BCC Minutes 01/30/1996 W (w/Productivity Committee) WORKSHOP MEETING OF JANUARY 30, 1996,
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 9:05 a.m. in WORKSHOP SESSION at the
Collier County Public Library, 650 Central Avenue, Naples, Florida,
with the following members present:
CHAIRMAN: John C. Norris
Bettye J. Matthews
Timothy L. Hancock
Pamela S. Hac'Kie
ABSENT: Timothy J. Constantine
ALSO PRESENT: W. Neil Dorrill, County Manager
Mike HcNees, Acting Assistant County Manager
David Weigel, County Attorney
Tom Olliff, Public Services Administrator
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to go ahead
and start. It's a little after 9, see if we can get -- do we have a
flag in here to say the pledge to?
Do you want to give us an invocation today?
MR. OLLIFF: Sure.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We'll start with an invocation by Mr. Olliff.
MR. OLLIFF: Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. We thank
you for this time that you've given us to be able to get together as a
community to conduct the business of Collier County. We pray that you
would have your hand on this meeting, that you would bless each and
every action that's taken here this morning, pray that you'd continue
to bless us, and as you have in the past, allow our citizenry to
participate with us as we try to conduct county government and do the
things that are in the best interest for all of the people here. We
pray these things in your son's holy name. Amen.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: First item of discussion this morning
is a Collier County Citizens' Productivity Committee report. Who is
going to handle that for us? Mr. HcKenna.
MR. HcKENNA: Good morning, Commissioners. My -- for
the record my name is Jack HcKenna, and I'm here representing your
Collier County Citizens' Productivity Committee. As part of your
agenda package is our annual report. If you've had the chance to
review that, you may have noticed it's been a pretty active year
here.
This last January I had the honor of being brought on as
chairman of this committee. Throughout the year we've had a total of
26 members on our 13-member committee. I would prefer to think,
though it hasn't been confirmed, that this turnover was not the result
of the chairmanship.
Hay 30th we met with you here, and we together developed
a work plan. And today we're -- I guess this is the third workshop
that we're giving you an update on that work plan. There are several
reports that we had delivered to you. I'm sorry about the late date.
They just got passed out, I guess, yesterday morning. It was kind of
a rush at the end, kind of put this together in the middle of the
year. Due to limited membership and our turnover, we had some
challenges trying to get the ball rolling in some of the areas. But
with the dedication of -- of what we have now is a very good group of
people, an excellent group of people on our committee, I believe, and
the dedication of the county staff we were able to produce these
reports.
With that, what I'd like to do is we have really two
reports that we're presenting this morning, and I'd like the
subcommittee chairman and cochairman to speak on those reports
specifically, and they'll answer any questions that you may have. And
if you -- at the conclusion of their reports, then I'll follow up.
(Commissioner Mac'Kie entered the room.)
MR. HcKENNA: With that I'd like to introduce Mr. Victor
Tatak and Ed Ferguson to produce -- to talk to you about our HR
report.
MR. FERGUSON: Thank you. When we met with you at the
end of Hay, we looked at some three different areas that we would be
-- would look at it back with you. One of the areas was the county's
pay-for-performance plan, looking at it as a motivating factor and a
means to reward outstanding performance. There were a couple of other
things that we had planned on looking at. One of them was the eval --
evaluating the need for an updated wage and salary benefit study.
That is now being undertaken by -- by your human resource department.
At that present time that's -- that is being done. The other -- the
third thing that we had considered looking at was the human resource
recruitment efforts to determine whether there was an impact on gender
or other minority classes in -- in the recruitment process. We looked
at that very briefly and found that there was no -- that that was not
an area of need at the present time to study further.
What we did do at this point was to look with some
detail at the pay-for-performance plan. The purpose was to examine
the productivity of the process of Collier County employee performance
evaluation and make recommendations for improvements if required.
Now, we did look at some key areas of study. We wanted to determine
if the evaluation system is conducive to high employee productivity
and morale. We wanted to look at the aspect of is the process
working, is the county following the process. And more specifically,
we looked at were there factors of any perceived or real bias in the
system, was the sys -- was the system adequately rewarding those most
capable in the county government, was communication taking place up
and down the hierarchy, and was there a loss of key people in the
organizations that -- in the county organization due to brain drain.
Those were our key factors that we looked at.
We were able to look at these through a considerable
number of interviews with county personnel all across the county
system. We looked at a good deal of paper trail, a good deal of
documents that would get us into these areas of -- of study. As I
said, we came to you at the very beginning in the spring commission.
We structured our subcommittee in June. We did a kickoff with the
county manager in early August. We then did another kickoff and
planning session with human resource management in mid August. We did
our data collection towards the end of the year, and we completed our
analysis toward the end of 1995 and presented some initial findings to
the county staff and HR people just this past week.
I'm going to ask Mr. Tatak to present to you the
findings of the study at this particular point.
MR. TATAK: Thanks, Ed. I'm Victor Tatak. I work on
Ed's subcommittee for human resources, and I'd like to talk to you
this morning about what our findings were in the study. First of all,
following the same format that Ed talked about, on the first page is
it conducive to high employee productivity and morale, is the process
working, is the process followed.
The first thing that we discovered in the whole process
was the fact that performance and performance management was
disconnected from pay in the -- in the system, and it was replaced by
an across-the-board increase that was given to all employees plus a
bonus system that was put in place at the end of the year that
rewarded the -- the top people in county government. So that was the
first thing that we -- we discovered from our findings. And because
of that disconnect of pay from performance, we -- we found quite a few
problems associated with -- with doing that.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Hay I ask you a question about
that one?
MR. TATAK: Sure.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: So the bonus program doesn't
connect to pay performance, but that's what it was intended to do,
even though there was that flat raise.
MR. TATAK: The bonus program -- the bonus program was
designed to take a look at the top performers. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Uh-huh.
MR. TATAK: However, as you will see as I go down
through the findings, that the bonus part in comparison to the
across-the-board increase was very, very small. In some cases like
there was $750 increase on a base of somebody making quite a bit of
money results in probably less than 1 percent in some cases, not in
all cases, but in some cases. So if you compare that against
across-the-board increase of three and a half percent, you can see
that the bonus portion for the top performers is fairly small in
comparison to the across-the-board increase.
So then you have to take a look at other factors that we
discovered such as no pay incentive, okay, for people to excel;
everyone receives across-the-board increase regardless of
performance. That was one problem that we discovered.
The year-end performance bonus does not help incentive
to excel, in some cases led to morale problems, perhaps because of the
way that was instigated last year. It became a kind of a disincentive
in some instances, because people that received some of these
incentive pays took a look at it as being singled out and in
comparison to some other people and they felt should have received the
incentive pay.
For instance, some people -- a lot of people in the
county are now working on teams, and that's good. But sometimes a
single person on the team received this incentive bonus, and the
person that received it felt that they should get some of that
incentive money to the rest of the team. So there was -- there was
some instances where it was kind of a disincentive.
The present process is still being followed, but used
only as a communication vehicle between the supervisors and
employees. Process is manual and prone to error. There's a lot of
paperwork that goes through this system. We saw stacks of paper in
the human resource department -- and I have to give a lot of credit to
the human resource department, because I really didn't discover, and I
don't think the rest of my group discovered any -- any glaring errors
with all the process and all the paperwork that's shuffled back and
forth with these appraisals that come in. And the county does about
eighteen hundred of these a year. So that's a lot of paperwork, and
the system is mostly manual all the way through from the writing of
the performance plan all the way down through recording what the
performance was.
Because of disconnecting pay from performance, both
supervisors and employees are oftentimes viewing the process as more
paperwork and a waste of time and productivity. Several instances we
-- we heard from several supervisors that the present system just
really leads to a lot of wasted time. And even though it's -- it's --
it's used as a communication vehicle, we felt was very, very valuable
in a lot of the areas.
Okay. Any perceived or real bias in the system, the
only thing that we saw, and I thought it was a minor problem, while
high performance distribution skewed toward the higher county
positions -- and what I mean by that is it seems like the -- the
higher-level people and employees in the county seemed to have the
highest appraisals versus the -- versus some of the lower-level jobs
in the county. And there were several factors that we felt that
contributed to that.
For instance, in some of the more complicated complex
jobs, you have a tendency to write a performance plan that's a little
bit more subjective than objective. And sometimes the measurements
for the higher-level jobs we discovered were a little bit generalized
just because of the nature of the job. So that kind of resulted in --
in some appraisal skews as being towards the top end of the scale with
the higher-level people in the county.
(Commissioner Matthews entered the room.)
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'm not a human resources person,
but isn't that a bit normal in a large organization? Is that not
normal? You would have more experience with that than me.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Particularly where the county
manager is hopefully promoting his most capable people into those
positions. That was my question, too.
MR. TATAK: Yeah. However, measurements are
measurements, and -- and if you meet the measurements or exceed the
measurements, you should have a higher appraisal or superior appraisal
regardless of the level. But we found -- we found if you look at the
appraisal skew and -- and across the county, you'll see that the --
that the -- that the lower-level jobs definitely have a -- a lot --
much lower appraisal skew in the system.
Adequately rewarding the most capable personnel, this is
the -- this is the area that we had the most -- that we felt was the
most troublesome just because we removed the pay-for-performance
incentive, and we felt that that discouraged the most capable to
increase performance and that there was very little incentive for the
lesser performers to improve. If you're going to get a three and a
half percent regardless of your performance, there's not much -- not
much reason to -- to increase.
Although we -- we looked at many, many appraisals, and
we believe that there's an enormous amount of work being driven
through the departments. And we saw a lot of people that are very,
very busy with high work loads going on in the county accomplishing
much. So I'd have to give credit to all the people in the county
there. I just was -- was taken back that we don't -- we don't give
them some kind of incentive for that hard work and -- and
accomplishments.
