BCC Minutes 05/30/1995 W (Implementation Plan for the Information Technology Department) WORKSHOP MEETING OF HAY 30, 1995,
OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COHMISSIONERS
LET IT BE REHEHBERED, 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 9:03 a.m. in WORKSHOP SESSION at the
Collier County Public Library, 650 Central Avenue, Naples, Florida,
with the following members present:
CHAIRPERSON: Bettye J. HAtthews
Timothy J. Constantine
John C. Norris
Timothy L. Hancock
Pamela S. Hac'Kie
ALSO PRESENT: W. Neil Dorrill, County Manager
Kenneth B. Cuyler, County Attorney
Tom Conrecode
George Archibald
Norris Ijams
Jennifer Edwards
John Drury
Leo Ochs
Bill Hargett
John Yonkosky
Tom Olliff
Bill Lorenz
Mike Smykowski
Item #2A
IMPLEMENTATION PLAN FOR THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Call to order the workshop for
Tuesday, Hay the 30th, for the board of commissioners, Collier County,
Florida.
Mr. Dotrill, would you lead us in an invocation? We're
lacking the flag for the pledge.
MR. DORRILL: Heavenly Father, we thank you this
morning. We give thanks. We give thanks especially on the heels of a
Memorial Day weekend. We thank you for the opportunity to rest and
relax yesterday with our friends and family.
We have an important agenda here this morning on the
fifth Tuesday, and we would ask that our conversation, the direction,
and board be a reflection of your will for this community as we review
these important matters. And we ask these things in your son's holy
name. Amen.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: First item on the agenda is
implementation plans for the information technology department. Mr.
Ochs.
MR. OCHS: Thank you. Commissioners, good morning.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This morning the staff would like
to make a brief presentation to the board on the project to date and
the organization and implementation of an information technology
department and board agency.
Last October the 25th the board gave staff central approval to move
ahead to hire an information technology director and to develop an
implementation plan for subsequent board review. That's what we'd
like to present this morning very briefly and get the board's comments
and answer any questions that they may have. On the heels of today's
presentation -- obviously we'll be following up later in June with the
regular line item budget reviews for information technology, and also
as part of your capital budget planning you will also see some
information technology hardware requests as part of the implementation
plan we'll talk about today.
The planning document that the board approved back in
October was primarily the work of a staff steering committee. Most of
those people are here today and have remained active on the steering
committee as we work through initial implementation. We have
completed the first pass that the board directed, and that was the
employment of an information technology director, which is Mr. Bill
Coakley who comes to us from Sarasota County. He was the information
technology director in Sarasota for the Board of County
Commissioners. We found that Bill personally -- he arrived here early
in March, the day of our program budget reviews, to find that the
entire I.T. concept was discretionary, and he asked me what that all
meant. And I said, well, don't unpack the boxes just yet, but let's
get through this presentation this morning. We'll go from there. So
without any further adieu, I'll ask Ed to go ahead and start with the
presentation.
MR. COAKLEY: Good morning, Commissioners, ladies and
gentlemen. I'm very pleased to be here. As Leo said, I'm from
Sarasota County, and it's very, very nice to be here. It's very, very
nice to be in a situation where we have a chance to do some really
good things in information technology.
This -- this presentation is going to be a status report
of where we are. It's kind of a work in progress. As Leo said, it's
been going on since last October, and it will go on for many years to
come.
Without further adieu, this is the progress report. And
the basis for it, of course, is last October 25th you started it off
with your decision. A lot of preliminary work had been done by
existing staff before I got here. Of course, you have a new director
who's been with you ten weeks. Here I am, the new director.
And I'd like to make a point about something that may --
may be obvious or may not be. Information technology is the name of
the department that I head for you. But the key word should be
information first, technology section -- second. We don't want to buy
technology just for its own sake. Can everybody hear me back there,
by the way? Does anyone know how to turn it on?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You're the information
technology. Sorry. I couldn't resist.
MR. COAKLEY: Stand by, one. We'll try to get it on.
MR. OCHS: Go ahead. We can hear you.
MR. COAKLEY: Okay. I'll try and shout a little.
MR. OCHS: Okay.
MR. COAKLEY: As I was saying, the most important thing
is the information, not the technology. That will be one of the
themes of my tenure in this -- as head of this department for you.
Why isn't information -- first of all, responsiveness and efficiency,
that's what we're seeking for all the services that we provide to the
public. And information is really the lifeblood of our departments in
the county. Without information we can't provide those services
effectively. A key phrase that I picked up through the years that I'd
like to emphasize, kind of a theme, if you will, is what we want to do
is provide the right information to the right people at the right time
and the right format. And later I'll add one more phrase to that,
through shared technology resources.
In the time I've been here, which is, I guess, about ten
weeks now, I've had a chance to take a look at what we have, and I can
report to you a preliminary finding of what we're looking at at
present at the county. This is a direct statement from the Q-plus
task team done by the community development group, and I think it
iljustrates as well as anything we could use for that purpose just
what the current situation is. You can see them underlined in red
there. 10 nonintegrated computer programs, 5 independent hardware
systems, 32 manual paper notebooks currently serving as a LAN-based
information system for the one-stop shop process. We may have
one-stop shop physically, but we certainly don't have it
electronically and in computer form. That's where we need to go, make
it electronic, one-stop shop.
We also have yesterday's computers. We put together a
little iljustration of this. If you can see it on the left is -- is
the past. On the right is the future. This is iljustrating a dumb
terminal approach. See if I can get this pointer working okay.
Essentially a dumb terminal in the lower left is basically a keyboard,
and it's a display, and it links to a remote computer somewhere else
usually referred to as a glass house. And that's pretty much what we
have in the county today.
On the right-hand side is where we need to go for the
future. Basically it's the microcomputer work station where it has
intelligence. It has memory, has
a printing device, and it links to file service and then finally off
to a network. I'll talk more about that later. I'm just emphasizing
this is kind of where we are today. We have 400 of these operating in
the county roughly.
We have islands of automation, a little iljustration for
you here. Essentially what it means is that people are doing
computing things in small groups around the county, not necessarily
integrated or sharing that information with other groups. That's the
bottom message of that, the bottom-line message. We have
nonstandardized technology. I don't have a little foil to iljustrate
this one, but we need to get the county going in a common direction
with technology. There will always be some diversity, but we need to
keep the diversity down to a dull roar.
Some of our software is quite anemic. The software I'm
using right here, for example, is Microsoft Power Point and Microsoft
Office Suite. You can't do that with the software that's available in
the county computer equipment now. I couldn't be doing this
presentation like this.
We have missing skills. In the early part of April, I
think it was, we sent out a survey to all county employees. We have
it. Stand by one -- see if I can -- maybe that will help a little
bit. We sent out a survey to all county employees asking them for
their comfort level, what different levels of technology we thought
they would be interested in. And I'll show you briefly what that
looks like. These numbers are a little small to see from a distance.
But basically what we did, in the middle column asked them what they
were comfortable with using, and the range of total response is -- you
can see for basic word processing in the old form, only 51 percent
were comfortable. Going down to using word processing on micro is
only 17 percent. So there's a lot of room for growth in just using
word processors alone, let alone going to micros. And there's more
detail in this. I won't go through it in great detail. We can look
at it later if you want.
We don't have a master plan for information technology.
The only way I could have iljustrated that was put a zero on the
slide, so I didn't bother. But we need to do it. And we have what I
view as insufficient funding for information technology in the
county. And this -- this foil, by the way, Commissioners, is the same
as the one that was in the preliminary packet that you got.
Some key points to note in looking at this one -- since
I came from Sarasota County where I was information technology
director, I have some direct experience, and I was able to compare
that to what I found here. By way of comparison, if you look at this
point here, Collier County's investing about .29 percent of its total
revenue in information technology. Sarasota County on the same basis
is investing .61 percent, a little over two times.
By the same token, if you look down here, there's a very
interesting comparison. In Sarasota I had 1,500 microcomputer
workstations linked in 75 local area networks linked to the
mainframes, as a matter of fact. Here in Collier County you have 196
microcomputer workstations, and almost none of them are linked
together to share information. There are a large number of what we
call dumb terminals here in Collier County, as I mentioned before.
There's also a big difference in staffing levels to support the
information technology. At Sarasota County there are 14 information
technologists within individual departments alone. The rest was in
the central HIS department. This, I think, is a very interesting
slide. I think it's a very telling story. Just by way of comparison,
I think there's a lot we can do here with some priming of the pump.
Now, the good news. We do have dedicated staff here
that want to use the modern technology to do better work. I've met
many of them. They're just crying for the technology. There are also
some, frankly, that are scared of it. I'll be honest about that, but
there are many who want to use it, many more would want to learn it.
We have an integrated big computer network. By that I
mean we have all the departments linked into computers in a computer
center using dumb terminals, if you will. We need to tap that. We
need to capitalize on that network itself by leveraging it while we
use the microcomputers. You also have an information technology
department now. Here I am.
Looking ahead, we need to set a vision. And to
iljustrate that thought, I'd just like to share with you an experience
I had back in the early '70s. I hate to say this; I'm dating myself.
I had a chance to go on a Windjammer cruise in the Bahamas. This is
one of those Windjammer cruises out of Miami where they will let you
take the wheel of the ship if you wish to do so. And I did, and I
signed up, and I ended up at two in the morning. So we were off -- I
forget exactly where we were. I know where we were going. We were in
total darkness out there in the Windjammer at the wheel, and in the
distance you could see a little glow on the horizon. And they
explained to me that that was called the loom of the lighthouse, a
gray line of light. And as we traveled on and on, gradually the beam
of the light became clear. And this iljustrates, I think, the
vision.
Now, for information technology the vision is really
people working together with resources that are shared. That's the
key thing. And the -- maybe you could think of the glow as the glow
of all the activity that's occurring because everyone's working
together with shared resources. But that's where we've got to go, to
share our resources, share the information, share the people's
efforts.
Another key thing, we need to bring it all together, as
I said, sharing, people training, software, hardware. And we need
management support above all, and we need the Board of County
Commissioners' support to do this. And we need to move towards
micro-based technology.
The bang for the buck of the microcomputer, I think, is
obvious to almost everyone in the world today. On the news over the
-- I think it was yesterday or the day before they're saying
something like 20 to 30 million computers are in people's homes in the
United States at this time. The penetration of that market is
outstanding and also in businesses, too. That was the figure I heard
for homes, though. Micro-based technology is out there. We need to
capitalize on it. We need to take -- maximize advantage of that
because of the bang for the buck it offers. This is a multi-year
process. Let no one think that what we're doing in information
technology is something we can buy, put it in place, and walk away and
go on to something else. No way. The county changes, organization
changes, and technology changes. As we all know, it's very, very hard
to keep up with the technology. We need to continue to match them
together; what's the need, what's the technology opportunity, and
continually develop. So when I mention later I'm going to come up
with an information technology plan a year from now, that won't be the
first -- I mean, it won't be the last, I'm sorry. It will be a
multi-year plan of executing and processing.
Important first steps. The first thing we need to do is
provide integrated support to key areas. The one we've selected for
immediate attack -- or let's say communication is community
development, utilities, and department of revenue iljustrated this
way. Before we had them independent. After this is what we want to
provide, is overlapping systems, shared resources for those three.
And one of my plans, if you will, for my platform is -- is dedicated
support to primarily those three as major functions.
We need to modernize our office technology, office
information technology. I showed you that one before. Let's look at
some of the advantages. With modern office technology these are some
of the advantages that we'll gain, improved communication. I don't
want to read these individually in all the detail, but improved
communication from text, charts, so forth, improved accuracy and
availability, improved recording and retrieval of information, and
improved processing. All of this flows from good office technology in
the individual departments and also sharing information between the
departments.
We need to build a technical infrastructure.
Infrastructure is kind of a buzz word everyone uses today, but think
of it as the fundamental foundation upon which we can build all of
this sharing of information and information systems.
Whoops. No, here it comes. Here's an iljustration --
sorry a little bit of slowness on the PC there. Here's an
iljustration. Let's see if I can get my arrow working here. First of
all, the big red line in the center represents the system we have in
place. Over here on the left is the existing computer centers that we
have today. We have various systems in place. We need to leverage
them.
By the way, going up north here, so to speak, going
through a firewall of protection into the Internet, which I'm sure
everyone has heard of, one of the versions of the so-called
information superhighway as distinguished from Free-net. They're
related, but they're not the same. Looking down here in the lower
left and lower right and upper right, I've iljustrated here the
concept that will be going to the technical infrastructure, LANs,
local area networks, and we expect to have local ones. We are going
to place them where they geographically make sense. They will have
multiple microcomputer workstations with their own server linked into
the backbone. Some of them will have servers in the closet. Somebody
asked me about that. There will be servers in the closets, just kind
of function there. We don't have to worry about them, but we will be
linking them over the backbone, and they'll also be able to access the
mainframe computer systems we have today, so we can leverage that
asset.
We need to publish information. We have a lot of
information that's useful to the -- outside the government. We need
to make it available. There are many ways we can do this. Probably
one of the most common ways to come, one that's going to get a lot of
play in the next month or two, is the Free-net. The Free-net is going
live July 1, I've been told.
