Loading...
BCC Minutes 09/03/1997 B (Budget) BUDGET MEETING OF SEPTEMBER 3, 1997 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 conduced business herein, met on this date at 5:11 p.m. in SPECIAL SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: ALSO PRESENT: Timothy L. Hancock Timothy J. Constantine Pamela S. Hac'Kie Barbara B. Berry John C. Norris Robert Fernandez, County Administrator David C. Weigel, County Attorney COHHISSIONER BERRY: I'd like to call to meeting -- to order the meeting of the budget for Wednesday, September 3rd, 1997. If you would all stand for the Reverend Father Tim Navin of Saint Peter's Catholic Church for the invocation and remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. FATHER NAVIN: Let us pray. Hay the Lord our God who has loved us and has given us everlasting encouragement in good hope through his grace comfort your hearts and make them strong for every good word and deed. Hay you make -- may he make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you, that which is pleasing in his sight. We ask this through God who loves us. Amen. (The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) COHMISSIONER BERRY: Thank you, Father Navin. Our chairman this evening is in the elections office with our county attorney and they have some ballot matters that they need to address, so they should be here shortly. While we're waiting for them to come, we will go ahead and begin the preliminary part of this budget hearing. This is the tentative budget hearing for fiscal year 97-98. If I could ask, Mr. Smykowski, if you want to start off, please. MR. SHYKOWSKI: Yes, thank you. For the record, Michael Smykowski, Budget Director. For the benefit of the public in attendance, there is a requirement that speakers sign up in advance to speak, and that public comment is Item D under our agenda. There are sign-up forms in the hallway, and if you would sign them and please bring them up front to Mr. Fernandez and he will call the order of the speakers. Thank you. The first item is a discussion of the tentative millage rates and the increase over the rollback rate funding the budget. That's a requirement of Florida Statutes for the first substantive item to be discussed at the public hearing. In the agenda package, Item 3(A), page one, there is a list of the proposed tax rates for FY 98 by fund. The general fund, the proposed millage rate is 3.6864, which is a 2.2 percent increase over the rollback rate. That's due to a number of factors, including an expansion of the economic development program, the addition of nine positions within the county manager's agency. The road and bridge subsidy is increasing, as FY 98 is the final year of the transition of gas taxes from road maintenance to road construction, in accordance with your adopted budget policy. There's increased capital project funding, increased funding of the Sheriff's Office, as well as increased staffing of both the libraries and -- and park areas. The next fund is the pollution control fund. The proposed millage rate is .05 -- .0452, a decrease of 4.6 percent due to an increase in available carry-forward revenue, as well as a transfer of an employee to the community development fund 113, which is supported by building permit fees, rather than ad valorem taxes. That results in a total county wide millage rate of 3.7316 mills, an increase of 2.1 percent. Walking through, the balance are a number of HSTDs that the county administers, many of which are in an advisory capacity, are administered in part by citizen advisory groups within those affected districts. The first one is Road District 1. The proposed millage rate is .1950 mills, which is an increase over the rollback rate of 49.4 percent, and that's due to a number of factors, including Bayshore Drive median landscaping, lighting on U.S. 41 and the beginnings of the Marco Island master plan. Road District 2, the proposed millage is .1028, an increase of 45.2 percent. That's due to an increase in landscaping costs, as well as a decrease in carry-forward revenue and funding of Vanderbilt medians. (At this time, Chairman Hancock entered the board room.) MR. SMYKOWSKI: Road District 3, the proposed millage is .3658, an increase of 13.5 percent. That's due to increased paving activity within the Golden Gate Estates area, Davis -- Davis medians and Golden Gate Parkway medians and the U.S. 41 lighting. Road District 5, the proposed millage is .3016, an increase of 35.9 percent, and that's due to vegetation control, as well as paving of the Collier/Hendry County line road. The unincorporated area general fund millage which provides services to residents outside the city limits of Everglades City and the City of Naples, the proposed millage is .5721 mills, an increase of 4.4 percent. There, we've increased park staffing. There is a decrease in carry-forward revenue, and we've also expanded our code enforcement efforts and there's a county share in funding of the Lely stormwater project. Golden Gate Community Center MSTD, the proposed millage is .3189, an increase of 3.7 percent. That's attributable to a decrease in carry-forward revenue and an increase in capital reserves and funding for some additional computers. Marco Island beautification, the proposed millage is .1670, a decrease of four-tenths of one percent due to increase in available carry-forward revenue and the citizen advisory group had a self-imposed millage limitation there. Naples Park drainage is a proposed levy of .1551 mills, and that's to fund inlets on several culvert crossings on Vanderbilt Drive. Pine Ridge Industrial Park, there is no proposed levy, as there's a fund balance available. Victoria Park drainage is .2421 mills, a decrease of 33.5 percent due to decreased operating expenses. And while the percentage increase is large, the -- the tax levy here is very small. There's only a $700 decrease actually in the -- in the amount of taxes to the levy in FY 98. Golden Gate Parkway, they levy a constant millage of .5, and that's due to increased property value and an increase over the rollback rate of 1.6 percent. Naples Production Park, due to decreased carry-forward revenue, there is a tax -- slight tax levy this year, $4,900, which results in a millage rate of .0290 mills. Isle of Capri Fire, due to increased operating costs, increased overtime, the proposed millage is .7921 mills, a 1 percent increase over the rollback rate. Ochopee Fire, there's a slight decrease in the millage and that's due to decreased capital outlay and a decrease in reserve funding. Collier County Fire, due to a decrease in the taxable value within that area, there's a two -- constant two mill levy there. That represents a decrease of 2.1 percent. Radio Road beautification is a half mill tax levy, and that's a new levy for median improvements. Sabal Palm Road, the proposed tax levy is 5.4544, 1.8 percent over the rollback