Communication up and down the hierarchy, this is a --
this is a very good bright spot in the county. Present system is
doing a great job of maintaining communications between superior and
employee. The only thing we noticed was some lack of higher
management review and feedback.
When the appraisals go to the second -- second-level
manager or superior or supervisor, we notice that sometimes this
feedback and review of the appraisal doesn't get back to the employee
or the -- or the first-line supervisors. And we -- we didn't feel
that this was a big problem, and it's not prevalent throughout the
system, but we felt that a better job could be done if the middle
managers play a very, very active part in this process.
The last area, loss of key personnel, brain drain as a
result of this process, we didn't see the process as contributing to
any great brain drain in the process, no loss of key people because of
employee performance process. However, we did see a lack of county
opportunities and knowledge for most employees, career paths and
development plans for employees lacking.
We talked to a number of people where they weren't sure
where they could -- they could advance in the county and go further
and what their career opportunities were in the county. They were a
little bit unsure about dual career paths, for instance, if they want
to go up the technical ladder versus going up the management ladder.
And so we felt in our recommendations here we'll -- we'll talk about
some of the things we feel you could do to -- to improve that.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: I'd like to briefly go back to
one point you made earlier regarding the across-the-board increase.
Did employees that received less than satisfactory marks on their
annual reviews still get that 2.7 percent increase? Do we know that?
MR. TATAK: I don't think -- I don't think they did.
I'm not sure of that.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: So even if they got less than
satisfactory marks, they still got the annual adjustment? MS. CACCHIONE: Yes.
MR. TATAK: I think that went across to everybody.
You're right.
MR. TATAK: Okay, recommendations. We would like to
suggest that we reinstate the merit pay system and pay for performance
in the county.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And you're going to integrate
that with a whole budget discussion; right? MR. TATAK: Yes.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Because I'm anxious to see that.
I want to do that, but talk to us about that in budget.
MR. TATAK: The second statement will maybe partially
answer your questions there, and that is use present money from
across-the-board increases and the bonus plan to design a merit pay
structure. In other words, I'm not asking for any more money. All
we're saying is take the present money that's in the across-the-board
increase and put it into a merit pay structure. In other words, the
more capable people, give them more money or a greater percentage of
that money, shorter amount of time, and the lesser performers, less
percentage, greater amount of time, maybe in some instances nothing.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Do you have any suggestion as to
what that merit pay program should look like? We've tried that
before, and it hasn't really been a success because there's been some
arbitrariness in it.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Commissioner Matthews, I think
that's been the problem, is we've tried to structure it so that if --
if employee A meets criteria B, C, and D, they get this much. And the
truth is no one knows how those employees were performing better than
their immediate supervisor.
COMHISSIONER MATTHEWS: Well, that's why I was just
asking him if he had some idea of what that -- what that merit pay
structure might look like so we know what to look for in putting it
together.
MR. TATAK: I can tell you that -- I can tell you that
I'm very familiar with the industry pay-for-performance structures
with timings and percentages based on an annual budget, based on
projected salaries and performance plans at the beginning of the
year. So I'm -- I'm very familiar with them coming from -- from a
industry that -- that use those very, very heavily. So -- and I
promised that I would work with the human resource department, you
know, to take a look at some of these structures. There's also some
automated structures on the market today that are -- that are
marvelous that -- that tie right back to the performance-pay system
and being able to put together a budget based on the -- you know, the
total annual agreed upon pay-for-performance money.
COHHISSIONER MATTHEWS: I -- I just also wondered; it's
likely that our -- a merit pay or pay-for-performance structure for
our government, if it would be the same across the board, because we
have some people who are in quite or quite soft services, other people
who are in harder services, and it's easier to measure the work of
Some '-
MR. TATAK: The systems that I have seen are based on
level and two pay structures based on nonexempt and exempt people, so
two structures. And -- and it's level based from the highest level
that you have in the county all the way down to the lowest level. But
in those systems I've seen that most of them pare the levels down to a
-- to a certain amount. If you have a lot of levels, it's -- it's
very difficult to put together a pay structure obviously because, you
know, you've got a lot of percentages and a lot of timing in this --
in this merit pay structure. And so if you narrow it down to, let's
say, ten levels of exempts and maybe ten levels of nonexempts or less,
then it's pretty easy to manage and to take a look at. And I've seen
systems that you can do everything -- or the managers can do
everything on the computer and -- and take a look at those based on
anniversaries or anything else that you want to do with their timing
and increases. So it's there, and I know that the county is already
looking at, I think, doing some benchmarking with some other counties
that have a very good system. And I think that that should be
explored and take a look at it. It's going to take a while to put
this back in place, though, again. I mean, we've been off of it for
over two years, and it's not going to be easy. You can't do it
overnight.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: How about by next budget cycle?
MR. TATAK: Perhaps.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Good, Neil. Let the record
reflect Neil is shaking his head not possible.
MR. DORRILL: He said it would take a long time. And I
don't know if he understood your question. The next budget cycle --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Is now.
MR. DORRILL: -- begins in a month.
MR. TATAK: Oh, no. I was thinking of budget cycle in a
-- in a -- you know, doing salary projections at the beginning of the
year. I was thinking of next year.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay.
MR. TATAK: I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Next cycle.
MR. TATAK: I was thinking a year from now.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay.
MR. TATAK: And you were thinking a month from now, and
there's no way. There's no way this system could be put in place in a
month.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay.
MR. TATAK: Hold managers to a yearly projected salary
budget. This would be a consequence of this whole system. It would
come out so that when a -- when a manager takes a look at his own
budget and his own salary projections, and that manager would be held
to those -- those projections and those salary increases, okay.
That's the only way you can manage the thing. Otherwise you get Santa
Clauses and all kinds of other things that go on, also have to manage
appraisal skew and pay closely.
Okay. Train managers on how to write objective
performance plans and give effective employee evaluations and senior
managers manage appraisal skew with yearly salary plans. Train senior
managers on how to manage appraisal skew and execute within the yearly
salary plan. Any questions regarding those?
Managers be rated on how well they execute the process.
We found that the present system doesn't really take a look at the
manager's performance plan on how well he manages performance. And we
feel that that should be a criteria in every manager's performance
plan.
Set up training modules on career planning and
opportunities in Collier County government. We're suggesting that the
human resource set up a training module, and everybody ought to be
trained on what are the opportunities in Collier County, what are
other places that you can -- that you can get to either in management
or nonmanagement positions, and those should be opportunities that are
across -- across all functions, not just in each individual function.
Automate the entire performance process with the intent
to eliminate paperwork and decrease the manager's time to perform the
process. We would envision -- there are systems that I know of. When
I left industry two years ago, we were using automated systems on the
terminal where you could do the performance plan, you could do the
performance appraisal, eliminated virtually all the -- all the
paperwork. And this would have to require human resources to work
very closely with the information processing department, the
technology department.
Set up a management information system with timely
reports and accurate data. With -- with -- without these reports and
the management data, this whole system will fail. You -- you can't do
much unless you have the data to work with. The managers need this
data in order to manage this thing, talking about budgets, talking
about costs, yearly salary plans and salary costs in budgets per
month, how many appraisals are due, how many increases have the
manager given out so far during the year, is he out of money already,
or is there more money in his budget. All this kind of stuff is
required. And it's going to take time to generate these reports and
put this system in place. But there are systems out there that are
available, and I think we should explore those.
That's the last of the presentation. I would like to
give a lot of credit to the human resource department for this report
and all of county government. Everybody was very, very candid with
us. We had complete cooperation.
And it seemed like every time we went down to human
resource department and asked for a different report twisted in a
different way, they stopped what they were doing and -- and generated
that report. Some of those reports took two or three weeks to -- to
generate just because it is a manual system. And some of the
appraisals, skew data and so forth that we asked for, took a long time
to generate. And I know that they're very busy down there, because I
talked with them many times. But I'd like to thank Jennifer for her
help, in particular one of her employees, Jerre Salmon, who did an
outstanding job for us. Without their help we wouldn't have been able
to -- to generate this report.
Entertain some questions?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Mine may be for the managers.
Where does this report go from here, and how does it get integrated
into the process? Is there a response, a debate to make decisions --
policy decisions now? Where does it go from here?
MR. OCHS: Yes. We have an item in your annual action
agenda for this fiscal year. I think it's in the summer months, maybe
June or July, that we have an action item agenda that will have us
developing some revisions to our performance appraisal system. We
obviously plan to work very closely between now and the time that that
report is due to the manager to integrate as many of these
recommendations as we can. We've had assurances from the members of
the HR subcommittee to work with us along the way. Obviously as the
manager mentioned, some of these recommendations are very much
different than our current process, and they're going to take some
time in terms of research and development and implementation, but our
report in the summer will lay out recommendations along with a
proposed implementation schedule and a -- and a proposed budget in
terms of technology and other resources that we would need to -- to
roll the new program out. So that's our timing at this point.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Will the committee continue to be
involved once we get that report? Can we get you -- I mean, when have
we burned you out? Will you look at it and tell us how you -- what it
-- how effective a response you think that is and what kind of
comments we could get from you, because otherwise those of us who are
ignorant in the field won't be able to -- to judge adequately.
MR. HcKENNA: It is our intent to stay involved with
following up with these reports as well as looking at some of the
previous reports that were produced by the productivity committee to
look into the implementation of the recommendations.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: So -- so the process will be that
as we get copies of that information, you'll also share it with the
productivity committee?
MR. OCHS: Well, actually I think they'll see it before
the board.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Before we do?