Here are some of the characteristics of a Free-net.
Before I even hit these with you, think of a Free-net as a bulletin
board. It's an electronic computerized bulletin board. You can log
into it, you can pick up information, pull information, post
information on it, and you can exchange ideas with other folks through
that. And the local Free-net is linked to the world through the
Internet, which is the network of networks. This is a new form of
media, if you will. It's an interactive media. It requires a
computer to access. Information providers supply the content, and
they control it. It provides fast access to the information that's
been posted on there. Obviously a computer is real fast, as we know,
but if it's linked on line, boom, you're on there, and you can
research the information if it's presented well and if the information
is current. And you can access it from around the world. A local
Free-net will be linked into the world in the Internet, the
international network of networks.
Naples is not the first to do this, and it won't be the
last, but it looks like it's very well organized. I was on the
organizing committee in Sarasota. This one is well ahead of
Sarasota. Other common ones around the area -- Tallahassee has a big
presence. Tampa Bay is going live. Alachua County up in Gainesville
is live, and it's quite a concept.
It's free. Everyone has trouble with that. It's a
four-letter word, free. It is free. It's supported by donations, but
no one is asked to pay for access to it. No one is asked to pay to
put information there. If you donate some, they'll put it there with
special symbols there for you, but that's not required. As I said,
Naples is going live July 1st.
We need to safeguard our information assets. Again, as
I said earlier, information is the key word, not the word asset in the
normal sense. An asset, you think of a piece of hardware, something
you can put your arms around and grab it. It's a thing. And, yeah,
sure, that's an asset. But the information that's stored in the
computer system is a far more valuable asset than the hardware that
it's stored on. One of the things, for example, we need to be
concerned about is, God help us, if another hurricane hits like Andrew
and goes through here. We sure hope that doesn't happen. But if it
does, then the reconstruction effort starts after the storm. What if
you can't issue permits because the information is on computers that
were trashed? Huh-uh. We've got to provide that kind of protection
so that essential systems are available very quickly after the storm
passes.
We need a master needs assessment. I mentioned earlier
we don't have a plan. We need a plan, and the first step is to
determine the needs. And I will be concentrating on this as one of my
major activities over the next year, visiting each department, finding
out what their needs are, then looking at it as a whole. I'll also be
contacting the other elected officials, because we need all to work
together, not just the departments under the board. Obviously I work
for the board, and I've got to support them first, but we need to
bring in the other elected officials, too, to the extent that we
possibly can and share information. So next year at this time I hope
to be here presenting to you a master needs assessment and plan for
where we go in the future and the year after and the year after.
We need some organization in scheduling, and I'd like to
show you some of that real briefly. I propose to organize my
department this way. First of all the lower three, I mentioned that
-- dedicated support for the community development, utilities,
department of revenue and some other departments, that is one major
section. I suggest a second section for supporting the information
technology, the office technology; and third, for voice and data
networking.
One thing I'm trying -- the ad's already in the paper.
I've advertised for outside service providers. I'm trying to build a
portfolio of those I can call on on short notice to help bring in and
enhance the skills that we have in-house. The information technology
field is too diverse to be able to hire somebody that has all the
skills in everything.
Here's an idea of where we're going with our plans.
First of all, community development services has gone through a
multi-year process of looking for an integrated computer system.
That's going through the RFP process. And next Tuesday, I believe it
is, you'll be asked to approve the next step, which is to negotiate a
contract with the highest ranked proposer for an integrated system for
them. I've been working with this. I will support that system for
you and help them with the contract and so forth. I'm not going to
put it on a sloping surface. So we need to get approval to negotiate,
negotiate the contract, and then the installation of the software out
there will be a long-term process. We'll put it in as fast as the
departments out there can absorb.
Interesting sidelight, I also hope to get going on a
planning effort for GIS, geographic information systems. Let me just
digress for a real brief second on that. I was heading heavily into
being GIS coordinator in Sarasota County, and the analogy I like to
use is the iceberg. And everyone knows the story that 10 percent of
the iceberg is visible above the water. Well, in a GIS system what's
visible above is the mapping portion. What's below the surface is the
information about the land shown on the maps, and we need to bring all
of that together. So we need to emphasize that and get a planning
effort going. This will require a lot of work with the other elected
officials, and we hope that that effort could come and dovetail in
with the completion of the installation software and the availability
of a new version of that information technology for the folks out at
Horseshoe Drive. We need to tie it all together.
I won't go through these in great detail. We can make
them available to you later. But the utility billing has already been
approved, including meter reading and lockboxes. We need to modernize
our office technology. And, frankly, the first we're going to do is
-- Leo Ochs is going to be the guinea pig along with the information
technology department. It's like if the cook is afraid to eat his own
food, he doesn't deserve to sit with the others. So we're going to
move in there first with some of the microcomputer workstations, and
then we'll have a sequence of implementation beyond that point for the
individual departments.
I propose a mission statement for my department -- or
your department that I'm head of, assist all departments in the
development of modern information delivery systems, et cetera. I'd
like to emphasize three things. First of all, we're here to assist
the departments, not to dictate. We want modern information delivery
systems, and we need to share the resources.
I've taken a preliminary look at what this is going to
cost. It's a little faint there. I'll help you with it. The
operation expenses for the information technology department this
coming year are funded by charge-backs to other departments. That's
already into the line item budget per se. But there are some onetime
start-ups that are required. Department start-up I've shown here of
221,000. The bulk of that is information technology itself, both for
information technology, the administrative services group, and the
training center that will be necessary to educate all of our staff in
the county. At the same time we'd like to pay off the obligation we
have for a VAX computer. We're going to continue to use it for quite
a few years to come. We want to get that paid off.
Office technology modernization, which basically says
replace all the dumb terminals with microcomputer workstations in the
general fund departments, is about a million-dollars investment.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm sorry. What departments?
MR. COAKLEY: All of the general fund departments under
the board.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you.
MR. COAKLEY: We assume that the departments that are
nongeneral fund that have their own source of revenue will fund their
own operating of this technology. The general fund is the one that
needs special treatment here.
I'm sorry the tabbing got off here somewhere. They
should all be lined up. We have some telephone system repairs and
upgrades that need to be done. In particular we have a cable between
buildings that's in bad shape, and also there's a new area code change
that you all know about that requires software changes. We need to
put a redundancy in the telephone system. We're talking about a
redundant fiber ring for the case when the line breaks so we still
have communications.
Sources of -- of funding at this point -- this happened
before my time, but I understand 341,584 was turned back by the clerk
relative to MIS and is available for this purpose, was sort of
earmarked for it. I also have about 33,000 available for reserves
from the prior year in the department that I have. Beyond that we
need new funding. There's the cost.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: When you talk about -- can
you go back to that last line?
MR. COAKLEY: Sure can, through the courtesy of
information technology.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The office technology
modernization is the biggest expense. What kind of time frame are you
looking at to physically replace those?
MR. COAKLEY: It can be done in as quick as a year over
the next year. If the funding is there, it could be spread beyond
that point. The biggest problem with it is really the training and
bringing staff up to speed on how to use it. There's a heavy training
requirement here. That -- there also requires the departments to
accept the fact that they're going to have to let their people go to
training, so forth. All these have been worked out, so it's an
absorption rate more than anything else, assuming funding is
available.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Between funding and not
disrupting obviously ongoing activities of those departments and doing
exactly what you're saying, training and gaining acceptance, is a year
realistic, or is there a longer schedule to be more realistic?
MR. COAKLEY: It can be done in a year. We'll have to
really move to do it, but I'm anxious to move forward. I think
there's a lot of benefits that come from it. I can also do it over a
two-year process. I don't know how else to answer that. I tend to be
a kind of a dynamic, get-the-job-done type person, but sometimes
practical consideration has to come in to play. Let's say, by the end
of fiscal '96, which is really a year and a quarter.
MR. OCHS: Just to dovetail on that, part of what we are
doing in this transition from the old system to the new, if you will,
is to have some software in there that makes the people on the old
system still able to communicate with the people that are transferring
into the new technology. So that will allow us to continue to
communicate with each other while we make that transition so that, you
know, if we need to either on a funding basis or for other operational
or training considerations, we can -- we can phase that transition in
without losing the ability to communicate with one another. At the
same time the sooner we can move, from our standpoint, into some of
the productivity gains that are available through the new technology,
we'd like to do that. But that -- that can be phased.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just for what it's worth, don't
hear -- I don't think Tim was telling you to go slow either. I think
he's telling you to be reasonable. But from my point of view it's --
for God sake, go fast. We're going to be in the 21st century. We're
still operating in the 19th, so don't go slow.
MR. COAKLEY: That sounds a little faster than I wanted
to go.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We have to caution that too,
though, with what is really reasonable. Mr. Coakley has already said
in his opening remarks that there were some staff members that are
relatively resistant to information technology. We have to bring
those people up to snuff in training and get them comfortable at the
same time we're moving ahead with this. And I'm not sure I would
understand why we would want to go buy a thousand PCs, for lack of
another word, and -- and train them in 10 percent increments so 900 of
them sit dormant for two months. I mean, it just doesn't make sense,
but -- but to schedule it in a progressive manner so that we get there
as quickly as we can that's reasonable.
MR. COAKLEY: Right. And I'd like to amplify what Leo
said too. We will be using existing systems, so it -- if you can
picture that diagram ahead before the dumb terminal is taken out, a
microcomputer workstation is put in place, and it's all sort of
available in a network configuration. It's not like having two
independent islands of automation, if I -- if I can use that analogy.
It will be integrated and evolutionary. But the pace at which it's
done is yet to be determined. I'd like to get on with it, but --
that's what I came here to do. Anything else on that one? I'm almost
there anyhow.
Finally, as I mentioned, I'd like your approval for that
mission, and I'm here. And here are some of the advantages you can
get: Improved public access to services for information; faster, more
responsive service; better decisions from better information; improved
productivity; and we position -- this will position the Board of
County Commissioners to take advantage of new information technology
opportunities. And that's it, and that's the end of my presentation.
COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I just want to make a couple of
comments.
MR. COAKLEY: Sure.
COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: On that last slide there about
what are the benefits --
MR. COAKLEY: Uh-huh.
COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: -- I would encourage you when you
present the budget to translate that into dollars for this board and
try to show us how, you know, it's also going to save money. Because
if you're asking us to spend an extra million and a half or so, it's
good to know how we're going to be saving money.
One other comment is back on your comparison with
Sarasota is -- is, I hope -- you know, we're talking about the
computer systems reducing FTEs. And it scared me when I saw this 60
people in the Sarasota department or 59. If I -- if I'm reading that
right, that scares me. I'm surprised to see a number that high needed
for support, but I'm educable. And my only other one is to share with
you privately, but every opportunity I get I'm going to say it, is
that the only system that I'm going to vote to support is one that's
integrated with the constitutional officers. And I heard you say that
a lot today, and I appreciate that. And I only hope -- I would
encourage you to make more contact now than you have already, because
I'm already hearing complaints about it's going too fast without our
participating, so please get them involved --
MR. COAKLEY: We'll do that.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- sooner.
MR. COAKLEY: We'll do that.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: The two things I think that are
important today or at least strike me that there are two factors for
the implementation of this. I think the board is committed to move
ahead in this direction. First factor is a physical implementation,
which is the training schedule, which we have to rely on you, Mr.
Coakley, to provide us a reasonable time frame in which that can be
done. Sometimes the most aggressive is not the best, interruption
factors and so forth. So between you and the rest of our staff, we
would like to see that.
The second, of course, occurs during our budget cycle,
the fiscal limiting factor. Can we fund the maximum that we can do
this year? I'm confident this board will fund a significant portion
of it.
Referring to Commissioner Mac'Kie's comment, I agree
that we're putting a lot on your back asking you to work with the
constitutional officers, because you have several entities that we
don't have any control over. But by the same token, what you have
identified as utilities and community development, those problems have
been there, have existed. And unless we get on this train, they're
going to continue. So in that process, if all we do is provide an
outlet for those constitutional officers to either plug into or not,
then we've done our job. If there is a problem in integrating, I
don't want to see community development or utilities continue to
suffer because of a relationship problem that may or may not exist.
So I understand your comments but temper that with -- in my opinion,
with the goal that utilities needs a fix, and community development
needs a fix, and they need it yesterday.
MR. COAKLEY: I would add we've already opened the
dialogue with the property appraiser relative to community
development, and we'll be going further with the other
constitutionals. I haven't described any of that. We've taken some
first steps, and we need to go further.
At Sarasota County where I came from I had, I think -- I
had a pretty good relationship with the elected officials up there,
the nonboard elected officials, and we were working together quite
well up there, and I've gotten to do the same thing here. It takes
some time to build that level of confidence, of course.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Are there other
questions? Commissioner Norris.
COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Could we go back to the Sarasota
comparison slide again? MR. COAKLEY: Sure.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I'd like to -- I think
Commissioner Hac'Kie's point is well taken about the number of
full-time employees in Sarasota. I think she said 63, but as I read
that chart, the total number is 49, not 63.