rate, and that's to continue efforts to gather permits for that project within that taxing district. Lely Golf Estates beautification, they levy a constant 1.5 mills. It's a 2.8 percent increase over the rollback rate. Hawksridge Stormwater Pumping MSTU, they're increasing reserves in this area for an eventual pump replacement. The proposed millage is .2236, 36.8 percent over the rollback rate. Forest Lakes roadway and drainage, they're increasing reserves here for future improvements within the district. The tax levy is .2457 mills. Immokalee beautification, they levy approximately one mill annually, and due to increased property value, there is a slight increase, seven-tenths of one percent over the rollback rate. Parks GOB Debt Service, millage is .0535, a 5.6 percent decrease below the rollback rate. That's due to available interest earnings and decreased transfers to the property appraiser and tax collector for their services. Marco Island coastal beach renourishment, there is no proposed levy, as the budget calls for the balance of that bond issue to be retired with TDC revenue, as discussed during the budget workshops. Isle of Capri municipal rescue debt service, the proposed millage is .2074, an increase of two and a half percent. There's a decrease in carryforward revenue which results in a $1,500 increase in the ad valorem tax levy required to fund the existing station debt. Collier County lighting, due to an increase in carryforward revenue, there's actually a decrease of 5.3 percent below the rollback rate. Millage is .2353. Naples Production Park street lighting, due to decreased carryforward, there's a proposed levy of .0065. Marco Island lighting is .0564 mills, a decrease of 16.1 percent based on available fund balance, and finally, the Pelican Bay MSTBU with an increase in available carryforward within that fund, the proposed millage levy is .2768, a decrease of 5.5 percent. That results in the aggregate millage rate of 4.4908, which is 3.2 percent above the rollback rate, and that concludes Item A under our agenda. Item B is a review and discussion of changes to the proposed budget. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Smykowski, since I came in late, could you start over? Just kidding. Never mind. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Sure. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Gotta keep it light. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Just in case anyone was wondering -- MR. SMYKOWSKI: Let me get a drink of water before I start. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: -- the City of Marco is still a city and that's why I was late, so -- but that -- that has been done, so for our discussions here this evening, that has not changed. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: The point spread still what it was? CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Little higher, 181 instead of 142, so the result's the same. The city is -- still exists, so -- MR. SMYKOWSKI: Thank you. On agenda item 3(B), pages one through three, there is a summary of the resolutions documenting changes to the FY 98 tentative budget since the conclusion of the budget workshops, and before I walk you through those, on pages four through 33 are the actual budget resolutions, and in essence, what we do is start out -- the first column on each of those individual resolutions identifies the tentative budget that the board saw resulting from the budget workshops. The middle column on the individual resolutions identifies the increase or decrease within the fund, and then the revised fund total is the third column, but pages one through three is a summary of -- of those 30 -- 30 pages. Within the general fund, the overall is an increase of $900 to the fund total and that was due to changing -- due to rounding of the ad valorem tax levy that -- tax dollars that would be generated by the proposed millage rate. At a previous board meeting, I had indicated that the aggregate millage rate was off by one ten thousandth and that -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We noted that and it's in your personnel file. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Indeed. Indeed. And the final change within the general fund is based on the ACIR final salary adjustments for elected officials. Those changes have been made to the -- to the board budget offset by a -- a slight reduction to reserves. The next item is the tax collector's budget and there is a large increase to the fund total there, simply because the tax collector's budget, per state statute, is not submitted until August 1st. Road and bridge, there was a slight change, more of a housekeeping matter in terms of lease purchase payments would actually be expended from operating expenses instead of capital outlay and based on final lease contracts. The reserves were decreased $8,600 to fund those lease purchase payments. Within community development, as I indicated yesterday at the revenue report, there were record permit levels, value of construction, permitted in June and July of this year resulting in additional revenue permit revenues, so we've adjusted that accordingly. In addition, the board was made aware through an executive summary of their cancellation of a data processing consultant contract, and the balance of work is now budgeted to be completed in-house in FY 98 by the I.T. department. Pollution control fund adjusted $300, again, due to rounding in the ad valorem. Emergency services miscellaneous grants increased, and that's just a function of an increase in notification regarding pending grant awards. Immokalee beautification, there was a changeover recognizing an FDOT grant for $100,000 and funding the balance of the lighting improvement project within that taxing district from reserves, and the board approved that by separate executive summary since the tentative budget was submitted. The next -- next couple items are tourist development related. There is no change to the fund total, just simply the fact that the board has since made contract -- or preliminary -- granted preliminary approval to items within the beach renourishment category as -- as well as in the tourism promotion contracts, so we've just simply taken the money that was budgeted in reserves and put the appropriations in place to fund those contract awards. Next one is the health unit computer debt service. That fund is actually going to be closed out. There was one final debt service payment to be made on that -- on that issue and it was made early by the health department, so we're just simply going to close that fund out. The majority of the balance of changes in the capital funds are a function principally of the budget policy, where to minimize the number of carryforward budget amendments that are required in the upcoming year based on the number of projects that will actually