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BCC Minutes 06/16/2005 B (Budget Workshop) June 16, 2005 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BUDGET WORKSHOP Naples, Florida, June 16, 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 as have been created according to law and having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m. in BUDGET SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: Fred Coyle Jim Coletta Donna Fiala Tom Henning Frank Halas ALSO PRESENT: Jim Mudd, County Manager Leo Ochs, Deputy County Manager David Weigel, County Attorney Page 1 - ..,--_._- 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. Hannon 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 IS, 20Q5 - 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 16, 2005 MR. MUDD: Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, you have a hot mic. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, the Board of County Commissioners Budget Review Session is now in session. Would you please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. (Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, Mr. Mudd? OVERVIEW OF CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICER'S AGENDA MR. MUDD: Commissioner, Mr. Chairman, the agenda is up on the visualizer. And we'll start today -- this morning is basically Constitutional Officers. We'll do the Property Appraiser, Supervisor of Elections, Clerk of Courts and the Sheriff s Office. And just as a reminder, the Tax Collector's budget doesn't come in until 1 August. And then at 1 :00 today, we'll do budget wrap-up. The first constitutional officer today is the Property Appraiser. And I believe Mr. Smykowski will present that budget. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Good. PROPERTY APPRAISER MR. SMYKOWSKI: Good morning, Commissioners. For the record, Michael Smykowski. There's a constitutional officer tab in your budget binders. And if you turn to Page K-4, the Property Appraiser's budget is delineated therein. Overall his increase is a net of 3.8 percent. He has no expanded services. Retaining the existing workforce of 57 people. He has budgeted for some replacement data processing equipment. And his increase in operating expenses is associated with a GIS system with aerial photographs to update the website system and the points Page 2 ------' _.~- June 16, 2005 geographically for the maps, just to update those on an annual basis. So very plain vanilla, I guess, and certainly within the guidance that you provided to him. His budget ultimately is approved by the State of Florida, but it is also shown to the Board for their review and consideration. MR. MUDD: And on 1 July, his particular office, we do get the final assessed values. We've got a preliminary as of 1 June. 1 July we get the final appraised value. It's normally a little bit higher than the draft. Now, last year was an anomaly, it was a little bit lower. So, you know, I guess we're 50/50. We could be one way or the other. But we suspect it will be just a little higher than it was on 1 June. That's all we have for the Property Appraiser. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Any questions, Commissioners? Is Commissioner Halas afraid to sit closer to us, or what's happened there -- COMMISSIONER HALAS: My computer doesn't work, and I've been trying to get IT to fix it for two days now. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Have we considered the IT budget yet? MR. MUDD: Sir, when Commissioner Halas breaks his computer, he really breaks it. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Well, we'll revisit the IT computer because Sue Filson is having trouble with hers and I'm having trouble with mine, so -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: And so am I. I get the darkness on the top. CHAIRMAN COYLE: We're going to review that budget again. SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS MR. MUDD: Commissioner, since there's no question, that will bring us to the next constitutional officer, and that's the Supervisor of Page 3 .-"----- June 16, 2005 Elections. And I believe Ms. Jennifer Edwards is here with her staff. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good morning, Jennifer, how are you today? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Good morning, Pat. MS. EDWARDS: For the record, Jennifer Edwards, Supervisor of Elections. And I have with me Pat Pochopin, who is the assistant Supervisor of Elections and the person who prepares our budget and monitors our budget for us throughout the year. And if you would turn to Page K-5, you will see that I have brought -- Pat and I have brought our budget in under the cap that was set. The significant requests in our budget are three new positions, and those are identified in our administration budget on Page K-7. We're requesting a Customer Service Representative position, and we will phase that in in the second half of the fiscal year. And that is for the new Government Center on Orange Blossom. We're really looking forward to that, because in '08 we'll be able to use that for early voting. So that's going to be very helpful for the North Naples community. And this next position is Assistant Absentee Coordinator. We have had a huge increase in our absentee ballot requests. And as you can see here, we had a 64 percent increase between the '02 elections and the '04 elections. We need someone to help in that area. We currently have three people, and we're adding this person. That area is also responsible for early voting. And then the next position is Assistant Training Officer. And the law requires us to train all of our poll workers, which is approximately 1,000, within 30 days of each election. And we currently have one Training Officer, and so I'm asking for a second Training Officer. And we will phase that position in also next summer as it gets closer Page 4 ~^'-'" ."'" -.-_. - .-._..,---- June 16, 2005 to the elections. Those are the significant changes in our budget. If you have any questions? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Halas has a question. COMMISSIONER HALAS: The only thing I want to do is kind of reinforce the Supervisor of Elections. Being on the canvassing Board the past year, I was very much surprised at the amount of absentee ballots that were coming in. And obviously we had to go through each and every one of them. And it was quite a task. And I think they need a lot of assistance in that area. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Jennifer, as we get more and more participation in the early voting process, is that expected to reduce the work load or staffing requirements for the regularly scheduled voting period? MS. EDW ARDS: It will depend on -- on how the legislature makes changes in the law. With early voting beginning 15 days before the election, that indeed has reduced the number that vote on election day. We had over 55 percent of our voters that voted in the general election voted before election day. So that indeed reduced the activity on election day. However, the law still requires us to have precincts and to have those precincts fully staffed with Inspectors, Clerks, Sheriffs or Deputies. And we can't change that until the legislature changes the law. What we are asking for -- and this is a trend across the Country, and we've asked the legislature last session, and we'll move forward with our request -- for what are called voting centers. And what that means is we would eliminate the requirement in the law for a polling site in every precinct. We have 93 precincts right now. We would be able to combine polling sites and have perhaps 30 or 40 instead of93. And indeed, that will reduce the number of employees that we'll need. CHAIRMAN COYLE: But that will require legislative action. Page 5 .--, ----- June 16, 2005 MS. EDWARDS: Yes, it will. And I would ask for your-all support in that. We have other issues with early voting too that we're going to be lobbying for prior to the '06 elections. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And that will require federal action or State action or both? MS. EDWARDS: State. CHAIRMAN COYLE: State action. Thank you very much, Jennifer -- oh, I'm sorry, Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: With the 55 percent, does that include the absentees? MS. EDW ARDS: Yes, it does. Absentees and early voting. COMMISSIONER FIALA: What do you attribute the continual climb in absentee voting, to what? MS. EDW ARDS: To begin with, changing the law. And that was part of the 2001 Election Reform Act, in that the legislature took away any limitations on requesting an absentee ballot. Prior to that, you had to have a reason. You had to be sick or you were going to be out of the County. But the law changed to what we say no excuse voting. Anybody that wants an absentee ballot, and we encourage that, can call our office and request one without any reason. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Any other questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good, thank you very much, Jennifer. MS. EDW ARDS: Thank you. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thankyou for adhering to the budget guidelines. MR. MUDD: Before Jennifer leaves, and she did, she did a great job with her budget. She also has a space issue, okay, and we're taking care of that. Jennifer's ultimate space allocation that she needs when, we'll call it build-out, is around 300 -- excuse me, and is 30,000 square feet. She's at around 10,000 square feet. And these three expanded Page 6 ",--, "--'-'- June 16, 2005 positions, we're having to find space for them. And we believe we have a tenable agreement where we're going to put them. But I'm just telling you, not only does the Sate Attorney have issues, we're -- you know, with the court expansion on the annex building and some other things, there are some dynamics going on with not having the master plan being executed way back when. So everybody's having to tighten up a little bit. And it's kind of interesting. Sometimes it can be frustrating, too, for our customers from facilities, as all the Constitutionals are, and for the departments and the State Attorney and whatnot. So we are trying to make all that work, but right now it's kind of a tenuous situation for us, because it's like a series of dominoes, you move one, and you put one in, and you're moving folks around. So space for those three people are the space at the Golden Gate Park, okay, that when people move to the North County Regional Park, that will free up, and then we're backfilling into that particular place. So they leave by May just in time to move her people in so she can start her training that she talked about. So it is kind of a dicey game right now that we're playing with space, but we're trying to make it work as we build those buildings and build those garages that we need in order to build them on campus and elsewhere in the County. And I do have an eye on two buildings that would pretty much get the Supervisor of Elections to her ultimate goal, but it's off campus -- it's on South Horseshoe -- that are going to come up for sale in 2007. And we'll be talking to the Board about that particular procurement here next year at this time. MS. EDW ARDS: That's heartening. That's good news. Thank you. And I'd like to compliment the County Manager and his staff. We've worked well together in looking for space. We're going to move our training of our poll workers, that whole operation, out to the Page 7 __,___",_"_'._~_"'___~_''"''fto._'_'"_ -- June 16, 2005 park next summer, and that will allow more space for our absentee department because of the increase in absentees within our office. It's important for us to keep the absentees where we are. I'm always very concerned about the chain of custody of our absentee ballots. And I want them where I am. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Does it serve any purpose for you to have satellite offices co-located with some of our other Constitutional Officers and thereby deal with some of these space requirements, or do you really prefer to keep everything pretty well centralized? MS. EDWARDS: It works better, and this is true in other counties, too, the experience is that if we can be self-contained, we have a more efficient operation. (Commissioner Henning enters the Boardroom.) MS. EDW ARDS: We're also looking at equipment to improve the mailing and receiving of absentee ballots to move away from the manual folding and inserting. We're looking at equipment to take care of that. And so that's another space issue. But having everything in one space works much better. We're looking forward, as I said; to the new space we're going to have available at Orange Blossom. That will provide a good service. But keep in mind that the Tax Collector is also required to offer registration to everyone that comes in to obtain a Florida driver's license or make a change to their record. So he provides that service already for us. And any time we need to provide information to the Clerk or to any of the Constitutional Officers that have satellite offices and the Tax Collector, they work with us. We have a great relationship and work well together. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good. That's good. Thank you very much. I don't think there are any other questions. MS. EDW ARDS: Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good seeing you. Page 8 _.~..._."'m..._.."_.__..". ~-'-" June 16, 2005 CLERK OF COURTS MR. MUDD: The next agenda item is the Clerk of Courts budget. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good morning. MS. KINZEL: Derek wants to move up there. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I don't blame him. MS. KINZEL: Good morning, Commissioners, Crystal Kinzel, Finance Director for the Clerk's office. I have with me today Jay Cross for Administration, Ray Milum, who's a manager with the Clerk's office, and Derek Johnssen. And we're here to answer any questions. I think that you'll find that the Clerk's Board is in compliance with the overall budgetary guidance that the Board set forward in policy, so we're here just to answer your questions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Anybody have any questions? COMMISSIONER HALAS: I don't have any questions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: No questions? COMMISSIONER FIALA: No. CHAIRMAN COYLE: It is in compliance with budget guidelines, as far as I can determine. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Can't argue with success. CHAIRMAN COYLE: We talked last time about an analysis of how Revision 7, Article 5 really impacted the County and the cost allocated to the County. Is it too early yet to prepare such a detailed analysis? MS. KINZEL: I think so, Commissioner. We are working on the first budget that's going to go to the State in August. We'll have a better handle after that August presentation. We'll be glad to come back to you with some summary and information, but we're still working through the first complete year and allocating costs. And the State, quite frankly, has set some different reporting guidelines and performance measures, and we're working through all Page 9 -.".--...---".-.,....,,-. .-'..-'..-- -..- June 16, 2005 of that detail, and hopefully we'll have a handle on it by the end of this summer. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, good, that would be helpful. Thank you very much. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, I think it's important to know that, because through the Clerk of Courts operation prior to Article 5, I mean, we were one of the only counties that were breaking even and actually bringing money into the general fund, okay, to pay for the entire court system. And I believe at this juncture, based on fees -- and I can't speak for the Clerk's side of it, but from the County Manager's side of it and from the Board's side -- you are giving ad valorem dollars to the court system. And you had the courts yesterday, okay, and you saw some $370,000 going to them to offset some of their costs. So it is an outlay now instead of coming in -- instead of being a plus. So we're a little bit into the deficit. And every year we're trying to find innovative ways to break that particular operation so it breaks even. And we're getting better at it. But last year it cost more than 374; it was close to 800,000. So they are getting better but we're not there yet, even from the manager's agency, trying to garner, you know, what all the different fees were, make sure that they're collected, they come in, making sure that they're accounted for correctly and the right fund types. And there are some discretions in the law that basically say -- for instance, in teen court it says you have to use your reserve first before you can use the outlay for a given year. So we're drawing those reserves down in that particular fund. So that $130,000 or so is coming back in to offset some of the other costs on the court's side of the house. So I really don't believe when this thing starts to level out that our costs from the ad valorem are going to be 370. I think it's going to be higher than that. I think it's going to be closer to 600,000 a year Page 10 ~----_...._.~ -_._"_.......~^..-,,~..-.....,,^ June 16, 2005 going to the court side so -- as far as a negative impact as far as the laws concerned, for the manager's agency. But we're monitoring that, and we've got focus on it, on just a couple of lines in the budget to get -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah, it's my recollection when I reviewed this budget that there are positive impacts anticipated because of increased fee structures for some fees and services, but the overall budget is expected to increase in the future I think, what, 7.68 percent or something like that. So it's going to be interesting to see how the fee structure offsets that increase and to what extent, you know, we might be able to mutually pursue any other fee structure changes that might help solve that problem. But until we get that information, it's going to be very difficult for any of us to make a decision as to what action we ought to take. MS. KINZEL: And Commissioner, we'll continue to know work with the manager's office with those types of allocations. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay, good. Thank you very much. MS. KINZEL: Thank you. SHERIFF'S OFFICE MR. MUDD: Commissioner, and the last agenda item for this morning is the Sheriff s Office Budget Presentation. MR. SMITH: Good morning, Commissioners. For the record, Greg Smith, Chief of Administration for the Sheriff s Office. And I'd like to take a moment to introduce my staff. To my right is Captain Chris Freeman with the Corrections Division; Carol Golightly, Finance Director; Jean Myers and Michelle Diaz, also from Finance. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good morning. MR. SMITH: You have the Sheriffs Budget. And first let me Page 11 ._--_.,-,."._-,.~ "......e..,...._..._._____.__ June 16, 2005 point out that most of the increases in our budget this year owe to personal services cost of bringing on additional staff in three different areas. One of course is the corrections component for the opening of the new jail wing. We also have positions coming off grants which require matched funding, and the Orangetree substation positions. So that's the basis of the increase. Let me also say that it reflects that we're $917,000 out of budget guidance relative to our proportionate share. A great deal of that, $600,000 owes itself to very late in the process us being informed that liability insurance had increased by that amount, which is a cost paid by the Board but reflected in our budget. So we're trying to get our arms around that. But I can tell you that we're going to work very hard through the summer, and we fully anticipate that we will be under the published proportionate share at the conclusion of the budget process this year. So with that, we'll stand for questions. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: I'm presuming we're going by the submittal of the June 11 th budget and not the May 2nd budget? MR. SMITH: Correct. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. So let me go through that then. The homeland security department, I guess it is, homeland security, or is it domestic security? Is it both? MR. SMITH: Domestic security. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is it both? Is homeland security and domestic considered one? MR. SMITH: Yes, that's correct. COMMISSIONER HENNING: The -- how many do you have allocated to that? Page 12 ",---~-,._- ,^. _","^~'.m~ June 16, 2005 MR. SMITH: I'm not sure. What's the detail on that? MS. GOLIGHTLY: I think there are three. COMMISSIONER HENNING: How many are allocated to the SWAT team? MS. MYERS: Eleven. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Eleven? The calls for the SW A T team last year, how many calls for service did they have? MS. MYERS: We'll look that up for you. As in calls for service versus call-outs? MR. SMITH: Call-outs. MS. MYERS: Because a lot of times that is a support group. So times that -- you know, they are that back-up support group. So we have things like search warrants. In 2004, 39 call-outs. They had 11 backups or like 544 arrests. Assists, 102. So they have various activities like that, that are captured statistically. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I think you have 11 members in the gang unit? No, I'm sorry, it's eight, right? MS. MYERS: Correct. COMMISSIONER HENNING: How many public assistants did they offer to the citizenry? I mean, what I know about gang units, it's not very much, so it's -- I'm just trying to understand. What I understand a gang unit is, is they attack each other, you know. I mean, it's a rival gang type thing and there's rivalry between the gangs. Is that correct? MR. SMITH: Yeah. We're fortunate that Captain Freeman used to be in charge of the gang unit, so he could probably respond to those questions for you. CAPTAIN FREEMAN: Good morning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Good morning. CAPTAIN FREEMAN: Yeah, street gang members typically terrorize the public within our community. One of their largest goals Page 13 ~~,..._--_._.,_._~,"~-".._., , . "-"-- June 16, 2005 is to dominate other gangs. So yes, we do have gang-on-gang violence. That's not as prominent as it is gang on citizen or gang on fellow students or others. That's where they prey, because that's where they're most successful. They get a lot of resistance when they are fighting amongst other street gangs. So proportionately, our largest problem in the past, and again, I've been removed for a few years, but I've kept my fingers in the pie there, it is gang on fellow students or -- students and the public. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Now, you have different shift workers, administration jail and others. Who are the ones that do the five-eighths, the four-tenths? MR. SMITH: Predominantly the road patrol units are on four-ten shift scheduling. COMMISSIONER HENNING: On the four-ten's, what are their days off? MR. SMITH: The published days off are either Friday, Saturday and Sunday, or Sunday -- CAPTAIN FREEMAN: Thursday, Friday, Saturday. MR. SMITH: Excuse me, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Or Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. MR. SMITH: Right. But that's not often the case, because what we do is we utilize a lot of creative scheduling and power shifts and that sort of thing. So it's not very often that that is a stable enough assumption to say that they're off every one of those three days, so we do do a lot of -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: But never on Wednesday? MR. SMITH: Wednesday actually is what we use to use a lot of directed patrols on Wednesday, because that's an overlap day. We utilize that day to provide a lot of our training. So Wednesday is our Page 14 -- ,_.~---,._. ",,".,~'~,-.,"'_"',_.,.'~ ,.._,,~"'" .. .--- June 16, 2005 day that we also try to balance off hours. If someone is carrying excess hours, we try to balance that on Wednesday so we lower the overtime utilization. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And what are directive patrols? MR. SMITH: We maintain statistics on just exactly where -- what areas crime is prevalent in. And we will direct concerted efforts on days where we have additional staffing to go in there and discourage criminal activity. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And that's Wednesdays when that activity takes place? MR. SMITH: Not just Wednesday, but what we use is the fact that we've got those two components overlapping on a Wednesday to provide us with the additional hours to allow us to do that directive patrol, so -- it's a lot of flex time. Like if we direct patrol on a weekend, what we'll do is on that Wednesday we'll pare down the shifts so that we don't incur overtime. COMMISSIONER HENNING: The officers, patrol officers in training, what is that, every other week they train? A deputy, Deputy Smith. MR. SMITH: Right now we have a -- every two years they're offline for a week while they go through what we call in-service training. There is also additional trainings that are from time to time -- such as we just had a training session on human diversity and community interaction. We'll have directed training on community-oriented policing. We have annual qualification with our firearms, so there from time to time we also have additional trainers thrown in. COMMISSIONER HENNING: How many -- on your four-ten shifts, how many shifts are there? MR. SMITH: There are three. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Three shifts? So that's 30 hours you have overlapping of -- what time do they -- what's the start times? Page 15 --_.._.-"_._'_..~~_..". .