MR. COAKLEY: It's a little hard to see from there. I'm
sorry. It's 45.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: 45.
MR. COAKLEY: That's information technologists both in
individual departments and in the central HIS that I was in charge of.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I don't believe I heard a response
that would indicate what sort of number of FTEs you anticipate running
in this -- in our Collier County operation.
MR. COAKLEY: Thank you. I didn't mention that.
Perhaps I should have. This coming year I'm looking for 13, including
myself.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: The -- I think what Commissioner
Hac'Kie's concern is -- if I'm wrong, correct me, and I think it's
probably shared by the rest of the board, is that we would prefer not
to build up a big department here if we can avoid it. We have been
for some time now -- I know you're new to our county, but we have been
for some time trying to scale back as best we can, and your proposal
here is to enlarge staff rather than to scale it back. And I
understand that -- that somebody has to do the work, and we're going
to need some people in there to do the work, and that's fine. But I'm
just -- I'm just cautioning you that our preference is going to be to
make it as -- as small and efficient as possible.
MR. COAKLEY: Commissioner, I'm sorry -- I'm sorry.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: My other comment on the comparison
chart --
MR. COAKLEY: Uh-huh, I'm sorry. I'll go back to it.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay.
MR. COAKLEY: I was going to iljustrate I'm looking for
outsourcing as well as insourcing as a method of providing technology
services. I don't expect to build a large-scale department. I don't
want to.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: That's encouraging for you to make
that commitment. Now, if we can see that chart again, the comparison
chart, I want to make the same point that you made when you gave us
this presentation in my office, is that while it's very interesting to
note that Sarasota is spending about twice the money that Collier
County is, this chart is in no way correlated to efficiency and
effectiveness per dollar spent. It's really just a raw-dollar
comparison that has no meaning to me at all other than Sarasota spends
twice as much as we do. It doesn't say anything about what the
results are. And my point is just very simply that if -- if this is
your way of trying to say to the board that I'd like to double our
expenditures, that's fine, but what I'm saying is that I want to get
to where we're going, not necessarily try to match Sarasota dollar for
dollar or per capita dollar.
MR. COAKLEY: I understand. I do too. As I said in the
case of the FTEs, we're not looking to build up a huge department.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just along those same lines,
if you will be asking for 13 FTEs when you come back in June during
the budgeting process, it will help me greatly if you're prepared to
tell us -- I always think in terms of what is that individual person
or in this case those 13 people going to be doing 40 hours a week,
what are they doing 8 hours a day. I don't need that now, but if you
could be prepared for that, it will make it easier.
MR. COAKLEY: Hay I also -- since I mentioned the 13,
some of those positions are consolidations of positions that already
exist. For example, utilities has a full-time person that's included
in that 13, so it's not new; 2 telephone people; and 2 of the AIS are
already included in that. So it's not 13 new FTEs.
MR. DORRILL: See the difference -- and like they also
include the two telephone repair technicians that we already have.
It's all in the --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Coakley. I think
that's -- that's it. Good job. Thank you.
MR. COAKLEY: Give me a moment to disconnect this.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: You know, one of the things Mr.
Coakley had talked about in his presentation was meter reading as part
of utilities process. And I was wondering if it would make sense to
talk to FP&L, since they read meters every day throughout the county
as well, if we -- if it would make sense to contract with FP&L to read
our water meters.
MR. HARGETT: They sub their meters.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Pardon?
MR. HARGETT: So can't we. And they came in, and I
think John had some conversation with them. They looked at our
costs. I think the bottom line was they could -- what we were doing,
I'm not sure they can beat.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: They couldn't match it, okay.
That's a good reason not to.
MR. YONKOSKY: Yes, Commissioner. They came in and
compared our costs for meters read at the same time they did the
city's, and our cost per meter read was slightly over the best or the
lowest cost that they have on a national basis. We have that
information. We can provide it to the commissioners, but at that time
we did not feel that we could substantially improve the cost per meter
read and, therefore, we did not -- have not gone any further with it.
They are looking now at some of the outer areas where meters are read
outside of the normal scope and to come back to see if they could
provide the board --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I just have to wonder if while
they're reading electric meters they read a water meter that there's
not an economy of scale there that just doesn't kind of go crazy. I
would -- I would think to read two meters on the same stop makes a lot
of sense.
MR. YONKOSKY: And it does. It's just that the costs
they were prepared to submit to county was not significantly less than
the actual costs that the county is currently paying. So it would
just be a movement of where the funds were going.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What does that cost as a
contract separate and alone to go do that reading, or was that looking
at a combined effort?
MR. YONKOSKY: Combined effort.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Really? I mean, it doesn't make
any sense. I mean, how can you not do two jobs? I mean It's just an
observation.
MR. YONKOSKY: It's a matter of economics. It's the
meter read that they want to charge us.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'll contract with FPL, and on
the side I'll contract with the county, and I'll bet I make a lot of
money.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: One caution I want to issue on
that, and I just mentioned it to Commissioner Hac'Kie. If FPL has a
sub that they deal with, and our savings is linked on the fact that
this person does meter reading for FPL and the county, FPL terminates
its contract, we're left out in the open. I mean we're relying on FPL
maintaining the county. We need those meters read every month. FPL
has a contract dispute, and we're continuing to use their reader,
we're in an uncomfortable position. That may be a logistical
problem.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: They need them read every month
too.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: It's worth a look, but I just
think I don't want to be relying on FPL contracting with a meter
reading company.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: They want theirs read every month
too one way or another, FP&L.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: What you're not hearing is that
if -- if they fire their person who we had a contract with, that
leaves us out.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Our contract would be with FP&L.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Yeah, it's not my job.
MR. HcNEES: Madam Chairman, if I may fill a plug in
here, you may say that that defies logic to some degree. Over the
last three or four years, the meter readers and their supervisors have
developed a program of upgrading the meters, cleaning boxes so that
their meters read per day per meter reader has probably doubled in the
last five, six, or eight years so that their efficiencies are
skyrocketing. They're doing it very well, and they're doing it very
cheaply, so I think they need some recognition for that. It's not
just something is wrong with this picture. They're really doing a
good job.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I don't think that we're saying
there's something wrong with the picture. We're just looking for
other ways to economize.
MR. HcNEES: I understand.
Item #2B
PRODUCTIVITY COHHITTEE REPORT AND WORKPLAN PRESENTATION
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The next item on the agenda is a
productivity committee report and work plan presentation. Mr.
Dotrill, who is handling that?
MR. DORRILL: Mr. HcKenna. While he's setting up I want
to advise the board I took the liberty of -- several of your new
section generation-type ambulances, and in anticipating a break
somewhere around 10:15, 10:30 this morning, we've arranged to have one
of them be in the parking lot today, if you would like to look at one
of your new assets.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Mr. HcKenna.
MR. HcKENNA: Good morning, Commissioners, and ladies
and gentlemen. My name is Jack HcKenna. I -- in February of this
year I had the honor of being selected as chairman of your
productivity committee. As you all probably know, there's been quite
a bit of turnover on the committee. We have a very fine group of
people that have joined us, really an outstanding group of individuals
with very diverse and extensive expertise that we feel could be of
great benefit to this county and the citizens thereof.
The first thing I would like to do is talk a little bit
about some items that were asked to be studied last workshop, which
was April of last year. Environmental services was one of the two
items. In your package you'll see a short paragraph from Mr. Dave
Wilkison who -- who was the chairman of the committee at that time.
And essentially what took place, was we were asked to look at
environmental services. The subcommittee was formed, and it was
determined that they would look at the mandatory garbage collection.
That subcommittee met with Mr. Yonkosky and reviewed his plan where he
was looking into mandatory garbage collection software. And so the
subcommittee determined to simply support Mr. Yonkosky and his efforts
and did so through correspondence with the commission.
The other item that we were asked to look at was the
utilities department. As you all probably know, there was a report
that was issued that was not blessed by our committee as a whole. It
was not formally issued by our committee. What we did there was to
form a subcommittee to review that report. And in going through that
review we determined that the report was to a great extent dated. And
if it's the desire of the commission for us to continue to look into
utilities, we'd be happy to do so perhaps with some more specific
direction. There's -- there were a number of items in the report that
were based on hearsay, and we just didn't feel comfortable coming back
to you with a formal report at this time, although, as I say, we'd be
happy to pursue that if it's your desire.
Moving on to new items, what we thought might be the
most productive -- no pun intended there -- would be to come to you
with perhaps a menu of items that within our committee we felt that we
may be able to service you with. And in your agenda package you'll
see a list of those items, and I'll just read down through this list.
We have Mini-Grace Commission. It was a request from
Commissioner Hancock to look into Mini-Grace Commission that's in West
Palm.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What is that?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mini-Grace?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: The Mini-Grace Commission has
been around for several years, and it has evolved and gone through
several cycles. It is an advisory committee, just as a productivity
committee. However, it's integrated with the board on a much stronger
scale. I don't know that we want to go to the extent it is. It has
one more member serving on it, and many times issues that are not
isolated solely to county operation are reviewed by the Mini-Grace
Commission as a rule before coming to the board. It's like having a
third eye out there on several issues, on issues you deem you want an
outside opinion on. It's just more integrated, more functional the
way it relates to the board, and I'm not necessarily sold on it. It
has its problems, but for someone who's gone -- there's a group that's
gone through the machinations and the changes and experiencing some of
the problems our committee may be experiencing now. So I just thought
it was one model we could take a look at and learn from.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I've heard a lot of the activity
of the Mini-Grace Commission in West Palm or Palm Beach County, and it
seems for their purposes to work quite well. What we need to consider
is what our purposes are and how well it matches Palm Beach County
Commission purposes. Commissioner Constantine.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Along those same lines, one
of the things we committed to do and have failed to do is to meet
quarterly or at least twice a year with our productivity committee in
a workshop for the sole purpose -- not like this, just getting a
report, but working through, going through their reports in some
detail and physically working with it. I know Commissioner Hancock
served on the productivity committee prior to being on the board. So
did I. One of the frustrating things is putting together a fairly
comprehensive board and have the Board of County Commissioners say
thanks and doing very well with it. I think we can all be more
productive, get much more out of it if we actually sit down three or
four times a year, as we had committed to, and go into some detail on
the work they've done. And I think that might serve similar purposes
you're laying out here.
MR. McKENNA: That's a good point. It would be
beneficial to the committee, without a doubt, to make sure we're not
going off on a tangent. What I'd like to do is read down through --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Excuse me, Mr. McKenna, excuse
me. I'd like this board, if they would, to -- to give direction to
the productivity committee to investigate the Mini-Grace Commission
thoroughly and take a look at what they're doing and how it applies to
Collier County and how we might best use the same concept. I think
it's valuable what they're doing, but I'm not quite sure how it
interrelates to what we're doing, and I'd like to know more about
that.
MR. McKENNA: My understanding -- Mr. David Craig is
here with us, as are most of the committee members, to answer specific
questions on some of these topics. My understanding, though, in
talking to Mr. Craig, is it's quite a large committee. It's a hundred
and some members in West Palm. And, David, I guess it's combined
staff and public citizens; is that correct? So we'd be happy to make
that one of the -- the items that we continue to pursue.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Are you, in essence -- you're
giving us a menu and saying which ones do we want you to pursue?
MR. McKENNA: What we'd like to do is limit to maybe
three or five because some of these are going to require very
extensive time and investigation. And to try to hit all these, I
think, is going to be difficult. We probably will be failing to
accomplish the quality that we'd like to be able to produce.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Madam Chairman, may I suggest
that we go through each one, and we have an open discussion as to
which order of prioritizing them.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Sounds like -- Commissioner
Constantine.
MR. McKENNA: I'll also say that we started out with a
list about twice this long and spent quite a bit of time in our group
trying to trim it down to this list of eight items to try to focus
on. We're definitely looking for some help here. So we have the
Mini-Grace Commission, which was a commission request; service efforts
and accomplishments; budget systems and procedures; human resources
subcommittee report, which was another request; purchasing
procedures.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Excuse me, Jack, if I could
interrupt on that one. By purchasing procedures, specifically is
there any part of that you're talking about, because I know we'd gone
through, what was it, the purchase orders that's been gone through a
couple of times. Is there anything specific in purchasing procedures
that's -- was that just given as a broad topic?
MR. McKENNA: Let me ask Don Hughes to report on that.
MR. HUGHES: Well, the idea was to offer a new
opportunity for us to use our expertise in the purchasing area just to
make sure that -- that all bases are covered, so that we don't end up
with finding somebody stole six million dollars through bad contracts,
whatever. We don't know because we haven't been in there. So we're
just offering that as an area on the expertise that we have.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Continue, Mr. McKenna.