MR. OCHS: Yeah. We plan to work with them all the way
through the summer and through the spring here to work kind of
cooperatively, because several of these items that they have
recommended we've also recognized internally. And Jennifer and her
staff have already been underway with some work in some of these
areas, and they've shared their work to date with the subcommittee,
and they in turn have helped us tweak some of those particular
changes. So I think we're able to work very cooperatively and will
continue to do that through the next several months.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I -- I wonder if it would be in
order since Mr. Ochs indicates that they'll start to develop
implementation plans as the year goes on, that our August workshop --
I think that's the next one that's -- that's in your agenda yet, Mr.
Dotrill, that we get some idea of the structure that -- that you're
looking for so that we're all well aware of how -- how it's coming
together.
MR. OCHS: I think that would work out very well from a
timing standpoint for staff as well.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: That would be what; the fourth
-- fourth Tuesday?
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Fifth.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Fifth we usually take off.
MR. OCHS: Okay.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I think the fourth it's been for
the last couple of years.
MR. OCHS: That would be fine.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: And that would also help us just
as we move into finalizing the budget.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Well, whether it's a workshop or
regular meeting, I think we'll spend a lot less time on presentation
as we did today and more on making firm policy decisions regarding
direction.
A lot of what's presented obviously we need to hear from
the county manager's side on implementation, how does it dovetail with
what we are doing and how can it get us where we want to go. But
there are some basic policy or some basic, I guess, framework of
policy that I would like to at least put on the table. I saw Mr.
HcNees mentioning as I was asking about employees who have less than
satisfactory marks receiving cost of living, and I think I saw Mike
say, well, we don't -- we don't keep them if they have less than
satisfactory marks.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: They get two, and then they're
gone is what Mike said.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Right, those occur six months
apart.
MR. OCHS: No. If you have a below-standard evaluation,
there's a required 90-day follow-up evaluation -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay.
MR. OCHS: -- at which time a decision is made.
MR. TATAK: Three month, it's a three-month improvement
plan.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. I obviously have a
concern. If I'm a decent employee and a man or woman in the next
cubicle is getting unsatisfactory every other time and avoiding
getting canned, that cost-of-living increase that everyone gets is a
slap in the face if someone is getting less than satisfactory marks is
allowed to get it also. So I would really like to -- to have that
answered, because I think it takes away from those who are doing their
job but maybe not -- maybe not pushing that extra effort, you know,
someone who may not be achieving even that minimum level of service is
getting the same thing. So I would like to see a little, I guess,
tighter squeeze on -- on linking it to performance evaluation,
particularly in the area of unsatisfactory remarks.
The second thing is that I noticed this year we had --
Commissioner Matthews as chairman this past year said that we have a
number -- you know, X number of employees that may qualify for a merit
raise or merit bonus and how do we want to do that and so forth. And
countywide it was 750, is it, Neil?
MR. DORRILL: People?
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: No, $750. It's a set amount,
regardless, whether you're stellar -- and the point you brought up is
good, and that is if you're making $50,000 a year, 750 bucks isn't a
very big chunk. But if you're making $20,000 a year, it does make a
big difference.
MR. TATAK: However, it's not added to your base
salary. Okay.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Right. I know.
MR. TATAK: That was one of the biggest gripes I heard
from the employees.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: It doesn't roll over year after
year.
MR. TATAK: Hey, I'm busting my buns and you're giving
me a 1 percent increase, and the person over there that shows up once
in awhile, okay, gets three and a half. I'm being facetious here, but
you can see the comedy here.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Right. And that's where I'm
getting to. Possibly I -- I -- if you get satisfactory marks, I think
you should get some cost of living so you're not going backwards. I
mean, if you're doing your job, we certainly don't want you going
backwards.
MR. TATAK: We're not suggesting that --
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I know. I know. Let me finish
here. Let me finish here.
So the cost of living for satisfactory marks makes a lot
of sense. But where it comes to the merit pay, maybe it needs to be
pooled by department, and the merit pay alone is decided in a range.
Everyone gets cost of living if you get satisfactory marks or whatever
the board decides on that budget year, but the merit pay is pooled.
Instead of saying it's X amount for every employee that qualifies
which, you know, is -- is rather arbitrary, that you have a little
more flexibility in assigning that merit bonus and the amount of it.
MR. DORRILL: I think we did something akin to that this
year. I think you could go up to a thousand dollars.
MR. OCHS: No. What you had was you could go up to
$1,500 maximum, and every manager was given a bonus budget and limited
to 30 percent of -- of eligible employees in their department could
receive the bonus. The bonus could range anywhere from a dollar to
fifteen hundred dollars depending upon the manager's judgment and the
performance of the individual.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: In practicality did it work that
way, because what we're hearing is that they were fairly even, the
bonuses that were given were fairly even throughout the departments.
And understand this wasn't a countywide survey, but in practicality
did it work that way, or did --
MR. OCHS: Well, I think it varied depending upon the
approach of the -- of the individual manager. And, quite frankly, we
tried to build some flexibility in there so that managers could
administer the plan in a way that they felt was most effective for
their people. Some managers gave more money to the higher performers
and less to the -- remember now, we're only talking about the top 30
percent in any given department that would even qualify for a bonus to
begin with. But of that top 30 percent, you know, one person may get
fifteen hundred; another person may get five hundred. Another manager
may have decided to give all 30 percent if they -- if they, in fact,
awarded the 30 percent the same amount of money. It depended on
individual managers.
MR. HcNEES: I think you're talking about two different
things. What the productivity committee is saying was last year's
system where it was a lump sum. What Leo is talking about is the way
it would happen this year.
MR. TATAK: There were changes made this year.
MR. OCHS: Yeah, based on a lot of the feedback that the
subcommittee heard in their interviews with department managers and
employees. So we've tried to react to some of what you're saying.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. That helps clarify,
because I'm reading one thing and hearing another.
MR. OCHS: But there's still more refinements to be
made.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry. I
didn't mean to cut you off. I just wanted to get through that.
MR. TATAK: That's fine.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Is that all for that report then?
MR. HcKENNA: Are there any more questions?
MR. DORRILL: I have one. Is your name Tatak?
MR. TATAK: Yes, Tatak.
MR. DORRILL: You used two terms that were not familiar
to me, one that you referred to as an appraisal skew. MR. TATAK: Yes.
MR. DORRILL: Would you elaborate on that?
MR. TATAK: Okay. Appraisal skew refers to you take
your total population, see who the superiors are, who the excellents
are, who the good performers are. And if you see a skew of too many
superiors or it's skewed towards the high end of the performance
range, then you would call that a high appraisal skew.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Like I tend to give really high
marks, and so people know when they're seeing what my evaluations are
is that I'm a high grader. I give high grades. And some people might
be low graders. It's sort of factoring that in?
MR. TATAK: That's it. That's exactly it.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: That's exactly it.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That whole Santa Claus thing
applies to me. I have to watch that.
MR. TATAK: And you have to manage that. Managers have
to manage appraisal skew. And if you see a high appraisal skew with a
lot of people with superior performance, then you immediately go down
and you say; are you meeting all your schedules, are you meeting all
your cost objectives, are you beating all your deadlines, are you --
are you doing all that. And if the answer comes back and it says no,
not really, I missed a few here and there and so forth, then you have
to say to yourself, well, tell me again how you met and exceeded all
of those measurements.
Managing appraisal skew is -- is a difficult process.
But it can be done, and it's done every day in industry. So you have
to write very objective performance plans with a lot of measurements
and -- and an understanding of those measurements with the employees
and the -- you know, the expectations.
MR. FERGUSON: I'd like to make one comment there. If
you look at our recommendations, you will find that many of them refer
to the idea of training. And I think this is going to be a real
crucial aspect for all of your managers if we move towards a merit pay
system.
Your managers are going to need a good deal of training
in this area. They're going to need a lot of training in how to write
performance plans, how to track performance plans, how to manage
skew. All of those things are important, and it's -- it's the key to
having this thing work. It won't work unless your managers are very
well trained in this area.
MR. DORRILL: One other quick question and then an
observation. When you said that managers need to be held in advance
to salary projections -- MR. TATAK: Budget.
MR. DORRILL: Salary projection budgets?
MR. TATAK: Right.
MR. DORRILL: Is that more easily said to be assigning
or '-
MR. TATAK: Yes.
MR. DORRILL: -- developing quotas for attainable
provisions in the --
MR. TATAK: What I meant -- what I meant was that we
would envision the total salary broken down at the functional level,
at the second level, at the department level, and that manager would
be responsible for that salary budget. Now, if that manager decides
to give a little bit more money to his higher performers in the
department, then what's in his projected -- projected budget, he's got
to take it from somewhere else, okay. He's got to take it from
somewhere else.
MR. DORRILL: That's what I thought you said because --
MR. TATAK: And that can be managed also at the second
level and at your level.
MR. DORRILL: It can be managed. My initial observation
is -- you said that in the context of your proposal not costing the
county commission any more money. MR. TATAK: Right.
MR. DORRILL: And so if you take an assignment and a
projection of salary cost in advance of the annual performance
appraisals being done, what that means to me is that half of the
current work force will receive less real dollars than they did in the
current year, because if you're going to limit the amount of money to
three and a half percent -- MR. TATAK: Yes.
MR. DORRILL: -- can you at least comment on that in
terms of --
MR. TATAK: Yeah.
MR. DORRILL: If I give half of all the people that work
for the board of county commissioners less money than they got this
year, which was three and a half percent by and large, can you comment
as to what you believe the morale implications of that are going to
be?
MR. TATAK: At the top of the range in the salary
structure would be the superior performers, okay. They may get 5
percent raise, okay, out of the total budget, and you get it in six
months, six months after their anniversary date or since their last
appraisal. There's many ways of setting that up, but I'm just saying
on the timing and the percentage of the raise, maybe 5 percent.