--- June 16, 2005 CAPTAIN FREEMAN: I believe 0600 would be day shift, typically. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Six a.m.? CAPTAIN FREEMAN: Some shifts, some districts -- 06,6:00 a.m, excuse me. 6:00 a.m. would typically be day shift. However, they do vary, and some districts will start earlier or later. The afternoon shift typically comes in about 3:00 in the afternoon. Now, it's typically. Some districts come in at 4:00 in the afternoon and they work 10.75 hours, because they work a 43-hour workweek. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. CAPTAIN FREEMAN: Ten hours, 45 minutes. The midnight shift typically comes in about 8:00 at night. The majority of the overlap is between 8:00 at night and 3:00 in the morning. Now, that's typical. Some districts start a little earlier than midnight, some start -- actually most of them start by 8:00. But some districts will start at 7:00 at night, so your overlap, which is when the high volume increased violent activity is, is between 7:00 at night and 3 :00 in the morning. So that's when the overlap is. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is that true for all the substations? CAPTAIN FREEMAN: Pretty much. That pretty much holds true. Shift scheduling-wise, is that what your question was? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right. CAPTAIN FREEMAN: Pretty much. I can't think of any districts outside of maybe -- and I can't speak of Everglades City's district, I worked there one day, one shift, so I don't know exactly what their shift pattern is right now. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And that would be the only difference, is Everglades. Everybody else is the same. CAPT AIN FREEMAN: Yes, that would be correct. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Do you schedule on basis of crime trends, like you said, its 3:00 or 6:00 to 12:00 and -- Page 16 W_~'"_'~"___'__"'_."~_d"'_"_ ...._ '.' __..." _____n'____ June 16, 2005 CAPTAIN FREEMAN: Typically. And again, this is when I worked district, which was two years ago, and I had 15 years experience in those districts. Yes, the lieutenants, they'll move shifts around to cover when the high crime area is. Some districts the problems are traffic, so they'll pull -- they'll have deputies working extra time during the peak hours of traffic, in the morning or in the afternoon. So the lieutenants are very flexible in where they assign their deputy sheriffs, depending on what the district's problems are. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is that an efficient way to run the shifts? CAPTAIN FREEMAN: Absolutely is, the most efficient way. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is it, four-tens instead of five-eights? CAPTAIN FREEMAN: I believe it is the most efficient, when you consider -- and that's my thinking. But when you consider all the training required and all the flexibility allows you to move people during the peak hours, it is the most effective. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is it a training requirement by the State of Florida? CAPTAIN FREEMAN: Absolutely is. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Thanks. The -- the j ail is 12- hour shifts, correct? MR. SMITH: Correct. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Why aren't they four-tens? CAPT AIN FREEMAN: Because the staffing patterns for the jail for a 12-hour shift, it's more efficient to have -- it's easier to fill those shifts with the less amount of deputies on a 12-hour shift in the jail. When we ran into the last few years of building up, staff-wise, for the new facility, we could not do it on eight-hour shifts. It takes more manpower to work an eight or 10-hour shift than it does a 12-hour shift because of relief factors. There's a total of four shifts. So we're Page 1 7 ~----_.. '--'~""~~'" ,.~" .~.,.. . -. -~..,,-_._._-,--- June 16, 2005 able to do it more efficiently with a 12-hour shift. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And efficiencies for 12-hour just don't work on road patrol? CAPTAINPREEMAN: No, sir. MR. SMITH: One of the factors you run into with trying to keep a deputy on patrol for 12 hours -- and I'm not saying that no jurisdiction does it, because there are some that do -- but one of the things that we looked at when we reviewed that was fatigue factor. Because if you have a deputy that has to work a 12-hour shift, he'll also have some requirements for court during the week that he has to make appearances, so he may be missing some of his downtime by having to stand in the courtroom. So, you know, 12 hours then starts to become quite a long day. COMMISSIONER HENNING: What really drives the sheriffs budget? I mean, when you formulate the budget, I mean, you must have stats that get you where you're at to that. What is the predominant factor? MR. SMITH: Well, the predominant factor the last couple of years has been the jail expansion. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right. MR. SMITH: The largest portion of the sheriffs budget, you know, is without a doubt personal service costs. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Calls for service? MR. SMITH: Personal service costs. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. But I mean, as far as the needs for the sheriff, or law enforcement, in this case, what drives it? MR. SMITH: Calls for service. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Calls for service. And that's where people call in and say I got somebody in my backyard, or is there other things? MR. SMITH: Well, a large percent of it is there's someone in my backyard, and we have to send a unit out. But we also try to maintain Page 18 ~,<___..."..._.__.._.__._m__._.".. _.,...~.- June 16, 2005 an availability factor so that we can do things like patrol to keep crime down and discourage crime, to do things like critical site checks, to be available for backup for another unit that may be on a hot call. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Alarms? MR. SMITH: Alarms. COMMISSIONER HENNING: People call in -- or that's a dial In-servIce. MR. SMITH: Right. Also, we -- during the times when we're not answering calls for service, those are the times where we're trying to enforce tactics against red light running, when we're trying to, you know, target speeding in work zones, those sort of things. COMMISSIONER HENNING: But that's a special unit, that's not a patrol deputy. You've got a traffic -- MR. SMITH: The traffic unit is just a very small piece of the overall strategy that we throw at trying to manage the roadways. COMMISSIONER HENNING: But that's not a call for service when you talk about traffic details and that. MR. SMITH: No, it's not. What I'm saying is in answer to the question what drives the budget, we look at calls for service, and then we have to maintain a percentage of availability for other things like traffic and proactive patrol. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And I commend you, I have seen a difference last year, and I think that's because of the public outcry of more traffic enforcement out there. So I'm just recognizing that it was a respond from citizens. Are you aware that your calls for service logs in like COP activities, COP -- COPS? That's counted as calls for service. Bicycle patrol is logged in as calls for service. MR. SMITH: I don't think that it is. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. You had 216 in 2001, and it has gone down substantially, but it's still counted in. Code enforcement, which has gone down. Page 19 --,.~~~,._".._--,,,~.- .-,'-.".,---,.., ",,--'."~- June 16, 2005 I mean, I just see a lot of things that are driving your calls for service, like flight. Flight information, foot patrol is logged in as calls for service. And it's -- I'm not sure if that's -- if that's really a call for service or if it's special duties, like traffic. Special traffic operations is a call for service. MR. SMITH: I think that mainly what that is doing is when a deputy checks out, indicating that he's on a foot patrol, he's doing proactive activity to discourage crime. Sometimes it's a very directed effort that, you know, he's been assigned to in a high crime area to try to catch perpetrators in the act. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And they've been doing it. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah, the budget is based on calls for service, historically. You know, every time that we get a budget, we see calls for service, calls for -- and you see it going up. And, you know, can we call it something else besides calls for service? Because that's kind of -- to me that was misleading until I got information to really know what it's all about. It's about all different kind of activities within the Sheriffs Department. It's not somebody's in my backyard. That's not what it -- I mean, it's part of it, but it's also, you know, Code Enforcement, air patrol, traffic patrol, your normal daily workings within the Sheriffs Department. It's not somebody's breaking into my house. Like the marine unit, that's part of calls for service. COMMISSIONER FIALA: You mean like differentiating between emergency calls like somebody's entering my house or the cat's up the tree? You mean differentiating -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: No, not the cat's up the tree. Somebody calls, the cats up the tree. What I'm saying is a -- you know, some of these, like the COP deputies, it's a community outreach type of thing. It's not a somebody calls and says okay, I want a cop Page 20 -_._,-~. ..-----~,-_.. -, .--'.-.-..---- June 16, 2005 over here because I have litter, that doesn't happen. What I'm saying is the cats up a tree, that's a call. Somebody's in my backyard, somebody's trying to break-- COMMISSIONER FIALA: So like emergency and non-emergency calls. CAPTAIN FREEMAN: Or proactive and reactive is the way we determine it. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Correct, correct. CAPTAIN FREEMAN: Proactive call or reactive. We react when someone calls. We're proactive when we're doing COP or foot patrol or checking buildings at 3:00 in the morning. That's a proactive activity . COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right, right. CAPT AIN FREEMAN: And it's my opinion pro activity is more important than reactivity for crime prevention. COMMISSIONER HENNING: It is definitely for crime prevention, but it's just -- to me, it's a little bit misleading. Not that I'm saying that the Sheriff s Department is trying to mislead. But when we say that calls for service was this and crime has gone down dramatically, I mean, it just doesn't paint a true picture. I'm not saying it's -- I would like to see some, like you said, proactive and reactive type thing. MR. SMITH: I think it would be pretty easy to categorize it like that, if we could go back and capture that information. I think a lot of times what's logged in on part of that dispatched detail is activities rather than directed, you know, in calls. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, I've been taking up too much of this time, I'm sorry. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's all right. Commissioner Halas? COMMISSIONER HALAS: I'm listening to the dialogue here, and I see that our crime statistics are down in the County. Page 21 ,---,~,---~-~._._. .. .-- ~,--~.- June 16, 2005 What really bothers me is traffic enforcement. And since we have an overlap on Wednesdays, there's a lot of times that whether it's Wednesdays or any other day of the week, where officers that don't seem to be involved in road patrol will be in the vicinity of where there's -- they're stopped at a traffic light the same as myself and there'll be a violation and they seem to let it go unnoticed. Can you tell me why that is? And I'm talking about people running red lights, especially left turn lanes, where it's blatant. It's like the light in my direction will turn green for at least one to two seconds and there's still traffic running through that intersection, and yet there's an officer there and doesn't take response to this. Is it because he's on some other duty that he's not supposed to get involved in that? MR. SMITH: It's hard to say without knowing the exact time and location and who. COMMISSIONER HALAS: It seems to be very prevalent, unless somebody's in traffic enforcement, and then you see where there's a group with laser guns or radar guns or whatever else that are on a detail. But yet when there's just an officer that's in a marked car, I think it's an officer, unless it's maybe administrative people. I'm concerned about that, too. MR. SMITH: Well, administrative people write tickets. I wrote two this morning, so -- COMMISSIONER HALAS: No, I'm talking about administrative people being like -- MR. SMITH: No, I understand. I was just going to say, you know, without knowing exactly, it's hard for me to say. It could be someone that was already assigned or dispatched to a call. COMMISSIONER HALAS: But the light's not on. MR. SMITH: Sometimes it could be such that had he taken action to pursue the violator, it may have created a hazard in the intersection. Sometimes those are some of the things you have to look at. Page 22 ..,,,,, '-'---'-"-.~--' -."'...-". ~_...._.~...~.__.., --- .'-~"_.'-- June 16, 2005 But we have spent a great deal of time in the last six months emphasizing to our deputies the importance of traffic to the citizens, the importance of traffic to the people who are affected most by that. And we are making concerted efforts to show, as the Sheriff did in his recent State of the agency address to the members, that that is our highest priority this year is traffic. So I can only tell you that, number one, I'm kind of concerned when I hear that we have deputies who aren't reacting when they could. And that's something that will be addressed. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Can you tell me how many administrative people have vehicles other than officers? What your ratio is? MR. SMITH: I don't know what your ratio would be. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Or how -- what's the reason? Is there any reason, if this is the case, why administrative personnel would have vehicles, take home vehicles? MR. SMITH: Are you referring to administrative people sworn or administrative people civilian class personnel? COMMISSIONER HALAS: Administrative civilian class people. MR. SMITH: That's a very low number in our agency. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Is there any reason for them having it? MR. SMITH: You have certain units, like victim advocate unit is the first one that comes to mind, who are called out many times from their home to go to the scene where someone is confronted with losing a loved one. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Are they a sworn person, then? MR. SMITH: No, sir, they're a civilian. And they have an unmarked car. It's usually not something that would be assigned from fleet. It's not a pursuit vehicle. It's usually something that's a cheaper, more economical vehicle. Page 23 ___._"'___.~'."_"~'~._'.,____'_"m_" June 16, 2005 COMMISSIONER HALAS: Would this vehicle have lights in it, too? MR. SMITH: No. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. And how can we differentiate between other than the lights, and how can we differentiate whether the people are supposed to have a vehicle or not supposed to have a vehicle? Do you have any way of controlling this? MR. SMITH: We do. We have periodic review of our entire fleet that's probably done twice a year. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Do you have any numbers here on regards to unmarked cars or cars that do not have lights, and how many that are used basically for administrative personnel? MR. SMITH: We could get those numbers. I don't know if we have them this morning. MS. GOLIGHTLY: I have a total of70 civilian vehicles, but that includes our CSD's that have -- COMMISSIONER HALAS: And what is a CSD? MS. GOLIGHTLY: I'm sorry, community service deputies. Our crime scene personnel, those are civilians. They also have vehicles assigned to them. There are very few civilians -- our IT department has a vehicle assigned so it can go around to their different locations to fix equipment. But we have very few vehicles assigned to administrative type. The public information -- MR. SMITH: Public information -- MS. GOLIGHTLY: Public information officer is a civilian, she has a vehicle assigned. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Last year we discussed the health care costs that were -- we felt that might be out of line with what the County Manager and some of the other Constitutional Officers have been working on. Where does the Sheriff stand on that right now, can you tell us? MS. GOLIGHTLY: We currently are having an actuarial review Page 24 --.. --- June 16, 2005 done to update through six months a year. We changed plan administrators January 1st, and we're seeing some economies there. We want to see where we are as far as claims are this year for the projection for next year. We have budgeted the County rates, and we know that we are going to have to go to our members and increase their contributions. What we are undertaking now in the next two months is a study of our rates. And we want somebody to look at the family versus the single rates to make sure that we're in line before we go to our members and tell them what percentage or what increase they're going to have to come up with. And that is ongoing. Like I say, June 30th we'd like to get six months' claims data to see where we are. But all of our members are aware that an increase is coming. COMMISSIONER HALAS: But we addressed this problem last year, so you really haven't done anything from last year to this year in regards to trying to address these rates, right, these insurance rates? MR. SMITH: Well, I think we've taken some action, as Director Golightly said. We have changed plan administrators. One of the things that we have spoke with them regarding early on was the fact that we need to reach a level of detail that will allow us to better gauge where we're at so that we can move toward more of a shared fiscal responsibility for our insurance program. COMMISSIONER HALAS: And what do you think your guidelines should be in that area as far as cost share relative to what the Sheriff s Department or the taxpayers pay in regards to the employees? Do you have any thought on that? MR. SMITH: Well, of course we also want to look at some of the other law enforcement agencies in the area to see what they offer as part of their benefits and pay package. We're trying to remain consistently competitive with the surrounding area. I can say with some certainty that it will be a higher percentage sharing than it is today. Page 25 _.~_._-_._>,---"._~---, .__..~--- June 16, 2005 COMMISSIONER HALAS: I would hope so. I think that the majority of your people right now, it's basically -- right now the Sheriff s Department is paying 100 percent. And there's only a few instances, I think about only 30 or 35 employees that presently have a cost share of 89 percent versus 11 percent. In other words, what I'm saying is the Sheriff s Department pays 89 percent and the employees pay only 11 percent. And that, out of your vast number of employees, is only about 30 to 35 employees; is that correct? MR. SMITH: That is correct, yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. And so the rest of it is either 98 percent being paid by taxpayers and only two percent by employees, or in some instances 94 percent and six percent. MR. SMITH: Well, hold on just a second. Let me back up. It's more than 35 employees. Yeah, what -- COMMISSIONER HALAS: Thirty-five employees in regards to what, that have a cost share of 89 and II? MR. SMITH: That's correct. If you're under the family plan, if . you have dependent coverage, which I would guess that's the majority of our agency, then you are paying a premium for your insurance coverage. If you're single, then the agency is paying 100 percent. COMMISSIONER HALAS: I think that -- I hope that the Sheriff s Department will look -- will scrutinize it very closely, that they need to come more in line with not only what the County Manager is doing, but also what some of the other Constitutional Officers are in regards to cost share. And we hope that this will place more stringent controls on hopefully controlling health care. And I think that's the biggest part of your -- one of your big items in your budget. The other item that I'm concerned about is when the Sheriff always goes out to get grants, and then at the end of three years, that becomes the burden for the County Manager. And I look at COPS, Page 26 ~_.r'c~'~.".___. ~"".'._" . _ _,.. ."__,, -~'--_.- June 16, 2005 which I -- the program COPS. I don't think that's as essential as it should be. And I think that we're being burdened. This year I believe you got 14, and that -- when those people come off the COPS grant, the County ends up with this extra burden. And in this case, it's about $1.1 million, almost $1.2 million. Is there some way that we can control some of these grants that we end up as taxpayers at the end of the three-year period being saddled with? MR. SMITH: Well, I think that we need to understand or arrive at some philosophy regarding grant positions. When we present a grant to the Board for approval, it needs to be clearly understood, and I assume that it is, that at the end of that grant period that it will be assumed as part of the operational budget. I think that -- in fact, I've witnessed the last couple of times when we presented grants, the County Manager is very good about being up front and informing the Board that if you approve this action, you need to understand that this is going to translate three years from now into us assuming these costs. And I think that in the future, you know, we're going to do a much better job of making that known up on the front end. Because it is something that I think that we need to budget for, to include for. Because as you've so astutely observed, you know, it's only free for a short period of time. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yeah, there's no such thing as a free lunch. MR. SMITH: Absolutely. MS. GOLIGHTLY: Commissioner, I believe next year in FY '07, it's like 11 people coming off grants, so the number is coming down. We're not seeing the numbers of people in the Clinton administration, the cops on the street, those have all dried up and they're pretty much gone now. You're not going to see huge numbers of grant funded positions. Page 27 June 16, 2005 COMMISSIONER HALAS: So let me see if what I heard from you on your opening Statements were, that the budget that's being presented to us today, that when the final budget comes before us that it's going to be substantially less? MR. SMITH: Yes. What I'm saying to you today, Commissioner, is -- COMMISSIONER HALAS: Look closely now. COMMISSIONER FIALA: He's got the same affliction we all have. CHAIRMAN COYLE: He's got to read the fine print. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Here's my glasses. MR. SMITH: You know, it's bad when you get older. When I started in this business, I didn't even wear glasses. But what we're saying -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: I've been there a lot less and I -- MR. SMITH: What we're saying right now is were at 145,028, 200. And our proportionate share, as published in the budget guidance, was 139,610,891. COMMISSIONER HALAS: We're going to get to that, right? MR. SMITH: We're going to get under that when we're done. COMMISSIONER HALAS: We're going to get under that? MR. SMITH: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Way under. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Well, that's good to hear. MR. SMITH: As long as you don't -- well, let me issue a caveat. As long as -- COMMISSIONER HALAS: I'm holding you to it. MR. SMITH: As long as nothing unforeseen comes our way that's supposed to be included, you know, under our proportionate share. As it stands right now, and I assume that the County Manager and Mr. Smykowski have told us everything that's supposed to -- you know, Page 28 ~_'_'----'-"._--~-"-"~-- ".--- June 16, 2005 that's paid by the Board that's supposed to be reported under our proportionate share. As long as there's no more items coming our way, then what I commit to you this morning is that we're going to be under that proportionate share. I-- COMMISSIONER HALAS: Go ahead, I'm sorry. MR. SMITH: We hope that all those people who looked this year to see another process like what was experienced last year is severely disappointed. That's not our goal. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. I have one last question. How is the Sheriff doing on his overtime budget this year? MR. SMITH: I'm glad you asked. Did you want to put this on the visualizer? MR. MUDD: Sure, give it to me. MR. SMITH: Of course overtime is one thing that we were the most concerned about as well. We've taken some actions to assess and better address overtime. As you can see on what's published on the visualizer, if you look all the way over to the right, four columns over to the right, you'll see the history for '04, actual overtime at seven million one-ninety-two. In the '05 budget, that was decreased to six million eighty-nine. The 2005 forecast, and this is the good news, is we're under that projected -- or under that budgeted amount at 5.9 million. And the '06 budget request is inclusive of a 5.2 million for overtime. COMMISSIONER HALAS: That's sure better than $8 million. MR. SMITH: Absolutely. And we have yet to implement -- we have developed policies to address further overtime utilization. We're weighing them to go through the policy review process prior to implementation. We think that that is going to even further reduce that number. So I think we're going to be sitting here next year again very proud of the fact that we've decreased our overtime utilization even more. COMMISSIONER HALAS: My last question is -- or my last Page 29 _.,..,._.,_."