MR. McKENNA: Next item was employee evaluation and
appraisal system; and Collier County quality improvement program; and
then, lastly, which ties in very well with the I.T. with the talk that
you heard just previously, is looking at an electronic bulletin board
system.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Let me throw out some
thoughts. The Mini-Grace Commission, how do we want to have the
productivity committee act or interact with the board? They can look
at how it works in Palm Beach, but I think the overall theme of that
one for me is how do we want to work with them, and what direction do
we want them in general to take. As far as particular items, there's
a couple here that catch my eye, budget system and procedures I'd like
to have somebody take a look at. We all have expressed ideas on how
to change that somewhat. It has changed over the last couple of years
some. It needs to continue to evolve. I know that could be very
effective.
I know that greater Naples civic comes each year with
their list of suggestions. Up until last year we were often told,
gosh, it's too late in the process, and we've made some changes
because of that. But I think there are a lot of things we can do to
make that more effective. It's a long, drawn-out process right now.
I'd be very excited about seeing something there. I'd also like to
see follow-up on human resources report, particularly following some
of the comments out of Commissioner Mac'Kie's report a couple of weeks
back. I think that would be excellent timing.
And the other item catching my eye is the employee
evaluation and appraisal system, because we often talk about whether
it's appropriate to do a merit-pay increase or across-the-board
increase. If I do merit pay, is everybody being treated equally. And
perhaps if we had a group dedicated to looking at that, we could find
out is it possible to do that and still treat the employees fairly.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Let me comment, though, on the
talk we've been entertaining for the last year or so dealing with the
performance budgeting and the possibility of gain sharing. Employee
evaluation and appraisal and its relationship to merit pay will solve
itself, because employees will only participate in gain sharing if
there's a gain left after the budget year for which they are to divide
up in whatever percentages that -- that we decide to do. So that
merit pay problem -- problem that we consistently have each year, in
my estimation if we go into the gain sharing with the performance
budgeting, that's going to solve itself because only if they're
innovative is there going to be anything to share. You were next,
weren't you?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I understand your -- your logic
on that, but what I'm hearing is maybe we can -- maybe that can be one
facet of the approach it's taking here. So I'd just like to go down
and reaffirm some of the things Commissioner Constantine pulled out.
Budget systems and procedures, you've got my vote looking at that
one. I'd really like to get some information. Commissioner Matthews
has an aggressive idea. We're pursuing it. I'm glad the board is
doing that. Follow-up on human resources report, that was one of my
suggestions, so obviously I'm in favor of that. I think the employee
appraisal dovetailed with that since basically it all happened in the
same area. Those two together may be two separate reports, but the
same committee, because you're going to go down the same roads. So I
would like to join those two as one. I'd like to see budget systems
and procedures.
I like the -- I don't know who came up with this,
service efforts and accomplishments. It seems like that's proposing
some form of a litmus test outside of the fiscal envelope. And I
don't know much about that, but it sounds interesting to me. I don't
know if it raises the curiosity of any of the other board members.
I'll tell you the ones I really don't want you -- rather
not go into for probably time spent elsewhere is the Q-plus program.
You know, whether you have reservations or not about -- and the county
involvement with the Free-net, I happen to know certain departments
are already intimately involved with the Internet, so those two I
don't really have an interest in.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Commissioner Hac'Kie.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: This is good. Three votes in a
row for budget systems and procedures is the top one. MR. HcKENNA: Top targets.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Hay I make a side comment to
that, is one of the things I've been doing is taking around what I
have gotten in the budget process to people I know who are former
members of boards of directors of big companies and said is this what
you got when you were on a board of directors, and they laugh at me.
Of course, it's not what we got. We got -- you know, we dared to
bring us more than a page and a half summary for each section of the
budget. This is not how it has to be done. It can be much more
simple and much more informative than what you have. I'm dying for us
to do something more efficient, and to the board of directors we're
supposed to be, and give us a more useful way to make policy decisions
in the budgeting process. So that is just real high on my list.
I -- again, three in a row. Human resources is my
second one, and I -- and I agree if there is a third one, that --
that, you know, comes out, then let's tie this employee evaluation and
appraisal system together with that, but that was my third.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Norris.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, I find it hard to disagree
with what's already been said, so I'll take the left side plus
employee evaluation and appraisal.
MR. HcKENNA: Okay. If I may, Commissioner Hancock, you
had some questions in service efforts and accomplishments. Mr. Ed
Fink is here with us. He may be able to describe the program
certainly a lot better than I could.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: So far I've expressed an interest
and Commissioner Norris.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And me.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Oh, you.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Uh-huh. In Collier County's
service efforts and accomplishments. Did you mention that?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: No, that was fourth on my list.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think the productivity
committee only has so much time in a given year, and we're asking them
to prioritize their tasks for the coming year. And based on what I've
heard, I think we're asking them to do the budget system, the human
resources report, and the employee evaluation and appraisal as item
number one.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: They wanted that to be one, two,
and three I think. They wanted to do three things.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It's sounding like they're kind
of networked together, and while you may break into three different
subcommittees and come together with a final report. Commissioner
Constantine.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I don't know if that's one or
three different reports, but it's a plateful.
MR. McKENNA: It's a plateful, no doubt about it.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I would like to ask the board
to recommit to meet with some regularity in a workshop format with the
productivity committee because I think we can benefit much more that
way.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: You clearly have my agreement on
that. And what I would see -- if we're prioritizing here, we have
three. Is it through those quarterly meetings if one of these should
-- you find the terminus of that report, service efforts and
accomplishments seems to be next in line. So maybe we're in a
situation at this time of saying at this time we would like you to
focus on budget systems and procedures followed by the human resources
report and employee evaluation appraisal system. And should one or
all of those find the end of themselves before the year is out, I
think that service efforts and accomplishments are next in line; is
that a fair summary?
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah, I'd agree with that.
MR. FINK: The only comment I would like to make, which
gets back to what perhaps Commissioner Matthews mentioned, that's
really a long-term project. This is something the county government
standards board is now doing since 1991, and I see that as more of a
-- a long-term subcommittee, that hopefully we'll do different things
and keep in touch with things now occurring within the government
county standards boards. It will eventually be a requirement as it is
understood for your financial reporting, so I think to be as early
into it as possible is advantageous.
The other thing is that the SEA is in a very simple
term. In a profit corporation, profit serves as the surrogate for
effectiveness and efficiency. We don't have that in a nonprofit
environment. And the SEA measurements are an attempt to find
surrogates for those measurements for effectiveness and efficiency.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That does rap into the --
MR. FINK: Absolutely. It affects everything we do.
The question was already raised today of how do we know that's working
so --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I want more than just that
issue. I mean I want to talk about the whole budget process.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The idea with the Mini-Grace --
Grace Commission that we started out with that, and there was a lot of
interest in that. I think if -- if you could form a small committee
to do -- I don't want to say a quick and dirty study on it, but
certainly an introductory study as to how Collier County might be able
to make use of that concept and maybe get that -- get a quick report
back to us, and then we can decide if we want any further effort in
that direction or not. Commissioner Constantine.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah, I wouldn't even limit
it to that. I'd use that as a starting point, and then whatever you
feel is the most productive way for us to use the productivity
committee, whether it be Mini-Grace or what it is now or some hybrid,
I would think that would be to everybody's benefit to bring that
back.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I agree. That sounds like a
committee of one, and I believe that committee has already been I. So
I'd like that also. So can we kind of put that in a single statement
so that it's clear? Are we including service efforts and
accomplishments in our request today?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yes. It sounds to me like we
are, and that is -- it's all jumbled together, and the service efforts
and accomplishments, as was pointed out, is something that they're not
going to develop in a single year. It's a multiyear process.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: If that is part of the
others, that's fine, but I thought I heard at least three of us say
that was a fourth priority out of the four we mentioned.
MR. McKENNA: I think you've probably covered all four
priorities. I wasn't trying to limit it to just three, nor am I even
necessarily limiting it to this list. Certainly if there's some other
area of study that you'd like us to be looking into, feel comfortable
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: So, Mr. McKenna, you feel
comfortable with service efforts and accomplishments, budget system
and procedures, follow-up on human resources report and employee
evaluation and appraisal system without overtaxing your working bones
to death?
MR. McKENNA: My committee members may beat on me later
for saying this, but I think that that would probably be fine.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: My colleague, Mr. Norris, did not
mean to say overtaxed.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That is a poor choice of words.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: If you can handle those four
without undue duress, I -- I am very comfortable with that as a
direction and including the single-person approach of the Mini-Grace
Commission and make recommendations on improved operation for the
productivity committee.
MR. McKENNA: As far as increasing our meeting schedule
to do it quarterly, our group meets monthly. Of course, subcommittees
may be more often. Almost seems like every six months we'd have a
work product that may be suitable for presentation. To do it every
three months, I feel, might be a little bit too brief a period to have
something to present.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'd just like to make sure
that when we get that report back we have a sit-down where all of us
are sitting instead of somebody standing at the podium, and the board
in the commission chambers gives us a report in the commission
chambers.
MR. McKENNA: We would appreciate that also.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Two things, why don't we go ahead
and pick dates for our next meeting so that we do something in
concrete because apparently there's been a commitment before that
hasn't been met.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Hasn't been met.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just a suggestion.
MR. McKENNA: That's a good point.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm confused. Is the utilities
review going to die where it sits? Are we going to get anything about
utilities?
MR. McKENNA: As of this point in time, I would say it
has died, but we would be happy to resurrect it if it's the
commission's desire.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: I mean I read that minority
report. I mean everybody has probably seen it. But notwithstanding
that this guy is gone, didn't we feel that utilities needed some
recommendations on how to be more productive? Has it solved its
problems, or are we turning that over to the new public works
director?
MR. McKENNA: There are so many changes that have been
happening with the utilities division that I think many of the
problems have been solved or are on their way to being solved. If
it's the commission's desire, I think we could look into the utilities
department, but we'd like to be focused into a more specific area.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I -- I would think that until the
new public works director, which will head this division also when
it's consolidated, plus the fact that the DOR is pulling some of the
responsibilities from -- from the utilities into another department
and -- and all of these structural changes where we're pulling it
apart and reassembling it, I'm not sure that we could get a good
handle on what's right and what's wrong until it's done.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Wait until the dust settles.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: In addition, I believe there's an
audit going on of some form. So there's a level of how much -- how
much layers of scrutiny you can place on a department at one time.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: I thought the audit got
canceled. I mean is there an audit?
MR. McNEES: An internal audit.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Operational.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: By?
MR. McNEES: By the clerk's internal auditor.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Probably the most effective
and productive thing is look at that audit report when the product
comes out.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: How does the clerk's office know
how to audit the operations of a utilities department? I mean I
thought that died. How do they know how -- how do they know what
they're looking for? Why would we ask the productivity committee or
somebody -- why in the heck did the clerk's office do that?
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think what they're looking
for -- there is a question of authority to do the audits on any
department, but I think what he's looking at is more office activity.
I don't think he's out there auditing how Mike and his crew -- maybe
he is -- but out there testing procedures day to day, because I'm not
sure they know. But I know we looked at --
MR. McNEES: They are testing them. Whether they know
them or not --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Internal control audits are
generally internal control audits. They're looking at what internal
controls they are --
COHHISSIONER HAC'KIE: That's money.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, it's not necessarily
financial, no. It's not a fiscal audit, but it -- it works toward
making sure that there's adequate controls placed on the people who --
who handle the cash money, the people who are doing the work orders.
It's not a lot of lost time and lost paper.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Am I alone that if we have the
clerk auditing a county department --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I think it's a dumb idea.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I don't remember approving or
requesting an audit, and I have a hard time remember having voted on
it. And I'm a little nervous about that. I'd at least like to know
what is being audited and why. And this is a different issue. This
is nothing to do with the productivity committee. And I'm sorry we're
getting off on this tangent, but if we're going to look at whether we
should be taking a hard look at utilities, I want to know what's going
on over there now and what the audit is.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: This isn't the first time
we've discussed this. I -- the idea of an audit came up and that they
were going to do this, and it was right when Mike was getting a new
budget or something. I can't remember when Neil brought it to our
attention, but this isn't the first time we've discussed it. I don't
think it's a bad idea to have someone outside and separate get
nonspending extra taxpayer dollars on an individual like Commissioner
Norris's idea a couple of years ago for the independent audit. It
works very well, but I don't think it's a bad idea. I think we need
more detail, like you're saying, as it progresses. But I think
nothing but benefit can come from it.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Norris.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, I'll -- the only thing is --
I need to echo what Commissioner Hancock said. I don't think the
board ever authorized the audit. I think Commissioner Hac'Kie has the
same concern. I don't know where this audit came from, under whose
direction, and why it's being done or what's being done. I don't know
anything about it either, and I just -- I don't disagree that it could
be healthy to do one. I'm just saying I don't see where the proper
procedure is followed in instigating the audit.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Excuse me. Mr. Dorrill, what is
our ability to control the clerk's desire to look into different
departments and divisions?
MR. DORRILL: There are two different issues. I might
have to ask Ken to help me here. There is a single case of law called
Alachua versus the Board of County Commissioners of Alachua County.