At the other end of the spectrum someone may only get
one-half percent, okay. They may have to wait maybe a year or maybe
over a year for their raise. All I'm saying is three and a half
percent should not be treated as an entitlement.
MR. DORRILL: I don't disagree with you, but you didn't
answer my question. MR. TATAK: Okay.
MR. DORRILL: What, in your opinion, are going to be the
morale implications if literally 500 people who work for the board of
county commissioners receive less money than they did in the prior
year?
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Because of not getting a
cost-of-living increase or because if there is a max -- if there is,
in fact, a net zero result to this change.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: And let's add to that there
probably was 350 had satisfactory remarks in their last review. I
don't know the number, but I'm --
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Mr. Dorrill's point is simply that
everybody that does a satisfactory job receives at least a
cost-of-living adjustment. If that's 90 percent of the work force,
which it should be, then 90 percent of the work force should get at
least a cost-of-living adjustment, or else they're going backwards.
But that -- that doesn't -- doesn't stop us from having a merit-pay
increase on -- on the top of the bonus.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: But it can't be budget neutral.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: That's probably true.
MS. HAC'KIE: Then we need to just face that.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: That's probably true. If you were an
employee that you -- and you were doing a satisfactory job and you got
less than the cost of living, you're not going to be happy. That's
exactly what Mr. Dotrill is saying.
MR. DORRILL: My concern being that if -- if -- if less
than half of the people work here at less of an hourly wage than they
did in the preceding year --
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Just forget it.
MR. DORRILL: And I understand the entire premise of
cost of living and -- and COLAs and the implications for, you know,
federal entitlements as it relates to social security. But that
individual came to work for us last year and he is a maintenance
worker at road and bridge and he's being paid $6 an hour and then he
only gets that theoretical one and a half percent, that individual's
buying power a year later is going to be down somewhere around 5.75 an
hour, and I think the morale and turnover, probably we can't even
begin to think about that.
I think pay for performance is great. I just think on
the whole it's going to cost you more than three and a half percent of
gross payroll because you need to be able to keep, especially within
what we do and the difficulties that we have as a service industry, I
think -- I think we need to talk in terms of two programs. One is
trying to maintain constant buying power, especially in this town for
the people that work for the citizens. And then we can have a merit
program. I think they're difficult to do.
One last question, you said that your background is
within industry. Is it service, manufacturing, or -- MR. TATAK: Both.
MR. DORRILL: Okay. I think one of the things that we
need to do is look for some good models because it is difficult for me
to take a -- an industry standard that applies in the private sector
and try and hammer that square peg in -- into a governmental unit. MR. TATAK: Sure.
MR. DORRILL: And, frankly, I don't know that I have
ever seen what I thought was an outstanding governmental performance
appraisal system. But to the extent that you or other members of the
subcommittee have personal knowledge of that, that's an additional
area where I think that you can help us be a little more refined next
year.
I think the -- the overall quality of this report is as
good as any as I have ever seen in the eight years I've been your
county manager. It's a fine piece of work.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: And some of what Mr. Tatak said
-- I can recall there was no such thing as cost of living in private
sector, and if you got a satisfactory appraisal and you got 2 percent
that year, you probably were not doing as good a job -- you know, I
can just remember getting less than what would be cost of living in
private sector -- let me rephrase that. I didn't remember getting
any, but who was around then?
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I remember not getting a raise
unless you were willing to go in and sit across a desk and ask for
it.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: During the lean years some of us
never got raises. So, you know, unfortunately when you take that
private sector and try and, as Mr. Dotrill said, put it into this
situation, it may not fit in all respects but --
MR. TATAK: If we can do that and then maintain the --
the differential -- I like to talk about differential between the
superior performers or your best performers and the other people and
yet provide that incentive for people to do better to work themselves
up to superior performance, then you've got it without breaking the
budget.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I need one other bit of
information, and I don't -- maybe from both of you. And that it is
"square-peg-round-hole" analogy, that in -- in private industry I
know that if I pay my people more, I get more out of them in service.
I mean, at my law firm they do, and I absolutely get more out of
them. And I can translate -- I can see on a piece of paper where a
dollar that I spend makes me more dollars at the end of the year. Why
isn't that the same in government?
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: How big is your office? How many
employees?
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Five people.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. When you start getting
into a hundred, two hundred, nine hundred employees, the management
structure -- you know, you're talking a lot of different tiers of
management within that. And what you do with those five employees you
then have to expect each one of those managers to do with their five
employees --
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: I understand that.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: -- and there's going to be gaps
in that somewhere.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm just asking, the basic
concept of square peg, round hole, is that premise true? Is the
premise that private industry compared -- standards compared to
government is really square peg, round hole and doesn't apply?
MR. DORRILL: I don't know. I'll ask Lou to comment,
because he's the professional here. I know that we don't have that
profit incentive, and I would think to carry your example -- it's a
good one -- a step further, before you pay them probably the more
billable hours that the firm generates over the course of a year or
two. We don't have the ability to go into overdrive and increase our
-- our revenues because of our ad valorem taxes and fees and things
like that. So it's -- it's not directly related, but I'd ask Leo.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: We try not to bill our clients
more.
MR. OCHS: We could -- we could literally spend hours if
you all wanted to be bored on the concepts -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Reader's Digest.
MR. OCHS: -- of pay as a motivator or an incentive.
And at a certain point it's an incentive. After that there's other
things that incent people beyond straight compensation, believe it or
not. And, again, our objective, I think, is to try to have the most
professional highly qualified work force that we can for the board and
retain those people, because part of the hidden cost of turnover is
the investment that we have in people in terms of training and the
lost productivity once they leave. So we want to do what we need to
do in our compensation and appraisal system to retain those good
employees, and I think that's exactly what the subcommittee is
pointing out. We need to find ways to do that.
There's a million different ways to skin the cat. One
of the problems we've had historically is our original
pay-for-performance system was based on an individual sitting down
with a supervisor working out an action plan and then being assessed
against that action plan. Since that time we've changed it to
something we call forced ranking, which is what happens in the private
sector much more commonly. We give you a budget, and you make the
people fit the budget dollars available, not the other way around. So
we're -- we're working on basically modifying our approach from --
based on individual objectives to ranking, not only against the
objectives, but then being ranked against the other people in your
department based on the salary budget you have and the distribution
curve that's imposed on the system.
So it's -- it's a significant change, and I think that's
what Neil is talking about. It's very different, much more private
sector in its approach, so to speak, than traditional government pay
for performance or what's been called pay for performance in the
public sector. So it's -- it's -- it's not a bad idea. It's just
going to take some time to make that kind of a -- of a transition if
the board really wants to go that way.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Thank you very much.
MR. McKENNA: I'd like to say that I had the honor of
working with Mr. Ferguson and Mr. Tatak as a subcommittee member, and
it was quite a learning experience for me. There was certainly a lot
of expertise there. I appreciate it, appreciate all their time and
effort that went into the production of this report.
One of the related work items that we were asked to look
at was a comparison study to consider the implementation of a previous
productivity committee report. What we did here was to get together
with your staff to make this comparison, and your staff volunteered to
help us by going through this checklist and making that comparison.
As an attachment to the reports that hopefully you've
all received by now was a memorandum from Jennifer Edwards responding
to the previous report for paid and unpaid leaves of absence. I -- at
this time I -- I was not intending to go through point by point on
that comparison. I think we all have other things we can be doing.
I'd be happy to address any specific questions you may have of me
there. I'm sure Jennifer may be willing to address any specific
questions you may have of her.
Let me just say that it appears that most all of the
recommendations have either been incorporated already into county
policies or they're being considered in the near future in the new
year's leave policy or we're looking for information that's going to
come out of the human resource information system which is being put
into place.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Mr. McKenna -- I believe it was my
understanding, Mr. Dorrill, that we're going to see something at the
board level here very shortly on this? MR. DORRILL: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: When will that be?
MR. DORRILL: I think it's the 6th or the 13th, I
believe.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: So we'll be discussing this more in
depth that day.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: And I appreciate that -- who
chaired your subcommittee in taking a look at this? MR. McKENNA: Mr. Ed Ferguson.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. I appreciate you kind of
helping, you know, with this process. The reason I asked for this is
I wanted to make sure -- is there anything in the original report that
stands out glaringly as not being addressed or not being addressed
sufficiently, in your opinion? MR. McKENNA: No.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: That was the primary reason. I
wanted to make sure that no elements of that report slipped through
the cracks, and it sounds like it hasn't. So with that I thank you.
And if you would, you know, kind of monitor what goes on on the 6th
and the 13th, if anything, in that process should draw a flag, you
know, if you would at least notify me, I'm sure the rest of the board
would like to hear from you, that would be appreciated. MR. McKENNA: I certainly will do that.
The next item on our agenda is the West Palm Mini-Grace
Committee report. This report was presented to you back in August, so
we really don't have much else to report there. There is a draft
ordinance as the result of that study which allows the -- a member of
the county commission to become a member of our committee, and so that
should be coming before you sometime in the near future I would
imagine.
With that, the next item we have is we were asked to
look at budget systems in the county. And Mr. David Craig is going to
make this presentation for us.
MR. CRAIG: Thank you, Jack. For the record, Dave
Craig. Commissioners, Mr. Dotrill, good morning, ladies and
gentlemen. The -- I trust you have received this report. Now, I must
tell you that we hurried this through to get something to present to
this meeting. It's certainly not the final work of art which we hope
it would be. We wanted to get these matters to you in the hope that
you would consider some of these recommendations in the next budget
cycle which will be coming up very shortly. I'm not going to read the
report to you. I'm not going to give you an eye test. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you.
