to owners, et cetera. We really need to get the leadership at the supervisory level so that we can create the organization that Collier County needs. We need to address the policies and the infrastructure of the organization to be successful. Anything else, sir? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Questions from Commissioners? Yes, we have Commissioner Halas. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Oh, that's from the last time. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's from the last time. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, no questions from Commissioners. MR. MUDD: Marla, who's next. MR. RAMSEY: Human services. Barry? MR. WILLIAMS: Commissioners, good morning. For the record, Barry Williams, Human Services Director. If I could draw your attention to Page D-16, I have two expanded services I wanted to mention. The first one is $25,000 for office furniture, and the purpose is, we have in our offices a rather large office that we're seeking to carve up into three offices. We have the need for additional office space. The office renovations are actually budgeted for this summer and will occur, but what we're looking for is this amount to actually put the furniture in the offices for next fall. So the 25,000 comes from that. The client co-pay is the next item. If you look and see, it's not necessarily an amount that would be a hit to the general fund but it's an amount of money, $10,000, that we anticipate in collection of co-pays that we would ask people who come to the social services program and seek assistance for their medical bills or prescription Page 58 June 15, 2005 meds, we're asking that folks pay a portion, a very small portion, but important amount towards the cost of the health care. And so that $10,000 reflects what we anticipate that we will raise next year. Those are the two expanded services that we're looking at. The last thing, if I may, just to mention to you is the unfunded request. And you'll find that on Page D-l 7. The unfunded request that we're looking for is to work with an organization in town called Physician Led Access Network of Collier County. And this group is comprised of the major health care providers in Collier County. And simply, what the mission of the group is is to solicit and receive donated health care from the variety of folks in town that provide health care; both the lavatories, specialty physicians, the hospitals. And through this donated health care, what this unfunded request would do would fund a position that would coordinate the connecting people who are at 101 to 150 percent of federal poverty guidelines to needed health care. So the program itself, the position, the cost of the position, 96 percent of the cost of this position would be paid for by community development block grant funds for next year. The hit to the general fund would be four percent, or roughly $2,200 additional. So for $2,200, you get a position that's going to help people connect to free donated health care in our community. So I'll stop there and ask if you have any questions about those items. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Barry, I don't understand, you're saying a total cost for this request is $58,100. And all of the personnel costs are going to be covered by grant? MR. WILLIAMS: Ninety-six percent of that amount will be covered by the community development block grant. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Still doesn't add up for me. There's $58,100, right? MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, sir. Page 59 June 15, 2005 CHAIRMAN COYLE: Total. For personnel services and for capital. Now, how much of that is actually going to be paid by general funds? MR. WILLIAMS: $2,200. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Only $2,200? MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. That's not two percent of58,100. That's my only problem. MR. WILLIAMS: I did quick math while I was waiting, and I got 96 per -- 55.9 at 96 percent. So my math may be a little skewed. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You said 98 percent before, didn't you? MR. WILLIAMS: I thought I said 96. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Maybe I just heard 98. But nevertheless, okay, it's going to cost us $2,200, right? MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Sounds like a bargain to me. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. If you look at Page A-I0, and we're going to go through these UFRs at the end, okay, and you're hearing about them now. And we'll go through them at the end and we'll figure out what the Board wants to do. But what I've tried to do on A-I0, if you go to this human services department and you look at patient coordinator, you'll see net cost -- offsetting revenue, 55.9, net cost, $2,200. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MR. MUDD: See, I've tried to lay that out for you so that you can see it. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Mr. Williams, I don't see any in expanded service about your explanation for -- you're going to take a bigger space and cut it up into three sections. So what kind of furnishes are you going to be putting in there? MR. WILLIAMS: Computers, desks, file cabinets. The usual -- Page 60 June 15, 2005 we got those figures from facilities, and they gave us the numbers that we needed to equip an office. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, I don't see any additional personnel, so what you're telling me is your existing personnel doesn't have computers, a desk, file cabinet? MR. WILLIAMS : We have one position -- this patient coordinator position, we anticipate that position being one of the offices. We actually have a position now that a person has a laptop computer that they share an office with, another one of our staff, so we anticipate that person being in another of the three offices. And then we have another person that at no cost to the County, it's a senior employment program, that provides a person 55 and older to work at our facility to do administrative support. We currently have her in the hallway. So we had envisioned, with cutting up this office into three, not really an office, per se, but a cubicle for her to kind of get her out of the mainstream of the flow of the office. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay, thanks. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah, I kind of assume that if you don't break this up, the next thing you'll be doing is using the elevator for an office. I just wanted to make sure that the physician led access network of Collier County, that we got a little mention in there for them. This is something that came a number of years ago when three original Commissioners were sitting on this Commission. When we approved the Horizon Health Clinic and it was that committee and it grew into this particular thing. The directions we got from the Commission and the community in general is get the private sector involved, have them pick up the load. It shouldn't become an item that the taxpayers of Collier County should have to carry on their back. And Barry and a number of other people, Dr. Crawford, banded Page 61 June 15, 2005 together and they came up with a wonderful concept that they imported from Carolina, was it? MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, sir, Ashville, North Carolina. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Right. And they put it together in Collier County and it is working absolutely wonderful, at no cost to the taxpayers -- very little cost. MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MR. RAMSEY: And if I can move now down to I think parks is the next one that has an item that they'd like to address. MR. SMITH: For the record, again, Murdo Smith, Collier County Parks and Recreation. I would like to take you to Page 41 for our first of four expanded requests. The first expanded request we have is for the North Collier Regional Park. The department is anticipating the opening of the North Collier Regional Park in May of2006. The department has performed a reorganization to accomplish the opening and operation of the facility in a physically responsible way. The result is needed for an additional 46.1 FTE's. The total expanded request for the phase-in for the first year is approximately 2.2 million, with a revenue of an estimated 1.5 million. I'd like to now take you to Page 42, Commissioners. We have a couple expanded requests dealing with beach parking. One was to increase the fee from $4.00 to $5.00. And the other one was to do a fee of $20 per a two-year permit. But that will be addressed later on in the report that we issued at the back of the budget package for you. There's another expanded request for approximately $4,200 to purchase an additional sailboat for the Collier County sailing program, which runs at Sugden Regional Park. There is a generated revenue of approximately $2,500 to offset the cost of that boat. We have two unfunded requests in the 001 fund. One is to provide four part-time attendants for the Vanderbilt parking garage, Page 62 June 15, 2005 which will be opening in February of this year. And revenues received for the garage will offset the cost of those. We have another expanded, which is at Sugden Regional Park, is to operate a water-ski instruction program at that facility. What I'd like now to go to is Page 45, Commissioners. And on Page 45, we have two additional unfunded requirements for the 111 fund. One as senior field supervisor to serve as a liaison between the parks and recreation department and the Collier County School District. This position will manage several interlocal agreements that govern reciprocal use of facilities between the school Board and the County. That also will deal with maintenance of neighborhood parks and the school parks or facilities that we operate for maintenance and programs. Another unfunded request that we're looking at is a program leader position for Eagle Lakes Community Park to run programs and leagues. This expense will be partially offset by revenue. The next page I'd like you to turn to is Page 47, and that is the Golden Gate Community Center. There's a small increase here, and that was due to the increase of indirect costs going back into the center, and it resulted in a small tax increase. But the community center advisory Board has approved that tax increase. And what I'd like to do now, Commissioners, is go to the beach report, which is at the back of your package. It's the last -- I believe it's the last three pages. And I'll run through that quickly. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And sir, when you say the back of the package -- MR. RAMSEY: Of our tab is Public Services. And just before the transportation service tab, the first three pages prior to that is -- this is the report that you requested that we bring back during the budget process at our workshop the other day, laying out a number of different alternatives as to funding opportunities. And I think we've laid out about 12 different options at this location. Page 63 June 15, 2005 MR. SMITH: Do you want me to read through? MS. FILSON: And Mr. Chairman, I have one speaker on this issue, when you're ready. MR. RAMSEY: Go ahead, Murdo. MR. SMITH: Okay. The operating expenses for the beach access process (sic) were per the Board's direction that came out of the June 7th workshop. We have included a package of the expanded request and address six priority beach access projects. The information includes a number of variables associated with the fee user options. The last page shows a matrix of the possible combination. Staff is recommending option three, which includes the lowest fee for a Keewaydin vessel shuttle and a $5.00 universal beach parking fee. The universal beach parking fee would do away completely with the beach sticker program. The County's obligation to provide free beach access has become the expectation of the public would be met instead through a vehicular shuttle system (sic). The introductory vehicle shuttle is proposed for Vanderbilt Beach, but staff fully expects to expand the service to additional beach locations in the future. Under the recommendation of -- we have projected parking fee revenue at 792,000, a savings of 400,000 in remittances to the City of Naples for the reciprocal beach parking program and operating expenses of 525,000, for a total net revenue of 667,000. This money could be used for future beach access. The Commission recognizes that none of these proj ects are feasible without some capital outlay. The capital outlay of the cost was approximately $18,700,000. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Murdo, I'm a little confused. Could you give me the bottom line on your recommendations once again. MR. SMITH: Okay. The recommendations are for -- is option three. Page 64 June 15, 2005 CHAIRMAN COYLE: Option three on? MR. SMITH: On the last page. MR. RAMSEY: Second to the last page. MR. MUDD: Second to the last page. MR. SMITH: Second to the last page. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, I got it. MR. SMITH: And the second choice is option -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's the Keewaydin shuttle and universal parking. MR. SMITH: Correct. And the second option would be option 12. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MR. RAMSEY: Commissioners, what staff tried to do was determine what would be the most economical cost to do the programming that we talked about it. And there was about a $400,000 operating budget shortfall that we needed to come up with. And as you can see, if we do Keewaydin shuttle and the parking permit and just continue with our parking permit at $20, we would be short of our operating element there. If we made it a $30 option instead, we would be about 460,000. So you still have some opportunity to tweak these permits, whether they be parking fees or permit fees. And you had also asked us what our funding element could be in our last page of beach access on the capital side of it. Our $1.3 million that we have available in the TDC allocation, if we bonded it for 20 years, we would come up with about $15 million in usable funding. If we did it for 10 years, it would be about nine million, five. And you can see what -- the cost to do it. There's at the very bottom 20-year bond would actually cost us $10,730,000 in interest, or a 10-year bond would be $3,460,000 interest over and above. CHAIRMAN COYLE: But your alternative is really resulting in a quarter million dollar loss for the Keewaydin shuttle, right? At nine Page 65 June 15, 2005 dollars, you're projecting a quarter of a million dollar loss. I'm wondering why you would price it to guarantee a loss. MR. RAMSEY: Well, from my perspective, I think that we didn't feel that a break-even number of$30 per person to go over to the beach was -- no one was going to pay that. So we picked something we thought that, you know, an adult would pay to go over to the island. Nine dollars seemed to be kind of the break point. So doing the shuttle back and forth at that -- that and the number of people that we could send over, which is a hundred and what -- 100 people per day, 176 days out of the year, those are our numbers that we came out with. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You see what that does to you, it encourages you to take fewer people, because you don't lose as much money if you take fewer people, right? If you take 75 passengers a day, you're only going to lose $6,200, right? Is that what it says? MR. RAMSEY: Only if I charge them $30. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Oh, okay. Okay, I understand. MR. RAMSEY: There's a $30 fee on the top of it. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I got it. I got it. So the way you solve that is to take more people. MR. RAMSEY: Take more people. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Right? MR. RAMSEY: That's correct. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Can you take more people, more than 100 people a day, with the equipment that you are forecasting here? MR. RAMSEY: I think that 100 people a day on a trip of about -- a boat of about 40 per, you're never going to fill it. So I think that it's about an hour round trip over an eight-hour period. That's 100, maybe 150 max on one boat. CHAIRMAN COYLE: One boat, okay. Thank you. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, the only thing I'd mention to you, and I don't mean to get in with staff recommendations, I just wanted to Page 66 June 15, 2005 make sure you understand another dimension to the user fee options. If you talk about a universal parking fee, there's going to be some issues with the City of Naples. Because, you know, you put quarters in their meters. And so what -- if it's $5.00 parking fee all over the place and it's only a couple of quarters or how long I can feed them in the City of Naples, you might be driving an awful lot of people to the City of Naples to go to the beach. And I'm not talking about more than their fair share, okay? And so that's something to be -- that we need to think about. I also believe that the city would have to change their metering in some way in order to capture that particular cost for parking outside of the meters. They would have to install more whatever to try to recoup that $400,000 that they'd no longer be getting. So that's an issue. And it has to be some kind of agreement. But I just make sure you know that for ease of operation in that between those communities, I would say that number 12 would come out as the leader of the pack as far as that's concerned. If you add that dimension to it, and you only look at it in that aspect. And that's all I have to say on this matter. MR. RAMSEY: The meter fee over at the city is $1.00 an hour. Just so you know. It's 25 cents for 15 minutes. So it's $1.00 an hour to park at their location. And I think currently our $400,000 is offsetting what they would normally get in a meter if a beach parking car was not sitting in it. I mean, that's the gist of it. That's not the formula for it, but that's the gist of it. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Well, could we reach agreement that if the Board selects one of these, you will at least coordinate with the City of Naples to work out-- MR. RAMSEY: Most definitely. CHAIRMAN COYLE: -- the details? MR. RAMSEY: Most definitely. Page 67 June 15, 2005 I would also mention that there is $400,000 sitting in our budget right now that's being utilized against our expanded numbers for this beach parking element of it. So we have 400,000 sitting in there right now. And if you pull this out to use this expansion for this new stuff, we would need to fill that void. CHAIRMAN COYLE: All right. Any other questions? A lot of questions. COMMISSIONER FIALA: There's four of us waiting. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes, my first thing was, and I was just going to echo about what Jim Mudd said, but I was going to go a step further. I felt that by deciding on a universal parking, we're going to lose the relationship we've had with the city. I know Commissioner Halas and Commissioner Coletta have said they want to keep the parking permits free. And by choosing universal parking, we lose that ability to do that. Secondly, I wanted to say that I feel that there should be some type of a parking fee available to those people who come down just a couple months a year or two weeks a year or whatever, but don't get to have a beach parking sticker, there should be something available to them. So I was just going to comment, my choice would be number 12. My second was a question to Murdo. I didn't see anyplace in here about the little children's water park that I've been waiting five years for. It took four years to -- four years to get it permitted for this little dancing park in the East Naples Eagle Lakes Community Park. And we've been able to get a $53.8 million water park permitted in that time and half built, and I'm still waiting. MR. SMITH: Commissioners, we have that out for bid. The bids have come back and we're reviewing the bids right now to come up with a recommendation as to how we proceed with the project. Page 68 June 15, 2005 COMMISSIONER FIALA: So I have been told that it would be open. Are we going to get this thing open? I mean, it's been a long time. I mean, I think it's been five years since I started working on this, and we still don't have a place for these children who have no swimming pools to play in. MR. SMITH: We'll be making a recommendation to the Board shortly on the contractor to do that project. I don't believe it's this next Board meeting, but it might be the Board meeting after. MR. RAMSEY: Commissioner, just to let you know, that the numbers came in over double what we had -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, maybe that's because we put it off for so many years. MR. RAMSEY: Well-- COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'm sorry, I don't mean to -- MR. RAMSEY: -- the funding just came -- you know, the funding's in the budget for, you know, a little over $400,000. And the budget came in to do this at over $900,000, and so we're having to -- and we only had one bid that came in. You know, there's a number of issues that have come into play, and small projects are harder to get done than large projects, based upon the economy of scale. So we are definitely looking at what our alternatives are in order to get the water park done first. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, I certainly hope we can take some money, maybe from some other pocket and make sure that that thing goes through. I'd hate to see it waiting another couple of years. But thank you, I'm done. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Stay out of my pocket. COMMISSIONER FIALA: No, I don't want to get in your pocket. I think that there's plenty there someplace to pay for it. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, I have other questions about what was presented from parks and rec., but I think you want to Page 69 June 15, 2005 stay on the beach issue, Commissioner? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Not necessarily. I'm leaving it up to these other two Commissioners. Your questions are about what, beach? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Beach. CHAIRMAN COYLE: All right. How about-- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Why don't we just stay on that? CHAIRMAN COYLE: All right. How about you, your questions are on beach? COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, wait a minute. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You had your time. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Your time's up. COMMISSIONER HENNING: The concern I have -- I don't think there's any perfect solution. I don't know which is worse. And when we talk about fees, if we offer a general parking fee, who are we really servicing, our visitors or our residents? Because if we offer a general parking fee, it's first come, first serve. So we're really creating another problem. And then the beach parking stickers, I see so many out-of-state cars with them. MR. RAMSEY: Yes, Commissioner, as long as they have property here, they can put it on an out-of-state car. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Some of them don't have property here and they've got' em. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Mine was stolen off my car. Really. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yeah, they steal them off the cars. I had to replace mine. CHAIRMAN COYLE: There should be a penalty for that. If you let them be stolen, you should have to pay twice. COMMISSIONER HENNING: That's an excuse. Oh, my Page 70 June 15, 2005 relatives are coming down, take my sticker, I'll just say it was stolen. No, I'm just kidding. Just kidding. I don't know, it's a problem, and I have concerns about it. I'm not sure what will work. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah, I'd like to go back to this same issue, and I really -- I'm probably going to be in the minority on this, but I do think that our residents should get this as a benefit for living here, paying taxes and being here. Now, if we need to adjust it, maybe what we want to do is go for our full-time residents and recognize those people as special. But I don't know, that's questionable. I think that might even be more problematic. But I wouldn't be opposed even raising the fee from $4.00 all the way to $6.00 for those people who want to enter the different garages or parking areas that don't have the stickers to help offset the cost. But I think it's important that we recognize the fact that our residents that are here deserve certain benefits, over and above what we would expect the general public to get. And I kind of hope that this Commission, when we get down to the end, that we recognize that our residents stand out special in our minds and we're going to try to make it work for them. So I guess that means I'm done. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You're finished. Commissioner Halas? COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes, you got an awful lot of emphasis here on Keewaydin. Did we end of up Purchasing any property at Keewaydin Island yet? MR. RAMSEY: I believe that real property is in the process of doing that right now. And that was one of our five elements that you asked us to go forward on, so those are the proj ects that I have listed. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. And so we'll be able to permit a dock in that general area? Page 71 June 15, 2005 MR. RAMSEY: I believe there's already a dock permitted in the piece of property that we're looking to purchase. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. The other thing is that my feeling on beach permits, if people so desire to have a beach parking sticker, I think it should be like a user fee. I think that was brought up in the beach and boat workshop. Just like when you have a boat, you have to pay for a sticker on your boat, which is registration. So if people would like to go, I think that there should be a user fee on it. And I think that would help offset some of the expel1ses that we're going to incur here. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, we're fortunate enough that we have some recurring funds that can operate and help fund more acquisition of beach access and run a free beach pass or whatever you want to call it. So I think we all have commented on this, and I'd like to move forward. Or you haven't commented on it yet. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I haven't. And I was going to take just a moment before Commissioner Coletta has another shot at it. I keep banging his fingers every time he reaches for that button. But, you know, I think there are ways that we can accommodate our citizens and make sure that we offer a range of opportunities, so that for some people there's no charge at all. And those are the people who can be shuttled to the beaches. If they wanted to park in a remote lot somewhere, maybe at our North Naples Community Park, if there's space there, if they were to park somewhere, or even here in the government center and be bussed to the beach, there's no charge. But if we've built a parking facility for space and you want to take your car to the beach and park it, just like at the airport, you pay for it. And if we had the stickers, we could give our residents a price break on it. Because they could get -- buy the stickers, they could have unlimited parking for a very, very low amount of money, and then the Page 72 June 15, 2005 visitors would pay the full ticket for parking in those parking structures. So I think that kind of structure, fee structure, permits us to serve the public and provide our residents an advantage over those who visit here just sometime during the year. Recognizing that the people who use the parking facilities are the people who should have to pay for the parking and maintain the parking facilities. So I think there's a good program for doing all those things, and I don't know that what I've just said conflicts with what your recommendations are. MR. RAMSEY: No, Commissioner, I believe that what you're saying is that you provide a sticker at $20.00 for two years and a $5.00 fee or $6.00 fee or whatever at the beach locations for those that don't have it, and everyone is paying something. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah. MR. RAMSEY: And then if you want shuttle. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And those people who don't want to pay can take the shuttle. And that gets them to the beach free. Does that make sense? Do you see a problem with that, Murdo? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: He's not going to make the final decision. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah, I know. Commissioner Coletta is next. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: He is? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yes, he is next. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. You're getting back to something -- you're covering it a little bit more logically than we were before. We got to recognize that the residents of this County deserve certain benefits over and above the general public that comes wandering in from all over the world. One of the things I wouldn't have a problem with, I do recognize that Keewaydin Island is a very expensive venture, and here we have Page 73 June 15, 2005 an enhance beach experience for people, and that should carry a price tag on it that we couldn't possibly cover by a pass, free pass to allow people to use it. That is separate and above everything else, just like I believe the parking garage that you use over there, you have to pay to get into that even if you've got a beach sticker now? MR. RAMSEY: No. Well, not currently. Currently it's $5.00. It would be $5.00, according to our budget. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: What is it now? MR. RAMSEY: $4.00. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: If you got a beach sticker? MR. RAMSEY: Free. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay, I would like it to remain free for those people that have a beach sticker and get them closer to the beach. The non-residents can go ahead and park outside and get bussed in for free, if you want to make it free, but I'd rather charge them a couple dollars, three or $4.00 to be able to come in from some remote location. I mean, I'm here to provide services, number one, for the residents of Collier County, and number two, for everybody else in the world. MR. RAMSEY: So if I understand what you're saying is you'd like to see the shuttle have a fee on it if they're not a Collier County resident? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I would -- if they're not a Collier County resident, I'd like to see even the shuttle have a -- MR. RAMSEY: Have a fee. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: -- charge on it. You know, and the Collier County resident's free. It's the price that you pay all year long for paying our sales taxes, paying our ad valorem taxes, being here to make the whole thing work, either as a retiree contributing to the economy or as a worker making the whole County function. This is a little benefit that they get and I don't want to take it away from Page 74 June 15, 2005 them. If anything, I'd like to enhance it. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HALAS: Where are you going to get the money? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah. You've got to have money somewhere. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: From every other district. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah, that's the problem. COMMISSIONER HALAS: You can't get something for nothing, you know? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: It's right here. Just go ahead and raise the other fees a little bit. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning, do you have something to add? COMMISSIONER HENNING: You -- not to get too far off the subject, but we have about a $7 million slush fund this year? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Slush fund? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, not slush fund, funds that are not -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Was that slush or flush? MR. MUDD: No, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- not encumbered? MR. MUDD: Sir, there's $7.8 million of which 6.7 came from the County Manager, based on the budget. And that's there. And I would suggest have these conversations and get an idea in the dialogue, and then when we get to the unfinanced requirement list, we'll go over that again and I'll bring up this beach issue and we'll come to resolution when I have all the administrators and the separate directors here and we'll go over that process and see what you want to do. I believe that's the most prudent. And this way you'll get the whole idea on the entire budget and see what's there. We have some other outstandings that are out there right now. We have a zoo that we Page 75 June 15, 2005 haven't got the final word yet on the appraisal. And I will tell you that I have not seen an appraisal come in where the ad valorem millage that was voted on the referendum will pay for it, okay? And so that's something that we need to consider. Did I let the cat out of the bag? I hope not, but I think everybody speculated on that out there and we're trying to get an independent appraiser to come in and take a look at the three that we have to figure out if there's any errors in anyone of them. So we're trying to take a look at that, and that's something else the Board has to consider in the process. But you're right, Commissioner Henning, you do have $7.8 million -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thanks for answering the question. MR. MUDD: -- on the 001 and you do have, Commissioner, $991,000 in the 111. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right. Can I go back? CHAIRMAN COYLE: You can, if you'd like. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Oh, yes. Page 41, your expanded positions. You have eight maintenance workers? MR. SMITH: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And they cut grass and trim bushes? MR. SMITH: And landscape also, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And maintain the landscape? MR. SMITH: Right. And the athletic fields. There's eight soccer fields, five softball fields and about 100 acres worth of landscaping and grass mowing. MR. RAMSEY: And 100 acres with a preserve. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And you got a request -- I'm just Page 76 June 15, 2005 trying to pull it all together on this. On your capital you have four eight riding lawnmowers. I'm not sure if it's four riding lawnmowers or eight lawnmowers. On Page 45, on the top. MR. SMITH: Yes, sir, what that is is replacement parts for the existing 111 fund that we have right now. Replacements through FI eet. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So these are not new, these are MR. RAMSEY: These are the replacements. COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- replacing. MR. RAMSEY: That's correct. MR. SMITH: Correct. This equipment is replacement, it is not an expanded request. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay, how are you going to -- are you going to give these eight maintenance workers any equipment? MR. SMITH: Yes, sir. That will be going through the project for the park. The monies for equipment is in the park funds for that. MR. RAMSEY: We'll use impact fees, sir, to purchase the equipment. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Oh, okay. Well, that makes sense. Has the Board ever took a look at outsourcing the maintenance of the fields and the parks? MR. RAMSEY : We have. As a matter of fact, in our next budget we do anticipate to outsource the neighborhood parks, because it's basically a mow-and-go kind of situation. With our normal fields, we have so much athletic turf in there that it's -- we really need the accountability of a staff person in that particular one to do it. But we are looking at outsourcing our neighborhood parks. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And your feeling is a contractor Page 77 June 15,2005 wouldn't be held accountable on the fields? MR. RAMSEY: Well, we have had contracted services come in and do pesticides and fertilizer applications, and they do not come in a timely manner. And I have lost two fields due to contracted services that cost me 40,000 per field to resod. So I'm a little burnt on the contracted service on that regard. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, it didn't cost you, you went after the contractor, I hope. MR. RAMSEY : Not technically, sir. There was insurance elements in it. COMMISSIONER HENNING: What does a -- on the expanded persons, what does the journeyman do? MR. SMITH: The journeyman is a person who's going to be in charge of all the pumps and so forth at the water park facility at North Collier Regional Park. COMMISSIONER HENNING: A pump -- the pumps? MR. SMITH: Yes. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. I'm sorry. MR. SMITH: We have about 21 pumps that will be running that facility . COMMISSIONER HENNING: And then the customer service, that's somebody at the desk to help people, to guide them and scheduling and -- MR. SMITH: Correct, sir. MR. RAMSEY: Registrations, et cetera. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Child care worker? You got one full-time, two part-time. What is -- MR. RAMSEY: Those are babysitters, basically. When you work out, we provide that service, and then there's a fee for that servIce. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. And what does a crew leader do? Page 78 June 15, 2005 MR. RAMSEY: Crew leader supervises a crew of maintenance, in some regards five or six guys/gals, that are responsible for landscape and turf. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Oh. MR. RAMSEY: He or she's a working crew leader. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is that -- how many acres are we talking about? MR. RAMSEY: There's 80 acres of development on this park site and then 100 acres or so of preserve. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Where is that? MR. RAMSEY: Excuse me? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Where is that? MR. RAMSEY: This is-- COMMISSIONER HENNING: North Collier Regional. MR. RAMSEY: -- North Collier Regional. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is that really necessary to crew leaders to oversee -- MR. RAMSEY: We actually have three areas at the North Collier. One is the soccer facility which has eight soccer fields. Which if you look at them in acreage, they're about three acres per field. And then the softball complex has five, and again about three acres per field. And of course they do lining and all the prep work on the fields themselves. And then there's the landscaping element, as well as the preserves. And the common grounds in that area. And we will normally have one crew leader and four or five guys in a 30-acre park. So I think we're pretty prudent in this site, actually, with our numbers. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Hm. Okay. CHAIRMAN COYLE: On Page -- I'm sorry, go ahead. COMMISSIONER HENNING: No, why don't you come back, if you don't mind? Go ahead. CHAIRMAN COYLE: D-45, you have an unfunded request. Page 79 June 15, 2005 One of the functions of this person, a full-time program leader, is to maintain ball-fields at school sites. Tell me a little bit about that. Don't the schools maintain their ball-fields? MR. RAMSEY: No, sir. We've got interlocal agreements at Sable Palm, Osceola, Corkscrew Elementary , Avalon, that we have shared facilities where we have made improvements to those facilities. We have put in the irrigation and the lighting and whatnot. And we use those fields from 3:30 on; all weekends and during the summer they become our fields. And we do all of the maintenance on those fields, which is about $400,000 worth of maintenance cost to the County to maintain those fields. The benefit is, is that we didn't have to purchase the fields or the land in order to do it, so it's a good win-win between the facilities so we don't have to buy additional lands in order to provide facilities -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: So the school doesn't have a maintenance responsibility at all? MR. RAMSEY : Not at those locations, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, thank you. Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: I just wanted to point out, I did have that marked. That's part of your angst on the Bill 360? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah. COMMISSIONER HENNING: It calls for local County governments to work with the schools to try to locate facilities. CHAIRMAN COYLE: As if we haven't been doing that, right? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, I think it's good to emphasize -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yes, it is. COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- and maybe that's -- I'm not sure if that's one good thing or not about that bill. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I think it is. Yes, I think it is. That's one good thing. Page 80 June 15, 2005 COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, can I write that down? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yes, you can write that down. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I think that's the end of my questions, Commissioner. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. I would sure like to get this finished up by noon. There's no way we're going to finish this budget thing this week -- MR. MUDD: Yes, sir, we will. CHAIRMAN COYLE: -- the way we're going. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Well, folks, quit asking-- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Let's go. COMMISSIONER HALAS: -- questions and we can move along at combat speed. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's right. If you guys wouldn't ask so many questions, we'd be all right. Okay, we're going to take public comment at the end of this entire department, once we finish, okay? How many public speakers do you have for this entire department? MS. FILSON: One. CHAIRMAN COYLE: One. Okay, then give me --let's go to the next one. Is it Ron? MR. RAMSEY: Well, actually, sir, unless you have questions from Ron, he doesn't have any expended or unfunded request, and neither -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Why not? MR. MUDD: Sir, Ron -- I'm going to help you out a little bit, okay? MR. JAMRO: All right. MR. MUDD: He came forward with his five-year plan to get past this backlog of maintenance that he has on museums. In this particular budget, he has monies to -- full monies to bring the Naples Page 81 June 15, 2005 Depot up to speed, plus $300,000 in order to get at Roberts Ranch at that expanded that you saw last year. That's in there. So there's about $550,000 in his budget to get at. Two maintenance issues, big ones, capital projects. Then next year from my capital side of the house, I'll start giving him around 500 to $550,000 for the next five years, and then we'll get over the hump on that $3 million worth of backlog. CHAIRMAN COYLE: So Ron's okay. MR. JAMRO: I'm great. CHAIRMAN COYLE: He should get a bonus for that. MR. MUDD: No, sir, I should get a bonus. You don't know how long I had to work with this guy to get that budget right. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I think Ron should get the bonus. MR. JAMRO: Thank you. MR. MUDD: So maybe you can play baseball instead of soccer. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Do you have a question? COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yeah, I just want to say that I'm glad that we're finally getting on Board here to fund the museums. I think this has been something that's been long overdue, and I believe we have something like $2.7 million in capital outlays that need to be addressed on the museums. So I'm glad that the County Manager realizes the importance of all these museums, too. They're a great learning place for young children. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's why it's taking so long, we have these speeches that people are making. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I didn't say a word. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Who's next? MR. RAMSEY: The health department has one staff position, but it doesn't fall into our staffing requirement. But maybe Joe might want to comment on it, what that position does for him. MR. MEZZA TEST A: Good morning, Commissioners -- it's still morning -- Joe Mesatesta, sitting in for Dr. Koulfer. Page 82 June 15, 2005 And I would like to commend the Commissioners, too, for the partnership that we have with the County and the Commissioners between the state and the County. I get a lot of opportunities to go around the state and talk to other business managers, and, I mean, some of the problems they have are unbelievable compared to how smooth it runs here. And I thank you for that. We have requested a position for a registered nurse, or funding for a registered nurse. We actually need three positions: A certified nursing assistant and a senior Clerk and the registered nurse in order to service our adult health. For communicable disease we have both the infectious and the non-infectious. We'd like to give the infectious immediate attention and we'd like to take the wait time down to two weeks for the non-infectious. We're asking the County for the 43, nine for the registered nurse, and we'll be asking the state to fund the other two positions. And that's it, unless there's any questions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Any questions by Commissioners? (No response.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. MR. MUDD: Marla, you want to hit your capital, or have you already done that? MR. RAMSEY: No, I don't believe we have done it, although it's quite quick, I think. MR. MUDD: Go ahead. MR. RAMSEY: The projects that we have on the -- two projects that we have in the library right now are to do some design of both the Golden Gate expansion, as well as the south library. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Is that Commissioner Fiala's library? MR. RAMSEY: That's correct. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good. Let's call it Commissioner Fiala's library . Page 83 June 15, 2005 MR. RAMSEY: Okay. Commissioner Fiala's library. Okay. So those are the two projects underneath the library themselves. Parks and Recreation has some additional funding, too. And if you can turn to -- where's the list on that -- capital six, I believe, and you will see the list of various projects there. And unless you have some comment for me on them, I think they kind of speak for themselves. Most of them are ongoing projects: Margood, Goodland, Orangetree Park, et cetera, some of those that we've been working on for quite some time. Just like Eagle Lakes, Commissioner. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Now, of course the beach access capital projects are not included there. Are you going to cover those separately, or have we already done that? MR. RAMSEY: We've already done that, yes. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. So you think you've got good enough guidance on beach access capital then, right? MR. RAMSEY: No, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: No, you don't. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, we will come back during the UFR list -- MR. RAMSEY: That's correct. MR. MUDD: -- and we need a decision on are you going to do stickers, are you going to pay fees, how you want that done, so that we can put that program together. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, good. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, I will let you know that ad valorem dollars that are on capital six come out of that .33 mils. That's for capital programs that you have out there. Just so you know, I basically control that .33. They come in from facilities, IT, parks, and we work that plus the debt service on past loans that we've had to take out in order to build buildings and thing like that. MR. RAMSEY: I might mention on there that you may not have caught the Everglades City tennis courts. We've been working with Page 84 June 15, 2005 Everglades City to improve their recreational elements down there, because it's the County-wide facility being utilized inside the city and this is 50 percent of the cost of that. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Any questions by Commissioners? (No response.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: I don't hear any. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, if we could take that public speaker then? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MR. MUDD: That's completes -- MS. FILSON: Actually, I have two now. The first one is Wizard of 1. He will be followed by William Poteet. WIZARD OF I: Commissioners, greetings. Real name's Gerald K. Davidson, better known as the legendary Dr. Was, and now the Wizard of 1. As you can see, I don't like your big stacks idea. It's just another tax. Any way you cut it up, it's another way of -- it's just a tax. We don't need another beach tax, period. And that's a jerks thing. You're not really jerks. You're just politicians. I would like to comment about the beach. I go down to the beach a lot. Talking about erosion, down here we have this erosion problem. I also majored in geology, so I know a little bit about erosion. You got to stop this ridiculous dumping of sand on the beach. I'd like to get an estimate from you about how many millions of dollars we've poured of sand on that beach, okay? How many millions of dollars have we spent on the beach, and how many more millions of dollars are we going to pay to put sand on the beach? What we need to do -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: We put rocks on the beach. WIZARD OF I: Okay. The rocks. Rocks on the beach. But anyhow, what we need to do is -- one of my favorite trees, by the way, was chopped down up at Seagate. There's an Australian Page 85 June 15, 2005 Pine. How many people been up to Seagate? Well, the number one tree out there that's been there for about 50 years, somebody took a chainsaw. It was doing a marvelous job of fighting the ocean. Just what you guys want on beach and renourishment. Anyhow, it was over 50 years old and it was cut down by somebody with a chainsaw. That's the type of sentinel trees we need out there. If you're going to renourish the beach, let's get some trees out there, let's get more mangroves, let's get more sea oats and so on. The Panhandle has huge beaches. We just don't have them down here. So you've got to stop this ridiculous use of -- misuse of tax dollars. And for the homeowners that live down there that are worried about it, they're rich enough to live down there, you take your chances with this ocean, you take care of your own beach front; don't ask the taxpayers to pay for it. And talking about parking, if you're going to charge quarters and so on down at the pier in different places, let's put some change machines down there. Did it ever occur to you that people come down there, they might -- they could go somewhere, right there in the parking lot they ought to have a $5, $10 change machine. So let's get some change machines down there. Another thing, did you know that you're not allowed to change your clothes and put your bathing suit on in the local -- on the pier down there? Did you know there's a rule against that? That's a violation of law. One of your Ordinances down there. I'd suggest you have a place down there and you take down that ridiculous statement down there so you can have a place to change clothes. So that's another thing. Now, beach access, beach access -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Your time has expired, sir. WIZARD OF I: Okay. I'd like to close by saying that beach access is a real important thing, and you need to protect it, especially along Gordon Drive. You need to go back and get some of the beach Page 86 June 15, 2005 access you used to have at Gordon back and reestablish them for public good, let walk in or park their bikes and so on. Thank you. And stop wasting our money. MS. FILSON: The next speaker is William Poteet. MR. POTEET: Good morning, Commissioners. My name is Bill Poteet and I'm here representing the Golden Gate Area Civic Association. And the civic association just asked me to remind you that we need our library expanded. We've been waiting for four years right now, and every year it comes up it's going to be expanded, but then it comes down to how we're going to do it and it's all a question of funding. So at this time during funding we ask you to put the necessary funds aside and make sure that we get the library. If you look statistically, our library is the busiest of all the small libraries in the County. The majority -- or not the majority but a great number of our users at the library are pedestrian, so it's not like we can just pick this thing up and then go to the North Naples Regional Library and use the services there. Our kids need to be able to walk from their schools and get to the library. So we just ask you to fund it. And thank you very much. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Now, where do we stand on the funding of those two libraries, Mr. Poteet's library and Commissioner Fiala's library? MS. KRUMBINE: They're both on the list for design right now and we have them in a 10- year spreadsheet that will allow us to use the impact fees, which hopefully you will improve (sic) as an increase at the next Board meeting to build them both. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You said 10 years. MR. MUDD: Capital-3 report has got the library impact fees and a particular chart that sits on there. It asks some questions -- that Golden Gate Library, a 1 ,200-square- foot structure to be built next to the existing library. We've received a $500,000, grant that's at the# Page 87 June 15, 2005 bottom of the page. COMMISSIONER FIALA: What page are you on? MR. MUDD: I'm on Page Capital-3. COMMISSIONER HENNING: At the back. MR. SMYKOWSKI: A lime green color. MR. MUDD: A green page in the Public Services, capital. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, that's not going to fund the projected 12,000 square feet at that library. MR. MUDD: Not the total cost, but that's what's in the '06 budget. And then the construction costs will come after that, sir. MS. KRUMBINE: We will be bonding the impact fee in order to develop both of those libraries. COMMISSIONER HENNING: That was supposed to be constructed this year; am I correct? MS. KRUMBINE: Well, every time we talk about construction, a lot of times they think that's when we're going to open it. But the construction time is, you know, a 12-month to an 18-month process. And because we had an ad valorem shortfall when we originally were going to tear down the old building there and put in one new facility, we had to come up with Plan B, which is the 12,000-square-foot expansion, and leave the existing one in place. And now I think we have enough funds to do both of them. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Oh, okay. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Everybody all set? We're breaking for recess. Thank you very much. We'll be back here at 1 :02. . (A lunch recess was taken.). TRANSPORTATION SERVICES CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you very much, County Manager, and I presume we're going to Transportation Page 88 June 15, 2005 Services. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. We're going to transportation. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Mr. Feder, you have three minutes. MR. FEDER: Mr. Chairman and Commissioners, we'll try to do it in two. What I wanted to do is first of all note to you that we're continuing to implement our program. We appreciate all the efforts of the Board to make sure that we've been funded. The road building program is still on track and there's been an awful lot of that prior to catch-up after the last four years, and we'll continue to move forward. Trans providership is up. The roads are landscaped. We're meeting an awful lot of the demands. We've got our traffic operations signal, the first phase, done. Second phase is a computerized signal system across the pilot on Pine Ridge Road should be completed by the end of this year. So we've got an awful lot of good things happening here in transportation, and we appreciate your support. What we presented to you is a budget. We took strongly your values into account. Basically in our budget, transportation with 2.2 percent over current services, that being predominantly things outside of our control. You do have three expanded items here in the budget. One million for limerock conversion to paved, about 76,700 in traffic operations. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Which page are you on, Norm? MR. FEDER: What I'm doing is giving you a very quick overvIew. CHAIRMAN COYLE: All right. Okay. MR. FEDER: Very quick overview. You've got one position in traffic operations relative to signals with major emphasis that you asked us and we placed there and then lastly 525,000 as an expanded item to convert from potable to reclaimed water in our landscape medians. Page 89 June 15, 2005 So other than those three items which represent the other 3.7 of our total 5.9 percent budget, we're within the budget guidance, as I said, in 2.2 on the current programs and a total of 5.9. We've expanded those three major items. As Jim pointed out, we pulled some of the items back, and we're actually minus 1.1 percent when you take out a couple of errors, and that's what I'd like to focus on. In our budget you've got a number of positions that have moved around between the departments within the division; however, there's only one increase in position that's being requested here, and that's the one in traffic ops. So essentially we've maintained our position load, but we have moved a few positions around so you'll seeing some areas where you see the budget going up there in the general fund in the area of support and operations, and then you'll see a decrease in other parts of the departments in the budget areas, and that's basically a position move, but the total count remains the same with one addition. The other thing that I'll point out to you, and we're going to discuss some on the transportation disadvantage. I know we had a discussion at the Board meeting yesterday. Weare looking as we go to try and combine both the transit CAT system and TD for efficiencies and being able to coordinate trips between the two. We're also looking at trying to do bench marking, looking at what our best practice is out there. We realize that this is an important service to the community, that it's one that has already increased quite a bit in cost, and we're real concerned that we're very, very careful about how we try to control those costs while we continue to provide quality services to that portion of the community that needs it. So we'll talk some on that, and I'll ask Diane to talk a little bit on that. I'll tell you our landscaping shows an increase, but, again, that is consistent with the massive landscape plan that has kicked in, and I think the medians are showing the value of that. Page 90 June 15, 2005 Landscaping means not only increased property values to the community, traffic calming for the roadways and an amenity that is truly a quality of life issue here in Collier County. The traffic ops, you see some minor changes. Some of it's preparing for storm events, getting supplies and materials, part of it's increases in electricity, and then you also have two positions, one that has moved into that group internally during the year and one that we're requesting as an expanded. You also have, in road and bridge, replacement equipment. All of that is consistent with fleet specifications for replacement, maintaining those, especially as they start to get older and have more costs to maintain than to buy new and work with. You also have, as I said, one million here in the budget for the limerock conversion. We're also requesting under UFR your consideration of the second million so we can go two million a year towards trying to address that hundred plus miles of unpaved roads that we have in the County, and the importance of that is it's costing us more on quarterly maintenance, basically going in, grading and addressing them. And the nature of the complaints that come out, because no matter what you do in those four times a year, if it's the dry season, they're dusty; if it's the wet season, you're getting holes in them. It's not a very good service to be -- it's mainly issues that came out of the old provision when we took over all the roadways from the GAC, but we have them as well, as was noted here within the urban portion of the County. That's sort of the major areas that have some changes. I think you know everybody here on staff, but I will introduce them. I do want to have Ricardo at the end cover some on storm water, and it was your efforts in establishing storm water utility with .15 mills which covers not only his projects but also all the staffing. He's done some outstanding work and some good projects coming through, Page 91 June 15, 2005 and we're spending the money and spending it wisely. Bob Tipton will give anything you have on traffic operations. Diane Flagg, of course, will hit TD and then you can ask about transit and roads. Sharon Newman who will make sure I don't say anything wrong is our chief fiscal person. John Vilet is your superintendent of road and bridges. And Gene Calvert at the end of the table has been your interim director or engineer in construction management. I do want to take this opportunity, and I appreciate your indulgence, to note the fine job he's done as interim. Very shortly in the middle of July we have a new director coming on Board. Ashay, and goes as Jay, will be here, and I will be introducing him to you in mid July. He comes from Connecticut. Worked with the Connecticut Department of Transportation and the last 17 years in the private sector. An awful lot of good experience coupled with what Gene and what he's done with the staff and another position that we're looking to hire. You'll have an outstanding team maintained in engineering construction management. And, again, I want to particularly note the job that Gene did in not losing the beat as we went from our current position to having a new director officially on Board. So that being said, I'll ask, first of all, probably Diane if she will give you a little bit about the TD, which is primarily where we had seen costs, a little bit on landscaping, ask Bob to tell you where you are in traffic operations and John a little bit on maintenance. Be very brief. We'll go into the capital program if you'd like, and we'd like to cover storm water but-- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Let's just take a quick break right before you go into capital programs and get some questions about operating -- MR. FEDER: Yes. CHAIRMAN COYLE: -- budgets and then we'll go into capital. Page 92 June 15, 2005 MR. FEDER: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Go ahead. MS. FLAGG: Good afternoon, Commissioners. On page E-12 it's a breakdown of the Transportation Disadvantaged Program. Again, this is a fully contracted program. We made the decision based upon the experience of not only our contractor coming to us saying that they couldn't contain the cost but also looking around the state and the other agencies that are also experiencing the same situation of where agencies have actually -- contractors have come back to the Commission two and three times asking for rate increases just within one year. So what we've decided to do is for the first time, and we've put out a request for proposal, to combine Collier Area Transit and the Transportation Disadvantaged into a single gatekeeper, and the purpose of trying it this way is to see if we can get the contractors to better contain the cost by having one gate that the community walks through and getting more people on the Collier Area Transit system which is far less expensive to operate than that door-to-door service of Transportation Disadvantaged. So recognizing, though, after looking at the actual cost it takes to run the Transportation Disadvantaged system, we're going to recognize the carry-forward from this program. The additional funding for this program requested for next year from general fund is 419,500, and that number is coming from based upon the actual cost analysis that we did of what it actually takes to run the program. Again, if we are successful in the cost containment by combining the two systems, it will be totally bid dependent, and but we're hoping with this cost that we'll be able to keep these contractors within the budget with this additional 419 towards the program. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Diane, do these costs reflect the increased cost that the Board of County Commissioners approved for Page 93 June 15, 2005 this program? MS. FLAGG: That's what these costs are, yes. CHAIRMAN COYLE: They have been updated to include -- MS. FLAGG: Yes. CHAIRMAN COYLE: -- that decision? And you're talking about combining them under a single division. Will the gatekeeper be a subcontractor or are we going to try to do this ourselves? MS. FLAGG: It's all contracted out. It's still both programs are fully contracted out. CHAIRMAN COYLE: What incentive is there to see more people served through our transit system as opposed to the TD? MS. FLAGG: The incentive will be is that the way that we write the contract is going to dictate that their greater incentive will be to transport the majority of folks on CAT because they're going to be limited to the amount of dollars that they're going to receive for the door-to-door service which is in the Transportation Disadvantaged side. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's a very good idea by the way. MS. FLAGG: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I think you've done a good job thinking that through. It would be good if we could collect information -- I'm not sure you can historically, but you can start doing it in the future -- as to how many of the people who receive the door-to-door service really require the door-to-door service because of their disability. MS. FLAGG: Right. And we will be collecting that data. We've included that requirement in the RFP requirement so when we get the bids in they have acknowledged that they will be required to collect that information. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good. Thank you. Commissioner Halas. Page 94 June 15, 2005 COMMISSIONER HALAS: I'm surprised you brought forth that there were other counties that have been experiencing the same problem. What's the -- what's the ground problem? What's the existing problem that causes this situation? MS. FLAGG: It's the costs are escalating for fuel, and with TD service it's a door-to-door service so the fuel is an increase plus you're putting so many thousands of miles on the vehicles so the vehicle maintenance continues, those costs continue to increase. Across the state they've experienced these large increases to insurance, and also the TD Commission, which actually through this last legislative session was completely revamped, but prior to that the TD Commission was holding the reimbursement rates down low so even though their actual costs were exceeding what it -- what they were getting in terms of reimbursement. So through this last legislative session, the legislature recognized that they have 20 plus TD Commissioners. They're taking it down to less than ten and they're completely revamping it, taking off all the special interest groups off the Commission. So we're expecting to see, with that change plus the changes that we're making, we're expecting to see some real improvement, not only in Collier but all these other communities that are experiencing difficulty with the TD program. COMMISSIONER HALAS: So what you're telling me, this is another State mandate pushed down to the counties. MS. FLAGG: The State TD Commission dictates the rates for reimbursement, yes. MR. FEDER: Commissioner, you're correct, but I think what we're looking at doing gets to the heart. When Transportation Disadvantaged was formulated and as it's gone forward, it's been very separate from transit-providing services. It's very specialized, and it is specialized in certain clientele. It has to Page 95 June 15, 2005 be extremely specialized, but in doing that different program as they cut separately many trips that possibly could have been handled in a more efficient manner than the very, very specialized TD end up getting handled there. So that's a lot of what we're trying to get at. I think that what you're seeing in other counties whether they're taking it internally or gone to a single as we're proposing. So I think that's part of the answer to your question. It's very specialized services. It has to be for a portion of the population, but there's some that can be well served under the less expensive, more traditional transit services. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Thank you. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, if you might for the record just for a second remember yesterday when Ms. Flagg was talking about the program. The program services economically disadvantaged and handicapped, and if you can get the economically disadvantaged to take the CAT, then you can start cutting back on the program costs. This program was big before we had CAT, and I don't believe we've had a great enough movement in that one category toward the Collier Area Transit system. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Good idea. Commissioner Coletta. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. Just so I fully understand, we're talking about cutting into -- servicing those people with our CAT system that are physically able, to be able to get to a bus stop where they have a bus stop within a reasonable distance of their house and still providing the disadvantaged service for the special pickups? MS. FLAGG: Correct. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: We would be doing that or we'd be contracting that out? MS. FLAGG: It's all contracted out. CAT's contracted out and Page 96 June 15, 2005 the TD's contracted out. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Will it be contracted out through our CAT system? MS. FLAGG: Well, the gatekeeper, under the proposed RP, is that they can subcontract, but they're going to be responsible for the total contract. So if they want to -- whoever gets the bid for the transit system, they can subcontract out all or a portion of the care transit, but they're going to be responsible. See, right now we have to work with three different contractors, and it's -- you know, when you're working with three different contractors, there's not what I would like to see this complete fluidness in terms of which route, which system the patients ride, individuals ride. So what -- by putting it under a single gatekeeper, it's, in effect, one system. The community -- it'll be an invisible system behind that one door. They'll walk through that one door and then be placed on a system based upon their capability to get to a bus stop. If they can get to a bus stop and they're physically capable, they'll be assigned to CAT. If they're outside of the CAT route, then they'll be scheduled for the door-to-door service. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Any other questions? Okay. Let's proceed. Thank you. MR. FEDER: I will open it to any of the other directors if they want to cover some more. As I said, our program is structured to go within the guidance. I think it's fairly straightforward. I think a few items -- of course we'd like to open to any questions, but if any of the other directors have something more to cover than what I've covered already before we open it for questions. MS. FLAGG: I just was going to go over landscape with you real quick. There is on page E-15 in your packet, or, excuse me, E-16,there is an unfunded request, and the reason it was submitted as Page 97 June 15, 2005 unfunded is we were just getting in the bids for the landscape maintenance. We now have had the bids, and the section -- we broke out irrigation because we were trying to analyze where the costs are coming in for landscape maintenance to see if we can continue to reduce those costs because our commitment to you when we brought you the landscape master plan back in 2003 is that we were going to contract out all the maintenance, but we would reevaluate to see if it was less expensive to do something in-house. We've had a full year plus of reevaluating the irrigation bids. Ifwe contract out irrigation, the inspection came in 245 percent higher than doing it in-house, and the repairs for irrigation came in two to three times higher. So, in effect, in one year we would save $300,000 if we hired an in-house irrigation crew, and the first year cost for the irrigation crew is 25,000 for a vehicle and 89,600 for the crew itself. So the recurring cost is 89,600, and I just wanted to bring that to your attention. MR. FEDER: Again, that's under our -- we'll hold any questions that you have on that when we go to the unfunded list. Are there any questions for us on the operating budget? CHAIRMAN COYLE: With respect to your plans to convert the irrigation of the medians to free-use water, give me an idea as to the magnitude of that conversion, and I'm talking about in terms of gallons of water used each day. That should have a positive impact upon costs for Collier County government, and I'm trying to get some understanding as to whether or not it will be significant. MS. FLAGG: These costs that you see in here, the 500,000 for the conversion, is just for the infrastructure to do the conversion, but once that's done the cost savings is -- I believe it's less than a third from potable to reuse so the continuing long-term costs are significantly decreased because you're not paying for that potable rate. Page 98 June 15,2005 And in terms of landscape segments, it's thousands of gallons that these landscape medians utilize for water. So what this recommendation is, is to spend that one-time cost and then in all subsequent years you're saving a substantial amount of money in your water cost. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You're actually paying for water? MR. FEDER: Yes, sir. We have to pay in either case. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah. MR. FEDER: And we're paying for the infrastructure to bring the reuse to the medians. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Good. Thank you very much. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, you must remember Mr. DeLony is an enterprise fund. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yes, I understand. MR. MUDD: And it doesn't make a difference who you are, he charges you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah. Good. That's the way it should be. He should charge Norm a lot of money for those irrigated medians. MR. FEDER: I assure you, he does. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good. Any other questions, Commissioners? COMMISSIONER HALAS: I was looking at the list for storm water. It looks to me like the storm water department's got quite an aggressive schedule here. Maybe you can enlighten us a little bit on this. CHAIRMAN COYLE: With particular emphasis on the Halderman Creek dredging proj ect. MR. VALERA: We're working on that project now. Currently going to iron out some details to obtain the DP permit and -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Address Commissioner Halas. MR. VALERA: Commissioner Halas, what page were you Page 99 June 15, 2005 looking at? COMMISSIONER HALAS: Capital 15. There was a description of each of the projects that were recommended. MR. VALERA: Yes. We have a menu here of several proj ects throughout the County. Most of them were in the books for a little while and were either waiting for permits or additional funds, and we have been pushing forward to get them built. Right now these are all capital, and I can jump in and mention in 20 seconds what the capital -- the progress is. For the '05 we've started with approximately $7 million, which was our goal. This far we've encumbered $5.27 million in POs, and yesterday you-all approved $1.2 million that brings us to 6.5 which is 93 percent of our goal. So we still have three months, three and a half months to go with seven percent to achieve the hundred percent. MR. FEDER: Commissioner, I think it sounds strange to say our goal is to spend money. The Board gave us .15 mills under the utility for storm water. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Right. MR. FEDER: And one of the major concerns was that there was a lot of studying and restudying done but not projects, and Ricardo has done an outstanding job, along with his staff, to bring proj ects forward. We've seen the results of that throughout the County. There's more coming. So while it sounds like the goal is to spend money. Our goal is good projects. And that list that you have there is a very aggressIve program. It's also taking large projects like, let's say the Gordon River project, and breaking them down to a lot of individual projects. We get in, get them done and get moving rather than continuing to study it and making it bigger, and study it some more and make it bigger agaIn. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Well, these are the issues that Page 100 June 15, 2005 have been around for over 30 years, and they haven't been addressed so now they're finally getting down to -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'll second that. Boy, it's wonderful to have you on Board. COMMISSIONER HALAS: And the other thing is the GPS network. Are you affiliated with IT on this? MR. VALERA: Yes, we're partnering with IT to make it not only wireless but internet accessible. COMMISSIONER HALAS: So you're turning in the service from IT, then, I take it, right? MR. VALERA: Yes. COMMISSIONER HALAS: This is money that you're going to be giving back to IT? MR. VALERA: Yes. COMMISSIONER HALAS: That was a big discussion. MR. VALERA: In part, yes. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You're showing a budget amount for FY 06 of $250,000 for the Halderman Creek dredging, and, of course, you can't do that for $250,000. Where is the rest of the money for the proj ect? MR. VALERA: Yes. We -- right now this project has --let's see real quick -- Halderman Creek has $857,000 that we haven't been able to encumber due to permitting, and we are adding extra money which will bring it to about 1.5 million; however, we will still need more money to do the dredging. The cost estimate that came in from the consultant is about two and a half million to $3 million. CHAIRMAN COYLE: It's about three times what it was from the start of this project. MR. VALERA: Yes. CHAIRMAN COYLE: It keeps getting more and more expensive as we keep delaying it -- Page 101 June 15, 2005 MR. VALERA: Delaying it. CHAIRMAN COYLE: -- longer and longer and longer. MR. VALERA: Right. CHAIRMAN COYLE: What is the holdup now? MR. VALERA: Okay. We -- at the time that we took command of this, the project lacked a lot of permits. Now we have the local government permit, the Collier County permit, and we also are in the process of obtaining the DEP. What we need to do is to submit an updated agreement with the developer that has the land for the disposal of the material, and upon receiving that we should be getting the DEP permit and the quote subsequently so I believe it would be reasonably safe to say that once those things come in to place, we should have a permit within the next three months. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. And now will you begin construction in the next three months? MR. VALERA: Right. Right away, as soon as we get the permits, we will start developing. We will, of course, have to request -- go in and request quotes, bids, I'm sorry, and award the contract through the normal process. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You're telling me that the rainy season doesn't have any bearing on when you start this? MR. VALERA: Actually, the rainy season -- it depends on the type of equipment that the companies have. Some of them require more water to bigger barges, others can work with shallower levels. BMPs have to be set in place, best management practices, to avoid a wash of erosion so it can be done either way. CHAIRMAN COYLE: My concern was that in the past when we talked about this and we were going to use Mr. Antaramian's property to permit the dredge material to dry out, I was told that you couldn't do that during the rainy season because it wouldn't dry out, it would wash, it would erode back into the streams and the canals. So it Page 102 June 15, 2005 appears to me, if that was correct, we're not going to really start this project until maybe October or later. MR. VALERA: No, it can be done. It is a little bit more challenging during rainy season, you have to contend with another element, and it is difficult or it is more challenging to get the material dry, but it's a sand material and our experiences have shown that the material dries out pretty well and it doesn't contain a lot of fine -- MR. MUDD: Organic. MR. VALERA: -- organics, nor -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Heavy metals? MR. VALERA: Yeah, 200 mills or smaller particles so there's not a lot of turbidity generated from that, clays or that type of materials. CHAIRMAN COYLE: We've taken samplings so we should know what -- MR. VALERA: Yes. Correct. CHAIRMAN COYLE: -- the quality of the materials should be. MR. VALERA: Correct. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Now, we've had two agreements with Mr. Antaramian, and they both apparently expired because we have delayed in getting this project going. What leads you to believe that Mr. Antaramian really wants to negotiate. MR. VALERA: Right now I can't really tell you if he is willing to negotiate or not, but what I've heard lately was that he wants 51 units of density -- I'm not sure if it's 51 per acre or 51 on his tract -- in order to say, "Yes, I will provide a storage area." So I really don't know what the details are. I can get back with you on that, though. I know that our project manager's diligently working on that, but Community Development Services is working on that. Page 103 June 15, 2005 CHAIRMAN COYLE: I think we would be doing ourselves and Mr. Antaramian a big favor if we just found an alternative. MR. VALERA: Site. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah, because I think not only have we delayed in our efforts to get this proj ect going for the people who depend upon it, I think we've delayed Mr. Antaramian in what he wants to do. MR. VALERA: Okay. CHAIRMAN COYLE: He agreed to contribute, I think, over a quarter of a million dollars funding for this project at one point in time if we'd get it done. N ow we're almost a year and a half beyond that point, and we made a commitment to him that we'd do this and we didn't do it, and it is very disturbing that we keep running into these problems, and I'd just like to understand what we can do right now ourselves to proceed with this proj ect and get it done as quickly and as inexpensively as possible. MR. VALERA: I understand. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And if that means that we try to haul it off somewhere else, then that's what it means. MR. VALERA: Okay. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MR. VALERA: Will do. Note taken. Commissioner Coy Ie, one of the biggest challenges we have is the regulatory and environmental rules. So as time progresses, the challenges increase as well, but we have a strong belief that we should be able to obtain the permits very soon. That's the feedback we're getting from the Department of Environmental Protection. CHAIRMAN COYLE: But you won't get those -- it won't do you any good unless you've got a place -- MR. VALERA: That is correct. CHAIRMAN COYLE: -- to put the spoil. Page 104 June 15, 2005 MR. VALERA: That is correct. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's the problem. And if the City of Naples is contemplating beginning a dredging project, and it's my understanding they're going to put the spoil on the Naples landfill, I don't know if that's possible, but that seems to be what they're going to do, maybe we can have a similar arrangement. MR. VALERA: Yes. We have negotiated or discussed already with the Waste Management and Mr. DeLony's team and we've done some sampling, and they are willing to accept certain portions that pass the test which is a good portion of it for daily cover. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Halas. COMMISSIONER HALAS: I've got a couple of questions. I'm looking over the list there. I don't see anything scheduled for Palm River, Naples Park or Willoughby Acres, in those three areas that are older communities in District 2, and that's some issues that have been there for a long period of time so I would hope that we can get something of that nature on the radar screen so we can start addressing that. The other thing that we need to look at too is the Cocohatchee River. After it ceases to be the responsibility of the South Florida Water Management, then it becomes the responsibility of the County, and I believe that we need to also look at that because it's silting and in some areas pretty rapidly. MR. VALERA: Yes. COMMISSIONER HALAS: So have you looked at any of that? MR. VALERA: Yes. Yes. We have three general capital projects throughout the County which are now called the Storm Water Slope Maintenance Program, the Conveyance Improvements Program and the Storm Sewer Improvement Program, which is County-wide, allows us to start funding small items around the County. Specifically in the Palm River we just invested about three Page 105 June 15, 2005 quarters of a million dollars. Almost complete in the Palm River area. We've replaced a few storm sewers along several of those roads, and also in the Willoughby Acres we have a consultant finalizing the design now and we also have a couple of finalized plans which will go out for bid here shortly, within the next 14 days, for improvements in the Ibis Way and south of Imperial Golf Estates. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. Thank you very much. MR. VALERA: Thank you, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Any other questions? MR. FEDER: Mr. Chairman, any questions on the transportation capital, obviously as well as operating, maintenance or anything else? CHAIRMAN COYLE: No. MR. FEDER: We appreciate your time. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you. MR. MUDD: Mr. Feder and his department, his division, will be followed by Community Development and Environmental Services. (Whereupon the Department of Community Development and Environmental Services took the table.) COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT/ ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES MR. MUDD: Mr. Schmitt, you have the floor. MR. SCHMITT: Yes. We still have lots of directors, and I still have one missing who stepped out. I need another chair. Good afternoon, Commissioners. For the record, I'm Joe Schmitt, your Community Development and Environmental Services Division administrator. With me today from my left to right, actually my left to right, Denny Baker who's my Director of Financial Administration and Housing, Randy Cohen, he's sitting in as Comprehensive Planning -- . Page 106 June 15, 2005 Comprehensive Planning Department, Ms. Susan Murray, and Susan now is in the back coming up. Susan is the -- your director for the Department of Zoning and Land Development Review. Phil Lorenz, Director of Environmental Services Department; Bill Hammond, Director of Building Review and Permitting Department Michelle Arnold, Code Enforcement Department; D.E. Wallace, Director ofCDES Operations Department; and Tom Kuck, Director of Engineering Services. I'd first also like to recognize Gary Mullee, he's my manager for the CDES Financial Administration Budget Office, and Mark Isackson. I want to recognize Mark and Gary for their great work in helping my team put this budget together. Before you today is a $53.3 million budget that will provide the needed funding for the County to continue to do many things. I have a large division, as you well know, effective performance, effective and professional enforcement of the Collier County comprehensive growth management plan and land development code along with enforcing community character and the quality development standards that we have in Collier County, compliance of the construction standards as defined in the Florida Building Code, preservation, criteria to protect wildlife and habitat as described in existing federal, state and local laws, promoting opportunities for affordable housing as well as improving the quality of life for those less fortunate in our community through the efficient and effective implementation of the Community Development Block Rent Program and the State Housing Initiative Partnership Program, funding for economic development, enforcement for the collection and management of all impact fees and a continuation of the Conservation Collier program and lastly, certainly but not least, but this is just an overview, regulatory oversight of cable franchises and the independent water sewer districts in Collier County. I wish to point out and you're certainly aware the Page 107 June 15, 2005 preponderance of the funding of this budget comes from fee revenue and other external sources of either tax or grant revenue to fund many of the enterprise programs in my organization. The principal demand for ad valorem funds primarily come from code enforcement. We worked hard to reduce the overall demand by --in the division on the general fund down to only 5.2 percent or $3.71 million. I direct your attention to the division summary on page F-2 of your book, but also I handed out a read-ahead. Hopefully you-all got that, and that was a simple small booklet. It should have got to you. What I attempted to do is basically summarize many of the things in our budget. I'd point out that there's been a 40.4 percent increase in fee revenue primarily due to the increased demand for servIces. I'd like to point out that I'm taking cost savings measures. There is an internal reorganization. I'm reducing my number of departments from 8 to 7 by combining the activities of my Operations Department into my Financial Administration and Housing resulting in approximately $60,000 savings in personnel costs. We're going to continue to fund from our fee revenues, our Hanson business software migration program, and that's identified in your capital program which we certainly can discuss. We're projected to go live with that in November, but certainly the most striking request is my request for additional FTE. On page 5 of that handout I layout the overall request, that's 13 expanded and identified in this budget and 9 additional FTE that we certainly have the revenue to fund and support but is above budget guidance. I note the three additional -- there are three additional FTE as unfunded based on previous Board direction or requests from some of your Board, appointed advisory Boards and committees. That's one FTE in Code Enforcement to enforce the Vehicle for Hire Program Page 108 June 15, 2005 and two FTE in my Environmental Services Department, one to assume the overall management and control of all beach and coastal zone management activities, that person was identified as the Coastal Zone Manager, and one environmental specialist that's identified to manage the Habitat Conservation Program, that is if you chose to go with that program later this year. I can review certainly the FTEs from the last three years, but the last two years have been fairly austere. I think certainly, as I said, the most striking is going to be the request for FTE. And in your booklet, I direct your attention to page 6. I attempted in page 6 just to summarize what's happening in the industry, and this is just one example where at -- that's 6 of your -- that handout, page 6 of the handout. This is just one example I need to highlight for the additional FTE, and at the top of the page your building director, Mr. Hammond, notes that the acceptable standard of performance to assure sustained quality enforcement of the Florida Building Code is the average of 24 inspections per inspector per day, that's on-site inspections. Twenty four inspectors or inspections per day per inspector. We're projected to go beyond that. In fact, in your book it notes that we're at 32, and I certainly over last year or so have been providing in my weekly reports, and I'd like to note that we've been averaging 26 and up to almost 34 inspections per day per inspector, and we anticipate we're going to go higher than that. N either I nor the building director can assure you that we can adequately continue to enforce the Building Code at the rate that we are trying to provide service today to our customers. And, in fact, I may have to limit inspections to 30 inspections per day per inspector. Anything beyond that I really feel that I'm putting at risk this County's ability to enforce the Florida Building Code, and I'll be glad to talk about that in detail on how our inspectors work. I think the other thing that's most striking in that page is when you look down the middle of Page 109 June 15, 2005 the page you look at the comparison of similar staffs between Collier, Lee and Palm Beach Counties. And we often hear of the great service that one gets from either Palm Beach County or Lee County, and you can see the striking difference in the number of permitting techs. And this is an aggregate, it's simply an aggregate of the various staffs. That certainly would indicate that there are permitting techs waiting for customers to walk in the front door; that's certainly not the case in community development. And with that, that is briefly my introduction and highlights. I would just now like to defer briefly to each of my directors to make one or two salient remarks in regards to their budget, their expanded positions, and then we're open to any questions you may have on the budget. Unfortunately -- so if I could simply turn to each director, then, and I'll start with Denny Baker, Financial Administration and Housing. Any opening comments? MR. BAKER: Yes. In the read-ahead, if you would turn over to page 8. The Financial Administration and Housing Department is listed at the top. My increase on a budget-to-budget basis for my department is $347,000, an increase of 10 percent. If I remove the two one-time items, the update to the consolidated impact fee ordinance of$135,000 and one transfer into my area, which is Mr. Wallace's position, of $69,000, excuse me $64,000, that gives me a four and a half percent increase in my department of $148,000. In the bottom right-hand corner of that box, you'll see that the budget guidance was 5.4 percent and my increase in personnel costs is 5.2, operating was 3.9, my increase is 3 percent so I am within budget guidelines. I have no expanded FTEs and only one UFR in the ADC area, which we can discuss later. MR. SCHMITT: Randy, Comprehensive Planning. Page 110 June 15, 2005 MR. COHEN: Just some brief comments. Randy Cohen, Comprehensive Planning. If you turn to page F -26 of your book, you'll note that there's no additional FTEs proposed in Comprehensive Planning in fiscal year 2003,2004. We had 15. We dropped that down to 14 last year and it's going to remain at 14 as well too. We are well below budget guidance. We are at 1.6 percent. The one thing we do anticipate during this year is the changeover of a principal planner position to an economist to be consistent with the Florida statutes and actually promulgating fiscal impact review at a higher level, and with that I'll entertain any questions. MR. SCHMITT: Susan. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Who is first? COMMISSIONER FIALA: I think Henning is first. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: No, I wasn't first. CHAIRMAN COYLE: All right. Commissioner Halas. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes. MR. SCHMITT: Do we want to present each department separately or do we want to go through all of them, highlight first? CHAIRMAN COYLE: They've got their lights on right now so I'm going to let them talk. COMMISSIONER HALAS: I'm a little concerned at the amount of inspections that we do with the personnel that we have presently and I'm concerned that maybe we're not giving adequate time, excuse me, for the inspectors that go out to the sites. I can't believe that when you rough out a house that an inspector's got enough time to walk through the whole structure, make sure that all the reinforcements are put in place for hurricane standards, and then when it comes to plumbing and electrical to go through a 6,000 square foot house and check each one of the areas where there's outlets or major distribution boxes that come in and also when they do the insulation. Page 111 June 15, 2005 After a contractor comes in and fills the house with insulation, you've got to have someone come through to check the attic and check the walls, outer walls and everything else, and I'm surprised that we can get through that -- this many inspections in a day and they're done in a top-notch order. I think that we owe that to the citizens so I'm hoping that we can address the issues there. MR. SCHMITT: I'll turn to my building director where we can address -- as we noted; I have both expanded positions that are within the budget guidance and those that are above budget guidance. And when I say that, they're not unfunded requirements because I have the revenue now to support these positions. I just need your authorization to hire the people. The workload is there, the demand is there, and I know members of the industry are here to talk about this specifically because, given the rate of inspections I have and the few inspectors that I have, I'm going to -- it looks like I will have to go to a two-day call in. Right now you can call in today for an inspection tomorrow. That's the way it operates in Collier County, it's been operating, and I'll turn to Bill if you want to make any comments on that. MR. HAMMOND: For the record, Bill Hammond. I'm your director of Building Review and Permitting and also I serve as your building official for Collier County. And you hit on the very salient points, Commissioner, that we're at the point where we're having deep concerns and reservations about and a trained inspector's ability to technically provide those provision inspections. That is the salient point, yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HALAS: I know in my particular area that I represent we've got a multitude of site plan problems and also setback problems so I think this is very important that these are addressed early on so they can be taken care of so it doesn't become ai Page 112 June 15, 2005 real problem. MR. HAMMOND: As well, yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I'll wait until the end. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. I just wanted to ask you: From all of these figures, when I read them yesterday and again looking at them today, I think you're operating at a dangerously low level of employees. I mean, you don't have enough to operate and function properly, and I'm just hoping to see that you add more and rather quickly. I don't know how that you can perform the job and get an excellent rating if you don't have enough people to support the effort. MR. SCHMITT: I would appreciate -- I appreciate that comment. I'm looking for that support today so that we can staff and meet the demand that's being placed upon us. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Halas, go ahead. COMMISSIONER HALAS: In most of the positions that would be funded, we already have the revenue in place; is that correct? MR. SCHMITT: Commissioner, yes. Two years ago I separated the fees, created two separate fees. I don't want to get into the history of that, but I created zoning and land review fees and then the building permit fees. We're there. A year and a half ago I was in crisis in regards to meeting payroll, to meet the plan review payroll demand that I had. We raised fees there, but I also lowered fees in the Building Permit Department, lowered fees but raised the construction valuation table so that's kind of -- I lowered the fees, but I raised the valuation tables and fees are paid based on the construction value, but right now the volume that's coming in the front door, the workload that's coming in the front door Page 113 June 15, 2005 I have more than enough revenue to meet -- COMMISSIONER HALAS: Good. MR. SCHMITT: -- to support the requests that we're asking for. In fact, if I do them staffed at this position, and that's your call, I will reduce fees because my carry-over is becoming quite high and I'll have to reduce fees. And what the industry has expressed, and you have a letter from the Development Services Advisory Committee basically expressing the same thing, that was in the cover of both your budget and, of course, it's from the -- it's in the book I gave you, they're expressing the fact that just hire the staff. You don't -- you've got the fees and hire the staff and so you can provide the services, and that's what the industry is expressing as well. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Coletta. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I couldn't agree more with Commissioner Fiala and Commissioner Halas, you know, that you need the people to make this work. This is one department where we charge a user's fee up front -- MR. SCHMITT: Yes. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: -- and services are expected, and they're expected to be produced in a reasonable period of time. And if we try to cut back, the only thing we're going to do is hurt ourselves, and it's not a question of we're going to have to dip into the general funding to cover it. All we have to do is realign the actual cost with the cost of doing business. When you get ready to grow your department, hopefully during the business cycle, this budget cycle, you come up with a plan that shows how you can get the best use out of the people that you need and how many more people you need to be able to accomplish the job in a reasonable fashion. You've got probably one of the hardest jobs in the whole Page 114 June 15, 2005 County. It's never been an easy one dealing with the building industry and permitting and the code enforcement and that. I don't envy you at all, and any way I can help as a Commissioner, and I'm sure my fellow Commissioners will agree, to make that job easier, I stand ready to do it. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I couldn't disagree more. I've got the hardest job in the County. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You sit next to me. MR. SCHMITT: I would agree with you, but I'd like to switch with you some day, just for a day. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I've got to tell you something right now; I'm going to tell the whole world. The only reason he does as good as he does is because I'm here whispering in his ear what to do next. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's true. Can I speak now? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No. It's Commissioner Halas's turn. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I really don't have a problem with the staff increases. You know, I think you're wise to ask for them in order to achieve the level of service that is expected by your customers, but I need to have some assurance that we're going to see an improvement in performance and service to the customers, and I hope you'll be able to show us what performance levels and standards you can achieve and maintain if you get these people. Now, I would -- I was being facetious earlier, but Commissioner Coletta is right. You have more stuff going on in your division than anybody else in government. And if you look at the kind of stuff we're doing, it ranges from financial administration and housing, cable TV franchising, you've got the FEMA map issues to deal with, you've got code enforcement, CRA support, particularly for the Immokalee area, zoning and land development review, Page 115 June 15, 2005 environmental review, building review and permitting, utility regulation. Now, I can't for the life of me understand why we've got so much of this stuff consolidated in this one division, you know. There are things that I think you need to concentrate on, and I believe we ought to do something that's a little imaginative that might include creating another organizational element and spinning off some of these other things and permitting you to concentrate on those really important code enforcement, land development, zoning issues and permitting and take some of these other things and put them somewhere else and see if we can't narrow the span of management control here because I think it really is quite diverse and I don't know how anybody can spread themselves that widely to deal with these . . Issues In a proper manner. But you are largely fee driven in a number of cases so I don't really care too much about how many people you get because you're saying they're covered by fees, but it's unfair to charge people fees if you're not giving them the services, and I think we can all say generally that we don't have a really happy group of clients and what we'd like to do is make sure that if we grant these increases that people are getting what they pay for. And if you can give us some assurances that we'll achieve or establish and achieve some performance levels, it would make me really, really happy. MR. SCHMITT: Commissioner, I need to respond honestly to that so you understand. Yes, I agree with you, but to be frank with you what I'm asking for is just keeping my -- this is just keeping my head above water. This Board over the last three years has put a lot of additional work upon my staff that never was put on this division in previous Boards, LDC reviews, and LDC amendments. We've been through very, very dynamic reviews, analysis and enforcement of growth Page 116 June 15, 2005 management amendments, rural fringe, rural lands, you know all the whole history behind that, and then put on to that listed species, manatee protection review. So these are the kind of things that certainly come from the Board. Coupled with that the parcels that are being developed in Collier County today are the ones that were passed over four and five years ago because they were too hard, too costly and too hard, and now it's economically feasible for a developer to come in and look at those sights, but those are the sites that were environmentally sensitive, either 90, 95 percent of wetlands or some other type of reasons why they passed over them five years ago, but now they're coming and those are the sites they want to develop, and that comes with a lot of baggage coupled with the changes in the environmental reviews certainly is what's frustrated the industry, the LDC amendments and the changes and the dynamic pace. And the last thing is probably the thing I don't want to overlook is the other customers we serve, and that's the rest of the citizens of Collier County, in ensuring that the codes are enforced to protect because that's what zoning is, to protect the property values of the existing neighborhoods. ' And more and more of the involvement today, every project involves -- we have a constituents' pros and cons, you know, and there's a lot of public involvement and the public comes in and reviews plans so, yes, I hear what you're saying. My intent is to do that, but there are also a lot of other external demands that are placed upon many -- all the departments above and beyond simply the review process. It's the whole other aspect that I believe this Board is looking for us to do as well and to keep that balance. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Did we lose our mic system, Jim? MR. MUDD: Yeah, we lost the mic system, yeah. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Can you hear us back there? Page 11 7 June 15, 2005 MR. MUDD: Commissioner, that's what happens when you send Leo back there to work with the technical stuff. COMMISSIONER HALAS: You've got to get that electrician. MR. MUDD: That's it. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You're okay? THE REPORTER: Yes. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's exactly what I was alluding to when I was talking about the span of activities you have to be involved in, and I know that we've loaded a lot of stuff on you. And I'm just suggesting maybe we get a little imaginative and see if we can't, through organizational alignment, trade off some of the workload and see if we can't solve some of these things by permitting some of you to focus exclusively on certain things and not being burdened on a lot of others. And if -- I'm not going to try to reorganize you today, but I would at least ask that perhaps the County Manager, if you could take a look at it if the other Commissioners would agree, it might be helpful, but Commissioner Halas has a question. MR. SCHMITT: Commissioner, just one piece on that. Also, much of the work that we do, I do depend on other departments and divisions, certainly handling work with transportation. Transportation review is heavily involved in every land use petition and in every site plan, as well as utilities, parks and rec. So there are -- this is -- I'm just kind of the hub of the wheel so to speak because the rest of those all come in. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Tell me, why is cable TV franchising part of one of your responsibilities? MR. SCHMITT: That's a good question. That's only one person. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Why is FEMA land use maps one of your responsibilities? Page 118 June 15, 2005 MR. SCHMITT: I can't answer that. COMMISSIONER HALAS: He took on the responsibility. MR. SCHMITT: I took on the responsibility. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Why is financial administration and affordable housing one of your responsibilities? I think Denny does a great job, but why is it one of your responsibilities? Okay. Do you see what I'm getting at? MR. SCHMITT: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: So, you know, that's just something I'm throwing out. MR. MUDD: I have it. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. All right. You got it so we don't need to debate it anymore. Okay. Commissioner Halas, did you have a chance to finish your question -- COMMISSIONER HALAS: No, I didn't. CHAIRMAN COYLE: -- before I jumped in? COMMISSIONER HALAS: I just wanted to interject that I think some of the responsibility falls on the Board of County Commissioners. In the last couple of years we've cut the budget really close and there was positions that were asked for, but we took it upon ourselves not to give them the resources needed in this area mainly because of the fact that, as Joe related to earlier, that he wasn't able to really justify it because he didn't have the revenue. Now that he's basically revamped the department and looked at all the fees and everything else, now is the time for us to address this issue and basically make sure that he's got the tools in hand so that we can go proceed at a rapid pace here and hopefully take care of the customers out there in Collier County. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I have several questions. Last year you asked for code enforcement officers. Did you Page 119 June 15, 2005 ask for planners, inspectors or the like that we did not fund? MR. SCHMITT: Commissioner, in '03 I asked for and received 21 new FTE. In '04, based on budget guidance and through some internal reorganization, made up and shifted and added to those staffs but did not add anybody in '04. In '05 I was given five FTE, two in code enforcement to support the special master program and one in engineering and then two additional FTE for the property maintenance program. But to answer your question: As far as the rest of that, I stayed within budget guidance. This year -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: You didn't ask. You didn't receIve. MR. SCHMITT: That's correct. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. That's the answer to my question. MR. SCHMITT: I did it through some internal reorganization and using spaces, but I did not come in and ask above the budget. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So the Board hadn't cut your positions -- MR. SCHMITT: No. No. COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- or didn't allocate positions? You stated about the lands being developed now that are wetlands. They're less desirable because the price is there now. It was my understanding that we don't deal with isolated wetlands. I thought the Corps and the DEP handle that. MR. SCHMITT: My comment was directed on the fact that areas that were predominantly -- were wetlands or other areas developers are now going in to develop. Yes, we're still responsible for the review, environmental review, but certainly they have to have their 404 permit from the Corps of Engineers and their South Florida Water Management permit, but we're still responsible to do the oversight and review in Page 120 June 15, 2005 accordance with the standards we have in our land development code, but they still are required to get permits. They don't get the permits for that from me. There's additional requirements our land development code places upon them. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So if it's a triple review, state, federal and local, and it sounds like something the Board passed, I would like to know more about it. I think all being Republicans we don't believe in more government. I want to move on. You said there's citizen review in the process. What do you mean by that? MR. SCHMITT: Oftentimes a planner -- you've directed this, that we now have the neighborhood information meetings. We've been doing that for two years. We just added this last LDC cycle now, neighborhood information meetings for planned amendments as well. That was directed by the Board, recommended by your Planning Commission, and now it's been amended and adopted. But as Ms. Murray can highlight, every planner, either from initial process through the neighborhood information meetings, but planners will be contacted by citizens saying, "I want to come in and see what this development's going to look like," and we have to sit down and go over the plans with them. And Susan if you want to highlight that. MS. MURRAY: Please, because I've been here eight and a half years so I've kind of seen both sides of the story and I've seen the changes over time. I've been with you-all for about four years now and I was with the previous Board for about four years. When I first started here, there was very little public involvement, and, as Joe noted, you increased the span of public notice which, you know, as a planner that's a good thing. I mean, the population has increased here dramatically. As Joe pointed out, you're now starting to see more development of infill Page 121 June 15, 2005 parcels. Well, an infill parcel is generally one that's surrounded by development that exists already. And back when we were doing some major re-zonings in the '90s or, yeah, late '90s, mid to late '90s, there was very little public involvement. We didn't get the number of phone calls that we get. We didn't get the number of people we get walking in our door asking to see plans. We didn't have neighborhood information meetings. Now every time you have a rezoning, conditional use of variance, even people are affected, they're interested. They want to know what's going on. They want to meet with a planner. They want to read the plans. They want to be kept in the loop as to the schedule. There is -- we also expanded our notification requirements so a lot more people are made aware of some of these projects. Our planners spend an enormous amount of time helping and educating the public outside of the public hearing process so that they can be informed citizens when they come to the public hearing and speak in front of you, and that is completely different from when I first started here eight years ago where there was very select public involvement. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Let me expand upon some of the things that Commissioner Coyle said about efficiencies and dealing with things that has nothing to do with community development. If it is fair to charge a person asking for service for a meeting, is it fair to charge the public for that same service? Is it fair to direct people to the neighborhood information meetings or the minutes instead of taking the time of planners, which planners are there to review plans. I'm just talking about efficiencies. MS. MURRAY: I think that's an organizational issue. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I agree. MS. MURRAY: One thing to think of and one of the reasons Page 122 June 15, 2005 why we implemented the fee for the meetings, and it has its good points and its bad, but we were trying to increase efficiency because what we found was happening was a lot of the applicants were coming in and spending an awful lot of staff time reviewing projects sitting around a table either before or during the submittal. They spent an awful lot of staff time debating code interpretations, and right or wrong they certainly have the right to do that. I'm not disputing that, but it was kind of a win/lose situation. They had nothing to lose by coming in and talking to us and trying to achieve, if they disagreed with our interpretation of the code, providing they achieve the objective that they were getting paid by the -- their customer to do. They were charged, their customer, for that meeting, no doubt. We spent an enormous amount of time sitting around in meetings under those circumstances instead of reviewing plans, and that was the balance we sought to strike was we felt that if it was important enough to the customer that they needed to come in and talk with us, that's fine, I mean that's what we're there for, but we needed to ensure that we were also serving the customer that was already in the door, that already had their plans, that had already paid their fees and they were proceeding through the process as it was designed. And like I said, there's good and bad about that. I think from a time standpoint, it's been relatively effective. Unfortunately, sometimes it tends to squash communication, face-to-face communication, which I think is probably one of the more effective forms of communication when you're dealing with complicated land use issues. COMMISSIONER HENNING: County Manager, I didn't get my answer, my question answered. I don't need an answer now, but I don't want to be blown over, but I do want to move on. MR. SCHMITT: That's a policy decision, Commissioner Henning. I was going to say, Susan gave the answer, but the answer Page 123 June 15, 2005 to charge the public would have to come from this Board. MS . MURRAY: I'm sorry. I didn't understand the question. COMMISSIONER HENNING: We didn't even address the public coming in and taking planners. We addressed professionals coming in and taking our planners' time. MR. SCHMITT: Right. That's correct. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I didn't ask that. I just asked if it was fair for one side being charged for taking up time and the other side not, that's -- that was my question. MS. MURRAY: I'm sorry. I apologize for that, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I want to move on. MR. SCHMITT: That's something I can't answer. That's a policy decision. MS. MURRAY: Yeah, that's really a Board decision. MR. SCHMITT: If this Board wants to direct us to charge the public, we'll implement a fee to do so. MS. MURRAY: Typically you don't do that, but if that's your policy guidance then we can certainly look at that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: The next thing is -- MR. MUDD: Commissioner, if I could just interrupt a minute. Excuse me, please. When you say it's a policy issue, it is a policy issue. I mean, if the Commissioner says he gets a phone call or she gets a phone call and they have a constituent that has a question about a particular zoning, they'll call staff and say please get with that petitioner in order to answer their questions on whatever. Okay. Now, that planner is fee based on salary, and if you want to have a salary or you want to tell that petitioner to go to the neighborhood information meeting to get your questions answered, if that's what the Board's desire is, it's kind of informal in order to do that, but we can implement that particular policy. Page 124 June 15, 2005 I mean, I'm not too sure that's where you wanted to go when you started the neighborhood information meeting when you wanted to get people involved in zoning and to know what's going on in their neighborhood. It becomes more and more of a challenge because, you know, we laugh about it a little bit between the staff. We start talking about the tyranny of the last lot and that's infill. I've got mine. It might be 160 floors, but I'm not too sure I want that last one to be 160 floors. I have mine. I'm not too sure I want it to be just like mine. I want it to be a little bit different. I want it to look a lot better in my neighborhood, and that's what it boils down to. And the reason it's the last lot is because that lot was hard to develop in the first place because it had some kind of problem with it, may it be an environmental, may it be a funny looking side of a zone, you know, it didn't look like a square, it looked more like a triangle, and you get those particular issues so you're getting more and more input and dialogue with that community. And, Commissioner, you're right, it's not fair if you're going to charge one side a fee to pay a salary for a particular item where they think it's going to be a dedicated service and yet that person is being diverted maybe to another particular issue by someone that isn't paying the fee. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I have some other questions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Go ahead. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thanks. The work that comes in the review side, it goes to a typist, somebody who sends it out, and when it comes from the planner and goes back to the client it goes to the typist, we type it and send it off; is that correct? MS. MURRAY: It depends on what type ofproject you're talking about, Commissioner. I'll use site development plans as an example because that's an administrative process. It comes in and it's Page 125 June 15, 2005 reviewed for sufficiency and it is also entered into the computer system. Once it's deemed sufficient, it's then routed to I think there's approximately 13 reviewers, all of which are not in CDES to review the site plan and then it goes through the typical -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: What about building permits? Do they -- MR. HAMMOND: On a building permit normally, you know, Commissioner, an application will come in with an approved site development plan and then it'll come across the counter and it'll come in with enough sets of plans to get simultaneous review from six departments and then it'll go into a sequential review at that point. Once that review is completed, then a letter is developed and forwarded to -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Do you have sufficient staffing in that? MR. HAMMOND: Part of what we're asking for is some more permit technicians and reviewers to handle that business volume to take care of those. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Shop it around? MR. HAMMOND: Some of it's -- most of it is the reviewers doing the actual technical review and then just a couple of the people to handle the volume itself. COMMISSIONER HENNING: The Hanson System I think we've got -- I think the last go-around was like $2 million for the Hanson system and now we have -- sorry. I lost it. What I see here, it would lead you to think that the Hanson system won't work with Windows XP. MR. SCHMITT: We're upgrading throughout the County to Windows XP. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I'm sorry. MR. SCHMITT: We're upgrading throughout the County to Page 126 June 15, 2005 Windows XP and, yes, there is a functional problem with Hanson and Windows XP which we've been absolutely assured that that will be corrected because it has to run with Windows XP, and I'll ask Denny if he wants to cover that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: There's only a request. Is that a consultant issue? MR. SCHMITT: Oh, absolutely. They're fully responsible for that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And I, like everybody else, don't have a problem with providing enough resources to do your job. I just think -- with all County government I think it should be efficient, also efficiencies. And you have one unfunded request and that's the code enforcement for vehicles for hire. MR. SCHMITT: Actually, there are two unfunded requests, one FTE, the vehicle for hire position. COMMISSIONER HENNING: That one I just would like to say: I don't know about the other Commissioners, but I've been contacted by the industry and we have some scabs coming into the community and doing business and here we're regulating the taxis but we can't regulate the scabs, and I think it's worthy of providing services to an industry that we're charging for those services to make sure that we have enough so they can do their job. It's here somewhere, Commissioner. MR. SCHMITT: Yes, it's-- COMMISSIONER HENNING: So I would be supportive of that position. MS. ARNOLD: It's identified on page 5 of the handout, the handout you received. It's for one investigator for enhanced enforcement of that vehicle for hire industry. And the Commissioner is absolutely right. We have support not only from the public vehicle advisory committee, but the Page 127 June 15, 2005 industry themselves because we are getting companies coming in from other counties that are not being regulated and they're cutting their prices, and it's affecting our local industries so they are definitely in support of this added position. MR. SCHMITT: Page F-56 of your budget book as well is an unfunded requirement. COMMISSIONER FIALA: So they're not even screened or anything, are they? MS. ARNOLD: No, they're not. They're coming in -- for an example, you know, our -- the proms and those types of things we get a lot of calls from the local industry saying that they've lost jobs because people are coming in from Miami and cutting their prices substantially and taking away their business so we would like to have a concentrated effort on that so that we can, you know, ensure that those folks that are doing business in here are reviewed from a safety perspective and doing adequate background checks so that our citizens are protected and also to protect the industry itself. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I just want to talk about when we get to the capital or the MST in the general fund. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Halas. COMMISSIONER HALAS: I'll wait until later. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. What I would like to see come out of this is a -- when we get down to approving or disapproving additional staff, I would like to understand the impact upon internal operations and service improvements so that if I can see a commitment to see the current review times and goals and then with the additional staff see what you're going to be able to improve as a result. And, Joe, you said that you weren't asking for enough people to really improve much. You were asking for people -- just enough people to just keep your head above water. Page 128 June 15, 2005 I guess I would like to see what it would take in terms of staff to achieve standards of performance that are generally acceptable. Okay. Can we do that? Okay. Commissioner Halas. COMMISSIONER HALAS: I looked at the three counties that are in the handout that were given to us. When I look at the amount of applicants that we processed, 39,515, and I look at the number of plan reviewers of seven versus Palm Beach which had 36,000 applicants and it has 24 plan reviewers. To me I think that for the amount of workload that's being placed upon the staff at this point in time I really can't see where we can really fault him for what's taking place. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm all wet, but when I look at these numbers, obviously numbers can lie too, but I have a hard time with this. Our neighboring County, Lee County, had 36,000 permit applications and we look at the number of plan reviewers and that was 19. We're down to seven and, you know, that tells a story. I think that we're -- either we're very, very efficient or we have a tremendously overworked staff. And I know there's some of my Commissioners that feel that they're not handling this in a manner that's quick enough for the industry. Hopefully if we put more people on, then we might be down to a number of plan reviewers of maybe four and the efficiency will go up, but I've got to say that I know we've been kind of harsh on them, but when you look at the overall statistics I think we've done pretty well. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You know, I want to make sure we understand that -- my comments. I don't think the other comments of the Commissioners are necessarily directed at trying to help specifically one segment of the population or the County over another. There are a number of circumstances when people like those Page 129 '--"..-'--.'-- June 15, 2005 sitting in this room go in to pull a permit to do something, to put up a storage shed in the backyard, that turns into an absolute nightmare. It takes a long, long time, and I'll be happy to share with you the blow-by-blow details of one that I'm familiar with. Not me personally, but one that I'm familiar with, and it's not good and it's the process that I'm trying to deal with. And I'm not trying to criticize individuals. I'm looking for ways to make our government more efficient. If that happens to help a developer, so what, you know, they're people and voters too, but I'm looking at this from a process standpoint. When a person comes in and submits a plan and it is a reasonably complete plan and they're told exactly what they are supposed to do and they do exactly what they are told to do and they come back and they're told it's wrong and they've got to go back again two or three times, it is an intolerable situation. So, you know, I won't dwell on that, but I will shortly provide you, if you wish, a blow-by-blow description of an actual occurrence of somebody in our office who went through a nightmare with our building department and permitting, and that happens a lot. And I'm not going to spend a day complaining because I know the people work hard. The staff works hard. I think all of you do a really good job. The problem is that maybe you don't have the tools to do the job that you're being asked to do, like the numbers of people. And if you want to ask for more people, I would encourage you to do so, but please tell us how you're going to improve the process with them. You know, it's -- don't try to just sneak by. I mean, that's not the right term. Don't try to just barely make it. If you're just trying to keep your head above water, tell us what you really need to make it better because everybody does deserve accurate and consistent answers and good service no matter who they are, and so that's all we're trying to achieve I think. We're not trying to grind you into the ground about this or anything. Page 130 "-,"-_."."."...__._-----~"'-_._,...,- - June 15, 2005 Commissioner Fiala or Henning, who was first? Ladies first. Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. Have you had much of a turnover there? MR. SCHMITT: Yes. One of the problems I am having is retaining staff, mainly because once the staff gets trained they're much more valuable to the industry and I can't compete salary wise. I would defer to Ms. Murray, and she can certainly tell you she's lost three planners here. It takes probably a year, probably two years to get a planner -- MS. MURRAY: Principal Planner. MR. SCHMITT: -- Principal Planner up to speed, and certainly they're valuable to the industry. I'm talking about on the street, any of the firms. It's absolutely incredible from the standpoint of them knowing the system and then they're being recruited away. We've lost two recently in Environmental Review. They go from Code Enforcement to Environmental Review until we wear them off at the knees and then they go out the front door. It's a tough job. And Bill's had turnover. You've lost two reviewers in probably the last eight months, if I recall, and same way with Comprehensive Planning. Go ahead. MR. HAMMOND: We've actually -- excuse me. In the last five months we've actually, out of 14 employees, we've lost two planning techs, two principal planners and on a certain day we're going to be losing another senior planner so out of 14 we've lost five in the last four months. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Where are they going, do you know? MR. HAMMOND: Some to the private sector, some to other professions, but a lot of times it involves monetary reasons, sometimes it's commuting reasons. One was an employee that was commuting to Cape Coral so a variety of reasons. Page 131 June 15, 2005 CHAIRMAN COYLE: Sure. I understand. Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I know there's a problem when the public is asked to do what only Christ can do by putting in a landscape buffer across the middle of a lake. I know it's a problem when the government agency provides plant materials for a landscape buffer and a plan reviewer says, "No. We don't want that particular one plant there, you have to have another one. We want this type of tree." I just think that's -- isn't what we directed. When you give choices and those choices are taken away to a certain plant material, I think we've got a problem. So, you know, I know part of the problem is staffing, but I think part of the problem is with the review. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Coletta. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I never realized the situation got that complicated with personnel. This is the first time I was aware of the fact that not only -- we're asking for more positions for you and you're having a hard time keeping the ones filled because of economic reasons. We had the same problem back about four years ago with the Sheriffs Department. Remember how it was nothing but training grounds for other Counties? The Florida Department -- just everybody and their brother would come there and get the training, and then they would leave after a short time. It was a revolving door. Obviously when market conditions are such that we can't retain competent help, then we have to do something to adjust it. I mean, as soon as you get someone -- it probably takes a year for somebody to get up to the point where they're really in tuned to our personal codes and understanding who it is that they have to go to and how to make things fly. And if they're here less than a year, we have to keep repeating the process. It's got to be as effective and efficient as possible. But, again, I'm going to go back to what I said the first time I Page 132 June 15, 2005 spoke about an hour ago regarding the fact that this is fee driven. This is paid for by the industry, paid by the industry by the same people that are taking the people away from us, you know, when we get them trained. I think we need to take a look at the whole structure. I mean, how much of a difference is there between the pay that Collier County pays and what the outside elements are paying out there that are taking the people away from us? Are we talking about a pay difference of 5 percent, 10 percent, 30 percent or is it higher? I really would like to know. MS. MURRAY: I'd say based on, you know, the situations I've had with my staff, anywhere from 15 to, yeah, 25 percent. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Say it again. 15 to what? MS. MURRAY: 15 to 25 percent. I think that's what Randy's experienced too. CHAIRMAN COYLE: But remember the benefits of being employed here. Where else can anybody sit before the County Commissioners for hours and talk with them? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And then actually nothing-- they don't say anything at all, just go back and forth. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah, that's worth something. We're going to take a break. (A brief recess was taken.) MR. MUDD: Ladies and gentlemen, if you'll please take your seats. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Halas. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. Are there any other further questions in regards to where we left off prior to the break? MR. SCHMITT: Commissioner, if I could at least direct the attention. I've got three UFRs that need to be addressed. One of them -- two of them are on page F-43. Those are -- sorry. F-44. It's the unfunded request. Page 133 June 15, 2005 One was directed from your Beach Committee, and that was to create this position called a Coastal Zone Manager, CZM. We can talk about in detail what that entails, but that was a recommendation from one of your committees. The other is also on there, the habitat conservation plan. It's an unfunded requirement that is certainly predicated or at least dependent on where you want to go with this HCP. You know we have to come back to you with a proposal. Our projected date was sometime in September. Due to the delays in forming the committee and getting that before the Board, the rehearing that you had asked for just in this past Board meeting yesterday appointed the HCP committee so-- COMMISSIONER HALAS: Right. MR. SCHMITT: -- we're not in any position to make that recommendation. We can continue to list that as an unfunded requirement and come back later in the year as an unbudgeted request or just leave it. I'm looking for your guidance. But the other one we're certainly -- we can talk about is the Coastal Zone Manager. That would be a person that, I believe, was recommended, and maybe Mr. Mudd can talk more about that, but it was put under my request simply from the relationship as far as Environmental Services and consolidating some of the Environmental Services' coastal reviews. It would also involve the -- most of the activities forward of the coastal zone or the -- what am I thinking of? Coastal construction. Thank you. I lost the word. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Beach management. MR. SCHMITT: This would be beach manager primarily as well. All the beach functions, could possibly be the renourishment, whether that stays or not. MR. MUDD: Basically, the Coastal Advisory Committee talked about having somebody that would do inlets besides just the beach. It seems like that our present project manager, Mr. McAlpin, Page 134 June 15, 2005 and before that it was Mr. Huvel, the concentration has been, over the years, basically on beach renourishment. It hasn't been in inlet management and those particular things, and they were basically saying we needed a more holistic approach to the entire 36 miles of our coastline, and that was their recommendation. I told them I'd get it on the budget, but I couldn't tell them if it was going to be above the fund line. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Could these responsibilities be also handled with a marine agent? We discussed that earlier this morning with Parks and Rec. MR. SCHMITT: No, that's a different function. MR. HAMMOND: No. The marine agent really would be working with -- for IFIS, the university extension system, working both on educational components but also research, and what they do is they would do, for instance, research on fisheries or agriculture or habitat or maybe boating studies for manatees, but they would be basically providing that kind of technical detail information. The Coastal Zone Manager position would basically be a very high-level position of being responsible for consolidating a lot of the coastal zone functions that occur in a variety of different places, right now County government, and also have that ability to look a little bit longer down the road in terms of some strategic planning as to where certain items, certain programs ought to be moving for the coastal zone. Thank you. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Thank you. Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, I think that's another example Mr. Halas brought up is the TDC funds. This is where this is going to be coming from, TDC funds and -- no? MR. MUDD: No, sir, because it goes beyond the beach restoration and what's allowed by the certain pennies that we require. It's deeper inland. Page 135 June 15, 2005 When you get there, the majority of that will be funded by the general fund. MR. HAMMOND: Initially, you may look at just in terms of personnel that you might be 75 percent tourist development tax and 25 percent 111, but it will have the opportunity if that program were to go further beyond it. It would mean it would get more closer to the 50/50 mIX. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And what was the recommendation of the -- MR. HAMMOND: Tourist development. MR. MUDD: Sir, this request came from the Coastal Advisory Committee. It did not go in front of the Tourist Development Council because at that juncture they basically -- the cap basically said, "Here's the need that we have for a position for the County." At that juncture, we hadn't figured out the exact percentages. Bill and I have been dialoguing between each other just seconds ago about how much would be funded by the TDC or how much would be funded by the general fund. COMMISSIONER HENNING: But still an allocation is going to come from the -- MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- TDC, and I think the ordinance states that any funding request needs to go before the TDC. So why don't we hold off on this until we get recommendations from the TDC. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Because I think this is a broader picture of inlet management, coastal management, and I think we need to have a little bit more dialogue before we say yeah or nay. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Anybody have any Page 136 June 15, 2005 disagreement on that? CHAIRMAN COYLE: No. MR. SCHMITT: The only other UFR I'd like to address is on page F -15, and that is the additional money for the EDC marketing. As noted, the County's portion of the EDC, the County's payment of the EDC, comes out of my budget as well, and that's on page F-15, $416,000. And Ms. Nemecek is here also to talk, if you wish. The additional $273,000 that's being identified as UFR, that would be added to that piece of the budget and identified on your sheet for marketing promotion efforts. If you have any questions, I would have to defer to Tammie. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, I will say that on your particular page for Ms. Nemecek, and that was on page F-15 and it's under finance requirement 0506, and it basically talks about officials representing the EDC are requesting that the County contribute $273,500. If you look at that request on the UFR list that's over on the general tab, you'll notice that the request is for $164,500, and that request has been reduced because, as you remember, there were monies on the UFR list for '05 and you approved partial for the EDC as far as that marketing is concerned, and that partial has helped reduce that original request. This was written before you approved that on May 24th so-- CHAIRMAN COYLE: So what is the net? MR. MUDD: The net he's asking for is $164,500. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I bet you'd rather have the 273, wouldn't you? MS. NEMECEK: Whatever the Board desires. MR. MUDD: I thought I'd bring that to the Board's attention. Commissioners, the other thing I'd like to bring to your attention is in the book that Mr. Schmitt gave you. And I was going Page 137 June 15, 2005 through and I was counting. You saw me rifling through the pages looking at the UFR list, and for some strange reason I couldn't find nine positions, but now I know what happened to the nine positions. I bring your attention to the overhead. If you'll look at it, it says 13 expanded, but he's got nine FTE that are funded but beyond guidance and then the three positions that are in your book, and what I need to do this evening is to go and work those particular cost figures up -- I've got it on a scratch page right now -- work those particular figures up and update your un-financed requirement tab sheet, those two pages that I have for you, okay, and give you justification for them in that sheet, but they're missing nine, okay, and the nine positions that he says are funded but beyond guidance are five inspectors for building review, one engineering tech in engineering and zoning and land development, two planners and one admin assistant. That's a total of nine. So we're missing those nine positions. You saw that in the read-ahead that Mr. Schmitt gave you. I was rifling through trying to find out where they were on the UFR list, and now I understand. We're having a little semantics issue. They're really un-financed requirements. He's got them funded in his, either his 113 or 131; however, based on a private hold FTE to 25, he's got nine positions that he can fund that he needs, and I believe that gets down to Commissioner Coyle's question about just enough to tread water versus, you know, getting enough breath so you can actually swim, and I believe that's where those nine positions are. We'll get you that information and we'll have that -- hopefully have that discussion tomorrow afternoon. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Very good. Thank you. Any further questions? Okay. MS. FILSON: We have three speakers. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Three speakers. Okay. Let's hear them. Page 138 June 15, 2005 MS. FILSON: The first one is Al Zicheola who will be followed by Tammie Nemecek. MR. ZICHEOLA: For the record, Al Zicheola here today for CBIA. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Your mic's not on. MR. ZICHEOLA: Is that on? CHAIRMAN COYLE: There seems to be something with the connection there. No, both of them are off. MR. MUDD: Lee, give him your mic. CHAIRMAN COYLE: How about the hands. MR. MUDD: Testing. There you go. MR. ZICHEOLA: For the record, Al Zicheola, vice president CBIA, here today to speak to you -- and, by the way, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you here today. Basically, we're here as an industry representative as the industry support shows requests for more people. Recently we have had a study that we've been able to take a look at regarding levels of service. And to avoid any possible cause and effect type situation when we're talking about improving levels of service if more people are needed, and I think that's fairly obvious and we would wholeheartedly support CDES in that request. I had a couple of others points, in listening to this discussion, I'd like to make in general, but first and foremost we're here to support that request for those additional people. I would like to thank Commissioner Coyle for your comments. We likewise, the industry likewise, would say we'd like to know how the level of service is going to be improved. Right now there is a crisis in the service. We believe that part of that are personnel wise and part of it isn't. But if a blueprint could be laid out that would show how we could improve the level of service, we would even be twice as strong Page 139 June 15, 2005 behind this request. And if there were more positions that were needed, we could even support those provided they're funded, which leads me to some of my other issues. One of them, however, the charges that were referred to, to visit with a planner. We pay now to meet with a County official, and I've always had a problem with that, and the points Mr. Henning made that perhaps we should charge the public who wants to come in and sit down and talk about it are entirely appropriate. It's a little one-sided for a developer or an applicant to go through all of the -- jump over all the hurdles necessary to prepare a plan and bring it in to be approved, have to pay for the privilege of meeting with someone that we pay, whose salary we pay, is a little bit one-sided for some -- anybody can walk in off the street and see the plans and raise questions and objections, and I think that's a little bit one-sided. And if the objections are valid, they should be willing to pay for the privilege to talk to that planner like we do, and I think there's an issue of fairness there that needs to be addressed, and I thank you for your time in mentioning it. Mr. Mudd's comments further are well placed. They lead to that. Everybody wants to close the door behind them, and we have yet to -- we also have to deal with those issues. When those people do not have to pay for the same privilege we do for access, that's a problem. May I have just one minute extra? I'd just like to comment that Ms. Susan Murray's comments earlier about the abuse of the meetings with planners, I will tell you that I do business in a lot of counties in the State of Florida and everywhere else I go they encourage those meetings and want you to have those meetings. I'm a little confused how a preconstruction meeting can be pointed to as a problem. You can't have it both ways, all right. If you have a problem with the consultants and their plans and the Page 140 June 15, 2005 quality of their drawings, yet you don't want to meet them in advance to look at those things and try to -- I submit to you, there's cause and effect. If you meet with them and express your concerns, they'll get better and that's why most jurisdictions like that. Again, we just want to see the level of service improve. We wholeheartedly support this. I would like to say we have tremendous confidence in Joe Schmitt's integrity and Bill Hammond's integrity and the good people that work there, but we do need an improvement in the LOS and we're willing to pay for that. In fact, we have. I submit to you we haven't paid too much. If we've got a surplus of money to pay for these positions, I'm glad we do, but I think there's evidence we might have been paying a little bit too quickly up front before, but I'm glad the money's there to fund them. We support it and we support their efforts here. Thank you so much. MS. FILSON: Next speaker is Tammie Nemecek. CHAIRMAN COYLE: With respect to charging the public, AI, I can assure you there are a couple of members of the public I would like to charge to come in and meet with me, but that's not you. I'm not directing that at you. MR. ZICHEOLA: Commissioner, if they have something to say, they should say it, but they should be under the same rules that we are. That's my only point. MS. MURRAY: May I make a brief comment, Mr. Chairman, just to clarify some things, and I appreciate Al coming and speaking before you. First of all, we do staff a front counter planner desk and we don't charge people to walk up. We have two planners full time, 8:00 to 5:00. Any member of the public or any petitioner can walk in and get information that way. There's no charge for that. We do issue permits over the counter and there are charges for those minor permits. We also hold -- have required pre-application meetings prior to Page 141 June 15, 2005 the submittal of a project. There is a $500 fee that is refundable when the project is submitted. It's credited to the account. Those meetings are critical to outline the proposed proj ect and any issues, and all the departments that are involved in the review attend those meetings or they are supposed to. We've relaxed our meeting charge program in that we do provide meetings free of charge for certain types of projects, for example PUDs. We found that continuous dialogue with applicants is beneficial to both parties and the same with the site plans; however, when it starts to get to where you have to have two and three and four meetings, there's a problem. And maybe there is a problem just beyond that we need to look at a little bit more closely, but I think from the standpoint of reducing the number of what I would call excessive meetings, it's been successful. Maybe we need to tweak them a little bit, and we have in that we've provided three meetings, but it's kind of like we either review the plans -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: I'm going to start charging you for your time here. MS. MURRAY: For what? CHAIRMAN COYLE: For your time. Your three minutes have expired. MS. FILSON: Your next speaker is Tammie Nemecek. She'll be followed by Bill Spinelli. MS. NEMECEK: Good afternoon,Mr. Chairman, Commissioners. I would like to lend my support to the Community Image and Economic Development Council in Collier County and I would like to also lend my support to Joe Schmitt and his request for these additional staff members. I think that through our public/private partnership we have a unique perspective on the permitting process in Collier County related directly to the businesses that we're working to help expand as well as Page 142 June 15, 2005 recruit to the community, and with that comes a fast track regulatory process that was put in place in October 1 st of 1997. And we work quite closely with the staff at CDES, Joe and Susan and Denny and Amy Patterson, as well as a lot of the planning reviewers in both the land side as well as the building permit side. And what we find is that the level of service is severely hindered by the number of reviews that are demanded by the staff that's there and that at certain times when you have a staff that -- a staff person that's in charge of reviewing a plan and they happen to go on vacation, that you don't have enough staff to support that and so that planning will sit there and wait for that staff person to come back. We fully support the additional staff members, especially working with Joe and knowing that the funds are there. That makes it even more exciting to hear that we can fund this with that -- those funds that are still there. And our hope at the end of the day is that when we're talking to this, about locating here in Collier County, that we can effectively say that they have a predetermined time frame for getting those permits reviewed because when they come to Collier County they have certainty on the process. I talked to a prospect this morning that wants to flee Maine because of the taxation woes that they're feeling up there in their software company and he wants to be in his facility by October. Can I confirm that he can be in his facility by October? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Which year? MS. NEMECEK: Yeah. And those are the day-to-day conversations that we have with businesses. They are interested in that certainty in the process. And, again, we're looking at this from both the public sector as well as the private sector, and what I've seen is a willingness to come to the table from both sides and see how we can work through this and make some improvement. And I really commend Joe and Jim and the rest of the staff at Page 143 June 15, 2005 CDES in working with us on this and the Commissioners in helping us to fund these positions and give Joe what he needs in order to be successful. On the other side of the house is our unfunded request for marketing, and I'd like to thank the Board for funding this year's marketing dollars that are going towards doing our marketing research initiative for the Florida Trade Corps. These funds that are coming in for nèxt year will be to implement those marketing initiatives which will be a wide range of opportunities with regards to direct marketing trade shows, trade missions, looking at -- working with site selection consultants, having more visible EDC in Collier County at the state level with Enterprise Florida so that we can get our name out there and know that we are here to serve businesses and we want businesses to locate here, we want businesses to expand here. So I think these dollars are going to be well spent for the community and to get our name out there and know that we want businesses to locate here and expand here. So, again, I thank you very much for your efforts in making this community diversified with its economy. It's a long haul for us. It's not something that's going to happen tomorrow, but it's so exciting, with Ava Maria that was approved yesterday, to see some of these things start to come around. And we're seeing lots more excitement in eastern Collier County, and we hope for many more good things to come. So thank you very much and, again, thank you to Joe because he is -- does have one of the hardest jobs in Collier County, and we do thank him for all his efforts to make this better. Thank you. MS. FILSON: Your final speaker is Bill Spinelli. MR. SPINELLI: Thank you, Commissioners. I just want to say a couple of brief things. I was very glad to hear all the conversation from the staff and from the Commissioners about some of the things we can all think about. Page 144 June 15, 2005 We talked about efficiency, we talked about -- there was some skepticism as to whether we would really get some results. I want to introduce performance. I think the money is there when we came to an agreement a couple years ago on how we were going to restructure the fees so that we could properly create the service, and there's times where we'd like to be efficient and we want to use a hybrid type car that gets a million miles a gallon but there's other times when we need to put our foot on the accelerator and get some performance. And so by adding these staff positions, I think it's going to allow them to further perform. I'm not sure that the 13 is enough plus adding the nine on top is enough -- plus the other nine on top is enough, but I might propose to think about -- in a few minutes time the Commissioners came up with some interesting ideas. I've seen situations where a private/public type partnership in some type of a committee that can work under the direction of somebody on your staff try and come up with some recommendations and create some performance objectives. If we are going to hire some more people and allocate some more dollars to this, the dollars that are already there, what exactly are our goals and what can the Commission hold the group accountable to try and achieve so they know it got what it paid for? Just a thought, okay. So please give some thought to that. Thanks. MR. SPINELLI: That was your final speaker. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Although the Board members individually get questions or frustration from the public about how government is run or not running and that, it's really the County Manager's responsibility to make sure that it's run well. So I hope some of the responses that the public has got can realize that, that it's really the County Manager who you need to respond to. About the budget, the community developments, one is for PUD monitoring. I don't know much about that program or the Page 145 June 15, 2005 backlog that you have in there, but I went to one of the president's meetings and don't --I'm not sure -- in my opinion, I guess I should say, it's none of the County's business whether two fire districts merge. I mean, I just don't -- if it's about PUD monitoring or about County government, I think that's good. But if we're going to try to take on the whole world and give the public information, maybe we ought to let public relations do that instead of community development. You've got your hands full, and I do think you need to kind of take a look at --try to take some of those responsibilities away from you so you can concentrate on the core of your operation. I don't know if the Commissioners had a chance to take a look at the EDC's report that the university did, the exit pole from the people using the fast track system. I will never do it here in Collier County again. So why would we want to spend more money on promoting Southwest Florida if we have that perception? My perspective, before we do any promoting, if that's really our goal, then let's fix it to be successful. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Coletta. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's definitely food for thought. I'm not too sure whose responsibility it would fall on, whose shoulder. The ultimate responsibility falls on this Commission. The County Manager takes direction from us. If he isn't, I'm sure we'd take him to task for it. So far his biggest difficulty is to try to decipher what we're saying, you know. The message is kind of mixed. I'd like to befriend the position of stepping in to try to encourage fire districts to merge, stepping in at times to do such things as encouraging the school system to put school nursing in place. We've been effective on a number of directions that have probably been outside the normal realm of Collier County Page 146 June 15, 2005 Commission or Commissioners, and is it negative? No. I think it's been a plus. You know, we've weighed in on different issues all the time. We lobby our state and our federal elected officials for all sorts of reasons. We get involved in other issues. I do think that we have to keep our composure on this if we go through the process and concentrate on what we're here for, and that's to work with the budget and to try to make what we have go the furthest direction possible to give the very best possible service that we can provide. That wasn't meant to be a put-down in any way on the suggestions you made, Mr. Henning. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Any other questions? No. Okay. I think we're finished. Thank you very. PUBLIC UTILITIES DIVISION MR. MUDD: The next division to present is Public Utilities. MS. DeLONY: Good afternoon, Commissioners. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Good afternoon. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Good afternoon. Jim, if you'd be so kind to maybe introduce the people. MR. DeLONY: What I'll do is I'll ask them to present their name and who they are as they speak to you, if that's all right with you. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes, sir. MR. DeLONY: For the record, Jim DeLony, Public Utilities Administrator. For Public Utilities Division's FY06 division operating budget. It is in compliance with the County Manager's guides. Now, within the division there are three departments, as briefed by the County Manager earlier this morning, that have exceeded the budget guides. These would be the Financial Operations Department, the Wastewater Department and our Solid Page 147 June 15, 2005 Waste Fund 470. The directors of these departments, who will introduce themselves as they speak today, are prepared to discuss these specifics. With regard to division overtime, we're not, as a division, in compliance with the budget guides of 4 percent of salaries. We have budgeted in this budget an overtime budget of 5.2 percent of our budgeted salaries representing scheduled absences, vacation coverage and event-based scheduled time for emergency responses. The directors of the Water Department, the Wastewater Department and Financial Operations Departments are here, and they will provide specifics of our overtime requirements as reflected in this budget. We have nine unfunded positions for which we are requesting approval, five in the Water Department and four in the Wastewater Department, and, again, we will cover those specifics as part of the directors provide information to their specific project budgets. With that, I'm ready for your questions, and if not we'll begin each department's presentation. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Are there any questions from the Commissioners? I'd like to proceed, then, please. MR. DeLONY: Thank you. Mr. Smith. MR. SMITH: Yes. Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name's Ray Smith, Director of Pollution Control Department, for the record. The budget that I'll be talking about is Pollution Control Department budget which begins on G-3, page G-3, and extending through G-8. Bottom line is this: We are in compliance with the County Manager's budget guidelines. We remain millage neutral. We meet the overtime budget guidelines presented and we also -- our operating Page 148 June 15, 2005 expenses remain within those guidelines, and I'm prepared to answer any questions you all may have. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Are there any questions from the Commissioners? Proceed. MR. WIDES: Commissioners, good afternoon. Tom Wides, Operations Director from the Public Utilities areas. I'd like to cover two areas for you with this discussion. Number one, if you turn to page G-ll. G-ll is the discussion related to the administration cost center in the division. Bottom line, it is within the budget compliance as far as the County Manager's guidance with an 8.4 percent decrease in funding. I really have no other discussion there unless you have any specific questions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Questions, Commissioner? MR. WIDES: Okay. If I may, please turn to page G-15. Page G-15 represents the financial operations budget for FY06. As you see, if you look at the budget closely, you'll see the appropriations are noted as 8.7 percent which does, on its own, exceed the County Manager's budget guidance; however, if I can point you to two items in that cost center. One of them is the indirect cost reimbursement for services from other areas, and that represented a 21.9 percent increase. The other one is payment in lieu of property taxes. This is kept -- these two items are captured in my department for the entire division. And if I remove the effect of what I consider these as being nondiscretionary, if I remove the effect of those, we are within 3.5 percent which is well within the guidance of the County Manager's intent. Before I go on, we would like to talk to overtime. But before we get to that, if you have any questions in this cost center. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Questions? Page 149 June 15, 2005 No. MR. WIDES: Okay. At this point the other item that Mr. DeLony noted was that, in fact, the overtime for our department is not in compliance with the County Manager's intent. However, what you should be aware of is brought up in my area is the utility billing and customer service area, and I'd like to ask John Yonkosky to speak to you for a few moments about his scheduled and unscheduled overtime needs. John. MR. YONKOSKY: Thank you, Tom. Good afternoon, Commissioners. John Yonkosky, Utility Customer Service Director. The overtime per guidance with this budget is $66,480. The overtime that we're requesting is $100,100, that's a $33,000 difference. One of the things that we do is provide a service to customers. When we actually turn a meter off for nonpayment, we turn the meter off for nonpayment. The people that turn them off and turn them on, their normal work hours are 6:30 to 3:30 every day, but we keep the office hours open until 5:30 and quite a few times people will come in at 5:30 to make the payment, and they want their water turned on. And in your ordinance -- they want their water that night, and in your ordinance you have a $100 fee for turning on water meters in an overtime basis. They request it and are willing to pay, and we do that. So $25,000 of that $33,000, it pays for itself. There are approximately 50 people every week that come in to pay after the 3:30 -- after the meter reader's left, and they want to pay the $100. We charge them for it and then we go ahead and send -- keep somebody there on staff to turn that water back on for them. So that pays for itself, that over time does. The second element of overtime deals with the -- during season we actually bring people in, demand a telephone and provide Page 150 June 15, 2005 customer service on Saturdays. There's approximately $9,000 in the budget in overtime for that. That is not funded, but it is a customer service. It's a level of service issue. MR. WIDES: Commissioners, on behalf of John, any questions on the overtime? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Apparently not MR. WIDES: Thank you. At this point we'd like to turn it over to, I believe, Mr. Roy Anderson for the Engineering Department. MR. ANDERSON: Yes. Thank you, Tom. Good afternoon, Commissioners. Roy Anderson, Director of Public Utilities Engineering, and I'll be presenting our budget for our department this year. I'm pleased to report that we -- our increase from '05 to '06 is within the County Manager's guidance and also I'm pleased to report that our use of overtime is well within the County Manager's guidance. If there are any questions, I'd be happy to take them at this time. If not, we can move on. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioners, any questions? You're doing a really good job. Just keep doing it. MR. ANDERSON: Okay. I'd like it turn it over to Paul Mattausch, the Director of Water. MR. MATTAUSCH: Commissioners, for the record, Paul Mattausch, Director of the Water Department. I'll be presenting the Water Department Operations budget. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Are you responsible for the rain too? MR. MATTAUSCH: You know, I wish I could say yes, but I really can't do that. The budget is found on pages G- 20 through G- 24 . Water Department provides administrative support, water treatment, water distribution and lavatory services for customers for nearly 49,000r Page 151 June 15, 2005 service connections to the County's public water supply system. The Water Department remains 100 percent in compliance with all applicable rules and regulations and, as you know very well from our weekly reports to you that you read every week, we also met the demand this season. On page G-22 the proposed budget is $19,618,900 including two expanded service requests. The budget meets the FY06 budget guidance for discretionary expenditures; however, as you heard this morning from Mr. Mudd, it does not meet the budget guidance for overtime. Regarding overtime, the Water Department is a 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week utilities and, as such, we're required to maintain certified staffing around the clock in our water treatment facilities and we must respond immediately to interruptions in water service. And as Mr. Mudd so well pointed out this morning, those 2:00 a.m. water main breaks on US 41 have a significant impact to our overtime budget. The Water Department requested budget does not include a request for any additional positions within that $19.6 million. It does, however, include nearly $700,000, in fact $698,900, in contractual services cost to do certain compliance-related and/or inherently governmental services and functions. Please turn, if you would, to the unfunded requirements section on page G-24. On G-24 you see five positions, five FTEs listed there, to do that contractual work internally at a cost of $324,000 rather than the $698,900 that it would cost us to do those same services contractually. By adding the five FTEs we have a net savings of $374,000 -- $374,500. The budget will decrease, actually, from the 19.6 million that I pointed out earlier to $19,244,400. These positions are funded in the current user rates. These positions will allow us to maintain our current level of Page 152 June 15, 2005 services that we provide to our customers and the approval of these positions will allow the Water Department to remain in compliance with Florida Administrative Code 62555 which is the regulation that governs the operation of your water utility. At this time I'd request your approval to include these positions in the Water Department budget, and I would be glad to answer any questions that you may have. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Any questions? This is what happens when you adhere to budget guidelines, you don't get many questions. Okay. So thank you. MR. DeLONY: Yes, sir. Mr. Cheatham. MR. MATTAUSCH: Excuse me. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You're on a roll. MR. MATTAUSCH: I have the fun job of presenting three cost centers to you. The second of these cost centers, so I don't get interrupted again here, is the Operations Center budget script. The Operations Center is found on page G-25. The next page. The Operations Center is located in the Industrial Park east of Airport Road between Progress and Mercantile Avenue. It provides a consolidated location for the operations of utility billing and customer service, John's group, water distribution, locates operations and wastewater administration of the Public Utilities Division. The water distribution section is currently, as we speak today, in the midst of moving into those newly renovated facilities. The FY06 budget request is in the amount of $174,200. The operating budget includes expenditures for electricity, trash collection, water and sewer service from the City of Naples, expenses related to the upkeep and maintenance of the building and for operating supplies. Because this is a new facility, these expenditures are estimates based on experience with facilities of similar size and type. The budget meets the FY06 budget guidance for both operating expenditures and overtime, and I would be glad to field any Page 153 June 15, 2005 questions related to the Operations Center fund. CHAIRMAN COYLE: No questions. MR. MATTAUSCH: Okay. Again, one additional, and that is the Goodland Water District Fund (441) which is found on pages G-26 and G-27. The Goodland Water District budget provides for a clean, reliable and safe source of drinking water for approximately 500 service connections in the Goodland Water District. The budget provides for the operation, maintenance and capital improvements of the facilities of the Goodland Water District. On page G-26 you will find the $586,000 FY06 budget. Operating expenses total to $420,500, $50,000 as capital related and is for minor capital projects and reserves amount to $116,100. The budget meets the FY06 budget guidance for both operating expenditures and overtime, and I'd be glad to field any questions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, I don't have any. You guys are doing such a good job, you know. MR. MATTAUSCH: Hearing no questions, Mr. Cheatham, the Wastewater Director, is next. MR. CHEATHAM: Thank you, Paul. Commissioners, for the record, my name is Joseph Cheatham, Wastewater Director. Will you please report to pages G-28 through G- 34 in your book, and you'll have the wastewater section there in front of you. The Wastewater Division's budget is driven by growth. We've expanded our system by 19 miles of flush and forced mains with over ten additional lift stations we've added this year and we're growing at a rate of about 7 percent as far as increase in capacity, approximately 2,500 new connections per year. As you know, the department expanded both the facilities now to 40.1 MTD wastewater capacity, and I'm proud to report, as Paul Page 154 June 15, 2005 reported, that we are in compliance with the FDEP 2001 consent order and that we have been in compliance for 500 days at both facilities. Pages G-31 and 32 of your book you'll see our budget numbers. MR. DeLONY: Excuse me, Joe. Is it 500 or 700? MR. CHEATHAM: Well, we had 700 at one plant and we had 300 at the other plant so -- MR. DeLONY: Averaging five? MR. CHEATHAM: I'm averaging 500. Okay. On pages G-31 and 32 you'll see our budget numbers. You'll see the Wastewater Department has proposed in the fiscal year of2006 a current budget of$18,39,400. In addition, we're requesting by request for expanded services totaling $270,600. The budget does not meet the County Manager's guidance on discretionary spending. Right now we're at 4.4 percent. The guidance is 3.9. We're.5 percent over the discretionary spending guidance at a cost of $29,300, and of I'm prepared to say where those numbers are. And also, as in Paul's -- Water Department we're not in compliance with the guidance on overtime. The Wastewater Department's fiscal year budget includes $352,800 for overtime. The guidance is $215,000. Primary reasons for the overtime is because of the Florida Administrative Code that requires two operators on for shifts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and we have to cover vacation and sick leave replacement. Also we have to cover events that happen to us, like forced main breaks and lift station outages. And as Paul mentioned about water main breaks, we also have a number of forced main breaks we have to respond to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days out of the year. And if you turn to page G-34, you'll see our request for four unfunded FTEs. The Wastewater Department does not -- budget does not include a request for additional positions, but we had included $442,000 in contractual services to meet our compliance related -- inherent government Page 155 June 15, 2005 services we are in compliance with. By adding the four additional FTEs we're asking for at a cost of $204,000, we could save the rate payers 238,000. I propose to you that we add these four unfunded positions to reduce the budget by $238,000. The four positions would be in the area of maintenance for locates, North County water reclamation facility reuse as well as in the Collections Department. That concludes my presentation. I'm open for any questions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioners? No questions. MR. CHEATHAM: I turn it over now to George Yilmaz. MR. YILMAZ: Good afternoon, Commissioners. For the record, George Yilmaz, Solid Waste Director. In addressing fiscal year '06 budget, please turn to pages G-36 through G-44, and our mission statement of our department is stated on page G-37. Turning to pages G-37 and 38, Florida Solid Waste Disposal Plan, our proposed budget does not meet with County Manager's policy primarily due to consulting fees for the pre storm planning for hurricane debris staging sites at the amount of $55,000 which represents 5.9 percent of discretionary increase. However, the proposed budget does meet with overtime budget guidelines as well as -- I'm pleased to report that there is no expanded request for fiscal year '06. We'll be able to operate our current service level with the current funding we have. Our proposed budget is designed to continue to fulfill requirements of AUIR, continue to stay in compliance with no complaints through prudent environmental risk management and meet the demand in our collection, processing, recycling and disposal infrastructure. If you have no questions, I will now turn the budget discussion Page 156 June 15, 2005 to John Yonkosky for our solid waste special assessments for the mandatory trash collection fund summarized on page G-44. COMMISSIONER HALAS: I have one question. MR. YILMAZ: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HALAS: In regards to the debris removal after Hurricane Charlie, aren't those funds going to be reimbursed from FEMA or not? MR. YILMAZ: Big portion of it anticipated to be reimbursed, SIr, yes. COMMISSIONER HALAS: So we haven't got a check yet from them, huh? MR. YILMAZ: We haven't got a check yet; however, we have the due diligence in place. We anticipate that we will receive flood reimbursements from FEMA. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. Thank you. MR. YILMAZ: You're welcome. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, only about $12,000 of what was spent during that hurricane, because of gated communities, are probably not going to be reimbursed, but we're trying. And we'll have to discuss a gated community approach if and when we ever get ourselves hit by a hurricane because FEMA will not reimburse us for anything that's behind a gate and so we're going to have to talk to those folks about getting it out to the curb in front of their particular gated community in order to -- or to get it out during their regular pick-up days in order to get it resolved. I know if we have a lot of trees down that becomes very difficult and it gets a little unsightly so we're going to have to work out -- and Mr. DeLony's actively looking at that because of some of the FEMA requirements. MR. DeLONY: Sir, I'd like to take this offline with you individually and maybe at Board direction or your request for that and direction from Mr. Mudd come back to the Board with Mr. Summers Page 157 June 15, 2005 at another time and maybe talk to you in terms of details with regard to this. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. Appreciate that. Thank you. MR. YONKOSKY: For the record, again, my name is John Y onkosky. The proposed budget for your mandatory program is on page G-43, if I can direct you to G-43. The budget is $16,085,400. This is not in compliance with your budget guidance. This represents an 18.3 or $2.491 million increase over the FY05 budget. The proposed budget has three key drivers in it, and I would like to spend just a couple of minutes talking to you about those drivers. It's a 64-gallon recycling cart is one of the major drivers, customer growth with anticipated 4,500 new customers this year in the program and the consumer price index for the landfill management for the disposal site. The 18 or the $2,491,000 includes growth and that represents $680,000 or 27 percent of this increase is due to growth. The new cart program has a value of$1,062,000 or 42 percent of the increase. Disposal, the 3.5 percent increase, is $348,000 and represents 14 percent increase. Reserves are going up $296,000 which represents 11.9. So the major drivers growth at 27 percent, carts at 42 percent and disposal at 14 percent. The recommended collection rates of the special assessment for FY06 are on page G-44. And if I can direct your attention to page G-44, you can see that for the first time we've got two different rates. District 1, the rate that has the carts, is 153,070 and District 2 is 144,026. The District 2 has a 3.92 percent increase over last year and the District 1 has a 9.52 percent increase and that includes the carts. Even after the inclusion of this 9.52 percent increase in District Page 158 June 15, 2005 1 and 2.79 percent increase in District 2, I would like to direct you to the screen. You can see Collier County is on the downside of the middle part with the high element increase of the $154. If you take that cart out, you can -- just the increase in the cart, you can see that we are down to next to the very lowest one, yet Collier County has the highest level of service of any of these counties, and I just wanted to point that out to you. And the -- Collier County maintains the highest level of service in the State of Florida for the dollars that it pays, and that's all that my presentation is. If you have any questions, I'll be glad to answer them at this time. If there are no questions, I'd like to turn it back to Mr. Wides for the debt service. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Just a minute. District 1, is that in Immokalee area and District 2 is -- MR. YONKOSKY: Other way. COMMISSIONER HALAS: It's the other way around? MR. YONKOSKY: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. Thank you. DEBT SERVICE MR. WIDES: Commissioners, Tom Wides again for the record. If I can take you to page G-35, this is the public -- this is the portrayal of the Public Utilities Debt Service. To boil this page down for you, the key thing that I'd like to portray to you today is that for the year FY06 the total external financing is going to be approximately $225.6 million. Now, if you look on this page, you will see 7 -- down near the middle you'll see loan proceeds of 76.9 that flows through this fund. That is for a State revolving fund, financing and also for the commercial paper financing. Page 159 June 15,2005 There is another debt component that doesn't actually appear here because it doesn't run through this fund and that is for a balance of about $148 million and that will be revenue bond financing. So, again, this page portrays about 76 million, 77 million, and there's an additional 148 million that will also be borrowed for a total of225.6 for the year and that primarily is to fund our large capital program. May I entertain any questions? Thank you. At this point I turn it over to Roy Anderson to talk about that capital project program I just mentioned. MR. ANDERSON : Yes. Again, for the record, Roy Anderson, Engineering Director. The capital budget for water and wastewater is found on the sheet that's called Capital 1 and it extends through sheet Capital 19 towards the end of your book. On Capital 1 our requested budget for new capital projects this year is $69,450,000 and these projects are necessary to meet demand, improve reliability and comply with our consent orders. In terms of solid waste, solid waste capital programs are shown on capital -- page Capital 19, and it can be seen on that sheet on page Capital 19 that our total expenditure in new projects this year for solid waste will be $6.0 million. Basically, that concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to entertain any questions if you have any on capital proj ects. If there are none, I'd be happy to turn it back over to Jim DeLony to provide a wrap-up of our overall budget presentation. CHAIRMAN COYLE: No questions. MR. DeLONY: With that, that includes our budget presentation. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Coletta has a question. MR. DeLONY: Yes, sir. Page 160 June 15, 2005 COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. I was wondering about the retention of employees. How is your department doing? MR. DeLONY: Sir, we run through an attrition rate somewhere between 5 and 8 percent turnover just normal attrition in the firm. This morning we have about 26 open positions of the 350 some odd that we have available to us for hiring through this year's budget. This would be the '05 budget. So beyond the attrition rate, right now we've got some critical vacancies that we've maintained in a project management function. We've got a couple of retirements that we've had, key retirements. I'll admit to you today that one of the members of this delivery team sitting in front of you will not be here the next time we appear. Raise your hand, Mr. Cheatham. Mr. Cheatham has been attracted to the siren song of the City of Tallahassee, and we wish him well. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Why? MR. DeLONY: So this is all part of the evolu -- yeah, why would anybody go to Tallahassee. I happen to agree with you, and we've talked about it extensively, but the bottom line -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Have you been dealing with MR. DeLONY: That's where we're at for this morning, sir. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's a good place for him. COMMISSIONER FIALA: They actually lured him there? MR. DeLONY: Yes, sir, they did. Yes, ma'am, they did. The key of it is that, and Mrs. Merick can speak to this much more succinctly than me in terms of the overall picture, the bottom line of it, we are seeing some turnover and we're seeing some long-term absences or long-term duration to hire some critical staff. I'm sure each of these directors have a story of woe they would tell you, but we are maintaining as best we can. Weare working aggressively with the HR Department and Page 161 June 15, 2005 with the manager's office to ensure that we provide competitive salaries, competitive benefits and a wonderful place to work, and that's where we're at this afternoon and I hope I've answered your question. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: More or less you did. The percentage that you're running, has this been standard for quite a few years, about the same percentage, or is it peaking? MR. DeLONY: I would tell you that over the last three years that I've been here, sir, we've gone up and down. We've had as few as 12 vacancies and as many as 36 vacancies with very little difference in terms of overall strength of the organization. So that's about where it is. I think we average somewhere between 5 and 8 percent just in normal attrition and then we'll peak to somewhere between 12 to 15 percent just given the facts of life and people making second decisions about staying here or working somewhere else other than Collier County . COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. MR. DeLONY: Yes, sir. I just want to dovetail on that. We're receiving competition, as all businesses do, for the critical skilled folks that we have and we're also seeing challenges in getting entry-level employees, folks that are not making, you know, much more than $30,000 a year to come to work for us, but we have a competitive benefits program that we continue to attract some of those folks, but right now that's where we're at. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Obviously even though you are short employees the public acceptance rate for which you have to offer is quite high so am I wrong or am I putting this in a way that's -- I hope it isn't offensive what I'm saying. I haven't heard any complaints, very few complaints from the public out there about the services that you provide in general. MR. DeLONY: Sir, I think we're doing an outstanding job meeting demand as well as being in compliance and the customers, Page 162 June 15, 2005 yes, SIr. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: It doesn't seem that your 5 percent, 7 percent attrition rate is having an undesired effect at this point. MR. DeLONY: Well, if I may, and I don't want to extend this any longer, but certainly, you know, we're going make -- we're going to do the things we need to do to serve the customer, and some of the tools that I have at our disposal to do that is the great staff that we have and training that great staff. What this budget represents is utilization of overtime so we can extend it. John spoke to you today about his ability to provide a level of service, but we do that through overtime and with overtime -- this overtime budget I think we can do that as well as make up for some of those shortages through that attrition that we spoke to earlier. Mr. Mudd spoke to that in his presentation this morning. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Any other questions? Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah. Mr. Cheatham had some UFRs for positions. That's not a journal fund or 111 fund, and I didn't know if it was appropriate just to handle that now. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good. MR. MUDD: Sir, you can do both of those. There's a total of nine positions that are unfinanced requirement. Sometimes when you have budget guidance and you say keep to 25, sometimes there's some decisions I can't make that would make sense. If I had nine positions to give, I would have given them to Mr. DeLony and the fact that in every particular case the contractual effort in order to perform the work for him in his budget is more than what those positions would cost on an annual basis totally burdened. Mr. Mattausch mentioned to you some $600,000 worth of contractual is in his budget. If he had the five positions, he could Page 163 June 15, 2005 bring that in for something around 324 and save around $300,000 in this budget. Mr. Cheatham mentioned that there were four to the tune of about $420,000 to contractual, and if you brought those four people on it would be around $200,000 totally burdened and he would save money in the budget. So there's around a half million dollars worth of savings that you could make and cut the budget, and the budget would actually go down because he wouldn't have contract those particular positions and he could hire them. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Let's do it. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, I think so. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. MS. FIALA: Can we just motion? MR. MUDD: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So moved. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Seconded. MR. MUDD: What I need to have -- the next reviewer, if you don't have anymore questions for Mr. DeLony, is debt service and Mike will talk about that. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You have guidance, right? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir, I have guidance. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's all you need. MR. DeLONY: Okay. We're done. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thanks for such great service. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thanks for adhering to the budget guidelines, that's important. MR. OCHS: The next section that we'll discuss is debt service. That is on page H -1. There's a debt service tab in your budget binders, Commissioners. Debt service represents principal and interest payments and outstanding bond issues that the Board has previously approved. Page 164 June 15, 2005 Overall, the total appropriations for debt service increase 30.3 percent, and there's actually some logic beyond why that is. You have essentially three new issues. Looking from the top, the fourth item down, there was a 2005 sales tax bond issue that was approved this year and your ongoing debt service is $9.6 million and there were no appropriations in the adopted FY05 budget. That was, again, for the courthouse annex, the parking garage, the Arthrex building and the like. A few lines down further, Conservation Collier Fund 272 is the general obligation bond that was issued this year by the Board with ongoing debt service of approximately $4.7 million. And, I'm sorry, I skipped over Caribbean Gardens' general obligation debt. We placed the -- at this point the worst-case scenario of a .15 mill tax levy and that would generate the total net appropriations of $8.7 million. So the sum of those three is essentially the explanation for the increase going from 43.6 million in the adopted '05 budget to $56.8 million. Again, there is really no discretion here as the bulk -- with the exception of the Caribbean Gardens. The bulk of the remaining balance of funds represents bonds that have already been issued. One thing that is not included that will be added is the debt service associated with the gas tax bond issue. We haven't officially closed on that. We'll be getting a final debt service schedule within a matter of weeks on that so we'll need to incorporate that into a debt service budget as well for that bond issue. We've been fortunate, as well, over the last year . We've been in the bond market, and Collier County paper is very well regarded in the marketplace and we're also fortunate that we've been in the marketplace at a time when market rates have been at or near record low levels so that's been a plus for us as well. That concludes the debt service presentation. If there are no questions, then I would move on to Management Offices. Page 165 June 15, 2005 MANAGEMENT OFFICES MR. MUDD: And if I can get all those folks to come on up. The management offices, you have Board-related costs, the County Manager, the Office Management budget, the Tourism Department, Communication, Customer Relations, Emergency Management, and you have some grants, Division of Forestry -- I didn't know we did that, but we have something for Division of Forestry -- the Medical Examiner and Emergency Medical Services, along with Pelican Bay Services, Collier County fire, Isles of Capri, Ochopee and the Goodland Fire District. MR.OCHS: I'll start initially on page I-2, the County Manager's budget. There's an overall 4.9 percent increase. There are no expanded service requests. Under the Board-related cost section, that has a large percentage increase of 205 percent, but that includes $200,000 for the -- a federal lobbyist that Mr. Mudd had alluded to earlier. MR. MUDD: Federal and state. They're both combined with that figure of $200,000. MR.OCHS: That explains the large increase there. Obviously with our storm water program as well, Mr. Mudd is hoping to capitalize on that to generate some grant dollars as match for capital proj ects in the storm water area. Office management budget, there's an increase of 5.2 percent. There are no expanded service requests. And that would bring us, then, to the Tourism Department. Overall there's a decrease of 19.5 percent due to reductions in carry- forward and fund balance in the promotions area as well as the emergency appropriations that the Board approved expenditures for. And I'll let Mr. Wert speak to the expanded service request that is proposed. MR. WERT: Okay. Thank you, Commissioners. Good Page 166 June 15, 2005 afternoon. A little more time today maybe than yesterday. Maybe. We do have two expanded positions. Actually, one expanded position. It's two permanent part-time people, support for sales and marketing and also support for public relations. CHAIRMAN COYLE: What page are you on, Jack? COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes, what page? MR. WERT: I-I0. I-I0 begins our section. And those two part-time positions -- MR. MUDD: That's at the bottom ofI-13, the last paragraph expanded FY05, 06. Go ahead, Jack. MR. WERT: Thank you. And those two positions were recommended by the Tourist Development Council. Actually, they recommended two full-time positions which is truly what we would like to see this year. We think we'll have a better chance of recruiting if those are full-time positions, but overall that is -- we're not asking them for any other positions in our budget. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, my rationale for telling Jack to do part time is to bring them on, see what they give as far as additional efficiencies to the office and to his advertising campaign in trying to hold his cost down a little bit. One of the things that he didn't mention that I want to bring to your attention because I believe it's going to be important is on page I-I0, okay. And this is one of my pet peeves with Jack because you have a TDC disaster recovery, and I'm on the one, two three, the fourth line down under Tourism Department where it says 196. You have a 91 percent change in -- we had an adopted budget at '04/'05 of $852,000. I believe that your emergency advertising fund from a manager perspective needs to be anywhere from a million to a million five, and that's what you need to have in your particular pocket in case you have an emergency. And because of the four hurricanes prior, during and just a little bit after and again through this particular Page 167 June 15, 2005 season, that particular fund is down to $73,000. Why do I mention it to you? I want to bring it to your attention because I asked Jack. I said, "Okay, now you got it. Now, how are you going to fill it back up again?" and that gets to be a bit of a dilemma. He says, "Well, boss." I said, "Listen, man, you drew it down. Now you've got to figure out how to get the money back in." One of the things that you were going to talk about here in the relatively near future, and I don't know if it's been through the TDC on the fourth penny yet. MR. WERT: Coming back next month. MR. MUDD: But I talked to Jack. I said, "Look it. If they're going to do a fourth penny, you do that whole fourth penny on advertising. You talk about your staff operating expenses out of your percentage of the third penny, or whatever you want to call it, and then you devote money to fill this particular obligation. And when it's filled to 1.5, the additional dollars you can break down between beach renourishment and beach access, whatever the Board desires," I said, "but try to keep it simple, but you've got to have some kind of a mechanism to fill this back up again." I threw it to Jack. He still doesn't have an answer based on a three-penny approach yet, but one of the reasons I'm trying to hold down costs is you've got to figure out how you get that emergency fund back up again. That's all I have. MR. WERT: We will certainly look at whatever surpluses we might have at the end of this fiscal year. Certainly we can look at that to use some of it to replenish that fund. About 220,000 of that reserve is committed to hurricane disaster this year and, of course, the balance that we've taken it down is that $500,000 that we're putting toward the summer advertising. So it is important and I certainly concur with Mr. Mudd that Page 168 June 15, 2005 we really do need to bring that fund back up and have a dedicated way to keep it there in the future like we've done on the beach side. We have beach dollars every year that we put toward catastrophic reserves so we always have that dedicated source. The rest of our plan, as Mr. Mudd indicated, is pretty much a flat budget. Because we spent our carry forward this year, it won't be as much in the coming year. So the proposal on the fourth percent when it comes back to you hopefully in July, that may be a way that we can -- to get at and deal with this problem. I can tell you right now we are having meetings this week, have had several already with the hotel community, and they will come back, then, with a recommendation and that will pretty much decide how we go with that proposal. And if you have any further questions on my budget, I'd be happy to answer them. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I think we'll take a ten-minute break. (A brief recess was taken.) MR. MUDD: Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, you have a hot mic. CHAIRMAN COYLE: We're back in session. MR. MUDD: I think you're finished with -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Coletta would like to make a commercial announcement. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, yes. I just -- at 5:00 I'm going to have to leave. I arranged a legislative -- post-legislative session for Senator Bullard in Immokalee. Since I'm the one that arranged it and have to make the introductions, it might be appropriate for me to be there. So if I suddenly at 5 :00 depart this room, it's not because of anything that anyone said. I want you to know that. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You can -- you feel free to leave any time you want to. Page 169 June 15, 2005 COMMISSIONER FIALA: Don't forget, if you're leaving at 5:00 you're going to get into rush hour traffic. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's right, you should leave now. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: It's normally a 45-minute drive, and I know the fast way there. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay, good. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I think we're advertised for 5:00, from 9:00 to 5:00. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So we have to shut down at 5:00 anyways and continue on tomorrow. MR. MUDD: Sir, Mr. Wert was done presenting, sir, and we're into communications and customer relations, unless you have any questions for tourism. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I don't. Anybody else? (No response.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: Nobody else does. So it's John Torre. MR. TORRE: Good afternoon, Commissioners. John Torre, director of communications and customer relations. My budget can be found on Pages I-15, 16 and 17. The budget I submitted was within your budget guidance, and so -- and I have no expanded services requested. So if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Questions? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Gee, that was easy. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good job, John. MR. MUDD: John, your budget's actually decreasing, correct? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yes, it is. MR. TORRE: Correct. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Down 3.3 percent. So good job, John, keep up the good work. Page 170 June 15, 2005 MR. MUDD: Commissioner, not that he's losing service, he's -- better estimates on -- he's had a year on station. Last year he mentioned to you that he put estimates in based on his staffs input. He thought they might be a little bit high. He'd know better this year. He knows better this year and he knows what he's paying, and that's why his budget is down. MR. TORRE: And we had a chance to track over 12 months to see precisely where we need to increase and decrease. Overall we came in lower. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Now, that's one of the rules we follow, don't ever believe the staff. MR. TORRE: I've learned that too. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good. MR. MUDD: Sir, that brings to Emergency Management, and that's Mr. Dan Summers. MR. SUMMERS: Commissioners, good afternoon. Dan Summers, Director of the Bureau of Emergency Services and Emergency Management. For the sake of your time constraint, if I can make a few concise summary remarks for the various divisions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: What page, Dan? MR. SUMMERS: Well, I'm going to -- if you -- emergency-- I'm going to give you about six organizations to discuss. You can begin -- my summary remarks will begin EM; Emergency Management starts on I -19. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MR. SUMMERS: Couple of summary remarks, please. And again, first of all let me introduce Darcy Waldron from Emergency Management; Chief Rod Rodriguez, Isle of Capri; Jeff Page, Chief of EMS. Chief Paul Wilson had a situation and I've excused him today. He could not be here. Couple of opening remarks, please. The efforts of the Bureau Page 171 June 15, 2005 and the Department of Emergency Management this year had a record-breaking year, receiving over 700,000 in competitive grants. We have modernized our fire service fleet and gained efficiencies in reducing maintenance costs and helped to contribute towards lower insurance service organization ratings for our homeowners. We've also reduced the size of our fire fleet. I also want to mention to you something that's hot off the press yesterday. Collier County Emergency Management won a National Association of County, NAACO, award for innovation for our disaster response units. And that is the result of the direct effort of Joe Frazier and Jim Von Rinteln in our office related to our disaster response units. So we're real proud of that effort. It was a team effort, and those two guys led the way. And there's a copy of that award that we received yesterday. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well deserved. MR. SUMMERS: Thank you. We're real proud of them. Just a couple of things to mention to you. I'm going to share with you several sections or departments that are under the bureau. That includes Emergency Management, the miscellaneous grants, division of forestry, medical examiner -- and you don't have to turn pages yet because I'm going to summarize those things for you -- Emergency Medical Services and med flight, Collier County Fire District, Isle of Capri Fire District, Ochopee Fire, and the Goodland/Horr's Fire District. To save you some time and indicate that the budget guidance was followed within the time constraints, I thought this would yield some extra time. The organizations that are within budget guidance, of course miscellaneous grants, that's a revenue. Division of Forestry, that's called a cooperator's agreement and we pay forestry a set amount almost every year and that provides us support from Forestry for fire service, aerial fire operations. Page 1 72 June 15, 2005 Our medical examiner is within budget guidance. They do a fine job there. And that is a contractual arrangement with the District 12 Medical Examiners, LLC. Collier County Fire District, which is a -- those funds are apportioned out accordingly to the service agencies. And med flight. Emergency medical services is also within budget guidance for discretionary. The change there will be over time. Couple of highlights. Isle of Capri again is within budget guidance. They've worked hard to address manning, inspections and clerical support with job bank personnel. And as you know, they've had a big jump this year with ad valorem. Ochopee Fire Control is within budget guidance for operations. There are only very minor salary impacts as a result of this new collective bargaining agreement which was completed a few months ago. And again, no direct impact on -- no direct operational impact on general fund from either one of these organizations. There is some reserves there that part of those organizations -- and I encourage those reserves to remain intact, either from FEMA-related disaster reimbursement issues, and also some early phase programming discussion that we're having for some station needs and coverage needs at Port of the Isles. Let me see if you have any questions up to this point. I have just a few more summary remarks. COMMISSIONER HALAS: So at this point in time how does our reserves look for the long haul, for the next, let's say, 12 months? Hopefully we won't have anything reoccurring like we had last year. MR. SUMMERS: I can only address the reserves related to the divisions within Emergency Management bureau. And the big concern there is obviously the fire districts. Our EMS reserve as it relates to a disaster, I would have to ask Mike for some assistance on that because it is general fund. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Our reserves are in good shape. General Page 173 June 15,2005 fund are as good as they've been. Utilities has adequate reserves. Overall, I'd say we're fine. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, and if you remember correctly, and it's one thing I whispered in Mike's ear, I said it's probably -- we've got a better status on reserves in the '05 budget than we ever had before. And I want to take you back a little bit. When we did the unfinanced requirement list for '05, every time we had somebody that came in for reserves, we deducted it from that amount of money, and we were running a tally as we were going along. So when you finally allocated the money for '05 unfinanced requirements, it, the amount that you allocated, any reserve expenditures were reduced (sic) from that UFR. We had never done that in the past. I mean -- and so I would say right now you probably have all your reserves that you started with that you allocated in your budget. And that's unheard of since I've been here, so -- well, we did that. I asked Mike to do that because the UFR list was going as long as it was to make sure that those were tallied and we didn't get ourselves in trouble in case we did have a bad emergency manage -- we had a bad season, okay? MR. SUMMERS: Commissioners, I'd like to compliment Mike and his staff, because we worked immediately after the storm to get a handle on FEMA disaster reimbursement and, although our claims are no comparison to Charlotte and Lee, we're well ahead of the curve with FEMA reimbursements. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. Could you give me a little more detail about Port of the Isles and the plans -- MR. SUMMERS: There is a committee there, the community association committee, that has come forth. They are interacting with Chief Paul Wilson on the early phases of coming up, maybe, withi Page 174 June 15, 2005 some -- a site. We're talking about staffing, we're talking about the service that they are looking for. So we're having community discussions. We have no formal proposal to the County Manager yet, but we are looking at options and we want hopefully to try to bring something that could be financially doable in the immediate future. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Possibly as things start to progress you might be able to keep me appraised of it? MR. SUMMERS: Sir, we certainly will. And the dialogue with that community association has just been excellent. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Great. MR. SUMMERS: So we are working in partnership to bring some options to you for discussion. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, we also -- while that dialogue was going on, and Dan brought it to my attention, I said hey, you know, you're talking about a fire district that's at four mil. And I said, you know, with that assessed value that they just had of 45 percent, you might have an opportunity to take that millage down. And then we got into the other fire station issue. But if you wanted to talk about their increased millage or their assessed value, you could bring that millage rate down to about 3.5 if they wanted to and still have enough monies coming in where they don't have a reduction in their budget. But now they're talking about a new fire station, a new engine, new personnel, and when you do that it's probably not a time to reduce that millage rate because your assessed value went up. So I bring it to your attention. It's not something that's lost on us. We're asking those questions both ways and trying to find out what that advisory Board is wanting to do so that we don't miss any opportunity. If you're going to reduce the millage rate, you need to declare it and relatively soon. So we need to ask them those questions and what they want to do with that increase in revenue that was kind Page 175 June 15, 2005 of unexpected for them. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. MR. SUMMERS: The remaining two outstanding issues, one is Emergency Management related to our request for half of a full-time equivalent position. The position that is held by Jim Von Rinteln in our office has been funded at a 50-50 ratio between County general fund and Emergency Management, what we call pass-through assistance money from state and FEMA for the past five years. Jim's mission critical to our office. This is one of the -- and we also would like to have the opportunity to use our Emergency Management assistant's money in the true desire in which that legislation was intended, and that's to build capability with supplies and equipment. So you'll notice that we did not ask for any additional disaster response units next year. And we go through a very painful accounting situation to try to move EM, Emergency Management, assistance money into staffing roles. So we're asking you to please pick up that FTE, that half FTE. Critical issues for that is that that position works to help us deal with the operation, maintenance and development of the shelter management programs, hazardous materials incident. And right now, Commissioners, we're staring down the barrel this year of over a million dollars in competitive FEMA mitigation grants. And this is where -- one of the areas that Jim works as a result of the '04 hurricane season. So we stand in opportunity by having a program person there, not only to help me in the EOC and to help me in the field, but to really take advantage of some FEMA mitigation grants to help work on our structural retrofit and improve our shelters. Our other activity is replacement vehicles and one expansion vehicle this year. The disaster response units, the trailers, we actually work on those and move them around just about every day. We need high wheel clearance vehicles. Page 176 June 15, 2005 I ran into that situation when I was out at 3 :00 a.m. in the morning with Charley that went through, and I was out patrolling North Naples area looking for possibly issuing a flash flood warning. So we have asked to replace instead of a compact car to a medium duty SUV, and also add or replace our light duty Jeep with a heavier duty SUV so we can safely tow our equipment. We're gaining capability but we are -- and we're doing that with non-motorized vehicles, our light trailers that provide portable lighting, our generators that we have forthcoming under a rental arrangement. We need to have the assets for those additional vehicles to pull that. And to be real honest with you, in Emergency Management the towing type SUV is just stock equipment, just because that's the way we do business. So that sort of hits the high points. I'll be glad to talk about EMS -- oh, pardon me, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Halas has a question. MR. SUMMERS: I'm sorry. I looked down. COMMISSIONER HALAS: I was looking at your game plan here, and under your UFR list you have a full-time Emergency Management coordinator, and you say to be dedicated to homeland security. Could you elaborate a little bit on that? Since I felt that the Sheriff took care of the homeland security. But maybe you can give us some -- shed some more light on this. MR. SUMMERS: Yes, sir. Thank you. The homeland security staple is the new threshold since 911 for Emergency Management and law enforcement. The Sheriffs perspective in homeland security is that criminal element. The border -- the border patrol, the border interface, the potential threats to do harm to the community. My job in homeland security is prevention and vulnerability analysis. What can I do to assist the other departments to eliminate vulnerability, work with them in their water treatment plants, for Page 1 77 June 15, 2005 example, where there are areas of safety. Where can I build additional safety programming related to homeland security at the hospitals as we deal with hazardous materials? Where law enforcement is dealing with crisis, Emergency Management's homeland security is consequence management. What is the secondary event related to any emergency situation or homeland -- threat on homeland security. That program, which we got initiated with some grant monies, has just been invaluable in the areas that we've been able to do. And the homeland security function in Emergency Management since 9-11 will never go away. That new vulnerability twist will always be there, and so we certainly put that UFR request with you today. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes, Mr. Summers. Just a suggestion. I wanted to say it now because I know if I waited until after the meeting I'd probably forget this with running out the door. The County Commission has one vehicle at their disposal that would probably fit in neatly into your inventory at the time of a disaster. It's a Ford Explorer, and it's even got the four-wheel drive little adapter inside of it, so I'm sure that we, through the County Manager's office, could make arrangements for you to get a set of keys at the time that -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Why don't we just give it to him? COMMISSIONER HALAS: I believe that's where that vehicle came from originally, was from Emergency Management. MR. SUMMERS: Yes, that was an original-- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: They should be able to use it at the time of emergency. I'm sure we could find our own ways to get around. If we gave it to him, Commissioner Henning, we'd have to replace it and I don't know if that would be a wise idea. This has got about 60,000 miles on it, probably get another five years of service out Page 178 June 15, 2005 of it at the rate we use it. MR. SUMMERS: We are -- thank you, sir. We would love to investigate that opportunity. Our challenge, of course, is having something that is pretty rugged in terms of towing but also has the utility. And we can tow these trailers. We have to be careful about stopping them because they're quite heavy with the Explorer frame. We do -- in a disaster, we pull every spare car from fleet or pickup in, and again, it's reassigned either by personnel or by mission from the EOC. So just getting some daily capability -- and when we respond to the wildfires, one person can't do that anymore to, one, to support incident command and have a second person who's working with me to address the community impacts and relocation. So what I think you're not used to seeing is a little more field response from Emergency Management, and that's certainly what I concentrate on, because we're not going to be here operating on small events in a vacuum in the EOC. I have to be out there to support the community and support the incident responder until it becomes big enough to activate the EOC. I'm ready to shift gears to emergency medical services. And I have just a few comments, and then any particulars for Jeff Page. I want to -- if you'll pardon the medical pun, EMS is alive and well. We're head and shoulders above the challenges associated with rising health care. Emergency medical services is a health care delivery component, and all of us know what the rising health care costs are like today. I want to tell you that we've worked very hard to clarify the overtime-related issues. And again, this is an area where we're outside your budget guidance related to overtime. And as you know, I think you have been down the discussion of comparing apples and oranges between law enforcement overtime and emergency medical services' duty cycle of a 24 by seven organization, understanding that we have to deal with fair labor standard acts among Page 1 79 June 15, 2005 other things. There are four significant points related to emergency medical services this year. EMS has not had a growth unit in five years. Our AUIR now requires this growth unit, and that is being submitted to you. About 60 percent of our operating expenses are attributable to non-controllable costs, such as rent, insurance of all forms, et cetera. Peak demand this year was a real challenge during season, with hospitals being at capacity and extended wait times at emergency departments to transfer patients to ER beds. Please recognize that emergency medical services is again in the same boat as health care delivery . Various trade publications put annual increase in health cost operations between 11 and 16 percent. We're much closer to the seven percent mark in our area. Understanding that we have one of the nationally recognized EMS systems, one of the best resuscitation rates in the country, and we have all done -- we have done that in a very efficient and professional manner. If you have any questions particularly for Mr. Page, I'll defer to him at this time. That's all my remarks. COMMISSIONER HENNING: The overtime is controlled by contract negotiations; am I correct? Is this above and beyond? MR. PAGE: Well, there's a number of overtime issues. Some-- when you have a 24/7 shop, vacation requests, sick leave, those type of leave requests, we have about 42,000 hours a year that we have to cover. So rather than down units based on the amount of sick leave, we backfill those positions. Some of the things we are doing, though, to control that overtime down is increase the number of job bank employees we have. These are EMTs primarily that come in and fill in regular hours to fill those vacanCIes. COMMISSIONER HENNING: The request for overtime, does it Page 180 June 15, 2005 coincide with the union contract? MR. PAGE: Well, it's mostly under the federal labor standard where any time over 40 hours we have to pay the overtime. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right. And that's part of the contract -- MR. PAGE: Correct. COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- too. So we're okay. MR. PAGE: Yes, absolutely. COMMISSIONER HENNING: We're not trying to give something that is not being asked. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. What I've asked -- I asked Jeff and Dan to do is, the stuff that's contractually obligated, okay, in the union contract, we don't call it overtime, okay, it's mandatory pay. It's based on that contract and it's how they work. And that's what we negotiated. What I asked Mr. Page to do is to control that in '04. That 900,000 worth of discretionary overtime has nothing to do with the union contract. And that's where I was -- that's where he is still not meeting the guidance at two times two percent. He's a little bit over. And you want to talk about figures. Go ahead, if you would, Jeff. MR. PAGE: Sure. MR. MUDD: Show them on which page. MR. PAGE: The pages for emergency medical services run from I-32 through I-37. My personnel services are 5.97 percent. This includes the six FTEs that we've asked for, for the additional life support unit. The increase over the FY '05 less the expansion unit is 3.2 percent. So it's 14,490, 200 -- I'm sorry, 14,490,200 for FY '06 versus our 14,036,700 for FY '05. One of the things the manager did ask is that we look for -- when you have these special events like we commonly do for golfing events, Page 181 June 15, 2005 things of these nature, that requires overtime to cover that event, it's a dedicated unit. We're looking at following what the Sheriff utilizes where these contracted events would actually pay for the personnel costs associated with that so that there is no overtime, it's actually coming out of the revenue generated from covering that event and actually backfilled back into the personnel line items. So we're hoping to see a reduction there and see how that goes this year. As I mentioned, job bank employees, increasing the number of those employees should also help reduce the overtime. And of course we've also included some additional training software, which will reduce the amount of overtime for training that occurs off duty. So we think that actually will provide training on duty for both EMS and fire fighters this year. CHAIRMAN COYLE: How much was your overtime? MR. PAGE: For FY '05? CHAIRMAN COYLE: And how much are you budgeting for FY '06? MR. PAGE: Again, you have to remember that in this year's budget for FY '06 we're calculating the scheduled overtime into the regular personnel line item for regular salaries. But if you're asking for the actual totals -- Mike, I might need a little help here. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Why don't you just give it to me later. What I would be interested in is the total amount of overtime and the total number of employees receiving it. MR. PAGE: And the total number of employees receiving overtime? The overtime is restricted to just the bargaining unit personnel and billing group and pilots. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Just tell me the number. And I'd like the same information for your forecast, your budget for '05 -- or '06, fiscal year '06. Page 182 June 15, 2005 Any other questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, let's go on. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, Mr. Page did mention that he has six personnel on expanded because he has an expanded unit that's coming on Board, and that's in keeping with our A UIR in that process. Dan, back to you. MR. SUMMERS: Commissioners, that concludes my remarks on the EMS and Emergency Management and the other -- MR. SMYKOWSKI: Excuse me, Jim. One other thing we need to mention just quickly. We budgeted for a rate increase, and that's elaborated on Page I-34 in EMS. Jeff does that annually, consistent with looking at what our competitors do, what the market will bear, and also bearing in mind that he's trying to minimize the hit to the general fund. And the general fund goes from $10.9 million support in '05 to roughly 9.2 million in fiscal year '06. So part of the additional reserve and, you know, the manager being under his allocation in terms of transfer to EMS is because of the growth in the fee-based revenue that this budget is built upon. So we wanted to make that clear. And Jeff, I believe you've already taken this to the Board. MR. PAGE: Yes, it was approved yesterday. MR. SUMMERS: The rate increase was approved. MR. SMYKOWSKI: So this budget is consistent with the fee increase that Jeff brought to you yesterday. MR. MUDD: As Mike gets prepared for Pelican Bay -- Dan, you're done, right? MR. SUMMERS: I'm done. If you want to caution -- the fire districts, the Goodland District is one that you need to be aware that we have some -- Mike, you want to talk about Goodland/Horr's, just for a minute? MR. MUDD: Goodland district and Horr's Island's, on I-58, your Page 183 June 15, 2005 last page before the little red page that says management offices capital. It went down by 19.3 percent, and the reason for that is because Horr's annexed to the City of Marco Island and is no longer part of this particular MSTU. And, you know, I brought it up, I said has anybody taken into account that Horr's Island's gone, or is the city taxing them and then we're taxing them on this one too? So we got that resolved. MR. SMYKOWSKI: The City of Marco has requested a two mil -- they've been providing fire service for $56,000 for the last three or four years. Obviously, Horr's Island is no longer a part of this MSTU. The tax levy last year was just shy of a half a mil. They have requested a two mil tax levy for fiscal year '06 as the contracted payment to cover Goodland. So obviously we're going to be negotiating with the City of Marco Island. There's no requirement that the City of Marco Island actually be the provider. Obviously, from a proximity standpoint they are physically located closest to Goodland, but, you know, if that's their bottom line position we'll explore other options up to and including looking at Isle of Capri or another district serving them hopefully at less. Obviously, Isle's millage is one and a half, it would be less than the two mils that is being currently requested at least. But again, that was their opening salvo. We're hopeful to come to some agreement and minimize the cost to the Goodland residents, obviously. MR. SUMMERS: That's all I have. Thank you, Commissioners. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Thank you very much, Dan. PELICAN BAY MANAGEMENT OFFICES MR. MUDD: Brings us to Pelican Bay, Mike. MR. SMYKOWSKI: I'll cover Pelican Bay. There are representatives from Pelican Bay here. Unfortunately Mr. Ward had a Page 184 June 15, 2005 hearing that was a conflict. Essentially, the Pelican Bay budget is scoured greatly by the MSTU advisory committee within Pelican Bay, and they have reviewed and approved the budget that is before you today. On Page I-39, I guess I'll just comment on a few key notes. Under revenue, the assessment revenue adopted in fiscal year '05 was $2.5 million. The recommended assessment level in '06 is $546,500. They've opted this year to use some of their reserves and bleed down their fund balance rather than assessing. And I think they'll reevaluate once a final determination is made whether not they would be annexed into the City of Naples. I think that's a fair characterization of where the advisory committee is at this point, but -- so with that again, the advisory committee has voted officially to support this budget. It's gone through a number of changes. We've incorporated them as we went along. There are no new positions, no expanded services. But from a payment standpoint, from the cost to the individual taxpayer or ratepayer in Pelican Bay, the big thing for '06 would be the reduction in the assessments. And that was a policy decision that they've made at this point in time. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Halas? COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes. They -- a couple of representatives that I meet with monthly said that this is the way that they wanted to address the funds that were sitting in reserve. And I told them that I didn't think this was a good way to go, but obviously this is what they're planning to do. So I -- and I mean this just in jest, I said I hope you guys don't end up with rope burns. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, if you don't have any questions on Pelican Bay, that completes the management offices. The capital program has a lot to do with beach renourishment and all those projects that they normally see. So we've seen that numerous times, that process. If you have any questions on the capital program Page 185 June 15, 2005 we'll-- Mike and I will be prepared to answer those questions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I don't see any questions. COUNTY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE MR. MUDD: Commissioner, that brings us to the County Attorney's office. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Now, must we complete all this by 5:00? MR. SMYKOWSKI: No. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, we're going to do pretty good. I think you're going to pretty well be done by 5:00. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I was done two hours ago. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yeah. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, we still have Friday. MR. MUDD: David? MR. WEIGEL: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Commissioners. David Weigel for the County Attorney Office. In 1992, Chairman Burt Saunders placed the municipal code responsibility with the office of the County Attorney. And what we have, then, thereafter is a recurring but not annual fiscal requirement. And unfortunately, this is one of the years where there is a fiscal requirement. You may see it there on Pages J -6 through J -9, where we, to keep the contract current and the service up to snuff, are requiring a $10,000 input in that regard. Additionally, pursuant to the Article 5 legislation this past year, both the state attorney and the public defender office provide a service to the County for the enforcement of County ordinances by and in contractual nature. $20,000 to each of those agencies is agreed upon by those agencies and the County. And again, it's been placed with the County Attorney's office. It's a new expenditure based upon the legislation of just last year. Page 186 _...".._~_.- June 15, 2005 So that increases our budget to that extent. As you know, we're a relatively small office in the sense that we don't grow significantly over a period of time. But this past April you did approve two positions to our office which both we are thankful for as well as the client's agency to receive that service, which would be the community development services division. Our funding for those positions is ostensibly nearly entirely the permit and fee application type fees, with little to no ad valorem consequence. As you can see, on J-6 or 7 -- let's see -- pardon me, on J-7 and 8 that we are significant -- have significant revenues both from the risk management department and from community development services, again, 258,000, which is non ad valorem revenue to us which otherwise would be paid for at taxpayer expense. So we're very proud of that relationship and service we provide. If one were to extract the municipal code and the state attorney office costs, our percent increase is small but over the five percent. If one were to take out the $16,300 I believe we have put in there for temporary services due to two employees who will be going on maternity leave, we would meet the five percent goal of the budget request for this year. If you have any questions, I'd certainly look forward to answering them. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Questions, Commissioners? (No response.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: No questions. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, that brings us -- MR. WEIGEL: Thank you very much. MR. MUDD: Thank you, David. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Page 187 June 15, 2005 Brings us to the Board of County Commissioners. And we have the Bayshore Gateway Triangle CRA. Mr. David Jackson is here. And the Airport Authority operations, if we could just bring everybody up from the table, that would be great. And we'll handle them each on its own. MS. FILSON: Okay. Would you like me to go first, since I'm-- MR. MUDD: Oh, I'm sorry. Ms. Filson, I didn't mean -- I didn't want to make you last. That's normally the heated debate item with Sue, so I don't know if we want to lay that spark on now or we want to wait until these other two people get finished before we go in there and figure out who has the biggest travel budget. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Let's get Sue finished here. MS. FILSON: Okay. I have increased one, two, three, four, five line items in my budget this year, and only one of those was under my control, and that was office supplies due to the cartridges for the printers. COMMISSIONER FIALA: What page are you on, Sue? CHAIRMAN COYLE: J-12, I think. MS. FILSON: J-13. I mean -- I'm sorry, J-3. However, I'm reading off my line item budget. And I was just letting you know which items. And three of the items that I increased were due to the County car for the gas increases and maintenance and so forth. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's Commissioner -- MS. FILSON: But my line item budget-- CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's Commissioner Coletta. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's me. MS. FILSON: My line item budget is not in the budget book. I'm just letting you know which items I increased. The $600 from the -- for the office supplies, the others all relate to the County vehicle. And the largest one, $1,100 is F AC dues, which I have no control over, and that went from $26,600 to 27,700. Page 188 June 15, 2005 Do you have any questions? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Any questions, anybody? MS. FILSON: And of course, the travel I left at 4,000. If you wanted to increase that, I will leave that up to the Board. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Where do we stand on that travel? MS. FILSON: Each Commissioner is allotted $4,000. COMMISSIONER HALAS: I know that, yes. MS. FILSON: Your balances, you mean? Well, I know that a couple of Commissioners gave another Commissioner some of their allotment. I can give you the total of each person's expenditures as of 6/13. District 1 is $2,930.32. That is your available total, okay. And the available total for District 2 is $977.12. District 3 is $2,497.42. District 4 is $1,988.57. And I believe you gave a large chunk and so did District 3. COMMISSIONER HALAS: That's to District 2. MS. FILSON: And District 5 -- District 5's available total is $889.44. But I do have expenditures that I haven't received checks for that are pending. COMMISSIONER HALAS: So what you're saying is that over all our expenditures have gone up. Do you think that we should have a cushion of $1 ,000 each in our -- in the travel budget? COMMISSIONER HENNING: No. MS. FILSON: That's not my decision. CHAIRMAN COYLE: It means that Commissioners should start living within their budgets -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right. CHAIRMAN COYLE: -- just like all the other departments do. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. Good. I'll do that. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, we can always keep Page 189 June 15, 2005 coming back. And I -- this last year I really didn't travel much to Tallahassee. I had quite a few commitments I had to take care of locally. But next year I hope to take quite a few trips, and when I reach the end of the budget, if there's an interest on the part of the Commission to share what they have and if they're not going to use it, then we'll talk about it at that time. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I think we always have enough in the aggregate. And if we have surpluses in one, we can share them. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: The problem is that Commissioner Halas, unlike myself, is embarrassed to come and beg you people -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: You don't have to beg. We were happy to give you the money. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I know it. I'm just picking on you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's not a problem. MS. FILSON: And one other item I want to mention while I'm on my budget is, I've been requested to purchase a time/date stamp for the office. And because it's such a large ticket item, I wanted to get word approval. It's going to be like over $500. CHAIRMAN COYLE: What is a time/date? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: It tells you the time that comes in the office. Lately we've getting communiques from different departments after we get the agenda. And, in fact I had one that came in at 8: lOin the morning on Tuesday. And so I just ~- what I'm trying to do is hold staff accountable for getting the stuff in to our agenda in proper time so that we as Commissioners have time to go through it. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Why don't we save the taxpayers' money and just say we have a deadline of Friday at 5 :00 p.m. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Well, obviously, it hasn't worked-- MR. MUDD: Commissioner, I'm going to help you a little bit Page 190 June 15, 2005 better than that, okay? My next staff meeting, based on the Ave Maria experience that we just went through, basically, when that thing hits the printer on Wednesday afternoon, that's it. If there's something you forgot or there's something new that gets added, it's continued to the next meeting. And we're going to solve that problem, because I'm a little bit embarrassed for the staff and for maybe some outside folks that gave us some late information. And my apologies for that, because it came in fast and furious to me and I was doing the same thing you were doing, what the heck is this? COMMISSIONER FIALA: And we'd already read everything that we'd gotten in the first place. And then how were we supposed to MR. MUDD: Yes, ma'am. And it makes it very difficult. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You spend all weekend reading that stuff and then at the last minute you get something that changes. Yeah, it's -- let's do that, okay. MR. MUDD: Sir, I'm going to resolve that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: You just saved $500. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's a promise, right? MR. MUDD: That's a promise. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Ifit doesn't work, we're going to have a time/date -- MR. MUDD: Commissioner, it's going to be continued, okay. And I'm going to tell you right now, I'm not going to take another one if it doesn't go to the printer and it's not right, it's continued to the next item. CHAIRMAN COYLE: If it doesn't work, we make him pay for the date stamp. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, good. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So you saved $500. Goodjob. Page 191 June 15, 2005 COMMISSIONER FIALA: You know, if that will make people toe the line a little bit. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. Are you done, Ms. Filson? MS. FILSON: I'm finished unless you have any other questions. MR. MUDD: Okay, Mr. Jackson. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you, Sue. Hi, David, how are you doing? MR. JACKSON: David Jackson, the CRA Board's executive director. On May 11 th when the Bayshore Gateway Advisory Board met with the CRA Board, they had a joint workshop in which you may find familiar is this document that we gave you as a read-ahead, and we talked about the budget. Commissioner Coyle, you were not there. We gave you a back brief the next week and we talked about what was going on. In there was our budget. And you saw what we had in there and there was some discussion, several points that several of you had about what was going on in that part of the budget. And in there it was to flush out the personnel services, the operations expenses, and also to put in about 74 percent of the total revenues available to the CRA into capital improvements. And we're still holding to that, and that's what our budget shows. We gave our information to the management office and they put it into their format, and that's the format that's in your books, which is the same numbers just arranged differently. And in there we had asked for two expanded positions. And the expanded position discussion was, they are placeholders, they are planning ahead for the future. There's no intent right now to fully staff those positions. But when they are needed we'll come back to the CRA Board, request permission and go out and advertise for the positions as needed so they're fully staffed up and we don't have to go Page 192 June 15, 2005 back and do a budget amendment for that way. And if they never hire one then it rolls back over into the fund for the next one. In the thing that has changed that -- from the last time I spoke with the CRA Board and you as the holders and the ones that are accountable for the CRA trust fund, which sits with the Board of County Commissioners, the thing that has happened is that our TIF revenue increase over last year's increase is $354,800. So we're up about 29 percent in TIF revenues over last year. Also, the thing that's a little different is the -- what we got from the tax office and the property appraiser's office, we had a budget for about a million six for revenues. However, with the June numbers that have come in here, we have an increase of $122,141 more than what we had programmed for. It just so happens that that $122,141 more than covers the cost of those two expanded positions. So essentially, we actually can fund through the unexpected revenues the two positions and have more money in the capital improvements. That's all I have for there, unless you have a specific questions. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Mr. Jackson, just to let you know, on July 1 st we'll get the final certified taxable value from the property appraiser, so we will be making a final change based on that final value. He gave us a preliminary number on June 1 for budget planning purposes, so your numbers will change one more time. Typically, they would move in a positive direction as they update the final tax roll prior to certification. MR. JACKSON: Right. And we are fully well funded to do all the projects that we project to do. And we have a couple capital projects that we're going to fund this year or early into, after first fiscal year 1 October. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good. Thank you, David. No questions by Commissioners? (No response.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: Anything else? Page 193 June 15, 2005 MR. JACKSON: No, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good job. AIRPORT AUTHORITY MR. MUDD: Going to the Airport Authority. And Ms. Cook will present this particular item. I will tell you that it's been a pleasure working on this budget with Ms. Cook. It -- and I've gone through a lot of these before where it's been like pulling teeth to try to figure out what's going on. She has downsized her staff, she's combined operations. She's done some very positive things for the Airport Authority since she's come on Board, and I will tell you after she's done doing her operating budget, we'll go to the capital side of the house, and any person that you can do, that you can use ad valorem for $371,000 and they can leverage 2.8 million in grant money, that's a good investment. And that's the first time it's been that forthcoming in this particular thing. So I will tell you, from a County Manager's side of the house it's been a pleasure to put this budget with the Airport Authority. Ms. Cook? MS. COOK: Thank you very much. Theresa Cook with the Airport Authority. And that's pretty much my budget as Mr. Mudd has explained. But we're looking at a budget transfer of $594,000. It's a slight reduction of about 5,800. And we did eliminate two positions. And that's pretty much -- we've stayed within the guidelines of the request. If you have any questions on the -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: I'm showing 589,000. MS. COOK: Yes, you are. Okay. Change that number to 589,000. Mine is a little bit different. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MS. COOK: There might have been some miscommunication in Page 194 June 15, 2005 the last few minutes. MR. MUDD: Your administration is at 589. It's a minus 13.2 percent. That's on Page J-15. MS. COOK: I'd given the wrong numbers. CHAIRMAN COYLE: All right. So you have met all the budget guidance. You have actually trimmed total staff. You've become more efficient. You're operating better with less money. MS. COOK: We believe we are. We're trying to reorganize and operate more efficiently. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. If you'd take a look at most of her increase on her budget is basically -- is basically on Immokalee Regional Airport, all the air parks basically have an increased fuel budget. Fuel's going up, so that has a tendency to skew her percentages. CHAIRMAN COYLE: But that's all offset by higher revenue, too, so that's all good. Okay. Any other questions? MR. MUDD: Commissioner, I bring your attention to the blue page that's in Airport Authority capital. And what I was alluding to just a moment ago, and there's explanations on all her projects on Capital-2, what I was alluding to, if you take a look on Capital-l where it says total project expenditure, you'll see FY '06 grant funding for 2.82 -- $2,852,600, general fund match of $371,600, for a total '06 requested budget of $3,224,200. And one of the things before I'd even put my imprimatur on this budget was, I made her a promise that if the grants don't come, she doesn't spend that general fund money for anything different. And she said, Roger, out, and she would return it. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, now, once again we need to emphasize although the budget is for $3,221,000, the general fund commitment is only for $371,000. So you're leveraging those funds Page 195 June 15, 2005 quite a lot, okay. MS. COOK: A little over 10 percent. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. It's a pretty good investment. This investment is one of the better ones outside of the health department, as far as one of the better deals in our budget. COMMISSIONER FIALA: What's that, like 900 percent on your investment? Not bad. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Just about. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Job well done. MS. COOK: Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good. Thank you. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I think it's the -- our investment and the Airport Authority's investment to bring a fiscal conservative manager to the helm. And running a good airport, too. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You betcha. That's right. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And it's 5:03. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, that -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Could I remind you of something, that when the time when we were discussing exercising a little more control over what happened at the airport, people were predicting doom and gloom getting the Board of County Commissioners more closely involved in airport operations, and they were telling us it's none of your business, stay away from it. And since we have developed a closer relationship with the Airport Authority and we have begun to demand greater efficiency and cost savings, that's exactly what has happened, and we have wonderful business opportunities out there, things are really looking good. And thank you very much. MS. COOK: Thank you very much. I believe in strong communication. COMMISSIONER HALAS: The other thing is, we didn't have Page 196 June 15, 2005 to get rid of an airport. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's right. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes, that's so true. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, I believe the discussions about the Everglades City Airport are still in negotiations. They have a new attorney for the city and I believe they'll be coming forward with some kind of an offer, I believe, in the future. I don't know what that is yet, but -- COMMISSIONER HALAS: Well, if they're concerned about $1,000 for an MPO, I'm sure-- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Not going to be a big offer, is it. MR. MUDD: Sir, this concludes today's basic budget hearing. Tomorrow we start at 9:00 with the constitutional officers. Commissioners, I would like to just get your opinion. I believe you'll be finished with constitutional officers in the morning. If you'd like to do the wrap-up in the afternoon on Thursday for an hour or so, we could pretty much free up your Friday, is what I believe. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I think that would be great. Now, I will have to leave here probably about 4:20 in the afternoon because the memorial service for Mayor Bonnie MacKenzie is at 5:00. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, I believe you'll be out of here by 3:00. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Just so we can plan for that and we can make sure that nothing interferes with that. MR. MUDD: If we go longer than 3 :00, sir, we just break off and we'll do it Friday then. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MR. MUDD: But I don't believe -- I believe we can do the wrap-up within an hour, an hour and a half and we're done. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Good. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And we can leave our books here, nobody will clean them off, right? Page 197 ---..-- June 15, 2005 MR. MUDD: That's right, ma'am. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. We're all set? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Any other questions or comments by Commissioners? (No response.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: We're adjourned. ***** There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 5 :05 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARDS(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL ~w.C+ FRED COYLE, Chairman ATTEST: DWIGHT E~,ßROCK, CLERK . ~~ .,.~ ~.:' ,,:'~' , . ~ . .. <> ,> " . . ~~~'""" .....Qf··...~'f ", I\;ot :,' ....',. ,', .-',; o~- . .,'" ~ . . .- .~:' .-~! .' / " '" :', ':-)'. ~ ;:.; ~ At st';:as to Ch 1" ~j :'" " ;è ~fi1IItbs~i?jl'Öved by the Board on V- ~ to". Uo5 , as presented " .... V" or as corrected TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE, INC. BY CHERIE' NOTTINGHAM and SIDNEY FRANCIS Page 198