It empowers who is -- the clerk at that time sued the board of county
commissioners over what his constitutional duties were. It goes back
to 1979. Clerks can clearly do financial auditing, because he has
constitutional authority to preaudit expenses before the disbursements
are made and also do ongoing cash and auditing. Audits are something
different. And we and the Florida Association of Counties questioned
to what extent and under what procedures or under what authorization
the clerk can audit the Board of County Commissioners. And so we have
asked the county attorney's office to expound on that and to look at a
legal opinion that was prepared by the Florida Association of Counties
and -- and their special counsel because otherwise I think the point
is you don't know or under what authority those audits are being made
or, frankly, what the motivation for that was or what the ability of
the people conducting the audit is. We have consistently supported
the clerk's internal auditing staff of financial audits, cash audits,
adheres to the procedures that are there. But with all due respect, I
think you have to know what their basis of experience or knowledge is
to be able to jump in and look at an operational issue.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Hike, this isn't new. Are
they almost done? Do you have any idea where they are in the
process?
MR. HcNEES: My direct knowledge of what they're doing
is very limited. I don't really know where they are. I know that --
this is what I do know. I know that they -- they sent a questionnaire
to all utilities employees regarding what do you think of your
supervisor, have you ever been asked to do things outside of your job
description, how do you feel about your work environment, those kind
of questions. And I know that because as an employee of the division
I got one of those. That happened. I would expect that by now that
if those that are going to be returned have been returned. It's
probably been a month and a half. Where they are in evaluating that,
I was told that once they had been received that they would be
compiled and summarized, and the auditor would share the results with
me first. I haven't had any conversation about whether those have
been received, whether they're being evaluated or not. And I honestly
don't know where they stand or what their target is for completion. I
really have no idea.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hac'Kie.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'd like -- I'd like to ask the
clerk to make a preliminary report to the board about what he's been
asked to do and -- and at least tell us what's the scope of this audit
and then to have it on the agenda at a place where we can vote to
authorize him to continue or not. And I think this is the perfect
example of a reason we need an administrative code, and this is
something that should be included in it. Who can ask the clerk, who
can authorize, who speaks for the board, who asked -- you know, I
think it's inappropriate for one board member to ask the clerk of
courts to audit a division of county government. And I think that
that should require a vote of the board.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, the question is going
to come down to whether or not we authorize to continue or not. I
think Mr. Dorrill's point was there is a legal question right now, and
I happen to agree with I think Mr. Dorrill's point. But the clerk
will not agree with us on that, but there is some question as to
whether or not they have the authority to do this type audit with or
without our permission. We need to get to the base of that before we
say no, you can't do it.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I tell you what -- let me just be
real blunt. I've had one conversation with him about this. He said I
was asked to do it because. I'm confident if we said thank you very
much for your efforts, but never mind, he'd be happy to stop. So I
don't think he's trying to force an operational audit down our
throats. So I think we ought to say a board either directs him to do
it or not. And I thought this had died. I remember we talked about
it before, but I thought there was enough consensus of the board that
we weren't interested in an operational audit from the clerk's office,
that we had indicated there's no reason to go forward.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Cuyler, does the clerk have
the legal authority to perform operational audits?
MR. CUYLER: We're researching that right now pursuant
to Mr. Dorrill's request to us, and I've also spoke to the clerk's
attorney. The clerk is taking the position he does have the legal
authority, but I don't -- I assume Commissioner Hac'Kie was correct in
the sense that he may or may not do it based on you want him to do it.
He's taken that position, although I do not agree with him at this
point. We're still in research.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: When do you think that report can
be ready?
MR. CUYLER: It's priority. I spoke to my staff luckily
last week. We got the memo on Thursday, and it's priority. We hope
to have it next week.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Thank you. Commissioner
Constantine.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The -- I just don't hope we
jump to conclusions. I'm hearing you say, Commissioner, my -- trying
to get some feedback from the employees that I see as beneficial. If
our employees go back, and 80 percent of them think things are going
great, that's a great sign, and Mr. HcNees should be applauded, so
on. If 80 percent of them come back and say we have a problem, we
should address those problems. To say no, we don't want to know, we
put our head in the sand.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'm not sure that upward feedback
should be a function of the clerk's office. It should be a function
of the manager's office.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I agree. Let me respond to
that. I agree, but if it's already in progress, it would be kind of
silly to say --
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Let me respond to that. Agreed,
but we're not talking about putting our heads in the sand. There are
ways to ask the question. There are people who know how to perform
operational audits, and then there are those of us who don't. You can
skew a questionnaire. You can skew, you know, by the way you ask
questions. And that's a bad thing. We can be very careful.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Let's try to wrap this up.
Commissioner Norris.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Who did write the questions for
this questionnaire?
MR. HcNEES: I assume someone in the clerk's internal
auditing staff. I -- we saw a copy of it before it was mailed, but I
don't know who drafted it.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Give me those examples you said
again.
MR. HcNEES: Well, the ones I can remember, have you
ever been asked to do anything out of your job description is one of
the questions which I think probably everyone has. One of the other
questions was what is your opinion of your work environment, do you
think your supervisor treats you appropriately, those types of
questions. They're fairly open-ended and nonspecific.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: And these are anonymous?
MR. HcNEES: They were originally intended to be
anonymous, and I told the auditor that I -- I didn't think that was a
very good idea, because once you got information back, what could you
do with it. You didn't learn anything. And he then agreed to -- to
make them name. So they went out. They do have people's names on
them, and I agree with Commissioner Constantine. If people have
something to say, we're -- I want to hear it. Our concern from a
staff level is exactly what Commissioner Hac'Kie expressed. The
questions are very open-ended, and we don't really know what we're
going to get but, you know, we're happy -- it's somewhat skewed in
terms of the questions, and I'll give you an iljustration. It was
interesting that the cover letter said we want to hear good and bad,
but for your information, we've enclosed a copy of the whistle-blower
statute so you know what your rights are. So it was -- and that was
included in the questionnaire, so we're -- I'm very anxious to see
what the folks had to say but somewhat concerned where it goes from
here.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, yeah, my concern is that
questions of this nature can certainly be quite leading, and the exact
wording is very critical. There was an article in the newspaper today
about pollsters and their concern about quasi-polls that are intended
to steer opinions rather than to take opinions. And certainly the
same thing could happen if the questions weren't worded properly.
I'd be certainly interested in knowing who wrote the questions and
what was their intent when they wrote the questions. I'd like to see
a copy of the -- the letter too. I'd like to have one of those sent
up to me so I could see it. I -- I'd like to take a look at those and
see -- see how -- how the nuances and the questions go. I'd like to
know what that -- see if there is some intent here to steer opinion.
I want to know that.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Just an attempt to bring this
particular discussion to closure, there may very well be a good reason
for this audit. The questions may be well formatted, and we may want
to proceed with it. I just want to know what the parameters are, and
I'd like to hear from the clerk on it. So what I would like to ask is
that we get a copy of whatever information has been sent out as a part
of the audit and that we ask the clerk to come to our next Board of
County Commissioners' hearing and talk to us about this audit. I just
want to know about it, that's all; that's the reason for the
question. And if we want it to continue, then we'll tell him to
continue. If we don't, then we have to deal with the legal question,
and we'll deal with that if we need to. I would just like to see what
has been asked for and asked of the employees and have the clerk talk
to us a little bit about it. Unless there's -- unless that goes
across anyone else's lines of thought, hopefully we can move on to the
next item.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think that pretty well sums it
up.
MR. DORRILL: One -- one quick question. Mr. HcKenna
was there, and I believe Commissioner Constantine had asked him to try
and formalize a meeting on a more strict quarterly basis.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That was my next question.
MR. DORRILL: We do have -- the next fifth Tuesday
occurs at the end of August. I don't know what personal vacations may
be --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We're taking the prior
Tuesday to that --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: No. We would be taking the 29th
off, so the workshop would be the 22nd like it was last year.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I thought Mr. HcKenna said six
months.
MR. HcKENNA: Yes. If we could stretch it out longer
than a three-month time frame, I think it would be beneficial.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: And I don't -- you meet on the
first Wednesday of each month, Jack?
MR. McKENNA: We're meeting third -- third Tuesday of
each month.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. That makes it tough for us
to meet. I was going to suggest we meet with you at your scheduled
time at some -- but if it's a Tuesday --
MR. HcKENNA: Our schedule can be changed also.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: October?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: October -- our next fifth Tuesday
workshop is October. Other than that, we -- we do have several
Tuesdays where we finish early, and we could plan to finish a Tuesday
early coinciding with their 10 a.m. meeting and finish up --
MR. HcKENNA: October would be getting close to our --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Pardon?
MR. HcKENNA: October would be getting close to that
six-month window that we were looking at.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Let's plan on October.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS:
HR. DORRILL: -- 31st.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS:
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK:
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS:
something?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE:
Let's plan on the October --
-- 31st workshop.
Bring your costumes.
Halloween. Do you have
I just want to be sure. Are we
going to get -- is there a consensus? We're asking the clerk to come
and talk to us about this audit.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's what I'm asking for.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: That's two votes.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Three.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Four.
MR. DORRILL: I'm just reiterating what the
commissioners had asked.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Okay.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Let's take a break until 20
minutes of.
MR. DORRILL: Your ambulance is here as well.
MR. HcKENNA: Thank you.
(A break was held from 10:29 a.m. to 10:50 a.m.)
Item #2C
UPDATE OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. I want to reconvene the
workshop for the board of commissioners for Collier County, Hay 30th,
1995. The next item on the agenda is an update on the administrative
code. Commissioner Constantine on January the 5th -- I believe that
was the date -- had agreed to try to assemble for us the component
parts of an administrative code that would include in writing for us
the policies established by the Board of County Commissioners that
remain that we may not be aware of and as well as an attempt for us to
decide amongst ourselves what the protocol would be for communication
with the manager and the staff as well as communication between
ourselves. So with that I'll turn it over to Commissioner
Constantine.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The purpose of an
administrative code is to codify the relationship between the county
manager, staff, public, for that matter. It defines what authorities,
who -- each -- each group has, what responsibilities each group has.
It can get as detailed as doing things, explaining budget policies
that we just talked about, or going as far as the Palm Beach thing.
It goes as far as talking about the appropriate way to display flags
at county property.
You can get as detailed or as not as you want. The Palm
Beach one is about 5,000 pages. It is a huge thing. Much of it is
based simply on the ordinances and laws they have locally dealing with
each thing, but it codifies it in one document so that if you are
trying to research what current policy is or what past policy has
been, you have one single place to go to, and it's very easy to track
down.
It's unusual in the State of Florida for a nonchartered
county to have an administrative code. Matter of fact, talking with
Florida Association of Counties, they had no framework for a
nonchartered county to have an administrative code. But I don't -- I
think it's probably a good idea. There have been any number of times
where the county manager has said to us on a Tuesday, well, the board
policy traditionally has been, but we don't necessarily have that
written down anywhere. And so I think -- unless you go digging out
ordinances, there are many things we don't have formally written
anywhere, and I think it would be a good idea for us.
What you have in front of you -- I'm sorry. What the
board members have in front of them are just kind of snippets, some of
the highlights from the Palm Beach administrative code. I don't know
that we want to be as cumbersome as they are. I don't know that we
need to get into all the detail and minutia that they have. However,
I think this is a framework upon which we can build. Much of what
will go into it will be existing ordinance, but I think we need to
clarify some of the things as far as board authority or relationship
with the manager, and some of those things we need to formalize.
There have been two or three items particularly where
Commissioner Matthews has mentioned during a meeting, gosh, if we had
an administrative code, that would be an appropriate place. We don't
have one written, so that was sort of the genesis of this. This was
sort of a framework and hit some of the highlights for where we need
to be looking at. I think there are things in here that we don't want
to include. There are things in here that aren't included that we
would want to, but that's where we are right now.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Commissioner Hancock.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: First of all, thank you,
Commissioner Constantine. This index, if you will, is the starting
framework and then a good start. My suggestion would be -- and I'll
leave it for discussion -- the county attorney will have a better
handle on which of these items may apply under our noncharter status
and which of them are, you know, covered elsewhere and which don't
apply at all. Maybe that's the first step. I look at some on here,
and I think, well, these are things that even if the board has the
ability to make a decision on, we generally don't deal with. There's
a high number of them here. So I don't know if the county attorney's
office is the proper avenue to start with, but it seems to me we at
least need a checklist of which of these are, you know, possible for
pursuing into a code and -- and which are not. And I guess that
overlap of ordinances would fall under the county attorney's review.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hac'Kie.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: My -- I'm not sure if -- if an
administrative code per se is what I had an initial interest in,
because I'm confident I don't want anything close to what Palm Beach
County has. But what I was and still am looking for is some way to
compile board policy in a written form, and -- and, Ken, if there's a
better way to do that, what I'm looking for is there's a great deal of
business that goes on in Collier County. As a person who used to go
to development services, for example, and try to get permits, I would
be told, well, the board's interpretation; the board's policy on how
we treat this utility; the board's policy is; staff's policy is.