MR. CRAIG: I would like to just review very briefly the
recommendations, and then I would like to tell you what we think we
need to study in the future. And you may add to this list or
prioritize it at your discretion. The recommendations of the
committee -- and I must say that we got a late start on this, which is
one of our problems. The -- the real expert in the budgetary cycle
did not appear among us. We are out of other branches of life, but we
would like to review what we found. And we are limiting in this
process -- I want to congratulate Mr. Smykowski and his staff and
particularly Mr. Ed Finn, who is with us today, because they have been
a tremendous help in getting us the facts and getting us indoctrinated
in how this process works.
The recommendations specifically, number one, we found
that the -- it's a very complicated process, takes an extended period
of time. We'd like to see it started later and significantly
accelerated. Unfortunately, we haven't got the magic to suggest how
that can be done just yet except for one recommendation which is
number two. We think that the second budget review, the line-item
review, appears to be redundant, and we would like to see that
combined with a program review which we think is very, very valuable.
We think that program review is where the decisions are being made and
-- and you could eliminate the second review.
Public input, public input at the moment is not
permitted at the workshops at which you consider the budget. We think
it should be. And if you find that you can do that, we would suggest
that that input be made before you make your decisions on the program
review.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: For the record I like both of
those. That second review was redundant and a waste of time, and I
didn't get to hear from the public soon enough to factor anything in.
MR. CRAIG: Our -- our fourth recommendation is that the
details of the mandatory and essential categorization of the items be
documented. We didn't see that anyplace. We -- we think that if it's
truly mandatory, somebody should give us a citation as to where it's
mandated. And certainly if it's essential, somebody should write out
the justification as to why it's essential. Just a little bit of
formality, but we think it's important.
The fifth recommendation is one that's pointed toward
the board. We believe that this is one of the most important
functions you have. And if you'll notice in attachment D, which is
the comments by some of the department heads, that you'll -- you'll
find that -- that the board has not been treating this as a very
totally absorbing and important job for all of you. We suggest
specifically that all of the commissioners attend all of the workshops
full time.
The sixth recommendation concerns a thing that came out
of the Mini-Grace Commission report, and it's another format. It's a
different format for presenting capital budgets. And I would assume
that the county manager and his staff will have some comments about
that. We just think it's important to show the whole -- whole
program. I'll say if it's a -- it's a five-year project, you should
see the current year's funding, what you did last year or the
accumulated total through last year and how much more there is to go,
what the job will cost at completion, and any implications for
operating budget from then on.
Now, those are the six recommendations so far. There's
more to come. We may restate some of these in the final report. As I
say, this should be considered to be a preliminary report only.
We have identified study areas that we think are
important, and the first one is ways to accelerate the budget cycle.
Second one is consideration of a possible multi-year budget cycle for
operating departments. If things are mandatory and essential,
shouldn't be much argument about that. Then maybe we can put those on
a two- or a three-year budget cycle.
Better format for presentation of the budget decision
package, that would require considerable study, but we think that
would be an important input to the commission and to the public.
We have not yet looked at the Greater Naples Citizens'
Association, point nine, which is a need for the commission financial
analyst. We know that over in Palm Beach County they have an employee
of the -- of the commission itself who is a -- performed several
functions. One of them is analysis; the other is audit. We need to
look at that. We want to look at how the internal cost allocations
are done. We'd like to see if that really makes any sense to us.
We want to consider whether the existing incentivization
programs are effective. There apparently are three of these. We have
not looked at them. I remember from my days in industry where one guy
in the shop got a $53,000 bonus for a specific suggestion that saved
millions of dollars for the company, and we'd like to -- we'd like to
see that kind of thing, rewards for being smart.
We want to consider if -- if, indeed, you agree that the
program cost review is the way to go, then we want to look to see if
there's a possibility of accumulating costs by program as well as by
department and time. We would like to see any new proposed program
giving us life cycle cost data. We'd like to see the total plan, the
picture, what is going to happen, what's going to turn out. I can't
help but think of Lyndon Johnson's great society programs. We're just
now seeing how big they really are.
And the final thing we want to look at is the impact of
changes in the budget policy guidelines in the event that you do
change them during the budget preparation submission review period.
We think that's a real problem. We've had some exposure a couple of
years ago where the rules changed in the middle, and that was --
that's something you need to be sensitive to.
Now, we would ask the staff and we would ask the
commission to add to this list from time to time as you think
appropriate. We'd also like to have you prioritize these. This is a
very complicated process, and we will certainly work on whatever you
want us to work on first. And that's the total of my report.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Thank you, Mr. Craig. I'd like to
hear you say --
MR. CRAIG: I'm sorry, sir. I can't hear you.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: You mentioned one fella that saved
some millions of dollars and which were awarded heavily in Palm Beach
County, I guess it was. I've been advocating that for a long time. I
think anybody that can save us a million dollars certainly deserves a
nice reward.
MR. CRAIG: Well, we want to look at those programs.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Good. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What we have now is what; five
hundred bucks?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: It's a start.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: We're starting a new system, and I --
might be able to develop into something a little better. Mr. McKenna.
MR. McKENNA: Next item you have on your agenda is SEA,
service, efforts, and accomplishments. This is a work item. You may
recall the history. We brought to you a menu of items from which to
select, and that menu was based on our expertise that we had within
our committee.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: He's gone, isn't he?
MR. McKENNA: Well, officially he's not gone yet, but
he's not here today.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: This is Mr. -- Mr. Fink?
MR. McKENNA: Yes.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And this was kind of his idea and
his baby?
MR. McKENNA: This was his idea and his expertise. And
unfortunately, I have nothing to report on this. It's -- it is a
long-range goal for county government. It's a method of measurement
is my very basic understanding of it. But, again, it certainly is
nothing that I can speak to with any experience at all. So --
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I applaud you for not taking on
something that -- for not trying to pick up the pieces of something
that someone left behind, because all too many times -- too many
committees will generate the report just to generate the report even
though it doesn't say anything. So I thank you for at least not
taking that -- I assume Mr. Fink has been inactive?
MR. McKENNA: He's been relatively inactive --
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay.
MR. McKENNA: -- I would say.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Thank you, Mr. McKenna. Does that
then conclude your productivity committee?
MR. McKENNA: I would just like to follow up with a
couple of things very briefly. And that is to say that we'd like to
continue looking at previous studies and follow up on our current
studies. We'd like to regroup a bit. We've -- past few months we've
been trying to put this together, and I think with the change of our
membership, maybe regroup and see how we can best serve you and come
back to you perhaps to have our plate refilled again if we see empty
spots in it. We were -- we continue to be open to suggestion of
anything you'd like us to look at.
One last item. Last but certainly not least, I'd like
to thank all the county staff and special thanks to Mr. Ed Finn, who's
been working with us over the past year. He's been a great asset to
our group. I'd like to hope that now with the change in the ordinance
that allows government employees to join our committee, maybe Ed might
consider joining us. We've been enjoying working with Sheila here,
Sheila Leith, over the past two months? MS. LEITH: Right.
MR. McKENNA: Two meetings at least. And Sheila, she
also seems to exhibit all the professionalism that Ed had, and it's
been a delight working with both of them.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Okay. Thank you. And I'd like to on
behalf of the commission thank you and -- and all of the committee for
all of the work that you've done. I think this is going to be
valuable and translated into a number of ways that we can save monies
for our citizens. So we appreciate the work that you do, and I think
we owe a little round of applause.
(Applause)
MR. McKENNA: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: In addition, Mr. Chairman, one of
the recommendations that Mr. Craig made from the Mini-Grace Committee
was that on the east coast when there was a vacancy, the board of
commissioners was very involved in soliciting qualified people to sit
on that committee. I know we have at least one vacant seat due to the
resignation of Mr. Dauray. I don't know where that is in the
advertisement process.
MR. McKENNA: I have not received a formal resignation
from Mr. Dauray. I spoke to him about it.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. I read it somewhere. And
obviously if he's running for office --
MR. McKENNA: Oh, Mr. Dauray -- I'm sorry, Mr. Fink.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: No.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: He wrote us; right?
MR. McKENNA: Mr. Dauray did, yes, I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: The point being there's a vacancy
on the committee that's important to this board. And if you should
know anyone individually that would serve well on that committee,
please solicit those people to apply so we can get a highly qualified
group of individuals to help these folks with the workload they have.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: My only other comment was I -- I
was looking for Steve Hart. I wish that somebody would report that --
I served on these committees and had the frustration of turning in the
report, and it gets dusty, and nothing ever happens. How encouraging
that before we could have your final report we hear from Leo that
there are changes already in the process. We hear from -- I -- I just
heard from Mike through -- about Mike Smykowski that the presentation
of the budget is going to be different this year, that not only is it
not being ignored, but we're getting implementative -- implemented
changes even before we have final reports. I think that's great.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Implementative.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Implementative, it's a
Mississippi word.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Thank you again, Mr. McKenna.
MR. McKENNA: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Before we start our next little
section on affordable housing, why don't we take a very short
five-minute break. Be right back.
(A short break was held.)
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Let's reconvene our meeting.
MR. DORRILL: If everybody can take a seat again, I
think we're ready to start back.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Our next item on our agenda is
affordable housing for density bonus discussion. There were a couple
of people that wanted to sign up to speak on this. Traditionally at a
county commission workshop, we do not take public input. Those people
who signed up, I'm sure, were not aware of that before we started. Mr. Mihalic, if you'd like to start.
MR. MIHALIC: Good morning, Commissioners. Yes. We've
discussed this before during a regular commission meeting, but the
affordable housing density bonus is a way to lower the cost per unit
of land that affordable housing gets built on. Basically it's set up
right now to leverage large units, units with more bedrooms,
especially three-bedroom units, as well as units for lower income
people, that is, very low income receives more of a density bonus than
does low income housing. So we really have a lot of leverage for
those very low income level units of three bedrooms and above.