---~------,,,-~-.^---~_._,._~._-----_._-, . _._-,_....--,~--" June 16, 2005 comment is, I would like to see where the Sheriff s Department starts working diligently in the health care area. I think this is very important. And I think that will help bring your budget under the guidelines that have been instructed by not only the Board but the County Manager, okay? And I think it also will reflect positively for the citizens here in Collier County. Thank you very much. MR. SMITH: Thank you, Commissioner. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Fiala? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes, how are you doing with staffing? Are you still 100 percent staffed? MR. SMITH: No, we're not. What's happened regarding staffing is when we went through the appeal process, not knowing where that was going to end and what the final numbers would be, we had to decrease our recruiting efforts. That almost immediately resulted in the number of vacancies going up. We've since made very strong efforts again out in the recruiting in the community and State and nationwide. We're seeing those numbers coming down now. Also, after the phase-in of last year's jail staff, the January phase-in of the additional 30 positions, that also gave rise to a number. But as it stands today, we have out as many conditional offers, which allows us to process one per position, than we have vacancies. We may be four, five off from that number. So it's looking still pretty good. I mean, right now as we sit, we've got probably what, 70 vacancies, 65 vacancies. We anticipate that by the end of summer we'll be fully staffed again. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Great, great. Well, personally, just from my standpoint, I don't feel we should micro-manage you. I mean, it's not our position. We haven't done that with the County Manager. We haven't told him, you know, what administrators should do in their departments and how they should schedule their workers, Page 30 .- June 16, 2005 nor where they should assign them. We leave that up to the County Manager to run, just as I believe we should let the Sheriff run them. And we haven't asked the County Managers which administrators have cars and which don't, and we haven't held his feet to the fire. We've told him we want him to stay within this budget, period. So yes, I think everything can be approved. We all know that, right? But I think that this budget -- in my opinion I think you've done a lot to improve the budget. And you've brought your overtime down I think dramatically in response to the situations that we discussed last year. You've kept your positions pretty well full, and that's good, too. I think that's important. One thing we learned yesterday was when you have a large amount of people continuing to change jobs, it takes you a year to get them back on track again, and that really costs an awful lot of money. So I'm glad to hear that you've pretty well kept that in line. With regard to the COPS program, one of the things that I have to say, if the COPS program, if they're on that road riding their bikes, they really make a big difference in a neighborhood. There's good and there's bad. Sometimes, and we had this happen a couple of years ago, not now, where they -- a couple were assigned to the Manor, and they just went for exercise rides every day. They didn't stop anyplace, they didn't talk to anybody, and of course the crime continued on. Now, you've got a couple of these COP guys over on Bayshore, and man, they are tackling them. I mean, they've been cleaning up all that junk, they've been working with our code enforcement. I cannot believe all of the things they've done over the past six, eight months. And to me, my hat's off to you. I mean, if that's what this program can do, and they're visible and people know they're there, and you can see their actions moving in a positive direction to help clean up some of that crime, gosh, that's a wonderful thing. And to me it's worth every penny. It's only when they go on for Page 31 "___._..c..;_,._._.___..._....__...._........._~.._.^'"~_. --"--~- June 16, 2005 exercise bike rides, as they did a couple of years ago, and I had some talks with some couple of people, and I think maybe that's changed a little bit. But anyway, I think that's wonderful. And talking about having talks with people, as I'm listening here to the other Commissioners today, and I for myself, too, I think it would be a good idea to have more communication between each commissioner and the Sheriff s Office. Maybe quarterly, even, somebody could come in and sit down and say, you know, have you heard any problems that you're having in your district or in the community or is there something we can do better? And our people, you know, our Commissioners can tell you some of the things they're dealing with. So by the time we get to this budget process next year, all of those things are not only aired, but taken care of. You know, I think that's an important thing. The lines of communication really need to be opened up, I think. So -- and as I said, I'm thrilled with the -- with your reduction in overtime. I have to agree with Commissioner Halas, maybe something can be done a little bit with the hospitalization. I know that that's a recruiting tool and that's a wonderful thing, but possibly there could be something that could be managed with that. We knew that the budget was going to go up this year because of the jail opening and because of Orange tree. And I think you've done a pretty good job, quite frankly, in trying to keep it in line. So that's my five cents. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: I have several questions. And I want to give you some time, too, but I just want to say that I -- the questions that I asked is because I take my job as my fiduciary duty to scrutinize your budget, and just as I did to the County Manager. And I did have criticisms of the County Manager on how parts of his agencies is running. It's my duty. And I hope you don't take it personal. Page 32 '_._"~"---"-"-"'--'-'_.._-"'~-" June 16, 2005 CAPTAIN FREEMAN: I don't, sir. MR. SMITH: We absolutely do not take it personal, Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I'm going to allow the Chairman to ask some questions, because I don't want to dominate the meeting. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Would you mind if I -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I'll speak for Commissioner Coy Ie, if I may. CHAIRMAN COYLE: We're adjourned. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No, I absolutely -- I like very much what I'm hearing here today. There was a misconception on the part of some people in the public and members of the Sheriff s Department that the Collier County Commission wasn't supportive of the Sheriffs Department. That's not true. And I know that everyone in the leadership of the Sheriff s Department knows that we've been there. We were the ones that four years ago insisted that he raise his base rate to his deputies when you were having the loss of deputies, you were nothing more than a training facility for other counties. We've been continuously supportive. And I think that we had a serious misunderstanding last year that got out of hand. I like where we're going with it today. I like the direction. I like what I'm hearing, the realization that overtime has to come into line, that you have to look at the medical costs. But one of the things I'd like to do is, you know, we get to these points of highs and lows because of the actions of certain people. And this point I'd like to recognize the fact that Fred Coyle, a member of this commission that cares enough to work directly with the Sheriff s Department, has played quite a role behind the scenes, working directly with Don Hunter to bring this thing down to more rational reasoning. And I didn't want to let this go forward one inch farther until that Page 33 ~'_W'_'.~"_~._._..._.."'_ June 16, 2005 point in time that I did recognize the efforts that took place between Sheriff Hunter and our Chair, Fred Coyle. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Can I speak now? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: No. Commissioner Halas, go ahead. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I appreciate the compliment, Commissioner Coletta, but I can assure you that there's nothing that's happened here that hasn't happened as a result of teamwork, but -- all of the members of the Board and the sheriffs staff. I think just having these meetings so we can discuss these issues really helps a lot. And so -- but I'm not going to suggest we join hands and start singing kumbaya just quite yet. I do have some questions. And the -- you really are to be commended for coming in, following the budget guidelines to the greatest extent so far. But the fact that we have decided in the past to use a slice of the pie concept doesn't necessarily mean that what we want to do is spend all of the slices of the pie. We've been able to hold some of the departments to substantially less than the slice of pie. And of course all of the budget decisions should be based on what is really, really needed. And I should recognize Scott Smalley has joined us. Thank you very much. Good to see you. MR. SMALLEY: Thank you, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And so I've got some questions. I don't know that they have any answers, I just need to raise some questions and discuss things with you, okay? Based upon the review of the expenditures so far on the FY '05 budget, it appears that two COLA allocations were granted to Sheriffs Department personnel during that fiscal year. Is that true? MS. GOLIGHTLY: What happened was we started out October with a two percent COLA. And then our members get a one percent merit increase on their anniversary. Work policy, I think, for FY '05 Page 34 -~-_._-"--,-_._"._-,~~~,- ~ ~ .--".'-'-"",-,,--~,,.,. June 16, 2005 was about 3.85 percent. Because of us being under appeal and not knowing, our members really didn't get the increases that they should have. And so we were looking and doing a pay study and review of what's going on in the community as far as retention and recruitment. And we felt that we needed at this time to make an increase in the pay of our members. So they got a three percent across the Board increase effective May 17th. It equates out annually to just a little over one percent. So we're still within the guidelines set by the commission. CHAIRMAN COYLE: So there was no COLA allocated as of October, the first of the fiscal year. MS. GOLIGHTLY: Yes, October, there was two percent. CHAIRMAN COYLE: So actually it was a five percent, then, right? A two percent in October -- MS. GOLIGHTLY: That three percent just equates to one percent for this fiscal year, because it was just part of the fiscal year. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. But there was a two percent and a three percent in May, May the 17th, if I remember correctly. MS. GOLIGHTL Y: Right. And then there will be no COLA increase October 1st of ' 05. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Now, is that reflected in this budget? MS. GOLIGHTLY: Yes. CHAIRMAN COYLE: When will the COLA increase take place? MS. GOLIGHTL Y: Right now we're converting to a step plan. The Sheriff has established a wage and benefits review committee. Captain Freeman, Captain Bloom are the heads of that committee. So we're in a transition period right now. October of '05, what is planned right now is to get people into the step, the closest step. And then on their anniversary they will get a step Page 35 ----_._--_."---"~-< "...._"--,~~ June 16, 2005 increase. So there's no additional COLA plan. CHAIRMAN COYLE: It's sort of important that we get the details of that and understand. MS. GOLIGHTLY: Right. But it still falls within the guidelines set by the County Manager. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I understand. But please understand that that was a maximum budget allocation guideline. It was not necessarily a guarantee that that's what everybody gets. And clearly, all of our departments didn't get that. So I don't want to establish the policy that yes, we're always going to get whatever money is generated as a result of increasing property values, because I think you'll all agree that your services are not dependent upon increases in property values. I'll make an argument in some cases they are, because it affects your cost of living here. But generally, crime is the result of increased population or failures in enforcement. And your history indicates you've done a really good job with enforcement. There are times in our history where we had a much smaller population but we had a much higher crime rate. So you've done a really good job of enforcement or prevention. But I think we can all agree that your primary crime rate potential is driven by increases in population. And so it's not driven by property values. And so that's why I want to make a distinction there. And I'd just like not to have any misunderstanding. So you're going to give us this step plan or the plan that is going to be used for personnel increases for the next fiscal year, right? Okay, okay. With respect to retirement calculations, I understand there were some recent decisions by the Florida legislature. Are those new retirement calculation guidelines included in this particular budget? MS. GOLIGHTL Y: Yes. There was a $2.3 million reduction from our May 1 st submission with the new rates that came in. Page 36 -------" ._.....~.'-~.,'.,.~-~_._-'_.,~,."..,"_._...~-.__.., "' -,...,------~-,-,-,..._~~--_._, . June 16, 2005 CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. The -- I understand that you told us that you do recognize the need to move closer to overtime to what the other governmental agencies provide as far as health care benefit cost sharing. Is there any reflection in this budget that gets you closer to that? MS. GOLIGHTLY: Well, we budgeted the County -- what the County asked, the blended rate. And in order to get that, we are going to have to increase the member contributions. So it is going to go up for our members. CHAIRMAN COYLE: What will it go up to? Give me a percentage figure. MS. GOLIGHTLY: We're in the ballpark of increasing -- I showed this to the Chief -- it's in the neighborhood of 10 percent. But we are waiting for the actuarial report and some projections on our split between family and single and how that's going to -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Now, when you say 10 percent, you say going to a 90 percent, 10 percent split on health care benefits? MS. GOLIGHTLY: That's the direction we're heading. And we'll be able to tell you finally in September when we come back. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Now, recognizing that earlier in this calendar year, and in fact late in last calendar year, you were supposedly at full staff during periods of that time. You are not now staffed completely. You have shortages. To me that implies that you should end this fiscal year with some carryover because you did not have all of the staff positions you anticipated. Now, if that is true, can you quantify that for us and tell us how we're -- what we're going to go do with that money? MS. GOLIGHTLY: I can't tell you that specifically at this time. That is our next project as soon as we've gone through workshops here, to look where we are and proj ect where we're going to be September 30th. Page 37 ,___._...u_,,_____,~> .--- June 16, 2005 CHAIRMAN COYLE: And there is some savings, some reduction in overtime, as I see it. And I would hope that during the summer months when our population is smaller and things aren't quite as busy, it would appear that we would have less overtime requirements during those periods than we would during the really, really busy months. And it would appear, based upon a running rate for the remaining three months or so in this fiscal year, that you might have additional savings in overtime. But I think your proj ections are that you're going to be, what, $75,000 or so less than what you had budgeted; is that basically where we are right now? MS. GOLIGHTLY: That's where we are right now. One thing we have to keep in mind is the opening of the new jail and the training, and depending on what date that is, there will be some overtime incurred there when shifts are training. And one of the dates we've gotten is August 1 st. I'm not sure that's the firm date -- CAPTAIN FREEMAN: As of Monday it still is. MS. GOLIGHTLY: So there will be probably some training and overtime required. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Are we still on track with the jail? MR. MUDD: Yes. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Are we still okay? MR. MUDD: I talked to Skip yesterday. It will be substantially complete 1 August. There might be a couple of punch list things going on until about the 15th. But I asked him that question yesterday to make sure. Now, we were originally scheduled for 1 September, and we pushed her forward as hard as we could. So we're still driving it home. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good. And that's okay with your schedule so far? CAPTAIN FREEMAN: We have planned administratively to be Page 38 -0_._.- June 16, 2005 ready as soon as the doors are open. We have saved some cost of training by sending members to Immokalee, which is running on the same type of security system to train them while they're on duty here as duty staff. We have two or three members there doing their training cycle there so we can save some cost there. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good. You -- of course you do. You know the productivity committee has made a number of recommendations. There are some that are very intriguing. But when we come back, and when you have this additional information that you're going to provide to us, I would appreciate an opportunity for you to tell us, you know, your side, how you feel about some of these recommendations and why they mayor may not be appropriate for implementation, okay? Could you do that for us? Rather than sitting here and debating each one of them, because I think we've already established that there's still some additional information that needs to be done, some additional calculation that needs to take place. And there's hardly any point in doing that in a piecemeal fashion. So let's do it when you come back with all the data, and then we can go through some of these other issues. And if you'd like to provide us with some specific information in the interim, it would help us to fully understand the issues so that we -- if it's clear that a recommendation is not in the best interest of the department or the people of Collier County, then we can dispose of it and not take a lot of time debating it during these meetings. But there's some here that I think are intriguing. And I think we'll all admit that we don't know enough about your operation to make a decision as to what it is. We need your input and cooperation on this. The other thing I'd like to -- the Sheriffhas asked us to, rather than to use the piece of the pie concept in the future, to start looking at the actual needs of the Sheriff s Department. And of course I like that idea. Page 39 ~'_'._<'"__''''''_.'_''~'___''' _...~"~,_",,~<_,,_"'.._H'". '" ~--..._- June 16, 2005 If we develop some metrics that will help us determine acceptable levels of service and cost, it would be very advantageous to all of us. And you've included some of that in your report. There are things which are unclear to me, however, and one of those is the comparison of the number of square miles in Collier County versus those in other counties. I don't know whether your square mile calculation takes out the -- or the Indian reservations or the State parks or any areas which are not patrolled by the sheriff. And if some areas are patrolled by the sheriff, I'd like to see what kind of reimbursement we get from either the federal government or the Tribe. I don't think you do any patrols in the tribal areas. But if we could refine that process, because I think I understand what you're saying to us is that although our population isn't as great as some of the other counties, our land mass is larger. But I'd like to make sure that we're making the calculation using accurate data in areas that are actually subject to patrol. So we would like to work on those kinds of things as we move forward, and we'll need your input to do that. And Commissioner Halas, you've been waiting for a while, I believe. COMMISSIONER HALAS: I just want to finish up by saying that as Commissioner Coyle made reference to the next time we have a meeting, I would -- hopefully that by that time you'll have information in regards to medical plans with other departments, and hopefully it will be with the five or six different counties that we would use as a nexus, and that we would figure out the best way to address this health care situation, and that you would come back with a plan showing how you are going to institute this and what pace that you're going to come up with a cost share and what that cost share would be. And hopefully it will be somewhere in line with, as I said earlier, with the other Constitutional Officers and with the County Manager. I'd also like to say that there is a citizen's group that really Page 40 ~,-"'" -,~'_._- - .,-- -_._-" June 16, 2005 worked, I think, diligently with the sheriffs staff in addressing all the issues in trying to find where we could be more efficient, and that was the productivity committee that Commissioner Coyle related to. And I just want to say, I want to thank those citizens, because this is a group that not only looks at your budget, but they look at every budget in the County. And these people put in -- donate their time. They don't get any money on this or get paid for this. And they work really diligently trying to make sure that the government here is cost effective. And I just want to thank you and the productivity committee for working together, hopefully to get to a resolution so that we don't get into a contentious situation as we did last year. It doesn't benefit anybody. And I like the area that we're going, and I hope that we can continue that dialogue, and I look forward to seeing your budget, your finalized budget in September. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Your road patrol, you have six hours a day of overlapping time. And that's not a bad thing, I'm not saying that. Calls for -- citizens' calls for service has gone down, if you take out all the other proactive calls for service that you have in your overall stats. But yet road patrol has overtime. Seems like it has a mandatory overtime. And when you come back, can you convince me how or why they really need that overtime? CAPTAIN FREEMAN: Are you referring to the 43-hour work week? That's their standard work week. They don't get paid overtime for that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: There's no overtime for that? CAPTAIN FREEMAN: No, sir. They do not get paid overtime, that's their standard work week. Corrections and law enforcement, Page 41 > -----.--.-.,.-..- ~---,---- June 16, 2005 certified members are required to work 43 hours of work week. I believe the Chief could probably tell you historically where that came out of statute. But we do that without getting paid overtime. That's a requirement for paperwork and -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: District -- how many road patrol deputies cover -- from District 2 cover Golden Gate Estates today? MR. SMITH: Do you have that number? MS. MYERS: How many per shift or how many are there? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Per shift that cover Golden Gate Estates. MS. MYERS: I can't answer that. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Because you created a new district for Golden Gate Estates. Historically, District 2 has covered Golden Gate Estates, so one would think that your -- you would take that count and shift it over to Golden Gate Estates. I just -- MS. GOLIGHTLY: That is one of the things that is being looked at right now as part of -- before we come back in September is the staffing of the new District 4 and how they can move some resources from District 2. And if I can just go back for a minute on performance measures that you brought up. One of the things we are working on and we are working with the productivity is on performance measures. And besides the calls for service, you also have to look at response time. And that's one of the big things out in District 4, what are -- what do the citizens consider an acceptable response time. And Chief Rambosk is working on this, and when we come back in December, we should have a lot of good information for you. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Could you give us also what is in the comparable counties -- what is their response times? MS. GOLIGHTLY: Yes, we can -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: You know, everybody wants great service, everybody wants the Cadillac service, but nobody wants Page 42 -~,,"'.~_.._--_._+-----_..~"'~ _...._."-'-._-~_........_._- June 16, 2005 to pay for it, you know. It's just the way it works. There's a few things that I don't understand in the budget. What's VOCA or V-O-C-A? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Victims of Violent Crimes Act. MS. MYERS: Yes, thank you. COMMISSIONER HENNING: That's another department? MS. GOLIGHTLY: That's a grant funded right now. COMMISSIONER HENNING: D-E-A -- you've got 28 positions in the D- E- A. MS. GOLIGHTLY: Drug enforcement. How many positions are you saying? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Twenty-eight. Twenty-six full-time and two -- oh, I'm sorry. MS. GOLIGHTL Y: That's D and B. CAPTAIN FREEMAN: That's narcotics bureau, drugs and narcotics. MS. GOLIGHTLY: You're one line up. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I'm sorry. Where's Commissioner Fiala's ruler? D-A is -- MS. GOLIGHTL Y: One person. COMMISSIONER HENNING: One person, yes. What is that? MS. GOLIGHTLY: Drug enforcement agency. We work in combination with the D-E-A. And we have one person from staff assigned to work with them. MR. SMITH: That's our commitment to a region wide task force. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Then you have eight full-time law enforcement officers -- no, I'm sorry, I was up one. I need to use that ruler a little bit more. The Human Resources, is that where you have your recruiters? MR. SMITH: That's correct. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Now, I understand that Page 43 ~~~""W__"____ ~,^~_"'~'_" ,_"'_...'_~____ _._,,_.~._._-..~-.._.,-" June 16, 2005 you now have a minority recruiter, a new position. MR. SMITH: It's not just a recruiter, it's a minority affairs bureau, if you would. They do more than recruit, they also answer and assess the needs and the concerns of the minority representation of the County. COMMISSIONER HENNING: How does that coordinate in the budget? I mean, when you ask for new personnel, I don't remember seeing that from last year. MR. SMITH: That was part of the sheriffs reorganization, so that is new. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So that's a new position. MR. SMITH: That's correct. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is it counted here somewhere in this -- MR. SMITH: Yes, it should be, yes. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Maybe you could tell me later where I could find that. I mean, if you've got reorganization -- MS. GOLIGHTLY: It's on Page 21 -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Twenty-one. MS. GOLIGHTL Y: -- minority affairs. Page 21 in the budget book, about halfway down. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. And that -- MS. GOLIGHTLY: That really wasn't an additional position, because the Sheriff combined a couple of divisions under the captain, so -- MR. SMITH: It was an existing position. MS. GOLIGHTLY: It was an existing position. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I know you had administration reorg. And we could find that here in the budget and how that worked out? MS. GOLIGHTLY: Yes. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Somewhere? Let me see, Page 44 .~".._",_.....",,----,.,,~ . June 16, 2005 the -- oh, I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Get your ruler out. COMMISSIONER HENNING: No, I have it right here. You have a FEMA grant for '05 for over a million dollars. Is that a one- time grant? What is that? MS. GOLIGHTLY: What page are you on? COMMISSIONER HENNING: You know what, it doesn't matter. That's in the past. That was for Hurricane Charley. MS. GOLIGHTL Y: Hopefully we will not have that this year. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yes. I think we're past -- I don't think we're -- MR. MUDD: Well, at least it won't be named Charley. COMMISSIONER HENNING: It won't be named Charley. Maybe Charlene or something like that. That's my last question. Thank you so much for your patience. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I really would like to tell you a quick story about traffic enforcement. Sometime back I was stopped at Golden Gate Parkway and U.S. 41 at a traffic light, and an officer in a marked car made a left turn from Golden Gate Parkway to head southbound on 41, and he apparently made his left turn just as the light was changing, because after he turned, he saw two cars run the red light and go directly over into the shopping center in Publix. And rather than going down a block or so and turning around and trying to locate these guys, this officer drove across the curb on 41, across the median, across the sidewalk, down the curb, into the parking lot of Publix and apprehended both of those cars. And I was really proud of that officer for doing that. And I just hope he didn't get in trouble for doing that. MR. SMITH: He will. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I think he was -- he exercised diligent care, he was careful when he did this, but he wasn't going to let those Page 45 ,.---- June 16, 2005 two people get away, because the violation was just so flagrant. But he got them both. He nailed them right there in the parking lot. So I like that kind of -- COMMISSIONER HALAS: I'd like to give that gentleman an award. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I wish I could have stopped and gotten his name, but he was busy. But thank you very much. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, can I ask one -- you had a segue. Last year we were talking about red light running, and the sheriff was investigating what other counties were doing by local ordinance to try to prevent it. We thought the legislature was going to pass the red light running law, but they didn't. They chose to -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Pass the growth management law instead. MR. MUDD: They chose to add a fee to the red light running so that they could pay for trauma, and that's where that part went. But there was some dialogue on the sheriffs part where there might be something that another County is doing to get red light running and be able to try to do something like we were talking about, get the car per se versus the driver. And I was wondering, I'd like that dialogue to continue to find out if Palm Beach or somebody at West Palm is doing something where they're getting red light runners by local ordinance, that we could do that. If that indeed is the case, then if it's done by local ordinance, then you can bring that to the special master and you can bring a lot of money into the general master because of it. So I'd like to see where that came out, if there was a different way besides the Florida Statutes being changed in order to get that, that would be a good thing. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good. MR. SMITH: Yes, that is an area that Sheriff Hunter was out in Page 46 ^"^"~-------'-"-----""'-' - June 16, 2005 front on doing some work with the legislature. We did not get that piece of legislation this year. That doesn't mean we're done. We're going to continue to try, because we believe that that is in the benefits of the community, the citizens. We also think that it's a cost effective way to deal with red light running, as opposed to having to add staff to combat that issue. So those are things that we're going to continue to lobby for in Tallahassee, to get that legislation pushed through. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good. Thank you very much. Commissioner Halas? COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes, I think there was a commissioner from Palm Beach by the name of Commissioner Koons who was really pushing for that. And we have a F AC legislative session coming up next week in Sarasota, and I plan to address that with him and see if we can't get that back on the agenda with F AC. COMMISSIONER FIALA: FAC is Florida Association of Counties. COMMISSIONER HALAS: And we're going to see if we can't get some stimulus behind that. Because I believe this is an issue that needs to be addressed not only here in Collier County and Palm Beach, but all the other counties in Florida. So we're going to see what we can do to push that effort. MR. SMITH: Yes, I also believe that the Florida Sheriffs Association is also going to take an aggressive posture on trying to lend support to that bill as well. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Good, good. Well, once again, thank you very much. It was very good seeing you all again. And I appreciate your hard work and we look forward to working with you in the final resolution. MR. SMITH: Thank you. MS. GOLIGHTL Y: Thank you. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, on that capital-- before everybody Page 47 "~-~--'-'._-~~-~--,,- June 16, 2005 gets up, there are some capital issues on the sheriffs budget that I want to make sure that you're aware of. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah, before you go too far, did you get the permits for your tents? MR. SMALLEY: Yes, sir. They're up and running. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's the only capital project I'm interested in. COMMISSIONER FIALA: How do they withstand this weather -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Who cares. COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- the heavy rain? MR. SMALLEY: It's a very good tent. CAPTAIN FREEMAN: Yes, ma'am. We did have some issues we worked through with how it drained when the rain came down the sidewalk. But we've pretty well taken care of that. MR. SMALLEY: They're not military tents, they're sprung units. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Our military is out in tents in Iraq and Afghanistan, so -- MR. MUDD: There's no air conditioning in those tents. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Nobody asked how they feel. MR. MUDD: I want to make sure that you take a look at the constitutional capital program. And one of the things that we're wrestling with and we're doing our darndest -- COMMISSIONER HALAS: Page number, sir? MR. MUDD: I'm on Capital-I, it's under constitutional, it's the last page in the section, last page in the book. I want to make sure that you know that there's a sheriffs special operations center and an Orangetree substation that aren't in the budget. The impact fee you just passed will help, that starts in August as we work through that process. We're working two different impact fees on the sheriffs, law enforcement and corrections, and you'll get a corrections update. Page 48 .~-"..._,,_._._--~---..._._.- June 16, 2005 You'll see on the UFR list that the substation is in there for about a million and a half, and that the special ops building is in there, I can't remember, 13 or $15 million, so these aren't small. And then if you look at the plan, there's an additional admin. section that gets put here and we get the Sheriff off Horseshoe, out of the building that they're there, based on the overall plan. I just want to make sure that you understand that and you know that in the process. And I just saw an e-mail yesterday, Chief Smith was asking questions about the jail. The old jail is trying to get the security system to match the security system in the new jail, which makes sense, so you're not monitoring both. Well, it was something that wasn't anticipated when we did the j ail modernization and the other piece. The price tag is 1.55 million, not in the budget, not in the contract. And so as we try to figure out where those dollars come -- there's no magic here, okay, they're not there. And so we had to tell Chief, say, you know, that might be something we'll have to swap out here in a couple of years, because we don't have it right now. But as we work through this, and if the Sheriff is coming with monies that are less than that proportionate share that Commissioner Coyle talked about, that might be something that you might want to put those dollars against. And, you know, that kind of is an enticement to try to, you know, not only come under that budget, but those dollars that you do, we use against things that we can't fund right now that benefit his organization and the community at large. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's a good idea. MR. SMALLEY: Ergo the previous caveat. MR. MUDD: So you're going to come in at 10 million. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Could you tell me what a special ops center is and where you're going to build it? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Countryside. Page 49 --'-""""""'""-""'~'-'-~-"-' June 16, 2005 MR. SMALLEY: I'd rather do that off-line, ma'am. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I got it. See you afterwards. MR. MUDD: Ma'am, there was a certain agenda item that came to you two meetings ago that asked for an extension for six months to a particular lease. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay, yeah, yeah, gotcha. MR. MUDD: Yes, ma'am. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Everybody all set? Everybody's okay? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Might make it easier if you don't tell all the public. CHAIRMAN COYLE: It's going to be consolidated with that emergency operations center. Okay, thank you very much. Appreciate your help. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, we have wrap-up -- COMMISSIONER HALAS: You wanted to take a break? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah, we're past time, aren't we? Let's take a break. MR. MUDD: We have wrap-up at 1:00. CHAIRMAN COYLE: We can't wrap up before then? MR. MUDD: No, sir. You've asked us some things, for some information that we need to get to you, and I've got everybody working on that, and so 1 :00 we'll get done. Wrap-up will take less than an hour. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. That's fair enough. We may as well adjourn then. MR. MUDD: Yeah, we'll adjourn till 1:00. CHAIRMAN COYLE: So at 1 :00. So we're going to adjourn till 1:00. (A recess was taken at 10:45 a.m.) Page 50 _.......'-_..~ June 16, 2005 CHAIRMAN COYLE: Ladies and Gentlemen, please take your seats. Are we ready to resume the budget workshop? MR. MUDD: And if I can get the administrators and the separate directors to come on up to the front table, that would be great. Commissioner, on the overhead you will see the wrap-up in the agenda piece. If you remember correctly, yesterday during my opening remarks I wanted to talk about a County Manager initiative and I was trying to keep track of time to make sure that we have enough, and I said I would continue that at wrap-up, and I'd like to do that before we start, but then wrap-up items are listed and we'll go over each one of these as we go along. Those are the notes that we took with direction from the Board as we were moving on. So I'll start with the County Manager initiative. Commissioners, one of the purposes I'd like to -- there's been a couple of things I'd been trying to take a look at as I have been the County Manager. One big think is try to reduce the cost of our benefits package and pay issues as far as the County is concerned and try to come up with some efficiencies in order to save money for the County. And in this particular case, there are three things that I'd like to talk about today about this proposal to see if I can get the Board's approval to add that to the budget. It is not included in the budget. We'll consider this an un-financed requirement, but I wanted to have a couple of minutes to talk to you a little bit about it. First of all, one of the things that came forward about two-and-a-half years ago was the talk about changing the way we did merit pay. Merit pay for County employees in the past, and I'm talking four or five years ago, was basically put into the account, into an employee's salary. And that merit, not only was it a benefit or reward for previous year's efforts in the salary of the next year, but it was in the salary of that employee for every year that they were going to work for years and years to come. Another thing that we did when we went out, we took a look at Page 51 --~.~.-- June 16, 2005 our different levels of our employees and the jobs that they did and we came in with a pay scale that basically had the midpoint in the middle market, and then we had below market and above market and it was about 25 percentage points on either side. One of the things we also talked about was, when somebody gets to the maximum of their pay scale, to quit giving that employee COLA. So that's because they're at the max of their pay scale. So they're as good as the market will bear in that particular pay range for that employee. And it made sense. The other thing we talked about was when an employee gets 10 percent over the market point, that we would give them their merit as a one-time bonus instead of being put into their pay. And we also changed all department directors and above so that no matter if they were below the market point or above it, because of their position in the County, that they would only get bonus as a one-time lump sum. This chart in front of you basically talks about what happened when we did that. The first year that it came in place, we saved the County $400,000 because of that. The next year, which was last year, we saved the County $800,000. You get the $400,000, it goes all across the years, and you get another $400,000 the second year that it's in place. This year you've got that $800,000 plus another four gives you 12. And in the '06 budget, we would have saved -- well, we have saved the County some 1.6 million dollars because of that policy change and the way we did merit and the way we did COLA for the people that have maxed out in their pay ranges. So what I'm trying to say is that the employees gave up a benefit that was there -- I could go and talk about how the County back in the nineties changed paying sick leave out so nobody gets a sick leave benefit, and that is basically a benefit to the County at about $100,000 a year from that time forward. By the way, I believe we are the only group that doesn't at least Page 52 ,,~_..,..,---'._'. June 16, 2005 reward some kind of sick leave when an employee leaves. So the County that -- your agency under the County Manager doesn't do that, and nor does the County Attorney. What I tried to do on this slide, and I tried to highlight it, and I wanted to talk about what we've saved the County based on this five-year program we've been on to notch percent off of our 90/10 split to 80/20. And under this highlighted piece, the whole group, if it's changed to 90/10 split where we were before, we basically saved in '06 a total of $2.4 million, just because we've diverted that $2.4 million onto the employees' -- into their check, and that's basically their cost share, now that they've taken up versus the taxpayers of Collier County. In no way, shape, or form, does that change in health care percentage small, and you can see by that number it's pretty significant What I -- and what I'm going to talk about is trying to do three initiatives. One is to use the number of senior management positions by Florida statute that are allocated to Collier County where we don't use those now. And I'll talk about that in just a second. The next is to come up with a 457 deferred compensation program for those people that are getting lump sum bonus checks to give them some incentive to save money, and based on the conversations that we're having in the County about Social Security and its lack for, or lack of confidence in what it's going to finally do having a 457 program set up for the employees in that particular group that have been getting lump sum merits would probably be a good thing to do. And last but not least, I've always had a problem -- it just seems like if an employee did a great job for Collier County from anywhere from 15 to 40 years and all of a sudden they leave, and they retire before Medicare, the Medicare start age, they don't have any medical insurance. And we want to talk about that a little bit. I believe we can at least tighten that up a little bit. Try to offer a product to reduce cost based on some criteria to a little cost to the taxpayers, but I believe it Page 53 ~'-"._.'._-'--_.~'- June 16, 2005 gives them something that -- it closes that loop. And so, I'll start the discussion with the senior management service positions. And at the end I will roll that up for you as far as total costs are concerned. Right now we have 11 positions currently designated as senior management service. And the difference between that designation is the fact that senior management service gets two percent per service year into their retirement versus the regular class which is 1.6 percent. By the Florida retirement rules, the County is eligible for 28 positions in senior management service. We use 11 positions currently. So we're underutilizing 17 positions. And I'd like to add 14 to that 11 to make it 25. And it still gives the County three in case there's a change to an administrator or some kind of reorganization that was hinted at. Again, I'm not trying to add administrators, but there's always something that comes up that we'll still have the capacity to add up to three. The proposal is to put directors at/or above rate for directors. And then to add the three direct reports to me. Those three direct reports to me are Jack Worth, Dan Summers, and Mr. John Torrey. Now, Mr. Mike Smykowski is already senior management service. That was done years ago, and he's also a direct report to me. That's the first initiative. The second initiative that I wanted to talk about was the deferred compensation 457 package. The current plan that we have is -- and let's talk about the 457 defined contributions. This is a -- let's call it a 50/50 cost share in this particular arrangement. The current plan is administrators and the Deputy County Manager, the County puts up $1,500 each, okay, and puts it off to the side. If those administrators and/or the Deputy County Manager would like to put $1,500 of their own money into the plan, at that time the County will put $1,500 against their $1,500 and there will be $3,000 in their 457 package. What I'd like to do in the proposed plan is to offer a proposed plan 457 to any employee that's been --that's 10 percent above the Page 54 -.------,.-,,'.. ...--- June 16, 2005 market value that is now getting lump sum merit, and offer, and put $500 to the side for each, if they chose to put $500 of their own money against that $500, there would be $1,000 that is then put into a 457 account. I'd like to, for the directors, put up to $1,500 and I'd like to increase the amount of the administrators and the Deputy County Manager to $3,000. And the same kind of thing, there would be $3,000 put against the side, if that person puts up to $3,000, there will be a one to one match until that $3,000 level is met. And at that particular juncture, it's up to them, the County no longer matches that particular fund. That's the second proposal. The third proposal is to try to take care of a gap medical plan. Some Constitutional Officers basically take their sick leave from their retired employee and put it up against that and work the entire plan fully paid up until that person becomes manager does not have that plan nor does our sick leave have any value to it. It is a -- it is a benefit, but it's one that's there in case someone is sick. It's not something that is there to be abused. And if it's not used, it isn't something that gives somebody time off, nor does it give anybody any money. I would like to, at lease in this plan, in this gap insurance program, give it some value. And what we've done is, we've come up with a hierarchy, and I will brief each Commissioner and give them the details of this particular hierarchy so that you know exactly what it does. But I'd like -- if a person serves 15 years in Collier County and retires, is able to retire, and they retire before Medicaid, or Medicare comes into play for them, I'd like to be able to have some kind of gap coverage that -- where the County would put money against what the individual would put up against the program. And depending on what the employee's share would be, would be dependant upon how much Page 55 .-...-,....,-.---.'. _.~...._-- ---- June 16, 2005 sick leave they've used over the years. That the criteria would be a completion of at least 15 years service, retire, and receiving benefits -- retired. Not getting a second job, but retired. I mean, they are retired. They're not out gaining income from a second job. And they receive their benefits from the Florida Retirement System, and they possess at least 60 percent of earned sick leave accrual. And I'd like to talk about that a little bit. I'll just try to give you an example that I was working with on an email. In no way, shape or form is this a finished product. I just wanted to have something that I could talk to you a little bit about. And I don't believe Jeff Walker is believing that I'm actually showing you this right now. But, it's okay. He'll get over it. If an employee in this particular plan, and, again, we'll give you all the details and show you the chart. If he had 15 years and he had at least 60 percent accrued leave remaining, the plan would pay 50 percent of the single rate for the employee's rate. The single rate. The employee would pay $252.50 a month and the employer would pay, the County would pay $252.50. The State pays an employee after they've been vested after six years, $5 a year on a monthly basis, okay, to be used for a medical plan. And in this particular case, that $5 times 15 would be $75, and they could go in and apply for that money from the State. You have to apply and use it against the medical program. They could apply. This program would be fine as far as that application is concerned. And the employee's out of pocket would be $177.50, because he could use that $75 he's getting from the State against his particular share. Right now when an employee retires, we offer them the ability to pay 100 percent of the costs of the County group program. Right now that's around $13,000 a year. If the employee's retired salary is $25,000, you're basically saying, well, if you want to have medical coverage, it's going to cost you thirteen grand of that 25. So then they've got $12,000 to pay whatever bills and live on it or whatever. Page 56 _.._~_u" June 16, 2005 And this is some way to help defer that particular issue. Now, the 30-year plan, if the employee has over 90 percent of their accrued sick leave in their bank and they have 30 years, then the program would pay 100 percent of the single rate coverage. So in this particular case, and they've got employee and employer mixed up, the total cost of that single rate, and this is at a $500 deductible plan, and that's what I would recommend that we use, then the employer would pay $505 a month for that particular issue. Then I asked another question of Mr. Walker. I said, well, that's great. I said, I hope after - and let's say I was one of those employees -- and I won't be, by the way. I won't be here for that 5 years. If I am, Medicare will certainly be beyond when I retire, so, in no way, shape, or form in this example am I talking about myself. I'm trying to put myself into a IS-year category where somebody has been married for, in my particular case 31 years, okay, and I plan to hopefully be married until the day I die to my bride. And what about my bride? What about my spouse? You know, now you got the single wife, but what are we going -- are we going to offer anything for the spouse? Now, I understand the spouse didn't work here, but I do believe we should let them participate in, not to be compensated any more than the single, but they should be able to work the single and one plan that we have. So, what I just described to you at $505.76, if they had a spouse, their monthly bill would be $723.24. So they would have to come up with the $223.24. And I just wanted to let you know what that increment would be. I'm not asking the County to pay that. That's not part of this proposal, but I just wanted to let you know in case you had a question, because hopefully at retirement time you're not having any more kids, but that could change too. And, so, but it was important for me to talk about that spouse. And so it gives you an idea. And then if you have to do the whole family, you can see it really jumps as far as that piece. Of that particular puzzle. I wanted Page 57 ~."