Those are the things I'm interested in seeing written down so
everybody can operate from a level playing field as opposed to how
things are now. If you got a case or you know somebody who got
something, then you can go in and ask what policy at this time was so
and so, and this is the way I want my application to be treated. I'm
interested in what the board's policies being -- being written down,
nothing more complicated than that.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think that's how -- how this
started out was to merely get our -- our policies and possibly a
protocol of a communication between ourselves and the manager and the
staff and the public spelled out. And perhaps the administrative code
is an incorrect term. Maybe we need nothing more than a policy
manual.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: There. That would be the right
place to start.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Norris.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Yes. I look at this index, and
immediately you can see the benefits of being able to pick a topic and
go look at our policies, see what they are. That's great. And if we
can put our -- compile our policies altogether in a single booklet or
document of some sort where we can have an index like this where we
can go to it quickly, I think that would be very beneficial. However,
I also need to say this age of deregulation or reducing of regulations
and debureaucratizing government, 5,000 pages kind of sets me back a
little bit. But the idea, once again, of compiling our policies into
a single convenient source is a great idea. I think we should do
that.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I think the first policy shall be
that this shall never exceed 5,000 pages.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Not even approach it.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: 500.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think, though, what we may also
find when the policies are assembled into a single binder, we may well
see policies there that were enacted some time ago that we no longer
agree with that with -- with the I.S. department coming forward are
just no longer functional. We don't know that.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Could be something that
commissioners put in a long time ago.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We'd never want to change
anything Max Haas --
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Moving right along.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Aren't there -- Ken, is there
somewhere -- I mean, if we said please bring us -- make photocopies
for us of all the board policies that have been adopted, how would you
try to do that? Where would you go?
MR. CUYLER: There are different aspects --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: A thousand words in that
expression.
MR. CUYLER: There are different aspects of what you're
talking about. Let me point -- let me point out something that's
good. This county has a specific travel mileage provision in here.
We deal under the Florida Statutes. That's where it's laid out. Some
of the things you're talking about, some of the things I call county
folklore, we've always done this, and this is the way it's done. And
you say where is this, and it's the way it's always been done. Some
of that stuff, you can trace it back. It's something that happened.
Sometimes you can't.
So there's different -- different aspects to this and,
you know, we say how do you go about doing this, doing the things
you're talking about. I would have to talk to people that have dealt
with development community -- the community development division as
well as our department and the other people in the county, try to
trace some of those things down and put them down in writing. But a
lot of what you're talking about is -- there are -- for example, the
-- somebody asked me a lot of times if we go beyond five weeks on
advertisement, why do we have to readvertise. That is not in the
Florida Statutes. That's correct. It is not in the Florida
Statutes. Their reason for adopting that is for the purposes of
notification. We don't want too much time to go between our public
meetings that are advertised that are beyond five weeks. That's where
that comes from. There are a number of things like that.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: So -- so we might have to ask
division heads to, you know, send me copies of resolutions that you've
been relying on or something like that.
MR. CUYLER: Well, I can probably talk to staff people
saying what do you get the most questions about, what do you appoint
people to, do you know why that is the way it is.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I just want to echo what
Commissioner Norris -- I'm not interested in creating any new
regulations for county government, but I am interested in getting a
collection of the existing regulations in a place where everybody
knows what those are.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: What's the best way to move
forward then with this?
MR. DORRILL: A good place to start -- you may recall,
and fortunately Ken brought up, we codified all of the ordinances
really for the first time, I'll say, in 15 years. And I don't know
how that is indexed, but there may be an administrative section of
your current code of ordinances. But I think I hear what you're doing
is something similar to what we did in the Land Development Code. We
went back, and we took the old subdivision regs and the ordinance that
adopted them and took the zoning ordinance and forwarded all those
in. I think if we maybe try and develop our own index and submit it
back to you, that will not initially be an insurmountable task.
I would think for our administrative code we would want
to have your personnel rules and regulations, purchasing and budgeting
procedures. We may want to have an additional section, rules of
conduct, you know, how the meetings will be advertised, how they will
be arranged. For example, we make it a point on our agendas to have a
public comment portion. But that's -- there's been no real resolution
or ordinance that ever established that. That's a good example of
what he calls folklore. We may want to look at an index for where --
for which we have specific board authority, either by ordinance or by
resolution as a start, and then add and delete from there. My
suggestion would be, if there is an administrative section of your
current code of ordinances, that you should look at that as a starting
point.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Commissioner Hancock.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: In addition, it may be beneficial
if members of the board upon this index, if there are a few of these
that you have questions about as to whether or not the board does have
a policy, things that -- that it seems blatantly obvious we should
have some procedure for, we may want to mark those and forward them to
Ken's office for target areas. I would suggest that is already
happening. Commissioner Matthews is already doing it. But I think
that's probably a good idea, because I think we all have specific
areas of concern that we want to make sure we operate in a consistent
and efficient manner. And we need to target those and maybe forward
them to Mr. Cuyler's office. And if there is a direction the board
could take, I would like to see that included today.
MR. CUYLER: I would be -- I would be happy to share
this with Neil.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The point person on this.
MR. DORRILL: You're doing a fine job.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Any other comments?
So I would presume the direction from the board from
what I've heard is direction to both Mr. Cuyler and Mr. Dotrill to
work together to at least produce for us in a relatively short time.
I'd like as soon as after the break, which would be July 18th, an
index of our existing policy and folklore, for lack of a better term.
And we'll take a look at that and decide where we need to expand it.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We're going to formalize the
folklore code.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: The code and folklore of Collier
County.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's a board function.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, if that's been standard
operating procedure that -- that files have a resolution or an
ordinance in support of it, then perhaps we need to do that.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: May I make a comment here? Let me
make one comment of caution. When we're going to put down in writing
some of these folklore-type things or any of our other policies, we do
want to be a little bit cautious that we don't tie our hands, because
as we are all aware, that there are -- different circumstances come up
at different times that need different treatment. And if we put our
rules too hard and too fast that we don't have the attitude as a board
to make decisions, you know, that would be unfortunate. So some
caution is going to be necessary when we're doing this.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Norris, that may be
the very thing, though, that we discover, is that 20 years ago a board
passed something that we're totally unaware of that right now if some
diligent citizen were to look back in the record and find it and wave
it in our faces. And you have to do that, because that's what I want
to find out, what's out there that I don't know about.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I'm not disagreeing with that at
all. I'm just adding a little cautionary note here as we progress.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think in this day where we're
all looking to deregulate, not to encourage more, that we'll be
cognizant of that.
So, Mr. Dotrill, Mr. Cuyler, July 18th is a good date
that we can look to get --
MR. CUYLER: We'll shoot for that.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- a table of contents at least?
MR. DORRILL: We can't cite you a resolution on
something.
Item #2D
TOURIST DEVELOPHENT COUNCIL AND ECONOHIC DEVELOPHENT COUNCIL ISSUES
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Next item on the agenda,
item D, Tourist Development Council and Economic Development Council
issues. Commissioner Constantine.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Two separate issues that will
-- that will tie into one another, but I wanted to just get a
discussion going that a -- particularly on TDC. We had, when I was
chairman of the TDC last year in November and December, both creative
ideas for how to use some of category C funds that did not necessarily
fit category C funds. I think we turned them both down.
There have been two or three controversial items since
the beginning of the year. There was also the question, how are we
going to pay for the beach completely. And it just seemed like we
ought to address the whole tourist development tax issue, see if --
are we happy with the way category C is right now, because we seem to
have an awful difficult time giving those funds to an appropriate
source or -- or having an appropriate applicant. If we are not going
to do it now, do we want to make some changes? What are the
implications of that if we change what was voted on in the '92 ballot,
just kind of a general discussion on that. I thought we needed -- it
appears we need to do something rather than leave it be, and I'm not
sure what that is, but we certainly need to address it.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It seems to me, based on what Mr.
Cuyler has told us in the past, that the ballot question and,
therefore, the ordinance -- is that correct; the ordinance is a
question of the ballot question for 2 cents with 60 percent of it
going to beaches and 40 percent of it going to advertising and
promotion of events. The subsequent 25, 15 percent is in the
guidelines; is that correct?
MR. CUYLER: No. The 25 percent, 15 percent was also
part of your original tourist tax plan voted on as part of the
ordinance; but everything beyond that is in the guidelines, who can
apply, how they apply, whether it has to be matching, whether it has
to be a not-for-profit organization, all those types of things.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Just recently we did make
some minor changes in category C funding in that we -- we eliminated
the hundred-percent match, which could have been as much as 50 percent
like kind before the change. Now, it's strictly 50 percent cash
match. We have also made some changes allowing for periodic costs,
i.e., salaries and so forth can now be included in the reimbursable
items. So to say that we have never changed the guidelines is not
precise either because we -- we have changed them in as short a time
as two months ago, April, something like that.
So I -- I think the purpose in my wanting to get this on
-- on the agenda for the workshop is the fact that we've been
collecting these monies for two and a half years now, almost three
years, and we have not yet been able to fund a significant category C
event other than Intellinet, which we just did. Mr. Cuyler.
MR. CUYLER: On the category B, just so you know exactly
what you're dealing with, is the category of 40 percent which
indicates to promote and advertise county tourism within the State of
Florida, nationally and internationally, which encourages tourism with
an emphasis on off-season visitors to Collier County for the 25. For
the 25 percent it only says for tourism, advertising, and direct
marketing. 15 percent says for local projects and/or activities which
promote tourism. Everything beyond that is in the guidelines.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: What I would like the workshop to
take us to today -- we can have a good discussion on it -- is to
produce a list of problems
that this board sees with the TDC, and the TDC next meeting meets
August 7th. They are planning to have a workshop at the very
beginning of the meeting to discuss the categories, the guidelines,
and so forth so that we can inform our new members as to what -- what
the rules are, so to speak. And I would like to have our suggestions
go back to the TDC for their August meeting for them to look at our
suggestions and whether we think we're meeting the goals or not, and
let the TDC produce changes that will get some of this funding done
and -- and bring it back, in fact, to the board. In my estimation,
the job belongs with the TDC. We merely -- we need to tell them that
it's not working. Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Ditto. What you just said was
what I wanted to say.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Any other comments?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: No comments.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, let's talk about category C
then, what we're going to do about it. Commissioner Constantine.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just one other general
comment outside of category C. Maybe -- maybe this is premature if
we're still going on category C. This comment doesn't want to be
construed as in support of or against, but also as part of our
discussion topic has come up recently in media of a third cent to help
pay for the beach rather than bond that out over 10 or 12 years. That
may be something we either need to investigate or have a discussion
on.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I'll second that discussion by
asking Mr. Cuyler what is the date the board can post a third cent and
-- and, second, part B of that question is, can that entire cent be
dedicated to beach renourishment?
MR. CUYLER: Your ordinance was adopted August 18th,
1992, and I believe it's a three-year period, so you would be coming
up on the date that you could put the additional penny in.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: August of '95.
MR. CUYLER: Yes.
MR. DORRILL: Or it may require the next scheduled
cycle. We need -- we might need to check the statute. I have been
told previously that it would be January the 1st of '96.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: What's the method for doing
that? What's the method for doing that? Is it -- is it an ordinance
by ballot or simply a majority vote?
MR. CUYLER: The board can add an additional penny '-
I'm checking to see. My understanding is that it can -- that
additional penny is for any existing use that was existing at the time
that you originally put it into effect or is currently existing.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, it's for existing uses, but
does it have to be split per existing percentages?
MR. CUYLER: It would not. If you want to go ahead and
continue conversation about -- let me look through the statutes here,
see if I can find it.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay. Commissioner Hancock.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: One thing I've recent -- I'm
going to ask about this, and I'll say it here in front of my
colleagues, is that if with that 2 percent we can renourish the
beaches and do the regular maintenance at the regular maintenance
intervals and get that done without raising the tax, then -- then
let's -- let's move in that vein. What I have been hearing so far is
that the initial time frame it would take to complete beach
renourishment, whether you do pay as you go or bonding it out, it
would take us so long to pay that back, that we would miss the
maintenance cycles in between, and that's the dangerous part. To
create the beach and not do the minimal maintenance on a regular basis
can put us back at ground zero very quickly, so for me it's a simple
decision. If we can't get done what the tax was intended to do at 2
percent, then it's failing already, and we need to look at modifying
it, because the primary important element here is beach renourishment
and the maintenance of that. So it's simple for me. It's an
equation. Show me whether it can or can't work at 2 percent, and if
it can't, then we need to look to add an additional increase.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Well, I -- let me interject
here. The numbers that I'm hearing -- and they're not yet finalized.
Our finance committee is still working at it, but the numbers I'm
hearing, if we -- if we were trying to do a single mobilization and
finance the cost, that it would be somewhere between 9 and 12 years to
pay it back. We're not sure exactly what that would be, but if it
goes out to the 12 years, most definitely the cost savings of a single
mobilization would be lost. If we were to consider instituting the
third penny, four years, is that what we -- is what it would take to
pay it back. And, of course, if we were to do that, we could sunset
it, and at the end of the payment period the third cent goes away.