The density bonus allows a maximum of an additional 8
units an acre on a parcel, and the maximum density that can be on an
affordable housing project is 16 units per acre. Most of the density
bonuses are used for multifamily rental housing, and generally you
need a density of between 10 and 14 units an acre to make those
economical and affordable.
Under the way that the density bonus is structured right
now, you could have as little as 30 percent of the community
affordable, and those would be three-bedroom very low income units for
those residents of Collier County that make less than 50 percent of
the median income. And as I mentioned before, we have a wide
disparity between median income of Collier County and what the average
wages are in Collier County. The average wages are about $20,750. We
gave you some information on a settlement with -- with the state on an
issue. Well, I just got notice yesterday that the median income of
Collier County is now $48,300. It's gone up over $4,000 in the last
year.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Wouldn't it be wonderful to be
median.
MR. MIHALIC: And obviously we have a lot of additional
wealthy people moving to Collier County every year, and that's what's
driving us to be the county with the highest median income in the
State of Florida. While we used to be the highest by only a few
hundred dollars -- I haven't seen the results from around the state,
but now I think we're the highest by several thousand dollars over any
other area in the State of Florida.
I did include my letter to the Department of Community
Affairs on a settlement of an administrative hearing where they want
us to coordinate the incomes into all of our different programs, and
in our comprehensive plan we call very low income less than 50 percent
of median income. We call low income less than 80 percent of median
income. And we call moderate income less than 120 percent of median
income in our housing element of our comprehensive plan.
In this density bonus program, low income is 80 percent
or less; very low income is 50 percent or less; but moderate income in
this program is 95 percent or less of median income.
And in the impact fee waiver and deferral programs, we
have very low income is less than 50 percent; low income is 51 to 60
percent; and then moderate is 61 to 80 percent. So I'm also
recommending to you that we consider adopting the impact fee waiver
and deferral definitions within this program, and we integrate those
changes and with any other changes you'd like to make to the impact
fee -- excuse me, the density bonus ordinance program.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Thank you, Mr. Mihalic. This
presentation is in response, I believe, to the questions I had
concerning density bonus -- MR. MIHALIC: Yes.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: -- and you mentioned early in your
presentation that a project could have as little as 30 percent
affordable and still function as affordable housing. And my concern
was that the density bonus not apply throughout the project, in other
words, not -- that the developer would not be entitled to bonus for
what would be market-rate units, and that's still my concern. And I
should ask you directly the question. Does our procedures and
ordinance allow that to happen?
MR. MIHALIC: Yes, it does. Again, we have a leveraging
of the very low income units and the larger units so that a developer
could have less than a hundred percent affordable and still receive
the eight units an acre maximum density bonus, Commissioner.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Okay. That's -- that's something that
as one board member I would like to see us discontinue that, the
bonuses for affordable housing, not for market-rate units. I can't --
I can't go along with the theory that they're deserving bonus for
market-rate units if they're only putting 30 percent of the units into
affordable housing.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What would that do, Greg, to the
feasibility of the affordable housing project? Would it have an
impact -- well, what would the impact be?
MR. MIHALIC: Well, I think we have to determine what we
want affordable housing to be. The idea of having a mix of market
rate and affordable units was one of those things that was considered
an advantage early in the program when the ordinances were designed.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Excuse me. You'll have to excuse
the interruption, but I think that is a real important factor. We
don't want a hundred percent affordable -- I mean, I would prefer that
we encourage intermixing of affordable with unaffordable housing.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: At a market rate.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: No, it's unaffordable.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Well, I think in a way --
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Yes, that too.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: -- what Commissioner Norris is
addressing, that is not an impossibility. And let's say if you have a
base density of four units an acre and you request a bonus of eight
units an acre, what we're then saying, by what Commissioner Norris is
proposing, is that two-thirds of your units must be affordable. In
other words, the density bonus that you request that is in excess of
what the current growth management plan allows would be all allocated
to affordable housing. You can then have those four base units an
acre that you would have been allowed up to any way as market rate.
So you're not excluding the market rate of your base density. What
you're saying is don't -- don't come in and ask for an additional
eight units an acre of and of those eight you only end up using say
two.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Oh, because that's not what I --
that's not what I thought I was hearing you say. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: It's not?
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I thought he was saying that if
you're only going to have 30 percent affordable housing in your
project, then you can only get density bonuses for that 30 percent and
not the market rate ones.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: No, I'm saying the same thing.
What I'm saying is only request the additional density that is going
to be affordable.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Well, let's reduce it to the numbers.
Let's use your example of four units per acre with eight density bonus
units. If you have a hundred-acre project, then 30 acres of that
would be times 12, so you'd have 360 units; is that right?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Uh-huh.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Affordable.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Affordable.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: And you would have 70 units times 4
would be 280 market-rate units. Is that the way it works, Mr.
Mihalic?
MR. MIHALIC: I think, yes, if you gave eight units an
acre density bonus over four units an acre base, two-thirds of your
units would have to be affordable. You lose the leverage of the very
low income that we've talked about, and you -- you also lose the ease
with converting agricultural property to affordable housing. So I
think that will make --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Why is that? Why is that?
MR. MIHALIC: Because developers will look at the
existing PUDs that exist right now, and they will make a dollar
decision on whether it's cheaper for them to buy an existing
multifamily zoned parcel with the correct density within an existing
PUD with no restrictions at all. They could just pull a building
permit and build affordable housing on that site versus the rezoning
of agricultural property for affordable housing. So that alternative
always exists out there.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: My fundamental fear is -- and I'm
just real basic, and that's what I'm trying to get Greg to help me to
understand is we don't have enough already. In my judgment we don't
have enough.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Let me finish on this one point.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But if you take away an
incentive, we've got less.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Wait a minute. I'm not in favor of
taking away incentives, but I think we're getting the short end of
this, because if you take the 12 units an acre that we do that would
apply with your density bonus on the hundred-acre project, someone
could put in twelve hundred units, only 360 of which are affordable.
And that's not right. He doesn't deserve that.
COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Okay. It's not right they don't
deserve that. But if even that doesn't encourage affordable housing
to be developed in Collier County, I don't want to take it away. Even
that is not enough, I guess, to give us a sufficient amount of
affordable housing.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I think we need to come back to
what's actually happening in the market. Greg, according to comments
you've made up in the past, we aren't making very many mixed-use
developments. What we're ending up with is a hundred percent
affordable in most cases.
MR. HIHALIC: Even where the density bonus would allow
them to have 40 or 50 percent affordable, when they have them built,
they build 170, because they're being driven by the low income housing
tax credits as well as low impact fee fronts, which are both
incentives that we offer. And we only offer impact fee deferrals on
those affordable units.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: So in a situation where you have
been able to -- and I'll use your term of double dip. You know, if
you take that perspective away where you've been able to acquire
market-rate units, you know, through a -- an affordable housing
density bonus yet not use all that bonus for affordable housing, it's
not happening. They're turning these projects. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: It has happened.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Has it happened on any projects?
MR. HIHALIC: It happened on some ownership projects,
and I think it will happen more in the future. Again, it's being
driven by the low income housing tax credit. So I think that today
you probably could get by with that with no problem, but in the
future, especially if the tax credit program diminishes or is
eliminated, then you're going to see more and more units that are
mixed with affordable and market rate within the same project. The
only rental units that have that mix are old bond units from prior to
1986, and they really are affordable because of what we consider to be
affordable housing at that time. But some of them have 20 percent
affordable, and the rest of them are like at River Reach.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. Is that -- I was thinking
Summer Wind -- MR. HIHALIC: That's another bond, a tax exempt bond
from the mid '80s.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Greg, one of the things we've
been experiencing -- and you and I have talked about a lot in the last
year or so is -- is the -- the number of affordable housing projects
that are coming forward that are for moderate income. And with the
new median that you gave us today, a person can earn almost $60,000
and be considered moderate income.
MR. HIHALIC: Under some -- under our comprehensive plan
that's true.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: And -- and I guess you and I
have talked about the possibility of requiring mixes of low and very
low within these moderate income projects in order to meet the housing
need that we really have, and that's for those people in the very low,
really, at this point. That's $24,000 and lower.
MR. HIHALIC: Commissioner, with the new median incomes,
very low income for a family of four is about $24,500. Low income
under our impact fee waiver and deferral ordinances is $26,500. The
differences are not very great. I mean, they're really differences of
whether the people have been on their job an extra year or so. And --
and while it is difficult to encourage very low income housing, you're
dealing with mostly the same mix. The incentives aren't there.
The rental losses for a very low income unit versus a
low income unit are about $18,000 over the 15-year life of the
development of our agreement. Developers need some way to make up
that $18,000 differential. And we don't have those incentives.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I guess my concern is that if --
if $60,000 a year earnings for a family of four can qualify for
moderate housing and qualify for density bonuses and qualify for
impact fee deferrals, then if we use the 30 percent to shelter
formulas, I mean, they can put $18,000 a year to shelter, you're
talking about $1,500 a month, and that to me is -- is not affordable
housing.
MR. HIHALIC: And that's not what we do, Commissioner.
Almost all of our programs, including our home ownership programs, are
limited to 80 percent of median income. When you get above $35,000 --
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Is that family?
MR. HIHALIC: That's a family of four. We use family of
four numbers, and it goes down with smaller families and up with
higher families with more people in the family. But we don't offer
any incentives that we actually had operational above 80 percent of
median income.
And that was my letter to the state to say we're
different in Collier County. You can talk about 120 percent of median
income in other places, but that's not applicable in Collier County.
And all of our housing incentives are targeted to 80 percent or less.