^'-""'_.'. -.-..-- June 16, 2005 to make sure that we've talked about that just a little bit. Now, I also told you that I would take a look at the cost overall so that you get an idea. And what I tried to do is -- and instead of just going out there and saying, okay, what do you think? I said, do me a favor, look at our population right now of employees and figure out those people that would be eligible at 15 years or 30 years and how it would apply to them, and also take a look at those people that are on the one-time bonus check issue, so that we're actually looking at real numbers today against the population that we have under the County Manager's agency. The FRS piece to increase to those 14 positions on an annual basis, it would cost $25,322. The deferred compensation piece, which is that 457 50/50 split that I described at three different stages. One for all employees at $500. If you're a director then it would be at $1,500. I If you're an administrator, Deputy County Manager it would go to $3,000. And the reason I have the word maximum, as I described, it is a -- it is a 50/50 share. And they have to come up with their share before the County puts up their share against it up to that maximum amount. So, and the reason I say maximum, some people won't want to partake. I find it hard to believe that they wouldn't, but some people don't partake in this particular plan. So the maximum amount outgoing based on the current population in what we have in the County would be $238,000. And right now on the retiree health piece that I just describe to you based on the chart and the folks that we have in the County, that would be an annual outlay of $55,553. Total costs of those three initiatives is $318,875. When I say the savings, that was basically based on the first chart that I showed you that talked about what we did with lump sum merit and what we've done with COLA not being applied to the maximum amount, and the same thing with lump sum merit to the Page 58 .,___',_n__','__ _ ."_"_.._e__" --...---,.-- June 16, 2005 department directors and to administrators. Just from that example, it's a net savings of 1.2 million which reoccurs every year because of those initiatives in the front that we've already done, plus you have the part about the health care that I've talked about already that was over two million dollars. That's what I wanted to talk to the Board about a little bit. To talk to you. We have spent a lot of time over the last two-and-a-half years looking at those things to try to figure out what things we can do to entice good people to stay and to -- and by no way, shape, or form does it make up for what things have already transpired as far as the lessening of the benefits, but it does do a little bit to try to incentivize those folks a little bit and have another benefit that's out there. We can talk about that at the end of wrap-up, or we can discuss that now or we can continue to do the wrap-up issues, and I can just add that to the UFR list and we can discuss it later. That's at your discretion. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Well, I don't know how the other Commissioners feel about that, but I would really like to delay making any changes concerning additional costs until we get a better feel for how the overall budget is going to shape out and maybe do that in September. But, I'll be guided by the majority of the Board here. Commissioner Henning has a question. His light is on. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you. Did you run this by the productivity committee? MR. MUDD: No, not yet, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So I understand that by your answer you're going to? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So we'll get recommendations? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: The 1.6 savings -- MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- it just wasn't encumbered. Page 59 ._.,,--"._~,,-'-,. ""-"--- June 16, 2005 When you build a building, or when you contemplate building a building and you put it off, I mean, that wouldn't be a savings either. You just didn't spend it. MR MUDD: Commissioners, we came forward with an initiative in order to try to cut costs, and we basically cut the costs out of the benefits of the County -- of the County employees. So, you're absolutely correct. There's a difference between my budget coming in $7 million below the pie, and a budget coming in smack up against it, okay, and using everything. And I call that hide and go seek. They hide it, you go find it. We don't play that game anymore. We try to bring in as bare minimum as we can. And we heed your guidance, and then if you decide as a Board that you would like to add that to the particular budget, we do it. I believe we have gone out there and we've cut the benefits thing as close as we can cut it. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And I appreciate the honesty and openness. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And you're exactly right. And I think that's why you see some of the hard questions out there because -- MR. MUDD: You're right, sir, it would be encumbering, but because of the cuts, it doesn't show up in the budget. So, therefore, I call that a savings. I'm not putting it on forever, I'm just letting you know what the employees have taken on over the last couple of years in order to reduce the budget amount, and it's been at the -- at the detriment of their benefits package. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I think if you view it from the standpoint of continuing the past practice as opposed to what you have actually done, it would be considered a cost savings. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You actually changed the procedure that resulted in substantial cost savings. Commissioner Halas. Page 60 _._------~_."" --- June 16, 2005 COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes. I've looked at this, and pondered this, and I'll tell you that as we heard yesterday, it's getting more and more difficult to retain good people. And I think if we have an incentive program of this nature, it basically applies a set of golden handcuffs to the points, when these people decide to jump ship, that maybe they'll have second thoughts. The reason is that when you start looking at, if you have people who have been in a particular position, they have a wealth of knowledge. And when you lose that individual, chances are you're not going to have a training session whereby somebody can fill the gap in a short period of time. I've experienced this in my other life, whereby when you have well-trained people, it takes -- to train someone else, it's going to take at least two years, if not more, to bring them up to maximum speed, or maximum efficiency. So, overall what this does is gives that person who is thinking about leaving the County, who is a valued employee, to take a serious look in regards to maybe this is something that is an incentive to keep them here and to benefit all the citizens here in Collier County. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Coletta. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Commissioner Halas pu~ it in a really nice way. We always think about our employees. We have to be conscious of what their needs are, what it's going to take to retain them, I agree. And the couple of things that I noted in the conversation, one was Commissioner Henning's question about the productivity committee. I'd really like to hear back from them. The other thing I'd like to hear from is -- and of course, they'd feel very uncomfortable coming before this commission and talking to us on a one to one basis with the employees. Possibly some sort of survey that could reach out and touch the employees and maybe with the only identification marks would be how long you'd been working for the County and you're maybe age group so we can try to come up with some sort of scale to see what it Page 61 --.-..-".-- ". "_..__^'.m_~~____~_~_ .... ._0_.__ June 16, 2005 is like for employees that are brand new and in their twenties against employees that are in their late forties, early fifties. I have no idea how they would react to it. I would kind of like to think that we would have an overwhelming response of people saying yay rather than nay. That would be the two things that I'd like to see between now and September. MR. MUDD: I think Ms. Price can talk about that for just a second. MS. PRICE: Commissioners, we recently put out a survey to all our employees asking them about ways in which we could keep them, things that they'd like to see in terms of benefits and rewards. And we're in the process of putting together, in addition to this package, something that will provide our employees with better recognition when they perform well. Some of the things that are less costly, but actually provide greater benefit and incentive to the employees. So we're going to be coming forward with a full employee relations and recognition program for you to look at. We're looking at things not only from that standpoint, but we're also starting to explore the affordable housing issue, the issue of housing when we bring people here. So, we're looking at a very comprehensive package. We did not survey the employees on this particular piece, but we did ask them what they'd like to see in terms of being recognized for the jobs that they do. And we got some very honest input. And like you say, they did not have to identify themselves. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I like what you're saying. The only thing is -- and believe me, if they had an affordable housing element where we get involved to be able to offset employee housing, I think it's a wonderful idea not only we should look into, but the Sheriff s Department and the hospitals and the school system should look into also. I know the hospitals are doing it to a point, but that's Page 62 --~,. .._-~- June 16, 2005 off the subject from this. Going back to this, we still haven't come up with this plan to the employees per se. We got some idea across the Board what they're looking for, but I really would like to see a consensus of our employees out there to see if there is something that really would achieve those objectives. MR. MUDD: We can ask that question. MS. PRICE: Absolutely. MR. MUDD: And that's not a problem. That's easy to do. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And that essentially means we'll hear back in September? MR. MUDD: And the only intent was to raise that to the Board, get your thoughts, and just have the ability to put it on the finance requirement list, and then when September rolls around, you can make a decision on that particular item based on productivity input. But I want to at least talk about this particular thing with you. I'm not asking for a decision today, I just want a bookmark. That's all I'm looking for on a long list. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Good. What's next? MR. MUDD: Commissioner, then we start with our wrap-up on the first item that we wanted to talk about is waste water budget changes on the UFR position. You basically said for Mr. DeLony to add those positions, and I wanted to make sure that you know that we went in there. And basically you'll see that his expenses, as far as his people expenses, they've gone up with these four people. However, his operating expenses have gone down. And in this particular Waste Water Department, this is Joe Cheatham, there was a reduction of $259,000 based on that presentation yesterday versus going contract versus in-house. And then when you do the water department, when you add to those five positions, the same kind of dynamic transpires, the Page 63 _~__~....___. u ...',."._,-" .-....-.--- June 16, 2005 personnel services go up, the operating dollars go down for a net savings of $374,500. And that's exactly what we talked about yesterday that was going to transpire. I'll just let you know the new sheets now reflect that. CHAIRMAN COYLE: So you're adding more staff and your costs are going down. MR. MUDD: You added more staff yesterday and your costs went down by over half a million dollars, because Mr. DeLony was contracting out those nine employees versus the in-house. And the contract price for those particular skills are not cheap. And they come anywhere two times higher than what we can do with an in-house person. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Let's add another hundred people, we'll make lots of money. MR. MUDD: Well, yes, sir. I understand that mentality, but, you know, that doesn't always work. In this particular case, it did. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Hold on a minute. Commissioner Coletta has a question. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Just wanted to make one note. I'm sure there's people out there listening and wondering how this affects them one way or the other, plus or minus. Well, definitely it's a plus. But when we're talking about water, wastewater, drinking water, it all comes from a user's fee that generated at a point to be able to just cover that particular use. So if you're on a well and you have your own septic tank, this doesn't apply. I had to get that in because district five, most of us have wells and septic tanks. COMMISSIONER HENNING: As they should be. Being in the unincorporated -- or the rural area. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's a nice word. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. The next item that you have subject to any questions on the first one was water, wastewater that was just basically to show the Commissioners that we had made the changes. Page 64 ..--.-........-..... . '-~'----~' ---"".~_. June 16, 2005 Next one is EMS overtime. There was a question yesterday. You wanted to know what the overtime was. On this chart, first question was, how many employees are eligible for overtime in the emergency management services. That's 173. The overtime that's discretionary, I'll use that word, for lack of a better term, is on this line that my pen is pointing to. The '05 adopted budget is $830,000. Forecast is 802. The '06 request is $722,900, and that is a 12.9 percent reduction as far as overtime in emergency management service -- emergency medical services. That also includes the six expanded and there's $407,000 that is budgeted against those 6 FTE. If you take a look at the nondiscretionary, the union contract, the scheduled overtime, that's partly because most work a 54 -- I believe it's a 54-hour week and 14 hours are planned overtime. If I've made a misstatement, you'll let me know, Dan. Okay? If you take a look at that scheduled overtime because of union contract, you can see that it has in '05 adopted budget was 2.1 million. And it's 2.3 million in the '06 requested budget, and that's an 8.8 percent increase. And a lot of that has to do with the six expanded FTE that fall under the union contract. And then just from a total aspect, if you add both numbers, it's 2.9 million. What do they believe? Their forecast '05 is at three. Their budget -- and I've lost my pen on this thing. There we go. The requested budget '06 is at 3 -- it's just right around $3 million, and that's a 2.7 percent increase on the total. I believe that's the information that you asked for yesterday. CHAIRMAN COYLE: As far as the scheduled overtime is concerned, that really is nothing more than a guaranteed salary . Increase. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. That basically predates what their salary is. It averages out to be on an average around $47,000 a year. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And that, of course, is used for the purpose of calculating retirement pay? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. Page 65 June 16, 2005 COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. Now the controlled overtime, the discretionary piece, we are doing everything in our power to make sure that that's not -- okay, put against use in temps. We are doing different things like that, setting up contracts whereby the dollars don't come directly into us and go back out again so it shows up on a paycheck. But if there's a check paid by, may it be Harley Davidson track that has an ambulance there, or may it be a school function where they needed an ambulance. That the school would write the check to the employee, and there would be a certain overhead amount that would come back into the general fund coffers that would pay for the ambulance, the depreciation, the supplies that are used in that kind of business. COMMISSIONER COYLE: But then in that case, there must be another category of overtime. There's unscheduled overtime which is -- which consists of those services provided to third parties who pay for those services. And then there must be a category of overtime that takes into consideration a situation where an EMS team on call maybe has to stay longer than they normally would on shift. Where does that fall ? MR. MUDD: That's in this column right here, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Is there any way you can break those two categories out sometime in the future? MR. MUDD: Oh, yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Sometime in the future. I mean, give us some information sometime. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. Sure. We can put that in memo format and get it to all the Board members. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Good. Thank you. Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: What about this third party pay? Are we doing that now? Page 66 .~.'."-"--"-'. ~'- June 16, 2005 MR. MUDD: Dan, you want to -- we are taking the third party pay right now into the County system. And it -- right now it shows up on their retirement. And in '06 I directed that that be stopped. MR. SUMMERS: Sir, that's correct. Exactly correct. And again, those stand by, or special event situations are relatively not frequent, however, they do kind of domino very quickly when you start looking at those additional overhead administrative retirement costs and that type of thing. So we now have a process in place, sort of cloning what the Sheriff s Department does in terms of special event coverage. So that we do not carry the burden of that retirement in direct and administrative overhead that feeds these additional fund requirements. So we'll break that out. It is -- it will be a contractual process, as Mr. Mudd alluded to. It will also be an accounting process to make sure that Collier County is not penalized for the special event support. COMMISSIONER HENNING: The problem is -- the difference is, is the sheriff deputies have a dedicated vehicle to them. In EMS' cases, that's part of the road unit. Unless we have an extra one sitting out there. MR. SUMMERS: We do try to use reserve equipment when we can do that, but we also understand, our reserve capability is minimal. And we also, when we do special event contracting, we make sure that the contractor is aware that if that unit is needed for a call in the community -- in other words, it goes to the special event in an in-service status. And so we don't have the reserve cars, as you mentioned, much like the other. But we have a way of either backfilling it, or using, on an occasion, a spare vehicle. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. Thank you. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Commission Coletta? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. Going back to EMS and their contract for hour's work, what is considered a workweek for EMS for contract, as far as the contract goes? Page 67 .O"W",,_._",.,," '~~~"'~'~""-""~"" June 16, 2005 MR. SUMMERS: Oh, for the contract. It will typically be a 56-hour workweek. It's an on 24, off 48 type schedule. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I'm sorry. One more time. Would you say that one more time how it's laid out? MR. SUMMERS: Their work shifts are on 24, off 48. And of course then they do have some rotational periods in that. There is an opportunity for that to rotate where they may also have a kelly day or a spare day that rotates in there. That is driven by -- that on 24, off 48 general shift pattern is also driven by the requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: My concern -- so, in other words, it's very similar to a fireman? MR. SUMMERS: It is similar to the firemen, except their Fair Labor Standard Act has some exception in there for EMS. So, it's the same pattern, there are some slight differences in requirement by fair labor standards. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And it's considered overtime at -- MR. SUMMERS: Anything over 40. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Over 40. MR. SUMMERS: Anything over 40. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And in addition to those hours, they can work longer? MR. SUMMERS: They can't -- they're not -- they do have an opportunity because our reserve personnel is so low that we have to cover the maternity leave and the sick leave and those types of personal leave scenarios. There's also, and again, this goes back to some of the discretionary where we have to bring that paramedic in to clinical training, review, quality assurance. We actually have to have face time with them for testing and in-service. We also have made big strides in that in-service by doing more of that continuing education training on computer at the stations on their own duty time. So that's Page 68 --,~.._+'-+ .. - -,.,+,--"..,..,"--,-,...._._,_.~, June 16, 2005 one initiative. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Let me ask you one question. And I don't know, I don't think it's a ridiculous question. I think it's -- is there any situations where -- well, we're going back to the Sheriff s Department, when we had a deputy in the jail because of the lack of -- the number of deputies to be able to work there. There were some of them working overtime way in excess of 40 hours a week. And sometimes it was, you know, like 80 hours or so. And impossible hours that I don't know how they can maintain their living standards or their family. And we don't present those kinds of misguided opportunities for the personnel in EMS, do we? MR. SUMMERS: No, sir. We are very conscious of the fatigue situation, the on 24 and off 48, so we're in good shape on staffing right now. We hope that continues. The additional overtime that may become an opportunity, is not used in such a fashion that we are overtaxing our personnel for something beyond the 24-hour shift. And if so, the supervisor has the discretion to say, look, this particular unit ran all night long. They've gone 20 hours without rest, we don't want that person carrying on another shift for safety and for care. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: So the public can be assured that our personnel aren't overstressed to the point that the duties that they're to perform, the life saving duties, aren't going to be jeopardized? MR. SUMMERS: Sir, we're very sensitive to that. And they should be comfortable in that. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you very much. MR. MUDD: Commissioners, the next item we talk about is additional backup information on the marine agent position. And I'm not too sure if you all got this particular document. Mike, do you have copies of this? Or Marla, you want to talk about it a little bit? MS. RAMSEY: Yes, I can talk about it. The staff did some research and contacted Bill Lorenzo with Natural Resources, The Page 69 ".'-"---~--- ...". ~"--_.