Commissioner Constantine.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The other issue raises as
part of this, obviously we need to research it to see if we want to
have an additional penny tax. But if we do, do we want to vote that
in, or do we want -- we have four ballots in the next 16 months. We
certainly have ample opportunity to put it on one of the ballots. The
beach renourishment passed with 65 percent of the vote last time, so
just one other item for us to consider.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: And let me just share my viewpoint
on that. If we were to consider having this third cent be added on
permanently, I would say that -- that the voters should be involved in
that decision. However, if we're going to look at a temporary period
of time to get this project done, I think that's -- that's more
appropriate that we make that decision as a board. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's reasonable.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Mr. Cuyler, you have an answer?
MR. CUYLER: Yes, ma'am. In addition to the tax you've
already imposed, the governing board may levy, impose an additional 1
percent of each dollar above the tax rate set by the extraordinary
vote of the governing board, which would be four-fifths or by
referendum approval by the registered electors. No county shall
impose the additional one cent unless a minimum of three years from
the effective levy has gone by. So that would be -- that would be
different than your day of adoption.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It would be January. That would
be January.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And it forfeits -- and does it
say anything about the 60-40, we have to --
MR. CUYLER: You could use the additional one cent for
100 percent for whatever you guys wanted to, whether you use it as
beach renourishment or whatever.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Any other comments?
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I -- I think we know where the --
you know, the cries are going to come from on this, and it's not going
to come from the people who use the beaches. It's not going to come
from generally your constituents because, again, the residents, for
the most part, do not pay any of these monies, and yet they will
benefit from the beaches. So I think we know where the cry is going
to come from. We can anticipate that. But from what I am hearing,
the possibility is out there that we can achieve beach renourishment.
We can get it done in one fell swoop. We may just have to utilize
that third cent for a couple of years. Again, I'm not espousing
totally for it, but if there is no other way to get it done, then I'm
looking in favor --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Do we want to set a time
frame to hear back from our budget office or whoever?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: The finance -- finance committee
is investigating it, and my last report was that the numbers change
every time they take another look at them. Mr. Hargett, did you have
something on that?
MR. HARGETT: And that continues. However, they are
becoming much harder. I anticipate probably in about three weeks that
we could give you those options that you are looking for, including a
hundred percent of the third penny and the time frame.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So you feel that we could get a
report on June 20th?
MR. HARGETT: In approximately two weeks.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That would be June 20th that we
could get a report on -- on our Tuesday agenda, and then we can go
away and mull it over.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Answer phone calls.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Huh? No, we could go away for
three weeks on our -- on our summer break and mull it over.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Madam Chairman, it sounds like
that's on its way. Should we focus now on category C?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah. I think I would like to
bring the conversation back to category C. And correct me if I'm
wrong, but I'll kind of give a synopsis of what my understanding is.
Right now category C requires a nonprofit organization to be the
recipient. It requires that the grant be given back to the TDC if
there is a profit up to the amount of the grant. And it also -- there
is some discussion as to whether it actually requires a shoulder or
off-season event or whether it merely requires a promotion of shoulder
or off-season event. I think we need to clarify that. And, Mr.
Cuyler, is there something in the statute or the guidelines about
noncapital projects?
MR. CUYLER: The guidelines say that monies shall not be
used for capital expenditures. That is one of the prohibited
functions, but only in the guidelines.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It's only in the guidelines. So
under the current guidelines, Lake Avalon would not be possible?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Right.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Purchase of it.
COHHISSIONER HAC'KIE: It says ineligible expenditures,
three, no property.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Okay.
MR. CUYLER: And the capital improvements on it.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: And the capital improvements on
it.
MR. CUYLER: Right.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Some of the ideas that have come
-- come to my attention in the last six months, and most of them are
in the category of noncapital, but with the -- Collier County
preparing through the museum department a driving tour of Collier
County, the emphasis being to hold tourists here in Collier County
another day or another two days, if we're lucky; advertising for
different events, i.e., the Skimmers, and to help them prepare their
-- their program and the production costs of it. We've had a film
commission, some discussion of that. Again, that's not -- not
capital.
At the NPO last Friday there was discussion at the end
of the meeting about taking Tamiami Trail from Royal Palm Hammock to
the 40-mile bend and creating a scenic highway and producing
information pamphlets related to that. The F-DOT is going to get back
to us with their input on that.
And then there's a perennial production of hotel packets
for hotel guests coming into town of all the various things that are
available to do in Collier County, whether someone or some group
should organize the Big Cypress Preserve, the CREW Trust, the
Everglades National Park, and gather all that information into a
single advertising pamphlet with coupons or what have you included in
it. Again, the effort is to hold the tourist here in Collier County
an extra day or so. Anyway, those are some things that I've brought
up. Commissioner Norris.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: What -- Mr. Cuyler, is there a
prohibition, or would there be a prohibition from, let's say, category
C funds that were not used for a period of one year or two years?
Could they be transferred to one of the other categories? Is there a
prohibition on that?
MR. CUYLER: I have rendered the opinion -- this is not
specifically in the statute, but I have rendered the opinion, and I'm
comfortable with the opinion that if you collect monies under a
certain status or plan, then you need to spend those for whatever you
collect them for. You can prospectively change your allocation as you
see fit by simply a majority vote.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. Let me ask you this then.
Did I understand you to say that categories A, B, and C were
established at the referendum? MR. CUYLER: Correct.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: What -- is there a possibility, an
option available to us, that in January 1st of next year to somehow
combine B and C to maybe give us a little more latitude of how these
category C dollars are used? Could we do that?
MR. CUYLER: Yes. The -- the A and B and then split of
the B is to what we're calling B and C is really what is known as
tourist tax plan. And you have the ability to change that tourist tax
plan. Whether you want to do it by super majority votes -- you can
combine B and C.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: And that would solve the problem
then if you had unused funds in category C after a certain period of
time. You would -- you would allow them to be used as category B
funds? And I know that sounds a little bit confusing. I'm saying
existing category C would be available to be used as what is now
existing category B.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: After you combine the two.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I'd like to introduce a word of
caution. Part -- part of the problem with category C and the events
that have not been funded, so to speak, there have been several
questions raised in the last six or seven months of attempts to move
category C funds to category B for the purchase of advertising. And I
-- I would like -- just like to put in a word of caution, that if we
combine category C with category B and make those funds available for
promotion and advertisement, either international or national, we
probably will never see the TDC approve another event. They'll want
to keep that money, and they'll make arrangements that it stays there
long enough that they get it, seriously.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. Having seen -- I
mentioned in November or December that items that came to us from the
TDC -- since there is a definite bias -- of course, we're heavily
loaded with hoteliers on the TDC, and their preference is to see that
money spent promoting the area for their benefit. More power to them,
but I concur a hundred percent.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's a -- that's a problem.
Commissioner -- Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just -- I'm confused. In January
of '96 we could add another penny. In January of '96 we could
redefine the plan?
MR. CUYLER: You can -- I always thought of this in
terms of prospective collection, that you have the ability to change
the plan under the statute.
COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: So in January of '96 we could --
starting January '96 all of the money that's collected will go to the
beaches?
MR. CUYLER: Correct.
COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: We could say all --
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: The potential danger in that is
something -- just as something that we thought -- we felt was a real
community asset, then there would be no funds to do that in the
future.
COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'm not suggesting that.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I understand that. Some
semblance of category C is important to me, and I give a reason that
isn't the ordinance, and similar one for the Intellinet, that is even
though something is an event, if it promotes an event that gives off
seasonal boost, many times that event is also a boom to the residents,
and they like it, and it's a total community approach. That's
something I like out of category C. So we're talking about a lot of
things.
Commissioner Matthews, something about Lake Avalon.
Sure, we'd like to use these funds to build a park like Lake Avalon.
It can't happen. We're talking around it. But my feeling is category
C has some very specific problems with being spent, and maybe we
should attack those problems first rather than looking at the big --
big macrochanges.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Uh-huh.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And I just -- I don't really hear
us talking about that.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Constantine.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah, I agree. I don't want
to change category C to parks or some other use that wasn't voted on
by the public because, as I said before, when you start changing the
formula the public voted on, they get another change two years from
now, pretty soon it doesn't resemble what they voted on. So I don't
want to change the big picture, as Commissioner Hancock has -- has
also said. I think we need to find the appropriate way, and we've
taken our first step toward that in April of making those -- category
C more available for their original intent.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Let me -- let me comment on a
couple of things, and let me throw these out as some existing things
in our guidelines that to me cause some difficulty. Number one, and
-- and they kind of interrelate. We recently changed the matching
funds to 50 percent cash match instead of a hundred percent match, 50
percent of which could be cash. My thinking is perhaps we got rid of
the wrong half, that we should have left it at 50 percent like kind
instead of 50 percent cash. Nonprofit organizations oftentimes don't
have the cash. Likewise, we require nonprofit organizations only
receive the funds. And at the same time we require a give-back if
there is a profit on the event. By the very definition of requiring a
nonprofit to receive the funds, I don't know what the purpose of a
give-back in the event of a profit is. And -- and perhaps we can
restructure that a little bit in saying that,
yes, profit-making organizations can apply, but if you have a profit,
you've got to give it back. And nonprofits, maybe we just want to
monitor it very carefully because by design they're not to make
profit.
The other thing we'd have to be -- be very careful of is
the situation which, I think we saw developing with the mega concert,
and that is the probability of a three-party agreement of a nonprofit
with the county to receive the funds and that same nonprofit
contracting with a major profit-making group to do another part of the
same thing, and that major profit-making group would get a significant
profit. Commissioner Constantine.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I don't think that's
necessarily bad. We do that already on a small -- much, much smaller
scale. We give the Swamp Buggy Races money to promote their races and
so on. They contract with TNT to do coverage of their event -- which
TNT for those of you who don't sleep late at night -- hires several
times throughout the year. I'm sure TNT makes a profit, but the two
aren't connected. Just because we've given money to help promote the
event, and just because TNT makes a profit through that event, it's
not relevant.
I think there were some questions on the mega concert.
I don't want us to get caught up in, my goodness, somebody might make
a buck. As long as it's not directly from us, I don't think we should
worry about that. It's not a bad thing.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: My concern is not that somebody
might make a dollar or a profit on some phase of the event. But my
concern is an event that's specifically structured through a nonprofit
to create a loss from the point of view of the grant application, but
on the reverse side of that there's a very significant profit. And --
and that's what I'm concerned that we also have to be careful of and
cautious of, that we don't allow a nonprofit to take advantage of the
loss of the profit give-back clause if we do that and allow them to
start -- start structuring three-party agreements or four-party
agreements where somebody is going to make a hefty profit, even though
it may be inclined to do that.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: A couple of things on some of
the things you mentioned. As far as cash match or in-kind match, I
think it's important to require some portion to be cash match; you're
right. Nonprofits either have volunteers or what have you. I think
it's important to have some portion, maybe not all. Right now it's 50
percent instead of a hundred percent. And maybe of that 50 percent
you have proportions cash. But I think they have to have something to
put up as part of it to make sure there is some credibility as far as
the event and self risk on their part, and they're not simply using
county's money at a risk.
I'd like to see us be more clear that the benefit needs
to be in our off season. Our hoteliers will tell us over and over,
they don't have a problem in January and February. They don't need
more people coming in January and February. So I'd like us to -- it
only recommends that. It doesn't require that in our current
ordinance. I'd like to make that a clear part of it, is that there
must be some off-season benefit. And I realize what we're trying to
do is be more looser here, not restrictive, but I think that's an
important one. I just was looking at the list here.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I think that emphasis can be made
-- actually become less restrictive. If you look under election
criteria one and two, it says potential for shoulder and off-season
visitors. And here's the line that makes it unusual, and that is as
spectators or participants, and then it goes on to say how it's
expressed. But we just saw with the Intellinet how we can attract
shoulder season and off-season tourism with an event that's not on the
shoulder or off season, but that statement as spectators or
participants links it to -- that's where I think the linking that, you
know, people saying it needs to be in the season comes. And we've
already seen that this doesn't necessarily have to happen, that it can
either use an event or use a marketing plan to -- to accomplish the
goal of promoting off season. So I think the link is here, but maybe
in too many words. So, in other words, where it says spectators or
participants, as far as I'm concerned, you can take that out. I think
it's understood that we're trying to promote off season, and however
it's done is the goal. So, again, I'm just -- I'm trying to find what
the problem is and go off that. And I haven't sat on the TDC as
Commissioners Constantine and Matthews have. I prefer you going back
to projects that didn't make it and you telling us why it didn't and
so we can address that in these rules and regs, so to speak.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Up until a couple of weeks
back, we had collected somewhere in the neighborhood of 800,000 in
category C funds. We had only had about $150,000 in successful
applications. Since some of the changes that were made a couple of
months back, we've already given away $500,000. So we may be on the
right track. I think we need to continue, but just by simplifying
what we did earlier this year, I think we've made some of that
possible.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Agreed.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We had to do some fancy dancing,
though, to do the Intellinet. Commissioner Norris.