And all of our rental incentives for the impact fee waiver deferral
programs are targeted to 60 percent or less of median income. So we
are helping families in all the rental side that make $26,000 or less
for a family of four.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Is there anything that we can
do, since you're our housing guru, that would encourage more very low
income, not -- not just in the eastern part of the county, but in the
western part of the county as well?
MR. HIHALIC: In talking to developers, Commissioner, we
would need to put some cash on the table. I've been careful to design
our program so they do not cost any local ad valorem tax monies and
minimize the contribution of ad valorem tax monies. I would say that
if we waived the impact fees on those very low income units, that
would be an incentive that would encourage some developers to develop
very low income housing. But if we just look at the one Immokalee
project that came before you a couple weeks ago, that would be six or
seven hundred thousand dollars of impact fees for very low income
tenants. I want you to understand the financial implications of
that.
When we defer an impact fee for longer than seven years
or actually longer than six years or we waive that fee, we then have
to come up with another funding source to contribute the impact fee
funds for those waived or deferred impact fees for longer than up to
seven years. So that requires a direct cash contribution from the
county.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: And, again, the SHIP funds are
not directed for rental units specifically.
MR. HIHALIC: In my housing assistance plan I set aside
about $225,000 for rental of very low income fee assistance, and I
talked to some of you about contributing more to make that happen.
But as you can see from just one project, if that number is $600,000,
I'm recommending it's going to come before you in a couple weeks to
take that 225,000 and shift it more towards home ownership, because I
don't really have enough money to really get a affordable housing
program out there and running without one development just taking all
that money and they don't have a program anymore. So that's unfair to
the development community to tell them we're going to have this
incentive, we're going to try to get it going, and then not have
enough money to fund, you know, the first or second development. I
think that unless we want to put aside real dollars to encourage very
low income housing from the -- from the private sector, it's not going
to happen by itself.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Okay. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Anything else?
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: There is one perspective that I
think we need to remember when we talk about where we are falling
short or not giving enough or providing enough. I think we also need
to remember that in our growth management plan we established a base
density. This community established a base density of four units an
acre, and that was a quality approach, a quality of life for everyone
in the community.
By looking at allowing up to 16 units an acre or a -- up
to 8 units an acre for affordable housing, we have said that increase
in density and the impact of that increase is worth having affordable
housing. So the idea that no incentives are -- and I know you haven't
created this idea -- but I don't want it to be created that we are not
trying to provide incentives. I think it's silly. The answer is you
can always do more. The question is whose pocket do you take it from
to do it. Where does the money come from? So, you know, we are
making those steps, and I think we need to continue pushing to find
where the market can provide affordable housing, not where Collier
County government can provide it.
And Mr. Hihalic has -- has offered some -- some
solutions in the past and has really kind of -- how many years have
you changed this a little bit? You see what's going on out there, and
you kind of change where we're -- where our focus is. And I think we
need to keep doing that. But I don't want to lose what Commissioner
Norris has brought up today in that we're looking at small tracts of
land that are now developing affordable. We're not talking a thousand
acres. We're not talking hundreds of acres. We're really talking --
I mean, the last two have been out off Rattlesnake -- not Rattlesnake
Hammock but on --
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: One was.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Yeah, one was off Rattlesnake
Hammock. They're out in the eastern part of the urban area, and
they're developing in size of 15 and 20 and 25 acres, not really
larger tracts of land.
So the idea that by promoting an affordable housing
density bonus we're going to net hundreds of very low income units is
silly. It doesn't match what's going on in the marketplace. You
know, if they're -- if they're going to use that mix to only do 30
percent, we may net a dozen very low units.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: It's a dozen more than we have
now.
CONNISSIONER HANCOCK: Well, you know, I mean, come on
__
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: It's true, though. You've got --
you've got -- you've got to balance the desirability of an incentive
by the cost of what it's doing to the county in growth and -- and
violating our growth management plan by giving somebody who otherwise
would be -- be eligible for 4 units an acre, all of a sudden he's got
12.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I'm not arguing with the density
bonus -- CHAIRMAN NORRIS: You've got problems where you see
where it's actually going to happen.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Yeah, I'm not arguing with what
you're talking about. You know, whatever density bonus our program
offers, I would like to see 100 percent of whatever the density is go
to affordable housing.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: That's what I'm saying.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: And, you know, even if they get
the density on the market-rate acreage, whatever that density bonus is
goes to affordable housing. I mean, I've got --
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: That's what I'm saying.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: -- no problem with that.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: That's what I'm saying.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I guess my question is how can
we find ways -- and Greg is telling us it's a dollar issue -- to get
more affordable housing throughout the county so that the majority of
the service workers in this county who are in this low and very low
salary range have -- have a place to live.
MR. HIHALIC: Well, Commissioner, again, I'd like to say
that, you know, people have to make as a family $18,000 to affordably
live in an affordable housing community. We get below $18,000, other
than Habitat for Humanity and the subsidization of Farm Worker's
Village, we don't have housing for people that are making $6 an hour
as a single parent. It does not exist in Collier County. And I don't
think there's anything we can do to make it exist unless we want to
get into the direct building of public subsidized housing that some
areas have done. It's very difficult to do and a very expensive
proposition. The subsidies are necessary for the very low income
people that are making $6 an hour would be huge to overcome their very
low incomes. The section 8 program does that. Some other types of
subsidized units does it. Those are primarily directly funded from
the federal government. And we look to get our share of those
subsidies when they come down. But that's an expensive proposition if
we choose as a county to do that.
I don't want to suggest we aren't doing anything,
because we've created over thirteen hundred units of affordable
housing. We've also assisted over 277 first-time home buyers.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Since when?
MR. HIHALIC: This is in the last couple years since
we've implemented our programs. And for the single family purchase
prices, we've done over almost 16 million dollars in single-family
affordable housing for first-time home buyers in Collier County. I
think those are good accomplishments, and so the county is producing
and assisting people in getting affordable housing.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: In any case, Mr. Hihalic, I think I
hear other board members possibly agreeing with what I've asked. MR. HIHALIC: Uh-huh.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: And perhaps it would be appropriate to
bring it back on a regular commission agenda sometime in the near
future unless -- and let's discuss any action and see if we do want to
make any changes.
MR. HIHALIC: Why don't we prepare the ordinance
changes, Commissioner, and bring it back for a formal type of hearing
on that. Could I also implement the changes with the agreement that
the state has arrived at where we also lower some of those income
levels to bring it in line with our impact waivers and deferral
programs?
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Well, I think it would be appropriate
to discuss all those items at that same time, sure.
MR. HIHALIC: Okay. We'll do the ordinance amendments
and bring it back for a public hearing then. CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Thank you.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Could I ask, Greg, that when you
-- when you put this information together that you -- you look at if
-- if we were to make this change in the density bonus program, to
give us some idea of your perception of the continued viability of
development programs if we were to make this change. I mean, we've --
we've stated that we might like to see this change happen, but if by
doing that affordable housing projects cease to come forward at all we
-- we need to know that it's going to have that kind of an impact.
MR. HIHALIC: I think it will have a slightly diminished
impact, but I think you're going to see a rush of affordable housing
developers submit their plans in the next 30 days before any changes
can come into effect. We've received several calls already from
developers who I think will rush their projects along under the
present system.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I feel like I have to say this.
I'm a little frustrated when you say you're talking about what else
can we do when two weeks ago a quality viable project came forward and
was turned down by this board. Hundreds of units of affordable
housing was turned down by this board. So I'm a little frustrated
that we're sitting here saying what more can we do. I think the first
thing we can do is recognize when affordable housing projects come
forward, they're viable, they're proper, and we give the proper
approval. And, you know, I -- I just, you know, continuing to squeeze
this when we don't take advantage of the opportunities that are
presented does not make sense to me.
MR. HIHALIC: When we bring a project to you,
Commissioners, we try to have it to be the best project for the
community as well as the developer that we can produce, and we will
continue to try to do that.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Thank you, Mr. Hihalic.
MR. HIHALIC: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Commissioner Matthews, I believe this
is your Sustainable South Florida issue?
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Yeah, this is a governor's
commission. I know I passed out about an inch-thick document, and
it's not my intention to cover that document today, believe me. But
what -- what the governor created on an executive order about a year
and a half ago is a commission on Sustainable South Florida.
I've been following minutes and so forth of these
meetings since probably October a year ago. The one thing I noted is
that the membership of the commission includes only one person from
Collier County, and that's Sally Boyd, and I've since learned that Mr.
Duane has recently been appointed to the commission as well. So now
we have two.
But if each of you will take the time to look through
this document, you'll see that there's enough number of objects that
the commission is recommending that will directly affect Collier
County, and there's been very little input from Collier County into
the creation of this document. Again, it is an initial report. It is
not a final report, so I think we still have the opportunity to have
some input.
I believe the meeting schedule, which I have at my
office, continues what; for another six or eight months? So those --
there's opportunity to have input into this, and I would -- I would
like to ask this board to -- to take a serious look at what they're
proposing. Some of it's good. Some of it's bad, in my opinion. And
we may want to look at the good things and try to move them along a
little faster and look at the bad things that we see and see if we
can't find a way to redirect it.
Like all governors' reports it's quite thick and a lot
of verbosity in it. But we -- we have noted from the action plan that
Mr. Dotrill put together in December that our diversity in economic
development program is -- is a little bit skimpy. And there is a
substantial section in here that -- that directs its efforts toward
creating economic diversity such as taking advantage of tourism. It
does say in here that there are -- what is it we got last -- said
yesterday, Neil, that this commission has found that there are
significant high-paying tourism jobs in south Florida. We're -- we're
having trouble locating them, but anyway.
Again, there -- there's -- there's an indication there
that the board doesn't -- that the commission feels that there's
adequate high-paying jobs, yet our experience here in Collier County
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: They're saying adequate?