~,~.,.., '""-- June 16, 2005 Conservancy, Rookery Bay and Florida Gulf Coast Universities reps. And all of the agencies feel that this is an enhancement of activities here in Collier County. Rookery Bay, I think there is a representative here as well, but one of Rookery Bay's comments was that the sea grants clean marine program that they have would work closely with the marinas that are now in operation here in Collier County and help him with the best management practices by using some of the current research that they can get from the State or national levels. That is something that is not being done currently. And I think I did mention yesterday that the Rookery Bay was offering a computer -- a desk space, office space, computer access to their fleet of boats, et cetera, at their location as an in-kind match as well. Some of the -- the Florida Gulf Coast University's Marine Lab, I think there was a comment about that. And when we talked to Florida Gulf Coast, they expect that the marine agent will extend the research and the information of the lab to reach the Collier County community more effectively. The position will be involved with marine and coastal legal issues and have access to State legal experts in exploring the legal and regulatory issues associated with the boating and marine communities, especially in a post hurricane period, and water access and loss of usage time associated with those. So, everyone that we talk to, they really see this as a go-to person here in the community that they can utilize for additional resources, and to bring in top research elements and be a facilitator between maybe a commercial fisherman and the environmentalist and bring best practices and new information to those agencies and commercial fisherman you might have in the area. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: So, in other words, you're saying this isn't a redundant position, this is something that has been needed Page 70 _N..,_"_._,__.._'._'_'~___ ~.c*~,_ June 16, 2005 and not filled? MS. RAMSEY: That's exactly what all of the agencies are saYIng. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, and I'll add that explanation to the back of your documentation on that particular position. You know, we'll just have an-add-on right there that you'll have it for decision in September. Mr. Chairman. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Who coordinates all of the activities associated? We have a lot of agencies involved in doing something in this area. Who coordinates all that? MS. RAMSEY: I believe that there is a coordination going on. And if it is, it's informally. Parks and Recreation will try to teach the community about it. We may turn to Rookery Bay or The Conservancy for some additional information. We try not to duplicate the services that are being offered, and we know what's going on in the community. We use each other in those areas. COMMISSIONER COYLE: That's one of my problems. There are lots of activities going on. There's nobody coordinating them. Now, if this person were responsible for coordinating them and making sure they don't became duplicative, and in fact, making sure people understood they exist, and getting people knowledgeable about how they can take advantage of these services, now that's one thing, but if we're going to have somebody who is going to go out on the beaches and talk to the tourists about shells, you know, I'm getting a little concerned about it. Okay. And that's what's bothered me about this from the time it came up. There were no specific arrangements for coordinating all the various activities that appeared to be going on. And I also would like to make sure that if the County does contribute to $41,200, and the sea grant program matches the remaining 50, is that a salary of$91,200 for this person? MS. RAMSEY: No, that would be benefits and there is some-- there is some secretarial help in here as well, is my understanding. Page 71 '^M_.~__ June 16, 2005 COMMISSIONER COYLE: So it's more than one person. It's a staff -- it's an office. It's -- it just keeps growing. Where is this person going to actually set up their office? MS. RAMSEY: Rookery Bay has offered the space at their location, which would be very close to the lab, that the Gulf Coast University is putting together as well. It would be under the university extension. University of Florida. COMMISSIONER COYLE: and is this person going to be charged rent or is rent going to be allocated to this particular position, utilities? MS. RAMSEY: Rookery Bay is going to absorb that in-kind as an in-kind donation. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I just don't want -- to make to sure this doesn't turn into one of those comp positions where we get it subsidized for a few years and then all of a sudden the subsidy disappears and we're left taking up the entire cost. COMMISSIONER HENNING: That's what this is. CHAIRMAN COYLE: You think that's what it is? COMMISSIONER HENNING: That's what it is. MS. RAMSEY: There's a representative from Rookery Bay to help with that end of it here in the audience if you'd like to hear from her. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. And I intend to let them speak about this issue. Would you like to come up here and tell us? Can you answer some of those questions for us? MS. W ALENSTEDLER: I think so. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Good. MS. W ALENSTEDLER: Where do I go? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Wherever you like. Either one of those podiums. MS. W ALENSTEDLER: I'm Tabitha Walenstedler, and I coordinate the coastal training program at Rookery Bay. And I'm so Page 72 -.'.. . _, "'___~..._o_~_ "..-".~- June 16, 2005 happy to be here to talk to you. I get to tell my friends and family what I did today. It will be kind of neat. COMMISSIONER COYLE: But they won't be impressed. MS. W ALENSTEDLER: They will. I guarantee it. Let me answer some of your questions. I think the first thing to specify is that the target audience for the sea grant person is pretty specific. It's essentially marine industries. So, boy, that's -- it's a specific audience, but we have over 20,000 registered vessels here in Collier County, so that includes all the people who go on the vessels in the recreational sense, including the marinas and all their staff, the boat rental companies and all the guests that come, people who the build boats, work on boats, bait shops, west marine, et cetera. So it's not maybe as diffuse as you know, it is a specific target audience. As far as we know in collaboration with the other groups we talked about, nobody is really doing specifically boater education in terms of environmental marine resources. We have boater education and safety through the Coast Guard Auxiliary, and the -- what's the other group? Anyway. Auxiliary, and the other State boating. MR. HALAS: Parascungin. MS. W ALENSTEDLER: Parascungin. Thank you. But again we're talking about environmental resources. So, now, while Rookery Bay does try to reach this audience, we do have the staff to get to that many people in the way that we need to get to. They definitely are impacting our environmental resources in the area. A big part of sea grant too I have to throw out, the reason why we think it's a tremendous opportunity, not only are we building this partnership by kind of leveraging your and our space at Rookery Bay -- which we are ready to go, by the way -- we're really excited that this would happen. Is also opens us up to in, Collier County, a big pot of Federal money that only sea grant people can apply for. So we feel like getting that person on Board, having them collaborate very Page 73 . ..-,-----_._"'_.-,-'"--~ '---'- June 16, 2005 closely by being on site at Rookery Bay and with all of us who are doing marine industries education. And then we'll be able to grow the program. I think the final thing I'll throw out there. I'm not sure if I answered your question well enough, was, I would be pleased to come back in a year from now, if you see fit to fund this, and to show you the tremendous impact that we can have with the sea grant program. They have so much of a great reputation, and there are so many great examples of programs they've done in other counties. I just really think that -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Who is this person going to work for? MS. W ALENSTEDLER: They're directly working for the cooperative extension office. MS. RAMSEY: They would work for the university extension. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. And so we presume that we're going to go out and grab a boatload of tourists on a fishing boat, and in some way educate them? Is that what we're saying? MS. W ALENSTEDLER: No. Let me give you some specifics. CHAIRMAN COYLE: How are you going to -- yeah. MS. W ALENSTEDLER: That's what you need, right? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yeah, I really do. MS. W ALENSTEDLER: Okay. No, that's fine. Let me think of the programs. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Well, can I help you along? MS. WALENSTEDLER: Yes, please do. COMMISSIONER HALAS: I think that this sea grant individual is like an extension agent. Like a farm extension agent. Okay. This is just one aspect of the educational process. But, say for instance there's a group of people or persons that are interested in aquaculture. Through the extension service, they can help these individuals find ways and understand what it's going to take to get involved in aquaculture so that it's productive. They also work closely, I believe, Page 74 .. ." M____..,______...'.' __ -.--- June 16, 2005 with the commercial fishing industry and also with the -- just the regular people. MS. W ALENSTEDLER: Recreational. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Recreational. That's the word. Recreational fishing community. As you know, there's Federal legislation possibly coming down in regards to closing off different areas of the gulf for fishing. Well, this agent works on our behalf, because most of this comes from University of Florida, the money, and what they do is, they sit down and do it objectively, try to acquire scientific information in regards to, does this really need to happen. And so that's some of the benefits I think that you get of the sea grant individual. And as this young lady spoke, that they are able to get additional Federal grants, which is money in Washington that belongs to us that we can get back here to our area. So I didn't mean to take -- COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, okay. I know all about extension programs. I know about farm extension programs. And I know that the gentleman down in Chockoloskee who wants to set up clam farming knows more about what is necessary than this person we're planning on hiring, I can assure you. And he knows about where to go to get that information better than anybody we're going to hire at $50,000 or more. And I believe that everybody who is in the commercial fishing business knows exactly where to go, either to the State or the Federal agencies about issues related to commercial fishing. I just don't see quite what this person is going to do. And there are lots of people who do research on this. There are lots of people who are doing research on the red tide issues. And probably every major university in Florida has done marine research of some kind. In fact, I think Florida State even has a remote facility down in Marathon that addresses a lot of the issues. Page 75 ^---- June 16, 2005 So, how does creating one position in Collier County improve the research and the dissemination of information that these people don't already have access to? MS. W ALENSTEDLER: Well, that's a huge question. MS. RAMSEY: Well, let me help just a little bit. MS. W ALENSTEDLER: Please do. MS. RAMSEY: I think that this person becomes the conduit, so to speak, that all of the research based elements coming from national and State runs through an agent, whether it be a farm agent or a vegetable agent, lifestyle agent, or in this case, a marine agent. It all runs through them. And their job is to provide that information through all the agencies within our community. So I think they become the go-to or the conduit to getting the information that you're speaking of. I think the facilitator of issues that Collier County may have, that we may not even realize as we sit here today that, you know, we take I think very good care of things on the land, but we probably haven't given as much attention to the water ways around us. There are ethical angling elements that come into play. There is new legislation that comes down and who helps to educate everybody about what those new laws are and what they mean. I think that's how we see the marine agent. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, I just want to understand it conceptually. I appreciate the need for extension services and education. But, when I vote to approve money and people to do something, I'd like to understand the procedure that will be used to get the job done. All too frequently people rush into these things and they throw money at a problem, and they don't think through the process of how it really gets done. And I think this is one of those situations. I don't think we thought it through, but nevertheless. Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: So, if it's like the ag extension, Page 76 .---"'"" ....-.-- June 16, 2005 somebody can go out there and know when to plant tomatoes and -- MS. RAMSEY: Best practices, pesticides, herbicides, whatever, all the resource that's coming down through the university itself. And in this case, even nationally, they're associated with NOVA. NOVA is also a part of the process. COMMISSIONER HENNING: It would be similar to one of those programs. Can they assist Commissioner Halas at catching more fish? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Nobody can solve that problem. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Is that what it is, how to filet fish? MS. RAMSEY: How to filet fish. No, I think it would be more environmentally sensitive to the area around us, and how you can get the environmentalist and the fisherman facilitated between that. You see that not as much maybe here as you see in other areas, but there is a lot of tug that goes on between the boating community and the environment community. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And that probably this will make it worse? MS. RAMSEY: It could. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I got -- you know, when I go out, I got Fish & Wildlife, I got DEP wanting to harass me about what fish I'm getting. So it sounds like this person would be just another one to harass the public. And let me tell you something, the commercial fishermen, they don't want anything to do with government. Nothing at all. They've been stepped on by government. And the voters of Florida kicked them out. They don't want them there. So, there are a few out there still trying to do crabbing, trying to do clamming, and yet we're going to introduce more government. You know -- COMMISSIONER HALAS: Commissioner, why don't you take a look at -- oh, I'm sorry. Page 77 -"'"......_....'",_...._".~"'_...._- ..,.......,.~--- June 16, 2005 MS. RAMSEY: Commissioner, I don't think I see this person as an enforcement person. I see this person as bringing research here and providing information for best practices in whatever the marine element might be. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And the person you want to harass to get in my fishing box is not enforcement. They just want to know what I'm catching so they can put more rules and regulations on me when they come back. That's all. That's what the Fish & Wildlife Commission does. MS. W ALENSTEDLER: I really feel like I might be able to put a little bit of a specific defined look at the sea grant program. And it's only because I speak from the program that I work with, which has somewhat of a similar mission, but it's just me. And essentially we're trying to bring scientific information to bear on public behavior and professional behavior. And it's that link between science and management. It's the link between scientific information and what we do every day in our yards and in our businesses. And, of course, in the way that I really appreciate it that's both economically feasible and environmentally appropriate. It's a really big challenge. It's really not just about the regulation. These positions, the sea grant particularly, is a huge reputation for partnerships. And I hope you see Rookery Bay that way too. The Marine -- Collier County Marine Industries Association has been on Board with this as well, and they're very excited about the potential of the sea grant position. So we do have some specific backing from commercial groups right here in the area. And there is a method. And we actually specifically do need assessments of the group so we have a process to gather information. Then we decide what they need, get the resources and partners and then deliver the program. Evaluate the program, assess the needs. And so we actually have a training cycle that we work on that is Page 78 ..-...-- June 16, 2005 very accountable. And, again, I have to offer that if we get this opportunity, I'll guarantee you I'll come back with a bunch of great proj ects and commercial fishermen here who are like, you know, we benefited from understanding more of the cycles of the environment that helped us to be more productive. So, I guess that's kind of how I shape it is that science to management behavior police type of a link that's kind of absent in a traditional education program. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. Do you have any kind of letter from the Marine Industries supporting this? MS. W ALENSTEDLER: I don't have it with me today. Unfortunately, I didn't even know this come up yesterday. I jetted down here in 15 minutes to be here. So I'd be glad to get that back to you though. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. From the local Marine Industry? MS. WALENSTEDLER: Yes, Collier County, absolutely. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Commissioner Coletta. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Talk about turning people's lights off. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Are your lights out? COMMISSIONER COYLE: They're going to be. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: All right. My personal experience with this goes back with the beginning of clam farming. when Robert Roberts from Everglades City and Captain Matt Flynn wanted to kick this off, this initiative. And we really didn't have anything to hang our hat on. I took on the responsibility of pulling the parts of the elements together best as I could figure. Didn't seem like it would be that difficult. And we moved forward and got everything going. We even put out -- we got permission from the State to put out test beds of clams to see how they would do over there around Page 79 ---",.----..----- -'--- June 16, 2005 Chockoloskee. Well, we screwed up. I screwed up. What happened was, is that when I put the whole thing together and I started inviting all the participants, I missed one of the major ones and that was Rookery Bay. And they took personal offense at it. They raised holy hell with the State. They made us pull all the beds apart. Made us pull all the clams up. We lost over a year. If we had that agent at that time who could have seen where we were heading, and we wouldn't have stepped on somebody's toes, they would probably be harvesting clams today. I can tell you, that was one of the complaints that the participants that organized this together, they had was, they couldn't get, what they call cooperation. I call it the lack of knowledge from local government. We went to the extent that we could to help them. If you take a look at this particular map here of Florida, it shows those places that have a marine agent that assists in their counties. And I imagine they've been there for quite a few years. And probably these people had been receiving a benefit. But what I would suggest -- I understand there's a couple Commissioners that have second thoughts on this, and that's good. We should always question what's coming before us when it's new to see if it can stand the test of our scrutiny. Is that when we reconvene on the budget hearings, that we invite the marine agent possibly from Lee County, which is the closest County. If not available, then from one of the other counties on the west coast, to come to our budget hearing and make a presentation of exactly what they do do. We can ask those questions directly to the person that's providing the service and see if its something that we think is an item that we'd like to spend -- what is it? How much money? COMMISSIONER COYLE: 41,000. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: $41,000 in Collier County. That would be a suggestion. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Nothing wrong with that, as long as we Page 80 --~._._- June 16, 2005 invite a representative from Marine Industries Associates. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah, sure. That's great. I think that's a wonderful idea too. You'll take care of that. MS. W ALENSTEDLER: Love to. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I have a better idea. Why don't we just budget it. It has to come back to us on a regular agenda for a final vote and then we better have more information about job description, enforcement powers, and so on and so forth and, you know, we can kill it then. But, what Commissioner Coletta said, really ought to kill it because here is somebody trying to do some good things in farming and government stopped them because they were here. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, I'm sure that decision was based on some very sound science. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Sure, sure. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Let's go ahead and let's wait until we have the trial, then hang them. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. We're finished with this item. So I think what Commissioner Henning said was we'll approve it, and before it comes back for the final budget hearing, we'll hear from the people who support it or oppose it and we can make a decision then. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, it's on your UFR list. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MR. MUDD: So, the bookmark is there. So, are you telling me to put it in the budget or just wait until September and the information will come in, people can come talk to Commissioners in the meantime, and when it comes up to the final UFR list in September when we go down that list for the final time, that we can make a decision if we want it or not. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah. That sounds okay with me. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah, put it in the budget. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Is that okay with you? Page 81 -~'-,,",,..,,-,^,_" .-.. . ,.~ "- June 16, 2005 COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yep. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, the next item is community developments. And I just want to make sure this particular next bullet works, there was no action for this workshop, but we didn't lose the fact that you're looking for Mr. Schmitt to do metrics because of funding of additional positions to improve service. Okay? Okay. So I made sure that we got it. And as we carry that forward, I'm going to be looking basically put suspension on this particular issue so that we can come back to you with the information that you desire. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Commissioner? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER FIALA: You were saying yesterday -- how many employees do you have? MR. SCHMITT: Well, 160 employees total. 260.5. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And you're about 36 down, I think you said. Short or something like that. MR. SCHMITT: Part-time. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Oh, okay. MR. SCHMITT: Part-time code enforcement. COMMISSIONER HALAS: I didn't see that half a person. COMMISSIONER FIALA: He wanted to see that half a person. He wanted to see half a person. You're 36 down, I think you said. And my point is not so much that you're 36 down or anything, what I'm saying is, has it been -- have you had trouble trying to fill those vacancies? MR. SCHMITT: I'm not sure I said 36 down, so I don't have that count with me right now, but I believe my weekly report I'm about 15, 16 or 15. Do I have trouble filling in the professional positions? Yes. As most everybody does. It's when you're looking for let's say a planner. It would be a senior planner or a principal planner. Normally that type of person is going to come from outside the area. Certainly one of the biggest factors here is the cost, not only to relocate, but the Page 82 -,~,--"",..,.._,~_.,,, ,~",-------","-"- ----~.- June 16, 2005 cost of housing. Certainly-- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Pretty soon we might have some gap housing. MR. SCHMITT: I understand. But, so it's a factor of salary. It's a factor -- there's a lot of other things that play into that, as everybody at this table experiences in trying to replace, hire new people. But at the same time mention -- I'll use the planner, for example, they're very valuable to the industry in regards to the knowledge that they gain. I'll use a name like Fred Reichel. He was with us for 15 years, and certainly he's got a good promotion and he's a planning director now for ADD, but those are the kind of things that we compete with, and I experience that kind of, shall I say probing, my directors feel that especially with the planners. The engineers, likewise the same thing. I'll use another name Stan Chrzanowski, one of my senior engineers. Stan has probably been offered several times significantly higher salary to go work for a firm. So, yes, I do experience it. The salaries were competitive in some areas. Some areas it's a factor of several aspects. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. So the ones now that you have proposed you need, do you think you'll have as many problems filing those positions. Do you find it easier to recruit them? MR. SCHMITT: Ma'am, I expect I will have problems getting plan reviewers, inspectors because I'm no different than Lee County. I don't know if it was on the news last night again. Lee County experiencing the exact same problems. They just had a recent approval to hire 25 additional folks up there, and they're now experiencing even more problems because of the volume of work coming in. So I'm going to be competing against them, and others as well. Normally, my inspectors, maybe a lot of those folks will pick up that are down here maybe as a second career or something. But they have to be licensed and certified, those type of things. So, yes, it's just Page 83 M_",__",',_,_,'O<_H._O"'__ '-- June 16, 2005 a challenge. I mean, it is a management and leadership challenge trying to get the right people in, as you all know, in any position. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Where do we go from here? MR. MUDD: The next item is the coastal manager position. COMMISSIONER COYLE: We didn't make a decision. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. It's on the UFR list. We're going to get to that. It's at the bottom of the list. The coastal manager position. Your comments to me were that it needs to be considered by the TDC prior to BCC policy decision and I'll get that done over the summer, so September we'll know. If they say no to it, I'll take it off the list. Oh, debt service. One of the things that Mr. Smykowski mentioned to you that the series 2005 gas tax bond issue debt service, it hadn't been added yet because you hadn't done the final signature. I hope you have a pen with lots of cartridges. Okay. Mr. Chairman, but you'll find those things in about eight days, and when that does then we can officially add that to the budget because that's just finishing up. And that was a $95,255,000 bondage. That's the second issue on the gas tax. The next item was the Goodland Fire MSTU, and the final resolution on millage. And I want to make sure that we mentioned it yesterday. It's significant. Right now their millage is around point four mill. The letter that we received from Marco Island says $2 million, and that will be a significant increase for the folks in Goodland, if I can't negotiate a better deal for fire service. The Sheriffs budget changes from this morning. I believe the Board said that they were looking for based -- and I believe that the Sheriff s Office representatives that were here this morning basically said that they would provide written responses to the productivity committee's recommendation that, Mr. Chairman, you mentioned. Budget justification Matrix for the future, those were also mentioned. And I believe there is correspondence with the sheriff that Page 84 ".-....-- June 16, 2005 he would like to look at those particular issues also. And I believe Commissioner Halas was talking about health insurance, what the increase is in employee contribution. And the plan and implementation timetable was also discussed, and that was due out-- that we would receive sometime before the first of September, before our first budget meeting in September. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. There was an additional item, Jim, unless you were planning that last bullet would apply to this. And that was the plan for the step increases for salaries. You'll recall that I asked the question about how CO LA was going to be applied, and the sheriffs representatives indicated they were evaluating a new plan, and they would provide us details concerning that. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. We'll add that to the particular list. COMMISSIONER COYLE. Thank you. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, that brings us to the one issue that -- I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Can we go back? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Can we stay on that. You said budget justification Matrix for the future. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Actually, yeah, I had meant from this day forward as soon as we could develop them, but, yes. But that's the future, I guess. Is that where were you headed? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, yeah, but also -- well, they do justifications, but the thing that bothers me is the calls for service. If we can kind of take a look at that. I think we need a -- you know -- MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. If it calls for service and it's service to the residence and you don't have the -- you don't have the add on-calls for your in-house folks calling back and forth, and if somehow those additional calls for service correlate to an increase in road patrol, and Page 85 . '~"'-"'-'- ._._-----,,----~--_..,- "- June 16, 2005 you can make that correlation, those are something that we need to take a look at. And I believe that's what the chairman and you were alluding to earlier this morning. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Including the square mileage, the area of patrol and things like that. We were talking about refinements on some of those Matrix. And then of course, any others that the Sheriff s Department thinks might be appropriate -- MR. MUDD: Yes, sir-- CHAIRMAN COYLE: -- would be helpful. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And then one thing, that shifting I don't understand. They have a fixed time off, fixed days instead of rotating. And what would happen if you would change the hours with rotating days off instead of fixed days off? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you. MR. MUDD: The next item -- can we -- are we prepared to move to the next item? COMMISSIONER COYLE: We're ready to move to the next item. MR. MUDD: The next item is one that I made last because I knew this would absorb most of the time. Little did I know the marine agent would absorb most of the time. This has to do with the beach parking issue. And the reason we need to get it resolved is, right now the budget, as Ms. Ramsey has presented to you, includes $400,000 for beach stickers. That's $20 a sticker. That's in the budget today. If this Board decides they don't want to do that, or they don't want to do the $5 parking, then we need to adjust that budget, and then you won't have $7.9 million on you for right now, it'll be 7.4. We need to adjust that. I need to make you aware of that particular issue. Based on the dialogue that we had yesterday on this issue, we're all over the place. That's why I thought this would take the longest, but I'm going to turn this over to Ms. Ramsey, and hopefully she can, Page 86 -----'".- --- June 16, 2005 in a very short period of time, 30 seconds, tell you, summarize the plan, where the shortfalls are, and what the remedies are in order to make up the shortfalls. Ms. Ramsey, ifyou'll-- COMMISSIONER COYLE: I thought we were so clear yesterday. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir, every commissioner was clear, and every commissioner had a different opinion. MS. RAMSEY: Well, maybe to help expedite it just a little bit is that, yesterday the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board met and they discussed this very issue and they have a recommendation. I wasn't at that meeting because I was here, but I have a park representative that maybe can tell us what their recommendation is and we can start at that point as a dialogue element. COMMISSIONER COYLE: You want to ask your questions now, gentlemen? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, go ahead. Let's hear it. Maybe things changed. MS. TOWNSEND: Good afternoon. Amanda Townsend with Parks and Recreation. The Parks and Recreation Advisory Board met yesterday and discussed the various options that have been given to this Board at length. Their recommendation is to go with option 12 on that page that is summary of user fee options. That option would keep the lowest user fee for the Keewaydin Beach Shuttle, and would charge for a parking permit. However, the option that you see in number 12 is $20 for a two-year beach parking permit. The Parks and Recreation Advisory Board recommends $40 for a two-year permit. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Give us a page number, please. MS. RAMSEY: There is no real page on this, but if you go to the public services tab, it's the last three pages, four pages before the transportation tab. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Did they review some of our Page 87 " ~-..,.._,,-----"_..~.".,,_.,~ -'-'- June 16, 2005 recommendations from yesterday's meeting? MS. TOWNSEND: Yes. Of course I didn't have them in any distinct format but we reviewed the discussion that this Board had. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I thought Commissioner Coyle's idea was pretty good myself. MS. RAMSEY: What was it? CHAIRMAN COYLE: I have no idea. COMMISSIONER HENNING: It was the first one of the year and of course the year is not over with, but it was the closer you got to the beach, you paid for it. The remote parking lot, you said, you know, those people can go for free. People that want to bring their vehicle to the beach, they pay. I mean, it kind of made sense as far as -- and besides charging for the people who take the shuttle. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yeah, I'll tell you -- if I can just explain a little bit about how I arrived at that proposition. Somebody had talked about using this Government Center on weekends or holidays for parking and shuttle to the beach. Now since we're not spending additional money to create beach parking here, people shouldn't have to pay a share of the parking here. Because it wasn't specifically developed for them, but it's just being used temporarily for them. So they get to use this free and then they take the shuttle to the beach, and that way they don't have to pay anything. But if we built a parking facility and we had to take a lot of money, such as we're going to be doing at Vanderbilt Beach Drive, and people want to park there, they should pay for that, and also for the beach end. So that's how I arrived at that. And that's my logic for saying people can go someplace and park for free, whereas if they go someplace else, they might have to pay because we had to spend a lot of money building a parking facility for them. MS. RAMSEY: If I understand them, Commissioner, that would be option number three? MS. TOWNSEND: Yes, inherent in a universal beach -- inherent Page 88 ,,,,,,,__<~,_._,o~_,,__"",_'_m'_'_" "~._.- June 16, 2005 in a universal beach parking program, would be a free shuttle. Staff is really packing those together. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. But this doesn't provide you the $40 -- or the $20 parking sticker. MS. RAMSEY. Okay. True. CHAIRMAN COYLE: So I was trying to pull all this stuff together. In other words, give residents a discount. Don't charge them $5 every time they want to come down and park at the charge facilities. MS. RAMSEY: Charge them the $20 fee -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Charge them the 20 bucks and then they get an unlimited parking ticket to that facility. That gets what Commissioner Coletta was talking about, like our residents deserve some special consideration. And so they can get this unlimited parking pass at a huge discount. And then they can use any of these parking, beach parking facilities that we've developed using the sticker. But other people would have to pay the $5 per fee. MS. TOWNSEND: That's what is proposed in option 12. MS. RAMSEY: Number 12. MS. TOWNSEND: Exactly what you're saying. COMMISSIONER COYLE: 12 has $9. MS. RAMSEY: That's the Keewaydin Shuttle. Keewaydin shuttle is actually the boat shuttle, which the enhancement that we talked about, taking a boat over to Keewaydin. COMMISSIONER HENNING: That's one way, right? MS. RAMSEY: Yeah, that's one way. COMMISSIONER COYLE: We've got two Commissioners who are getting upset because we're not letting them talk. COMMISSIONER HALAS: You keep shutting my lights off. COMMISSIONER COYLE: So, Commissioner Coletta, you were first. You really were. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, I thought you were, sir, Page 89 --~._,._._.'.'''''"'-- June 16, 2005 but I'll go. COMMISSIONER COYLE: You're first. Go ahead. COMMISSIONER HALAS: You control the hammer. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Once again, I do believe there should be a public benefit for the residents of Collier County, and I think we've done remarkably well in providing that benefit in the past by giving them a beach sticker at no cost. What we can do to cover the cost on that, in other words, the revenue that you are not going to generate, the $660,000, which I agree is a lot of money. But, once again, it's one of the few benefits we do offer the residents that live inland that want to be able to get to the beach. Raise the cost for the parking to $6 not $5 and go with the heavy end for the beach experience to go to Keewaydin Island. Recognize that is a very special amenity, and beach passes don't apply unless you have a parking lot there. But to use the shuttle you have to pay the price if you want to enj oy that. If you come up with off area parking, I still think the residents should be able to ride free, maybe just show their driver's license or their local ID, and everyone else would pay $5 or $6. That would be my recommendation. Let's do this. I don't want to use the expression on the backs of our visitors, but I'd like to see consideration made, every consideration possible made for the residents that live here. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Commissioner Coletta still opposes everything we say. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, not everything. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Commissioner Halas. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Say adjourned, I'll agree. COMMISSIONER HALAS: How much a year do we pay the City of Naples for beach access? MS. RAMSEY: About $400,000. COMMISSIONER HALAS: $400,000. What about the other Page 90 'C'_'_'_'___'""_ June 16, 2005 beach accesses that are in the County? There's a fee on that, I would assume of maintenance of those areas. I really think that I don't see anything really wrong with everybody paying because we've got some huge problems that we've got to confront in the future, and that's for additional beach access. And I really don't see anything wrong with $20 for a sticker. Whether, you know -- maybe it's more for a non-resident, but for our residents, I don't think the residents will really kick up that big of a fuss if the money is used in an area to provide even more beach access in the future, and that's what we're really striving for is, what are we going to do to meet the needs in the future. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Can we take a vote on this? MR. MUDD: Sir, if I can get somebody to make a proposal, it would be great. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'll make a motion that we use number 12 as the plan to follow. And for people who do not have the privilege because they're not residents of Collier County to have a parking permit, then they can pay for their parking. MR. MUDD: $5, ma'am? COMMISSIONER FIALA: $5. COMMISSIONER HALAS: I'll second that. COMMISSIONER COYLE: $5. That's not number 12. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. That's over and above 12. This just says that you get a free parking permit for the $20. But I'm saying anybody who doesn't have that, they get to pay their $5 every time they park. MS. TOWNSEND: Yes, inherent in option 12 is a $5 daily fee for non-sticker holders. MS. RAMSEY: And, Commissioner, you don't mean to park at the shuttle element, you mean this to be a free shuttle? Anybody who takes the shuttle would be free? Just a clarification. Page 91 ___M....._.._ .._"......_._________..'m."~_~._ ._ 'H'_'._,'__'"'~'.' _._"__"'__ June 16, 2005 COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. Thank you. I'll include that in my motion. MS. RAMSEY: And if I can just point out one thing. You'll notice that there's $134,000 surplus on the bottom of that particular element which, if you go back, we took the six items, we added them up and came up with the cost. The cost of doing the six is $525,000. We'll have $134,000 surplus off after doing this particular plan. The item that's still kind of sitting out there is that you still have $400,000 in the current budget. And so I don't want you to duplicate the two, the $400,000 between doing this operating cost and what sits in the budget currently. COMMISSIONER FIALA: But that 400,000 will still be used to get these beach parking stickers, right? MS. RAMSEY: Well, that and all these other things that we're talking about on this particular page. And the only reason I bring that up is that if you wanted to bring something closer to what the pay rep recommended, a $30 fee or something to add some additional dollars to that surplus to help you out on the other side of our operating budget. I just mentioned that as an opportunity. COMMISSIONER FIALA: So, in other words, let me see if I understand what you just said. Instead of paying the City of Naples $400,000 to have these beach stickers, right? MS. RAMSEY: No, we would still continue to do that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: But if you're saying $30, then we would pay them extra money? MS. RAMSEY: No. The $400,000 that sits in the budget currently is to help offset the expanded North Naples Regional Park and all the other 001 fund numbers that we brought forward to you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'm sorry. I'm getting -- you said there's two $400,000? MS. RAMSEY: Yes, that's correct. And I just wanted you to be aware of the fact that when you choose this one here, you're still going Page 92 ,.._-''"'-<-".,,~~._~--,-_., -, June 16, 2005 to have to supplement the existing budget with $400,000 or $370,000 because there is a delta there. CHAIRMAN COYLE: For the City of Naples? MS. RAMSEY: No, for the operating budget. COMMISSIONER FIALA: How did you tie in the North Naples Regional Park to that? MS. RAMSEY: Staff came to you with a proposal of about $2.5 million and expended related to the park with about $1.4 million in revenue. Part of that revenue is $400,000 for $20 parking stickers. It's included in your budget currently for $20,000. I just didn't want you to confuse that this same dollars can't be used twice. So, if you use it in the current budget, you don't have it here. So you're going to have to -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: So how again did the $400,000 that we're getting in beach stickers get into the North Collier Park. COMMISSIONER HALAS: This is getting confusing. MS. RAMSEY: They're in your current -- they were a recommendation from staff to charge $20 for a beach parking sticker in our operating budget. It's already in the operating budget. Okay. MS. TOWNSEND: However, there is not -- okay. I'm sorry. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Can I try? MR. MUDD: Commissioner, you're doing really good. And I believe your recommendation is fine, and I will get with staff after this is over and get those particular details ironed out before we do the final budget in September. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. Just very briefly, I want to see if I can get something fixed in my mind. The permit fee revenue is going to be $660,000, right? Under that particular plan we just talked about, right? COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes, sir. That's what that chart says. MS. RAMSEY: Yes. Page 93 "-"^-.-,,,,,,,.,,--,, --.~,-,-----.~,._",,-..-._...." June 16, 2005 MR. MUDD: That's what the chart says. And I believe there's a $5 parking fee that's not on this chart that you don't see those particular numbers. I need to get with staff to work out those particular details. COMMISSIONER COYLE: There's additional revenue there that we haven't -- MR. MUDD: I believe there is. And I believe Ms. Ramsey was right when I mentioned to you, their budget has $400,000 from the $20 fees in it already. Okay. And I need to work on this chart a little bit with staff in order to get you the final detail. COMMISSIONER COYLE: If you'll get us the actual numbers, the real numbers, and then we can make a final determination later, but this should be sufficient. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. I need some guidance on what you -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Assuming that this motion is going to pass. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's $5 for guest parking that you don't have in here -- MR. MUDD: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER FIALA: But we have a figure. Okay then. COMMISSIONER COYLE: We have a motion to go with 12 plus the guest parking at $5. Is there a second? COMMISSIONER HALAS: I did second it. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. You did. We have a second. Did you want to -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Is the way this is structured now, this wouldn't require any funds from ad valorem to offset the cost? Page 94 June 16, 2005 MS. RAMSEY: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. You have on your UFR list, you have $3 million, and when we get to it, you'll see beach parking fee beach access. If you looked at Ms. Ramsey's chart yesterday, $1.3 million leveraged over 20 years, gets her enough money to do the $18 million worth of stuff, minus $3.5 million. That $3.5 million is on your UFR list to make up that issue. If that is not an approved budget item this year, if we don't have the dollars, Ms. Ramsey is going to scale back those six particular items, come back to the Board and tell you which ones are going to be able to be done this year and which ones we're not going to be able to do. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: May I suggest, and this is a suggestion -- I'm still opposed to this for the simple fact that I don't think it's fair to make them pay $20 for the stickers. COMMISSIONER FIALA: They don't have to pay, do they? That's part of the $400,000, right? MS. RAMSEY: No. COMMISSIONER HALAS: You're voting to pay for the stickers. MS. RAMSEY: Everyone will pay $20 to get a sticker. CHAIRMAN COYLE: $20 to get a sticker. They really don't have to pay for a sticker. MS. RAMSEY: But they don't pay the $5. COMMISSIONER COYLE: They don't have to pay for a sticker at all -- MS. RAMSEY: -- if they don't want to. COMMISSIONER COYLE: If they don't want to, they don't have to buy a sticker. They can go to the beach and pay $5. And if they only go twice a year, they'll pay $10. MS. RAMSEY: Or they can take the shuttle. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Or they can take the shuttle and then Page 95 ---~ -.-- June 16, 2005 they can go free. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Or they don't have to go. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Or they don't have to go at all, like Mr. Henning. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: He's going to go fishing. COMMISSIONER FIALA: See, I thought, somehow I thought -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: I don't know. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I don't know, the $400,000 beach sticker that we put aside, I thought that that covered that. Why would we then have an a,dditional charge? MS. RAMSEY: Because the city is still allowing us to park at their metered areas for free and we're basically making the delta difference between their revenue and their expenses to the city, and it costs about $400,000 a year to do that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: But we already have that in our budget, right? MS. RAMSEY: That's correct, that's one of the $400,000 that we have in the budget. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: So very simple, you vote for a $20 sticker, or you're not voting for a $20 sticker, anything else fits around it. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, I'm not going to understand it until I get the figures. Okay. If you can work out the figures, I might understand it, but I don't and Commissioner Fiala doesn't, but let's vote for it anyway. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, yeah, but I wanted to keep the beach parking stickers at the $400,000 and not have people pay anything. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Well, you made the motion for a $20 sticker. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I thought this $20 beach parking Page 96 ~..,.,.,.,-~. - -- .. ^,-"",~,,,-,---,,,,,'-""'--'-'-"--" June 16, 2005 permit that anybody could buy, but those that qualify already got the beach sticker for the $400,000. I'm afraid I was just totally confused. Being that I don't understand this, I need to withdraw my motion because nothing is clear to me anymore, I guess. COMMISSIONER HENNING: I'll pick up the second. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Well, no, that was the primary motion. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Oh, it was. COMMISSIONER HALAS: I'll make the motion that we have a $20 fee and that all nonresidents have to pay $5 at a parking position. Okay. And that the Keewaydin, if they want to take the Keewaydin Beach Shuttle, it'll be as Stated in number nine here which is -- or, excuse me, number 12, which is a $9 charge. Are we clear on this? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, what is the beach sticker for then? COMMISSIONER HALAS: The beach sticker is just a revenue generated to offset -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: No, I mean, the $400,000 we pay and we get a sticker. COMMISSIONER HALAS: The $400,000 is what we pay to the City of Naples. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Right, and we get a sticker for what? What is that sticker good for now? COMMISSIONER HALAS: Well, you can either park at Naples or you can park at any place in the County where there's -- if there is adequate parking. COMMISSIONER FIALA: But we're paying $20 for that. I'm sorry. I'm getting way confused. I'll talk about it afterwards. I mean, if you're already getting it, then what are you paying for? COMMISSIONER HALAS: No, we're not getting it. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Than what are we paying the $400,000 for? COMMISSIONER HALAS: Who's on first and what's on Page 97 -,_._~- _"u._.~,__~__~.,....___.~,____.__......,_._ "--,- June 16, 2005 second. MS. TOWNSEND: Perhaps I can clarify. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, right now the beach sticker, anybody that's a resident of Collier County can apply to go at parks and rec in several locations and they can show that they own property in Collier County and they can receive a beach sticker, okay, for two years that has an expiration date two years down the pike. What Ms. Ramsey is proposing and staff, based on six items that you would link as a Board, based on your workshop that you had here just a couple weeks ago, you would like to put in the, you know, Keewaydin shuttle, you'd like to have a motorized shuttle to go from off site parking to the beach at several locations, and some other issues, beach parking pavers and things like that at different locations up in the Vanderbilt Beach area. In order to do that, there is a capital program, okay, to the tune of about $18 million, and that's in your packet in the back of the public services division budget. Marla has $1.3 million that isn't bonded coming out ofTEC. She bonds those items, she can get about $15 million against that 18. That's 3.5 short. N ow the issue is the operational funds in order to do those six initiatives and how do you funds those. The present way, it doesn't cover the present budget that Marla has. It doesn't cover those particular costs. So staff went through different initiatives, or different ways to funds those initiatives as it ran through some of which was just to do the $5 fee for everybody to park. The other one was to charge $20 to the residents, people that own property in Collier County for a two-year sticker instead of having it for free. That would raise a certain amount of revenue in order to be used against the operational costs. COMMISSIONER FIALA: So then why are we paying $400,000? Page 98 ",~......,.,.~ ......_..0_._........_-.-..' '.. ...~.,- June 16, 2005 COMMISSIONER COYLE: Let me try it this way. MR. MUDD: Ma'am. CHAIRMAN COYLE: See if I understand it. MR. MUDD: In order to use -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Jim, you're talking about so many stories, it's hard to get right onto the subject. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Let me try for just a second and see if I understand this. We sell parking stickers to the residents. We get the money that they pay us. That parking sticker allows a person to go into the -- go anywhere. Let's say go into the City of Naples and park free at any of the City of Naples pay parking spaces. MS. RAMSEY: Correct. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Now because we are permitting people to park free in the City's parking spaces, we give them $400,000 a year to compensate them for the loss in revenue that they incur because we're selling free stickers for their parking meters. MS. RAMSEY: That's correct. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. So we're not eligible for a free sticker anymore. Our sticker will cost $20. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Twenty bucks. COMMISSIONER FIALA: I see. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And you have to pay the $400,000 to the City of Naples to compensate them for the loss of revenue which they would experience with the stickers, but we're doing that now. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, you said that very clearly, except that now you're saying that we won't get a free sticker anymore from here on in? We pay $20 for a sticker if we're a County resident? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Everybody. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Now a city resident. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's correct. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And we pay the City of Naples Page 99 ------- June 16, 2005 because we have taken on this responsibility ourselves, but we still owe to have that privilege? COMMISSIONER COYLE: And if you look just at the figures here -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. You said that a lot more clearly. CHAIRMAN COYLE: -- yeah, that will generate $660,000, but it's going to cost $525,000 to do it because we've got to pay for the administration of the stickers that we sell. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Right. I understand. CHAIRMAN COYLE: So, we're still making $154,000, right? Or $134,000. COMMISSIONER FIALA: But we don't have free parking anymore now, we have $20 parking? COMMISSIONER COYLE: Yes. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. COMMISSIONER HALAS: For two years. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, it comes out of taxes. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Oh, I'm sorry. Commissioner Coletta. Go ahead. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: This $660,000, that's per year or two years? MS. RAMSEY: The stickers are a two-year program. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: So it's $330,000 a year, that we expect -- I'm sorry, are you shaking your head? MS. RAMSEY: We anticipate we'll sell about 33,000 stickers annually -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Oh, annually. And out of that, administration cost is how much? MS. RAMSEY: We have costs of $525,000. That includes the Keewaydin shuttle, the delta, the gulf shores facilities. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Oh, okay. In other words-- Page 100 -~,,-_._- ~""-""~_K""""""_"'_~_"'__ .~._,-- June 16, 2005 COMMISSIONER HENNING: It helps offset the costs. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Okay. In other words, your administration cost is not just handling the stickers themselves. It's running the whole program? MS. RAMSEY: That's correct. All of the -- the six elements that you asked to -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I understand. MS. RAMSEY: That you asked us to bring back-- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And I understand. I think that there are a lot of good things in this plan. I'm still opposed to the $20 sticker fee. Did I ever say that before? COMMISSIONER COYLE: No, no, that's the first I've heard you say that. I would never have guessed. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I know it comes as a shock. COMMISSIONER COYLE: I'm shocked. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Halas, seconded by Commissioner Henning. There is certainly no more discussion. COMMISSIONER HALAS: What is this $20 going to go for now? COMMISSIONER COYLE: All in favor, please signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Aye. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Aye. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Aye. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Any opposed by like sound. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Aye. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay. It passes three to two with Commissioner Fiala and Commissioner Coletta oppose it. Okay. Thank you very much. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, this brings us to the last item, and that's consideration of the UFR list. If you would turn to 810, I believe Page 101 .....~_._.._...'m.__..._ >. ". -"".._","'--.....,,-_._~>~..,. -- June 16, 2005 you received a new list. Mike, if you take these up and Commissioner Henning hasn't seen them. You already have them? COMMISSIONER HENNING: It's on the UFR list. Can I add some things on? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir, we can add some things to this list. Commissioner, what I would say to you is, there are some unknowns that are -- that we don't have specifics on. I mentioned one of them yesterday was the zoo property and exactly what the final agreed upon amount will be. You will notice on this UFR list that I have $7 million added to that particular item. I went back and talked to Chief Smith just a second ago and I said, did we cover everything based on what you said this morning? And he said yup. He said, but I sure would like you to add $1.5 million for the security system in the old jail on that UFR list, and I said, sure I will. I'll get it added to that particular case. But what I'd like to talk to Commissioners about is, you're going to have another opportunity at this particular list in September. Okay? And we will have those particular unknowns and they will become known at that time. So we'll know exactly where we stand on how much money is needed for some particular item. I would say today, if you have items that aren't general fund in nature, and! or the unincorporated general fund or you have an item there that looks like it's going to bring in a revenue that exceeds the amount of money that it's going to cost, those would be appropriate things that you might want to add in the general fund, or in the unincorporated, or whichever one that you would like. And then if there's something that is in a general fund or unincorporated general fund that has to do with millage that you would like to add, those would be good things and appropriate things to do, but this is the last time you're going to see this, is what I'm trying to tell you. You're going to see this again in September, minus whatever you approve. And I believe there's going to be some rather large ticket Page 102 "._,'- June 16, 2005 items that we're going to have some surety on that this Board will probably want to make a decision on that might be a higher priority than other things on this list. CHAIRMAN COYLE: So what you're saying to us is, we should keep the list for consideration, but we shouldn't make any final decision until we really get an idea of what a final budget is going to look like, right? MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. I would, if you're going to spend, spend small at this particular juncture instead of going after the big bites of the apples, because if you do, you might find out in September you wished you didn't. CHAIRMAN COYLE okay. Well, I'm going to ask you, once we have the Commissioners ask their questions, I think I'm going to ask you to guide us through the expenditures, unfunded requirements that are likely to be very, very smart decisions with respect to potential pay backs. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN COYLE: And -- but Commissioner Henning has some questions. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Can we put on the UFR list rebate to taxpayers? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Absolutely. COMMISSIONER FIALA: How much? COMMISSIONER HENNING: $50 million. However much we have encumbered at this time. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Seven million? COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, you got -- is that general fund and 111 fund, seven million? MR. MUDD: That's general fund, sir. And then the unincorporated is $900,991 ? COMMISSIONER HENNING: I think that's a fair question. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I've got an idea. Why don't we allocate Page 103 .~..-.~._~.._--.,- . _u __________~., .,...., ---'- June 16, 2005 -- Greg, are you listening? Why don't we allocate the amount of money to be rebated back to the taxpayers that the Sheriff s Office deletes from their budget. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, I will add the rebate to taxpayers on the particular issue in case you want to do a rollback of some sort. CHAIRMAN COYLE: But we -- once again, Commissioner Henning, you're not suggesting we try to do that right now, are you? COMMISSIONER HENNING: No. CHAIRMAN COYLE: We want to see what the final budget turns out to be, right? MR. MUDD: And I will tell you, once you set your millage on the last meeting in July, you can always make it less, you can't make it more. And there are some folks out there in Florida right now that made it less and wish to God right now that they had left it alone or made it more. So your option, if you're at millage neutral, and that's the way you want to carry it on the 26th of July, we come forward with that, our recommendation is you leave it there and you can always make it less, but you can never pump it up after you made that decision. CHAIRMAN COYLE: We don't know what might happen with hurricanes at that time. It's really wise for to us wait until the last minute. Commissioner Halas. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yeah. I was just going to bring in that, yes, we've had a real positive high spike this year. Something that was somewhat unanticipated. I think what we need to do is wait until we find out exactly what we have on a UFR list. I also would like to bring up at this time, and the County Manager keeps indicating that this Caribbean Gardens issue is looming before us. It's my understanding that we gave direction to that Blue Ribbon Committee to go out and start soliciting for private donations towards this. And I'm not sure how they're doing on their Page 104 '-"--~--"-'- ,- June 16, 2005 fund raising, but I would hope that that would be something that was going to offset, because my understanding was that when we originally put this on the ballot, it was something that we did at the last minute and that we were somewhat assured that there would be fund raising taking place, and that whatever was the offset of what the committee couldn't raise, that we would fund up to $40 million. But, we're anticipating that we are going to get revenues generated from the public in regards to this. So, I hope that there is something being worked in the background here in regards to addressing this issue, especially if it's going to exceed anything above $40 million. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Thank you, Commissioner Halas. Could I just interj ect one thing about that? COMMISSIONER FIALA: Fifty seconds. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. There are opportunities for grants. How does that play into the ability to purchase something? I mean, grant applications take time. How do you deal with that? I mean, is there a good easy way of dealing with that situation? MS. RAMSEY: The best grant is the Florida Community Trust Grant. And we are looking to apply for that grant next year. Once you own the land, you can apply for $9.9 millions dollars. If you don't own the land, you can apply for $6.6 million. The committee chose to allow the water park to apply this year, so they can get $9.9 and bring the Caribbean Gardens in next year. So it would come in as an after. CHAIRMAN COYLE: But how do we work it into the purchasing process? If we don't get the grant until after we own it, how did we get to own it if we need the grant to meet purchase price? MS. RAMSEY: We would be looking at probably bonding the full amount and then using the grant to pay it down. That would be my answer. MR. MUDD: Yeah, but you only have -- see, that's why I'm talking about this particular money. You only have bonding authority Page 105 -'._----- June 16, 2005 based on referendum for $40 million. If it comes in higher than that, you're going to have to have alternative revenue sources to bring that package together in order make the purchase. That's why I'm being very careful with you as far as using a big portion of this dollar amount because you might need it to leverage maybe a commercial paper product, or whatever, because these are reoccurring dollars so you could purchase that property if it comes in higher than $40 million. And I believe it will. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. All right. Good. COMMISSIONER HALAS: I've got one last question I'd like to ask the County Manager. What are our re-occurring funds per year? Is that the bottom line that we have here, 39, on this UFR list? What are our re-occurring funds? Can you give me some idea? MR. MUDD: Reoccurring funds are your ad valorem. COMMISSIONER HALAS: What's the amount? MR. MUDD: $7.8 millions is reoccurring that you have left over out of this budget. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Okay. Thank you. COMMISSIONER COYLE: Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. Is it the Florida Land Trust that bought the Margate property? MS. RAMSEY: Trust for public lands, well, yes. Florida Community Trust helped us with the grant of $1.8 million. COMMISSIONER FIALA: But there we didn't have to own the land first, right? MS. RAMSEY: Yes. Well, we actually did when we -- in order to receive the dollars, yes. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. That's the same one you were just telling Commissioner Coyle about? MS. RAMSEY: That's correct. COMMISSIONER FIALA: One and the same? Okay. Are there any other grants that also we're contemplating? Page 106 _____~_o_,,_ . "',m__ ,.,-.,"-.- June 16, 2005 MS. RAMSEY: Nothing to that extent. There's a parks and recreation grant that's out there with a max of $200,000. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And we do have people that wanted to buy sections of that, right? MS. RAMSEY: Well, we do have a conservation in Collier that's interested in part of that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. Okay. Fine. So we do have some other funding sources. I just -- but that isn't the reason -- what the heck did I have my button on for. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I can turn it off. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, I know. I got so involved in this. Excuse me. I wanted to talk about the tax facility. Are we ready to -- I see that here we have some funding that we yet need. We've allocated some money over the last year or year-and-a-half. MR. FEDER: We're not fully funded, but we're moving quickly. COMMISSIONER FIALA: But do we have a place to put it now? MR. FEDER: Yes. We've identified some property on commercial, and we're pursuing along with our real property, the acquisition of that property, taking a design that the Sheriff s Office is going to use on the facility. That design to expedite and we still need some additional funding. That's why it's on the UFR list. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. So we're ready to go. So if we approve this, then we can get -- we can move forward and get the thing taken care of. MR. FEDER: Yes. MR. MUDD: Yes, ma'am. We have enough money basically to purchase the property -- purchase the land. COMMISSIONER FIALA: But just not to build the facility, right? MR. MUDD: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. Thank you. Page 107 _d..",..__....._",...__,., -'--- June 16, 2005 CHAIRMAN COYLE: Mr. Coletta. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes. I just wanted to pick on the comment there of a rebate for the taxpayers that was mentioned earlier by Commissioner Henning and later Commissioner Halas. If we do get to that point -- and I'm sorry, Commissioner Coyle, too. So we can give everybody a little credit going down. Commissioner Fiala, and if you didn't say it, I'll say it for you. It's always great to be able to give something back to our taxpayers who have been donating to this County for a long time. However, when we get to that point, we realize that we do have excess funds that we'd like to turn into this rebate, we give serious consideration to possibly rebating the $660,000 for the beach stickers. That would make sense first rather than give a rebate on the backs of the people that would like to have a free beach sticker. It's just a little point for thought. We're a long ways off before we get to the point where we find out we have any excess funds, but I'm sure this won't slip my mind and I'll probably remember to bring it up again for the discussion. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Comes as no surprise. Okay. Where do we go from here? Are we finished? MR. MUDD: Commissioner, I'd like -- I'm not finished. I'd like to go down the list real quick to identify those things that you talked about that, let's call them, easy marks. The first is the Human Services Department is about one, two, three, four, five, six down the list -- excuse me, five down the list. It says patient coordinator. Mr. Berry Williams talked about that particular position. Total cost is $58,100. The offsetting revenue from the State and the Feds is $55,900. Net cost to the general fund is $2,200. I believe that -- CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yes, that's a go. MR. MUDD: Do I have three nods? CHAIRMAN COYLE: Yes, you do. Page 108 ---_.-_....'-'-- ""- June 16, 2005 MR. MUDD: Okay. Then we'll add that to the budget. The next is Park and Recreations Department, Vanderbilt Beach Parking garage attendant. Ms. Ramsey, can you tell me exactly how many attendants we're talking about? MS. RAMSEY: Four part-time. MR. MUDD: Okay. Four part-time. Total FTE? MS. RAMSEY: Two. MR. MUDD: Two. So they're working halftime. For four they basically cost us $79,000 for those four part-time, which is equivalent to two FTE. They're offsetting revenue by the collections they'll get from the garages, $181,100. The net cost to the general fund is $102,000 to the good. It's a profit. CHAIRMAN COYLE: That's a go, guys and ladies? (All affirm.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. MR. MUDD: I would say that the next one is not necessarily an easy mark, because it's still $87,000, and I'd like to defer that until September even though it does have some offsetting revenue. COMMISSIONER HALAS: Yes. MR. MUDD: And then I'll go down to the coastal zone manager. I'm down in 111 now. I've gone completely off the general fund and I'm now down in the 111, that coastal zone manager. I have to bring that to the TDC so that is not an issue at this juncture. But we do have one at Parks and Rec. It's a program leader for Eagle Lakes Community Park. And the net cost is -- well, the net cost is $49,300. There is an offsetting revenue for that program leader. Net cost general fund is $25,300. Do you want to wait until September? CHAIRMAN COYLE: What's that person going to do? I'm working off a different sheet than you are, nevertheless. MS. RAMSEY: I can help you with that. At the Eagle Lakes Community Park we don't have a staff person there, other than the maintenance gentleman. When the maintenance gentleman leaves Page 109 .-.-.---. -'--"~-'-~"-----'--~-----.~'~--'"-'- - June 16, 2005 about 3: 00 in the afternoon, we would like to have someone in the park when the children are coming over from after school so we can do some programming with. Helps us with safety issues in the park. It gives the park a County presence in that location. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah, I would say yes. CHAIRMAN COYLE Okay. We have three nods for that one. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, then I'd like to go down to Community Development Fund 113 and 131. Mr. Schmitt had 13 FTE that were on his expanded list. He had nine that didn't make the cut line, but that he could fund within these two funds. They equate to a 113 fund five, inspectors for building review and permitting. Total budget on that on an annual basis is $421,500. And then down in development services fund, 131, he has two planners and one assistant. Annual price for that is $212,600, and one engineering technician, an annual cost of $60,000. And total cost in fund 131 on these positions is $272,600. Those particular funds are not general funds or 111. They are basically permit fees, plan review fees that come in to Mr. Schmitt. And my recommendation to you, Commissioners, if Mr. Schmitt has those particular funds available, that he goes out and starts to advertise for those positions now so that he can at least have them on Board September and October. CHAIRMAN COYLE: They're covered by your user fees, right? MR. SCHMITT: Yes. CHAIRMAN COYLE: There's no impact on general fund at all? MR. SCHMITT: No impact on general funds. CHAIRMAN COYLE: I think you have three nods for that. MR. MUDD: Commissioner, that's all I have, as far as easy mark supposedly on this un-financed requirement list, and I would recommend that you wait for additional additions or rebates or whatever until September. CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. Any questions by Page 110 0' "'~'"'____'~~m____~ - .._~ June 16, 2005 Commissioners? (No response.) CHAIRMAN COYLE: Okay. It appears that we are finished. We are adjourned. MR. MUDD: Yes, sir. ***** There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 3 :00 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL '1uJ- W. c+ FRED COYLE, CHAIRMAN ATTEST: ,.:"',". DWIGHJ~li..~j3~<<I(, CLERK 1 4fr.h." ~~ k : . ' , . 'J:,'.!;' ;" ~ .,'. . "- . ",.!.' - ~... ~.' -. ',.,- -. .. . .'. _" -, .~' ,J'\\,~ ~ test It: to. Cbal~.~ Je''' . .tgftlture,on'11,!j!\\'.~'.'. ",,? t .,. .', '... ~. .. ~ ",:'." -~'}) .~ These minlifeS~proved by the Board on CT~ ~t;" 7...00S , as presented V' or as corrected . TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICES, INC., BY DANIELLE AHREN. Page 111 ._--~.- _ _M__.__...,____~_.,_____..~"____""._"___,.~_.._