COMMISSIONER NORRIS: My understanding from some of the
potential applicants I do understand apply is that the application
process itself is too cumbersome for some of the smaller events. In
looking over this list of things they have to supply, an out-of-county
marketing plan, that's just impractical. That's just not going to
happen. And if these are going to be required, certainly you're not
going to get the civic associations who want to put on a parade or
something like that. They're just not going to be able to do it
because it's too much paperwork that they're not capable of
supplying. So that seems to me to be an area where some of these
rules could be adjusted so that it's not such an onerous paperwork
burden on the applicants and -- and there might be -- you might could
delete some of these requirements for organizations who are requesting
under a certain dollar amount; and then for a large dollar amount,
two, three, four, five hundred thousand dollar request, you might want
to require these. But I think certainly from what I've heard, this
seems to be an area that would be helpful to make some sort of
adjustment.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We did make a change in April for
events requesting more than 500,000 or more that the approval be by
super majority, so that has stiffened that part. But I agree for the
small events that want ten, fifteen thousand dollars, the application
process is onerous.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I disagree with your example,
however. One thing we have to remember here is the purpose is to
promote tourism, and if somebody wants to have a parade, the
likelihood of that drawing someone here. But I agree, the paperwork
is overwhelming for small events, especially we're talking about
nonprofit groups. Most of these are volume organizations, and that's
the way we have now is hours and hours of paperwork.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Hancock.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm looking at the overall goal
of category C. And it appears that what we're talking about is
promoting -- I mean an event that draws from out of the county is no
small feat. Unless it's something like the senior PGA tour -- is that
a regular promotor's tour that comes in and a senior -- okay, this is
these that are travel circuit-type events. For someone in this town
to have a jazz festival or something of substantive nature to draw
from out of county and have hotel room nights, that's not small
beans. I mean that's a pretty significant event. And if you think of
any metropolitan area -- I know I lived for a number of years in the
Tampa area. There is less than five or six of those in a major city
during the year that draw from out of town. And now we're talking
about Collier County that doesn't have all the resources of all those
major met areas. I mean, how many can we reasonably expect? I don't
think we can expect to have a half dozen events that suck up a few
hundred thousand dollars a year. You know, maybe our goal here is
unrealistic. We're going to have a tough time spending that much
money --
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Part of this is we may have an
unreasonable goal here of using that much money for major events,
because there just aren't that many events of that scope and nature.
So, you know, we can -- we can tweak and adjust all we want, but I
don't think we're going to get there. I don't think we are going to
be able to -- to entice unless we get -- the Nuveen Masters comes back
as a tennis tournament.
COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Do people really come and
stay from out of town for that?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Yeah, they did.
COHHISSIONER HANCOCK: So maybe we should be targeting
these bigger events instead of trying to promote the local
organization having a local band playing on the street corner. I
mean, that just isn't going to draw from out of county. So we might
be targeting the wrong thing. Maybe we need to send out -- the TDC
needs to find a way to use this money by going after a PGA-type event
or the Nuveen Masters.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: You mean rather than wait for
them to come to us, we need to go after them?
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Yeah. I'm just thinking and
running at the same time. I just don't think we're going to find
enough local people to host events of such magnitude that they qualify
for this funding. That may be kind of the fatal flaw in category C
and the reason no matter how much we loosen it up, the scope may be
too large.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Again, Mr. Cuyler, help me.
Category C is not just events; it's projects also of a noncapital
nature?
MR. CUYLER: Correct. We had some discussion as to what
that meant, projects and activities. But that is what it says, local
projects and activities. Again, that is a subcategory of the part
that says within the State of Florida, national, and international.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Cuyler, if we had a marathon
road race here, and typically runners come from all over the place,
would that qualify?
MR. CUYLER: In my opinion, yes. Some -- some of this
is up to the discretion of the board to determine whether it qualifies
or not.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We gave some money this last
year to a softball tournament that drew teams in from all over so,
yeah, same idea.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Yes. Perhaps Mr. Drury would be
able to set up a two- to three-day weekend fly-in air show that would
attract people from all over the country to come in in the off
season.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I was talking to --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: That could be maybe part of their
airport authority's projects to look at for the next year.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: To pick up on that, I was talking
to Mr. Kennedy when we broke ground for the Immokalee Airport about
doing just that very thing next June, so I presume that that's already
-- already in the works.
MR. DRURY: Yeah. You see my notes, air show,
Immokalee, as you're sitting here thinking about -- the number-one
problem I see in grant acquisition is the application process that you
brought up. For me, that's what I do. So the more complicated a
grant application, the better it is for me because I know competition
will be less. You know, that's what it's all -- that's what it's all
about, you know. There's a lot of money available for airports. A
lot of people don't get it because the grant application process is
very thick. If you're talking about events and how to spend it, if
the application process is a little streamlined, that would be
helpful. July, August air show? That meets, and I think it probably
works based on what I heard.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: It sounds to me -- I may have
somewhat misspoke when I said the events are too large. All of a
sudden some of these are coming up that may qualify, have qualified.
The problem is how do we get someone to do all the work to sponsor one
when there is absolutely no incentive for profit organizations. And I
know we don't want to use TDC funds as gifts, you know, to give to
not-for-profits or charities but, in other words, here are all these
types of events out there. How do we get about either attracting them
-- and maybe this goes back to what you were talking about, going
from category C to category B. Maybe the idea is to go out there and
get them.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: One of the things I talked
about early in the year -- and I'm not sure exactly how you measure
this, but if you can measure how much of an impact an event has --
does it fill up half the hotel rooms in the county -- then create a
formula by which they can keep -- say it's half of the hotel rooms, 50
percent of the overage if they make a profit on the event. And
obviously 50 percent would come back to that. I don't know how you do
that. But if we're filling half the hotel rooms in July, we're
benefitting, the county's benefitting, you know, that group benefits.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So maybe we want to let them make
a profit then?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: There's got to be an incentive.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It's got to be tied to
something. That way you could fill up every hotel room in the county
in the summertime, great, and you can make a few dollars, nothing
wrong with that. But I don't know. We need to talk to the hoteliers
and see how they measure. Obviously in their marketing plans and when
they target different groups, they know what response they are getting
from advertisements in different areas; there are certain ways to
measure that. But we need to see how we can tie that into our
process.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: There's an interesting aside to
that. I don't know if anyone received it. I did. When we were
talking about an event proposed by Myra Daniels, someone made the
correlation, that's a hundred bucks a head.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's what the hotel rooms
cost.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Well, yeah, but, you know, in
other words, it -- I just thought that that's not an incentive to
start. That's -- why don't you just give the money to the hotels and
save a lot of trouble, you know, and I don't necessarily think that's
a great idea, but it has some merit. If -- you know, if we're going
to go through all of that, if we're going to go through all of that to
have this big event, and someone else is going to make money, you
know, what are we really accomplishing there? So the idea of making
money, I think, is good. It's just -- we need that scale.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Something.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: So that for 2 million dollars --
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And you might have an upper
limit, you know. Maybe there is a maximum.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: A maximum cap revenue of five
thousand or ten thousand dollars that an event can bring in for a
profit. I don't know how we're ever going to refine this to a -- to a
direction.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: That's why we want to send it
back to the TDC and let them come back with ideas of how it might
work. One -- one thing we may -- may want to look at with the profit
give-back clause is that if they make a profit, some percentage of it,
regardless of the road nights and so forth, would come back to the TDC
until the full grant is paid. That way they can make as much profit
as they want knowing that whatever that percent is, they're going to
have to turn back some part of it. That would keep a profit motive in
it, and the county would also have the opportunity to recover some of
that money and simply recirculate it, because that's what the goal is,
is to keep as much money in the pot as we can and continually re --
recycle. I mean we're talking recycle, recycle. You know, it's
recycle money too. So are there other comments on this? If there
aren't, let me try to summarize what we were talking about.
The goal of category C is to promote tourism in the off
season. Do -- do we want the TDC to clarify events not necessarily
having to take place in the off season?
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: But the benefit should be --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: But the benefit should be in the
off season. Right now they're saying the event has to be in the off
season. Okay, we want to look at a clarification of when the benefit
has to be. There's a suggestion from Commissioner Hancock to remove
the term spectators and participants. That seems to be an easy way to
take the focus off the event occurring in the season.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: We also talked about asking the
TDC to take a look at the 50 percent cash match and perhaps make an
adjustment and make a further adjustment in that put some like kind
back in to further aid nonprofit organizations. We want to ask them
to examine the profit give-back clause, whether we should have some
percent of room fills tied to that or whether we should have some
percent of profit that comes back to the TDC so we recycle it. And
then there is a suggestion to simplify the application process. For
these small events it's a little ludicrous, but Mr. Drury says don't
do that until we get his grant approved.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I think the larger events, larger
dollar events, are going to have a more significant marketing plan.
We may be able to set a grade-level limit on that of $10,000 because
when we're talking about --
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So we're talking then about
simplifying the application process from grant applications below a
specific dollar level, whatever that may be. Makes sense. Is there
any we've talked about that I've missed? Do we want to continue to
require that only nonprofit organizations receive these funds?
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: What's the original intent of that
particular clause?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I don't know.
MR. CUYLER: I think the original intent was you don't
want to give money to people who are going to be making money. But,
you know, you need to reach a philosophical decision as to whether
you're going to accomplish your goals.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Let me make a suggestion on this.
Since it really doesn't matter to the tourism industry whether you
have a profit organization putting on an event -- they don't care. It
just doesn't matter. That's none of their business as long as they
get hotel rooms, and they go to the restaurants and the bars, drink at
the bars. If it's a profitable organization, a profit corporation,
whether C or S corporation or something to that effect that's applied
for the money, why not in that instance require them to repay the
grant out of the first money that they receive, not after expenses,
but this would be one of their expenses? And if they want to apply
for tourist tax money, then they would be taking the risk that they're
going to make at least enough to repay the grant. In other words, it
would be a very simple loan, and they have to pay it back out of the
first dollar of their money.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: This would serve as a C money
loan.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I like that idea.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So we're talking then for --
nobody profits. The profit give-back could be restructured into a
percent of whatever profit up to the grant amount and for a
profit-making company. It would be a first dollar in paid.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: That's right. A suggestion.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: It's an interest-free loan.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: There is no real sense to exclude
a profit-making corporation from attracting tourism then. There's no
sense in that.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I just wanted to make sure we
created that in such a way we were the first to be paid back so they
don't get themselves a 50,000 --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: No, first dollar.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: First-dollar payback. And,
again, the TDC may come back to us. Most of the people who are --
many -- most of the people who sat on the original TDC that drew up
the guidelines still sit on that council, and I'm sure that if they
strongly disagree, they'll come back and give us their reasons. I
feel very comfortable we'll hear the reasons.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Right after they call Steve.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So does that sum up our
discussions on -- on category C of the Tourist Development Council?
And I think --
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Hopefully it does.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: -- we can get them -- we can get
them direction of what it is we want them to do with suggestions and
move from there.
COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Motion to adjourn.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Wait a minute.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Not quite yet.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The other item that was on
here -- and I think I can make this go very quickly, Commissioner
Norris. Our council has a workshop or working lunch one Tuesday with
them.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think that's a good idea.
COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Gave a general direction last
year, but we've had things like the film commission come up that are
economic driven. And, again, rather than do different piecemeal
things, we ought to sit down and have some comprehensive idea where
we're headed.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I agree with that. And I'll just
tell you, I met with the chairman recently who gave me a time line and
indicated the desire to get to talk to us more, so I think that's a
great idea.
My other one just is this -- does this fall in the
category of folklore, or is it, in fact, something the board wants for
all these people to be in these rooms every fifth Tuesday? I mean,
George Archibald was back in his office. I wish everyone was working
rather than sitting here, as entertaining as I'm sure we are. You
know, this is this -- is this board policy or -- or could we let the
manager use his discretion about who needs to be here based on --
MR. DORRILL: We try to use some discretion. The board
had previously said they wanted to have this many of these people here
for workshops. For example, you won't see any of these people at your
joint meeting with the Lee and Charlotte County Commission.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's good. I wish they weren't
here. I mean, God bless you, I love you all, but I wish they weren't
here today.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Commissioner Mac'Kie, your point
is well taken, because as we look through this, we see information
technology, productivity committee, administrative code, Tourist
Development Council, so -- I have to ask why is Mr. Lorenz here. Why
is Mr. Archibald here or Mr. Ijams.
MR. IJAMS: I came with the ambulance.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Is that with or in?
MR. IJAMS: With.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: So that does become a good
question.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: I just wonder if Neil thinks that
we want them all here at all of our workshops, and I would like to let
him know that I don't.
COMHISSIONER NORRIS: I think you have.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: And I hope -- I'm one.
COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Point well taken.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: So do you guys agree?
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: I think I agree that we only need
the people here who have a relationship to the agenda that we're
discussing, and if we run astray of that, there's a telephone out
there.
MR. DORRILL: That would help because we have been using
discretion. Like I said, you will see none of these folks Thursday in
downtown Fort Myers.
CHAIRPERSON MATTHEWS: Good judgment. It probably
isn't. With that, any other questions? Comments? We're adjourned.
There being no further business for the Good of the County, the
meeting was adjourned by Order of the Chair at 11:57 a.m.
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT REPORTING
BY: Barbara A. Donovan