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Adequate.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: If you only live here January
through April.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: What do you do the rest of the
year down here? You go somewhere else to work.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: You go to South Carolina and work
a club up there.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: But anyway, there are
recommendations in here that I think Collier County will look at and
realize that it's not necessarily so. And we'd like to try to
redirect some of those efforts toward improving our -- our situation
and not specifically the east coast or south Florida.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: My -- and, Commissioner Matthews,
you've probably read through this, as I have when I got it -- I don't
know -- six or eight months ago was the draft that I received. And
what struck me is that this entire document is based on five words;
create, invest, promote, identify, and insure, none of which are
actions, none of which involve funding. I mean, it's the typical
thing that comes out of the huge committee that we're going to promote
something. Well, how are you going to promote it? Well, we'll get to
that later. And these never seem to address the how are you going to
accomplish it and where are the funds going to come from. So you're
right. There are some good ideas in here but, you know, I'd like to
change promote to -- and create to fund and act --
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Well, we would all like to do
that. And I think that one of the dangers that I'm seeing in this
particular report is that these reports are done at the governor's
behest and, yes, they go back to Tallahassee and, yes, they sit on
somebody's desk or shelf for a couple of years. And then two years
down the road after the report is finalized and everything is done,
somebody pulls it off the shelf and says, oh, the governor's
commission in 1996 said we ought to do this, and two years from now
we've had no input, and that's what we're going to do. And that's --
that's my concern.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: What effect does this have under law?
Where --
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: We don't know.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: -- does this integrate with the growth
management plan?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I figure if the governor wants to
do it, let him do it.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: There is no way of knowing how
this report will finally be used, implemented, or anything like that.
And my suggestion is merely that we recognize the fact that this
commission exists for a purpose. We may not know its end purpose, but
it does exist and that we take a look at what they're doing and try to
get the best parts for us included in it.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Mr. Weigel, can you help us understand
how this is going to affect us under law in the future?
MR. WEIGEL: I'll do everything I can to help you. It
will require some investigation and checking on a few different
sources.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Once it's completed and even when
there is a final study, it won't have any legal effect. It will be a
study. It won't be a law.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: No. The study commissioned from
the governor cannot bind this county into action. But what
Commissioner MAtthews is saying -- and I think it's almost -- almost a
position of protection, is if we see something in here that glaringly
is inaccurate where -- where Collier County is concerned, let's not
allow it to be perpetuated in a report if we can step in and stop it
__
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Exactly.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And even though Miss Boyd may be
from this area, I will venture to say that Mr. Duane may have a finger
on the pulse of things here locally a little more than Miss Boyd might
simply because his committees and the work he does is extremely broad
based, you know, less regional and less statewide then Miss Boyd's.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: You're part of the RPC now,
aren't you?
MR. DUANE: Yes, that's why we designated another person
from the county.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm glad to see an additional
person, Mr. Duane, on that committee. I think that will help some of
the things you're discussing.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I just would like to ask this
board to take a look at the initial report and perhaps get information
either to Mr. Dotrill or to Mr. Duane on things that we see in the
report we think are potential problems or very, very good ideas that
we want to enhance.
COHHISSIONER HANCOCK: So you're saying review it and
contact -- probably Mr. Duane would be the most appropriate person.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Host direct since he's on the
commission.
MR. DUANE: Could I speak for a moment? Wayne Daultry
has gone through this before at the Regional Planning Council's
behest. And he and I have got together to come up with ranked -- ten
recommendations -- Mr. Norris and Mr. Constantine will be heading that
ranking that Wayne's going to distribute to the council. So we made
the first step of trying to discern what we think is the most
important. At our next regularly scheduled Regional Planning Council
we have that as an agenda item, so I think the council is going to try
to focus its efforts also.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Will you share that with us,
Commissioner Norris?
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: I will be happy to do that.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You're too kind.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: I think that would be great if
we could see what the RPC is looking at from a regional perspective as
being important. And then we can maybe dovetail our ideas as well.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Okay. Our next regularly scheduled
meeting would be the third Thursday of February, I assume? Let's see,
that would be the 22nd.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Okay. If that's what it is.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: That's pretty good.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: That can't be right.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I was impressed with the speed,
nonetheless.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: 22nd.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: No, it would be the -- yeah. No, it
won't be either.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: We all can figure out the third
Thursday.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Your mental calendar is
absolutely correct.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: However, when you were thinking
about it, you were late on it. Anyway, the third Thursday.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Anyway -- in any case, are there any
final comments from the board or staff?
MR. DORRILL: We are -- we are tentatively scheduled in
April on April the 30th and have invited Lyle Sumek back for kind of a
midyear checkup and to specifically give us some advice on what his
other clients are doing concerning their action agendas to fill in
those sort of glaring holes. I mean, you have some stated goals, but
Lyle will be here on the 30th of April, and I hope our session can be
as good and productive as it was last time.
COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'll say it, and please take no
offense to this, but the most valuable workshop we had was that one.
That's the only one that sticks out in my mind as really accomplishing
something.
COHMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Agreed.
COHMISSIONER MATTHEWS: The good news is that now that
we've experienced it and knows what it feels like, let's do it again,
and we're going to in April.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: This is going to relate to my final
comment which would be on that line. I'd like to ask the board to --
to consider consensus on whether we should have these workshops as a
regularly scheduled thing even if we don't have much to consider.
It's my feeling that most of these workshops -- the items from today,
for example, could easily have been contained within a regular
scheduled meeting. And, as a matter of fact, if you think about it,
the productivity committee's report today was very helpful, and it was
good, but we were not able to take any action. They could have given
the same report at a regular commission meeting. We could have taken
action if that were our desire. And my -- my concern is that we spend
a lot of time here on these workshops. We consume a lot of staff
time.
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Uh-huh.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Uh-huh.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Other than a couple of exceptions like
the Sumek meeting we had before on Halloween, we don't accomplish a
lot. And I'm not sure that it's worth the loss of productivity we
have by incurring these meetings. So I would like to ask the board to
consider not scheduling these as just a regular matter of course. If
there's something, of course, that is -- that is necessary, we could
-- we could put one in. Otherwise I would prefer to have just a
regular scheduled county commission meeting. At least we can get some
business accomplished.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I got to ditto -- ditto on that
and -- and just to -- I have the opportunity to say something about
it. I wish that -- this may be a chairman's prerogative thing, but I
wish that you would consider looking at the scheduling of agenda items
and the need to have every other Tuesday as public hearing day versus
as things come up let them come up.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Let me explain to you why we did
that. We did that under -- when Butt Saunders, I think, was chairman,
I believe, is when we did that. And the idea is that if you have all
your land-use items scheduled on -- on every other week, then you know
you're going to have a long meeting every other week, but the other
ones give you an opportunity to have a short meeting. So that was the
rationale. Otherwise we -- we used to do as they came up --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: -- and we tended to have long meetings
every time. So it's --
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Can I ask --
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Overtime doesn't matter. It's just
figuring out which days you're going to have time.
COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS: Mr. Dotrill, these workshops, I
mean it's obvious that there's three members here that wish to
discontinue it, but I'd like to ask from your perspective and from the
administrative staff perspective, have they found these workshops to
be helpful and productive toward their end goals of managing county
government?
COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Mr. Dotrill, would you please
hang your staff hat out to dry?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It enhances their ability to
sleep with their eyes open is what I'm thinking. They get practice.
MR. DORRILL: I think whatever three county
commissioners want to do --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Good answer. Good answer.
MR. DORRILL: We -- you'll notice that with the
exception of Vince who stayed for the affordable housing issue, we
managed our way through that. I talked about it last Friday. I said
there's no reason at all that you need to stay here beyond the
productivity committee report and -- and so they all grabbed a
doughnut, hit the door, and left and went back to the office.
we're trying to be as efficient with the staff time as we can. That's
why we talked about it a week ago.
There are some things that are going to come up that do
make for unique workshop requirements. The one that comes immediately
to my mind will be the landfill siting issue. I will tell you that
aside from your best intentions, you cannot do that at the end of a
regular meeting, because typically we're all a little tired, a little
brain dead, and our blood sugar's a little low at that point.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: Not all of us.
MR. DORRILL: Host of us.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Many of us.
MR. DORRILL: And so the boards go back and forth. If
you think for the moment with the exception of the midyear action plan
and county commission goals workshop that's scheduled for your next
fifth Tuesday, if you want me to coordinate something with the
chairman and wait until we have specific things like the landfill, we
can do that. But I still think that you ought to reserve a right to
have special workshops, because I know sometimes on Tuesdays when
you're all in a hurry or for whatever reason we have some weird
land-use item that takes three hours, then we're trying to rush
through a workshop at the end of the regular meeting. And I will tell
you that's -- that's not the best use of your time or the staff's time
either, that sort of thing.
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: I think that's what I said is if we
have something that's important enough to schedule a workshop, let's
by all means go ahead and do so.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Let's put that on an agenda,
because we did direct staff to make every fifth Tuesday a workshop in
this past year. That was a direction to you, was it not, Mr.
Dorrill?
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: So we need to rescind if we're going
to change.
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: We need to put it on the regular
agenda as a discussion item.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Was that a directment?
COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Directment, was that
Mississippian for direct?
CHAIRMAN NORRIS: That being the case, we are
adjourned.
MR. DORRILL: We are okay for April, though.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes.
MR. DORRILL: Because otherwise Lyle's schedule goes
four months out.
COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: I want to do that.
There being no further business for the good of the County, the
meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 11:09 a.m.
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX
OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF
SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS
CONTROL
JOHN NORRIS, CHAIRMAN
ATTEST:
DWIGHT E. BROCK, CLERK
These minutes approved by the Board on
as presented or as corrected
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT REPORTING
BY: Barbara A. Donovan