be under contract by September 30th, it -- the budget policy authorizes us in late August to essentially reforecast, to as accurately as possible, identify which projects will be under contract by September 30th. If they are not anticipated to be under contract, what we have done is decreased our forecast expenditures and simply rebudgeted projects in the upcoming fiscal year. In addition, within the impact fee funds, as I indicated yesterday and as a companion item to the building permit surge that we saw, the impact fee revenues, both this year, as well as anticipated next year, were increased slightly to reflect the current level of activity. The final change involves the solid waste grant fund, an increase in the fund total of $2,500, and that's based on final grant award notification. That concludes Item 3(B). CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Before going to Item 3(C), wrap-up items, I think this is the appropriate place that the board needs to hear from Mr. Smykowski, Mr. Fernandez and potentially Mr. Weigel on the impacts of the Marco Island incorporation issue. I'll go ahead and -- and just kind of start it off. On Tuesday, we began looking at what those impacts would be, and as a result of that direction, Mr. Smykowski and Mr. Fernandez got elbow deep in it real quick and got some information yesterday, I believe it was a quarter to five, it was told to me, that has some very significant budgetary impacts to the county and affects county revenues and expenditure projections for the next year, so since wrap-up is normally a situation where we know what we've got in one hand and what's being asked for in the other, I think we need to hear the potential fiscal impact of the Marco Island incorporation so we can consider those wrap-up items in light of our -- in light of the fact that we are unable to raise ad valorem rates even if we so chose at this point, but we need to know where we stand, and with that, Mr. Fernandez, if you would -- would give us a brief on that, please. MR. FERNANDEZ: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At Tuesday's board meeting, we got the direction from the commission that the intent was to continue status quo services through the next fiscal year. I believe this was based on an assumption that the commissioners were operating under which provided that the revenues that we were anticipating in this coming year's budget would continue to come to us because of the timing -- the nature of the timing of the incorporation. We held a meeting yesterday following Tuesday's meeting and discussed with the county attorney and with other county staff, determined some of the issues and -- and realized at that point that the most immediate issue was for us to confirm whether this assumption that we would be continuing to receive the revenues was a safe one. Mr. Smykowski was able to contact the State Department of Revenue and received -- and received a definitive answer on that question, and he found from his contact that, in fact, the revenue adjustments would be made in the coming fiscal year that would result in less revenue to the county, which I think requires us to rethink some of the assumptions that we were operating under and -- and maybe make some amendments or changes as -- as you see fit with tonight's hearing. I think it's prudent that -- Mr. Smykowski will go over some of the options that the board has, but I think it's prudent that as you consider those, we not attempt to make any specific operational decisions tonight. I think that's going to take some time for the staff to identify the -- the services that will, in fact, be impacted by this action, but it does change our revenue picture, and with that, I'd ask Mr. Smykowski to give us the detail on that. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Thank you. Page three -- item 3(C), pages one and two are the wrap-up items. There are, in fact, two wrap-up items. There is a request from the Public Defender's Office, but since we're talking about the Marco incorporation and its impact, we'll just take these items out of order and deal with number two first, the increase in general fund revenue, so if you'd turn to item 3(C), page two. Essentially what this page does is identify the revenue assumption changes that have occurred since the board budget workshops in June. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: This is where we found a million four? MR. SMYKOWSKI: That is -- that's it. You'll note in the middle column there is -- the increase reflects additional revenue of 1,424,900, and essentially the middle section of the page is an outline of how those changes were arrived at. It shows what the initial forecast is and what the revised forecasts were and the -- the positive variance, and it essentially revolves around three revenue items; sales tax -- additional sales tax revenue to be received this year, additional revenue sharing to be received this year, and an adjustment in our beach parking revenues, and these are items the board was made aware of yesterday during the regularly scheduled Tuesday meeting. Overall, in FY 97, the revenue changes amount to $689,500. By virtue of the fact that additional revenue greater than projected will be received this year in both sales tax and revenue sharing, we -- and in addition, based on information contained in the -- the state's fiscal handbook regarding state shared revenues, which is -- we received within the last few weeks, we've also increased, at this point, the sales tax revenue sharing, made a marginal decrease in the budget beach parking revenue for a total additional FY 98 revenue of 735,400. The sum of the additional 97-98 revenue changes amounts to slightly over 1.4 million dollars. Where -- where the -- in addition to that, we have recommended uses of that additional revenue. The first item following from our discussions in June at the workshops was if additional money became available, funding for the state attorney and public defender computerization, that was $161,000. Within fund 301, your main building construction fund within the county for general government buildings, the board has approved emergency budget amendments subsequent to the June discussions for things such as emergency generator repairs, et cetera, and what we'd like to do is replenish those reserves since those items were not forecast in the budget process. We have approximately $235,000 budgeted in reserves in FY 98 within that fund, which represents 5 percent of the total appropriations. At this point, if we did not replenish those, we would be -- roughly have a two and a half percent reserve within that fund and we don't feel comfortable in that position, given that none of the projects that were approved for construction next year have actually been bid at this point, so we'd like to restore that reserve. Finally, the campus space plan, the board will review within the next two weeks at our regularly scheduled agenda item is estimated to -- to cost $216,000. That -- the net of those two, there's additional revenue of $932,000 that would be available. This was prior to the Marco Island considerations, and the agenda package does not reflect that, again, the -- this was kind of late breaking information that we got last night. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Mr. Chairman, is now the right time to ask questions about those suggested expenditures? The last one, I don't know -- I don't remember discussing that one, the campus space plan. The first two, I do remember. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Let me -- if I could ask you to -- because I had a discussion with Mr. Fernandez and Mr. Smykowski today, let's understand where we are there without detailing those three proposals just yet. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: I can just flag it. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Sure. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Let's hear what the impact -- the proposed impact from the Marco Island situation is, because there's going to be a net difference that -- that may dictate our decisions in those areas. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Understood. MR. SMYKOWSKI: At this point, according to this -- this worksheet, it looks like there's $932,000 of surplus revenue. That was before the Marco Island considerations and the impacts that will have on county revenues next year. The county will be significantly impacted in two areas; in state sales tax, a portion of the funds that are budgeted will accrue to the benefit of the City of Marco Island effective immediately, even -- even in the interim while there is no city council seated, the -- the state would simply escrow the money until that council is in place, and that's -- the estimate there is in the neighborhood of one point -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: See, I was trying to buy the interim -- I was trying to buy the interim months myself, saying, well, if they don't have a council -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: So from noon Friday, they're accruing? MR. FERNANDEZ: Yes. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: So they're accruing actually in the current year, not just the coming fiscal year? COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Right. Noon, Friday. MR. FERNANDEZ: That's true. MR. SMYKOWSKI: So the magnitude of that change, it's estimated -- the state had previously provided estimates based on preliminary numbers, not the final numbers in their handbook, and we had hoped, in speaking with them, that we would have revised numbers today. We do not at this point, but we certainly would, I would expect, have final numbers for the final public hearing when, you know, we could implement these changes with definitive known numbers, but for purposes of our discussion, the state agreed that the numbers we're working with are -- within -- within the ballpark, certainly for discussion's sake. The -- the second area in which the county would be adversely impacted in terms of its revenue picture would actually be in county revenue sharing, and while this money would not directly go to the City of Marco Island, by virtue of the fact that the City of Marco Island has incorporated thereby decreasing the county's unincorporated area population, which is one of the weighted factors in -- in determining how much county revenue sharing Collier County is entitled to in a given year, that money will actually benefit other counties within the State of Florida in terms of their relative position based on their unincorporated area of populations, and the magnitude of that change is about $180,000 in -- in round numbers. In total, we're looking at approximately one -- one and a quarter million dollars in -- in revenue that will accrue to the City of Marco Island. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: That would otherwise have come to Collier County? MR. SHYKOWSKI: Yes. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Let me ask a question on the -- the revenue sharing. You say our -- the Collier County revenue sharing is based on population within the unincorporated area, so it will go to other counties because we don't get it, but is there a separate formula then for municipalities, incorporated -- MR. SHYKOWSKI: Yes, there's a municipal revenue sharing program as well that the City of Marco Island will be entitled to. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: They all take out of a lump fund just as counties do; is that correct? MR. SHYKOWSKI: Correct. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. What was the amount of the sales tax reduction? MR. SHYKOWSKI: A million, seventy-five thousand. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And those are dollars that actually would be diverted to Marco Island that were anticipated coming to Collier County? MR. SHYKOWSKI: That is correct. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And sales tax revenues are restricted in the areas they can be spent exactly how? I want to be clear on this. Sales tax revenues, as I understand it, do not have any restriction MR. SHYKOWSKI: That's a general fund. That is a general revenue of the county currently budgeted in the county's general fund. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: So that's fund 001 as we were anticipating in revenues? MR. SHYKOWSKI: That is correct. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. So we're looking at fund 001 taking the entirety of that 1.25 million dollar hit? MR. SHYKOWSKI: Yes. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. MR. SHYKOWSKI: However, based on our -- on the worksheet, we had $900,000 surplus, so we're essentially dealing with a -- a change of about $300,000. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: But -- but the real surplus that remains to be identified is in the services that we no longer have to provide to Marco Island that better have a value of at least 1.25 million. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And that was the discussion we started to have and I -- and the reason we don't have those before us today is it was 4:45 yesterday -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Sure, I understand. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: -- that this came about. There are some of those general fund services, but we're not -- you know, with a council not being seated until 70 days after the election, you're not going to take law enforcement away from them, you're not going to take EHS away from them. I mean, I started looking at the breakdown in my budget of what types of services that it would take awhile to get up and going, and it's -- it's going to be a very tough separation. It needs to be done, no question. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: But -- but to the extent we continue to provide services such as sheriff and EHS, that will be via an interlocal agreement where we're reimbursed by Marco Island, so -- so we still should be able to identify where the cuts -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, here's the problem. See, you don't know -- there's no way of knowing specifically when Marco Island will take over some of these services. You can't predict that because that's up to them and -- in a large degree, and until they do that, we'll operate under the interlocal agreement and we'll keep what we have collected from them to provide those services. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Except -- and -- and I'm just trying to think this through. I'm not -- not contradicting, just trying to get an understanding. On -- on November 1st when we are providing EMS services that would otherwise have been subsidized in the general fund by $1,075,000 worth of state sales tax, to some degree, that -- that million twenty-five would have -- would have subsidized the cost of providing EMS service to Marco Island, so to the extent that we're continuing to provide EMS service to Marco Island, they will owe us a payment of some proportion of the amount of revenue decrease resulting from their incorporation. Doesn't that all make sense? CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Mac'Kie, we need to get to Mr. Fernandez because I think he's got something to add here, but you hit on a perfect nuance. We don't charge the City of Naples additional for EMS. I mean, so there's -- there's a hybrid right there. Law enforcement, the responsibility, where does it end, where does it become -- these are all things that have to be negotiated over time. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's a whole new challenge. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: So the bottom line is, in a conservative vein, we know right now the state is not going to give us that 1.25 million dollars. We can't count on that unless we get an agreement with the City of Marco Island to pay it to us, because it's going to them or it's not coming to us at all, so our budget is automatically reduced by it and we have a zero balancing requirement. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And don't we also then have the obligation to the balance of the county to be sure that we reduce services concomitant with the amount of reduction of revenues? CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: No one's arguing that. What I'm saying is, what we know today versus what we don't know in the next several months is all we can base our decisions on. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The point, I think, is that there will be a credit somewhere there, but there's no way to pinpoint what that is -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Today, yeah. I'm not trying to identify it today, I just want the theory to be understood. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And that's consistent with the direction we gave on Tuesday. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. Okay. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Fernandez? MR. FERNANDEZ: That's all I was going to add, Mr. Chairman, the fact that I don't think we have enough information tonight to really pinpoint those changes in service delivery that would be appropriate under this scenario, but we are in the process of gathering that information and bringing it to the board so that we're going to be able to address those issues, I just don't think we can do it tonight. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Let me try and paint a holistic picture that -- that occurred to me in this meeting today. We were looking at 1.4 million dollars in excess revenues. There was the potential to reduce the ad valorem rate. There was the potential to look at some things that we deemed to be priorities but could not or were unable to fund. We are now looking at 1.25 million dollars in revenue being taken away from that, so the net result for us -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: 174,000. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: -- is $174,000, so from my perspective, tonight's decision, since we are unable to, and I think lacking desire to, raise the ad valorem rate, but we legally are unable to once the trim notices went out, we have $174,000 difference right now that we can solidly make decisions on tonight. The balance of that is an unknown amount that -- that for us to make decisions on tonight would be adverse to balancing our own budget. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So when will we have the opportunity, Mr. Fernandez, to -- to identify where the cuts are going to be in -- in the expenditure side of the budget to balance the services that will no longer be provided to Marco so that we don't tax and collect money for services that are now superfluous since they will be either contracted for to Marco or provided directly by Marco? MR. FERNANDEZ: It's really going to be dependent upon how quickly the departments can each put together the information. We're envisioning using a Matrix that we're asking each department to use and it will be a consistent format where we get the information back. I -- I think what we're probably going to be able to do in time for the final budget hearing is for the board to conceptually give us guidance in terms of whether it wishes to have a commensurate reduction in expenditures to match that revenue reduction, and then maybe make the adjustment in reserve, and as we go forward after the hearing and identify specifically what those services are, we can cut from the expenditure budget to replenish the reserve budget, to build the reserve back up to the -- the place that it is right now. I think that's about all we're going to be able to do by the time we have the final budget hearing. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah, I think realistically we need to be careful because there's not a whole lot we can do until there's a city council in place to have interlocal agreements with and -- and our -- while we may have a direction we're headed in, we're limited as to how far we can go with that. There's nobody on the other end to say, yes, we plan to contract for that service or no, we don't. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: The election is November 6th, and I think we can fairly expect a pro rata reimbursement for a period of which there was no council, so we're looking at one-twelfth of the amount as -- as, I would say a maximum, on the conservative side to -- to count on. Beyond that, everything else is up for negotiation, and what makes this matter a little more difficult is that establishment with the City of Naples has been accomplished through a case in the courts which set up the unincorporated general fund. Marco Island will be paying into the general fund and paying a tax rate consistent with the general fund, so, you know, there may be a case that if they wish to take over services earlier, there are other revenues the county has collected that would be due Marco, so this 1.25 million is kind of the tip of the iceberg on what needs to be negotiated and established in that relationship, and their charter is not specific on things such as law enforcement. It doesn't say, we'll provide our own police department. It leaves them options, which then we've got to sit at a table with the sheriff and figure out what those options mean, so it's not going to be a simple process, but I think nuts and bolts, we're down to $174,000 in excess revenues that we can -- COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: For tonight. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: For tonight, and as we go through the fiscal year, that number will flux and change. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: But -- but between now and the final hearing, I would -- I would be comfortable assuming some number. I mean, if it's -- if a million two-fifty is what we know we're not gonna get, couldn't we reasonably assume half of that or $800,000 or a million dollars will either be services no longer provided by Collier County or services provided by Collier County for which we are paid by the City of Marco Island? CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Let me ask Mr. Weigel, because I believe under state law, unlike the federal government, we can't hedge. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: No, no, what I'm suggesting is that we cut -- we would be able to cut taxes, we would be able to reduce the -- assuming that we keep the budget the way it is, that we don't find a way to spend the million four that was identified, you know, before 15 minutes ago, then we would be able to reduce the millage rate by some small amount to -- to avoid collecting an extra million four. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I like that idea. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I know you like that. Now -- so here's what I'm saying is, can't we, and I'm not the math wiz, so you guys tell me if I'm thinking of something that doesn't make sense, but can't we make some reasonable assumption that at least half of what we were spending on Marco, I mean, at least half of the million two-fifty, we will either get back from them in contract interlocal agreements or no longer provide, so that we can say instead of a million -- instead of 174,000, we have 750,000 that we might be able to reduce the tax bill or maybe a million; isn't there some reasonable number? MR. FERNANDEZ: Mr. Chairman, I think this discussion is complicated by the fact that you're providing your most direct services to Marco currently outside of your general fund, yet the general fund is the one impacted by the revenues, so we're really going to have to do some restructuring to rearrange the fund structure in such a way that provides an equitable balance between the amount of revenues that you're losing and the adjustment in services that you'd like to make to accommodate that. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Hac'Kie, I don't think anyone's arguing with the direction you're seeking, we're looking for the -- we're looking for the mechanism to do it, and I think between now and the final budget hearing, the best we can do is to direct staff and Mr. Fernandez to -- to do just what he said. It is, in fact, a restructuring and taking a fresh look at how certain services have been provided to Marco, what their funding sources are and correlating our negative fiscal impacts that we're now talking about with those services and how they're funded. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I guess what I don't want to -- to have us all hear tonight is that we might as well not talk much about the budget because there's only $174,000 worth of wiggle room so, you know, hit the gavel and let's go home, because there's going to be more wiggle room than that. It's a question of restructuring the funds. There has to be. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Right. COHMISSIONER BERRY: I tend to agree with you, Pam, but tonight, we don't have that and I'm not comfortable playing around with numbers until I see exactly what we have. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: So when the second -- COHMISSIONER BERRY: I would rather that staff -- I would rather that staff come back to us with their reorganization or whatever before I -- I do anything more with the numbers. As far as I'm concerned, right at this moment, 174,000, that's it until we get better -- better numbers. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And when's our final hearing on the budget? MR. SHYKOWSKI: Two weeks from tonight. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And by then, you'll be able to give us something better than that so we'll have -- okay. MR. FERNANDEZ: We should have more specifics, more detail, I can't promise I will have it all worked out, but we'll have more than we have tonight. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And I'm not going to assume, Barbara, that we've got more than 174,000 either, but I also want to be able to have an open mind to expect that the staff should be able to find, you know, a million of that million two-fifty. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: The intent of bringing this up before we go through wrap-up items and so forth is to paint an existing picture for us to discuss what expectations are realistic and possible, and for everyone in this room and everyone watching at home to understand that. You know, we just had a portion of our community incorporate. It's got a real impact and it's something that hasn't happened in this community ever. The City of Naples was formed the same year the county was, so we've never had a -- a city become a city from within the county. It all occurred at the same time, so this is a whole new animal. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: The big bang. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: The big bang. COHMISSIONER BERRY: Well, Mr. Chairman, I think, too, if -- if you had clearly defined in that charter in terms of some of these, like the emergency services and the fire -- well, fire, Sheriff's Department or, you know, that -- police protection, if those were clearly defined right now, it would it be a lot easier to assess where we're at, but since that's not defined and since you don't have a council in place, this is what gives me cause for concern at even -- even when we come to the final budget, you may come a little closer, but the bottom line is that you're not going to be really defined until you get that council in place in November. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No, and I'm not comfortable with guessing. COHMISSIONER BERRY: I would rather -- I would rather play it very safe number-wise here and maybe we can make adjustments in the budget later, you know, as we go on than to anticipate too much and spend more than what we really have. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: For the purposes of this hearing, I think we've done a good job of setting the stage of what needs to happen, understanding that our -- Mr. Fernandez is -- is not a miracle worker and in two weeks all the answers are not -- he's not going to have all the answers. Hopefully we'll have some of them. We'll have the known fiscal impacts that -- that we don't have to hedge on, that we can count on, and we -- we will move on that within the next two weeks, but I -- I hear a statement consistent with mine, which is, let's be a little -- let's be more conservative on that for the simple reason this budget has to zero balance. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I don't see any point in going off half-cocked tonight when we can wait two weeks and get a little more definitive answer. Mr. Fernandez, have you, in your experience in Alachua, did you go through this -- MR. FERNANDEZ: No, the closest we came to this was a perennial debate about annexation and what impact the annexation would have, but in that scenario, you already knew the city and what services it provided and it was a pretty straightforward computation of what the impact was going to be. This is a completely new entity and it's going to be -- we're going to be feeling our way around, I think, for a while before we really know what impact it is going to have. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I'm sure we are and that's why we need to proceed with some fiscal caution here because we really -- you know, even two weeks from now when you bring us some numbers, they're going to be guesses, let's face it. I mean, it really is, so we're going to have to be very cautious. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Agreed. The intent here was not to stymie any public opinion or statement regarding any elements of the budget, but for you to understand what we are faced with today that we weren't faced with at 4:44 yesterday, so this has been kind of sudden but something that -- that we need to act on appropriately this evening. With that, Mr. Smykowski, is there anything else on the Marco Island incorporation issue that -- that you feel we need to bring up from a fiscal standpoint? MR. SHYKOWSKI: Just so the board is clear, staff is recommending funding of the computers, the restoration of the 301 reserves and the campus space plan. I know Commissioner Hac'Kie had a question related to the space plan and we'll get to that shortly, but bottom line is, up until yesterday, we believed we had $900,000 of surplus revenue that, coupled with the revenue loss to the City of Marco Island and/or to other Florida counties as a result of the revenue sharing restructuring, we're essentially short $300,000 from where we would have liked to have been, 900,000 versus the -- the million two that we will lose, and just for the board's awareness, there is, on the revenue sharing, the revised number for FY 98 is fairly conservative based on the budget information that we received. That is the number in the state handbook, but it is only at a 95 percent distribution level. Essentially we could become virtually whole by grossing that 5.8 million dollar revenue sharing number up an additional 5 percent. That would get us to about 6.1 million dollars and that would close the gap between the 900,000 versus the million two-fifty that would go to the City of Marco Island and enable you to fund the three items that are recommended by staff. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: So -- so we could find another $600,000 by reforecasting our -- another 300,000, by reforecasting our revenue sharing from the state; is that what number you're talking about? MR. SHYKOWSKI: Yes. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Smykowski went conservative on that number due to the past influxes of that particular revenue source. Some years it's a boom year, some years it's a bust year. You get even allocations throughout the year, then your final allocation -- it's kind of like being a teacher, you know, you get that check for summer, you know, so either you got the check or you didn't, so he was conservative on that, and I think it was wise to do so, but in accordance with state statute, we can allocate up to 95 percent of the projected revenue, and by doing that, we make up that $300,000. Did I clear that up or did I -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: No, you just restated it. That's what I thought he said. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. I just -- We discussed this at length today and I didn't know if you had a chance to meet -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: No, I hadn't. MR. SMYKOWSKI: What happens with revenue sharing is, the state gives you those equal distributions and June is the end of the state fiscal year and that's kind of the -- the make or break month for the counties in terms of if there's any excess distribution to be received, that is the month in which you would receive it. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. We are going -- I'm going to get back to the -- the agenda, to Item 3(C), which is wrap-up items, the items in which we directed staff to bring back should conditions change or should conditions merit bringing them back for further consideration. Mr. Smykowski, are you going to leave that one or -- MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes, we've essentially walked through the second -- the bulk of the second item already, which is the changes in general fund revenue and those recommended uses. At this point, I guess it would be appropriate to address Commissioner Mac'Kie's question related to the campus space plan at this point to kind of close out this issue, and I'm not sure we're going to reach any closure on it tonight, but hopefully in two weeks we'll have a much -- or to the extent possible, a clearer picture than we do at this point in time. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Can I have a 30 second synopsis from Skip on that just so it -- to refresh our memory. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's -- I was gonna say I could live without it, but -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's why I want to hear a synopsis because I'm kind of thinking the same thing. MR. CAMP: Good afternoon, commissioners. For the record, Skip Camp, your facilities management director. In June you had directed us to negotiate a contract for space planning for the campus for the next 20 years. We're bringing that back in about two weeks. The important thing to remember about that is that it's mandatory to have probably 90 percent of that in the DRI that we have to have in order to build any more on this campus. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: In addition, I've received requests from constitutional officers for long-term space situations, from the courts. It's something that we have put off -- I think at least the two years I've been here, we've said, that's kind of expensive, let's put it off, and I think it's coming home to roost, so -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I remember -- the DRI comment is actually the one that captured me, it's work that's going to have to be done for that anyway, so the extra 10 percent is going to be a matter of a couple of thousand bucks. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And restoring the fund 301 reserves, there's not a lot of choice there. That's something we do every year. Those reserves need to be restored so we start off with a zero balance. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Of course. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: So the final item on that wrap-up that Mr. Smykowski's indicated is the state attorney, public defender computers. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And I'm already wanting to leave -- wanting to put that in if there's any way to do it. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I told Mr. Pearlman at the hearing, and I wasn't speaking for the board, I was speaking for myself, but that that's something that if we could find a way to fund it, I thought it was important enough to be on-line with the rest of the system. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, I think we've already gone back and committed that wewre going to do that for them, so I donwt think we want to reverse ourselves on that. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. So those three items, we are going to, as a board, recommend? COMMISSIONER MACIKIE: I would recommend funding the first one and not recommend -- well, funding the first two, Iim sorry, restoring the reserves and the computers for state attorney and public defender, but Iim not ready to spend the 216,000 even yet. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Considering that 185,000 of thatls going to need to be spent as part of the DRI anyway -- COMMISSIONER MACIKIE: Which has to happen this year? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, itls going to happen as soon as we do any changes on campus at this point, welve kind of reached our limit, so I mean, whether we do facilities for the jail or do any expansion of the courthouse or if we do virtually anything here, we trip that, so -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And from someone who knows the DRI process, itls length and loopholes, if we get started next year, welre two and a half years away, from -- I mean, it can be drug out if someone at DCA decides that they donlt like the color of our hair or something like that, so -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Iive been meaning to speak to you about that. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Well, itls getting grayer by the minute, but, so Iim -- Iim supportive of the campus space plan being included also. MR. SMYKOWSKI: It beats falling out though. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Watch my complaining, is that it, Mr. Smykowski? So thatls two. Anyone else on the campus space plan, in, out? COMMISSIONER BERRY: Iim in favor of it. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: In. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: If we do all three of those things with the $174,000 welre dealing with today, where does that leave us? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: It leaves us with Mr. Smykowskils suggestion of -- of upgrading to 100 hundred percent the revenue sharing projections. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Right, and then we have a minor difference of 15, $20,000 and weld absorb that just in the contingency reserves. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I need clarification. The revenue projection, we were actually going to bring it up to 95 percent or up to 1007 MR. SMYKOWSKI: From 95 to 100, but -- at that level, but then at the fund level, we do reserve the 5 percent, so the net appropriation will still only be in the 95 -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I knew there was a 5 percent room in there, I just wasnlt sure -- MR. SMYKOWSKI: Sure. Sorry about the confusion. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: So we are back at break even with -- with those changes? MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes, you may have a slight adjustment to your reserves 15, $20,000 based on the revenue reserve on that margin, et cetera, but -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Any further questions on wrap-up items? Letls go to public comment and -- MR. SMYKOWSKI: Iim sorry, there is one other wrap-up item, we had -- jump to item two on the wrap-up list on item 3(C), page one, therels an additional personal services request by the public defender and I believe a representative from the public defender is -- is here to make that request. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: God, they get their computers and then -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: They want to have somebody to run the computers. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Yeah, details, right. MR. SHOAFF: Good afternoon, my name's Allen Shoaff. I'm representing the Public Defender's Office and -- and we have a request for an additional $10,100 and that is in the salaries and benefits area. We've submitted a letter to Miss Gansel about that, our budget representative for your county, and I know that you're going to be going on and reviewing this a little bit further, so I'm just here to support that increase and we will be working with your budget analyst in that area before the next meeting so that we can find that $10,100. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And that $10,100 will buy what? MR. SHOAFF: That will buy the -- the increases in the -- it's actually merit increases which were over and above what the county had set aside, and the reason for the increase over and above what the county had set aside was the fact that we had a change in personnel in this office in Collier County, we increased the staff and with more seniority than the ones that had left. We had been, in the past, criticized by the courts that we did not have the proper representation for the indigent in the courts, and so Mr. Hidgley had gone about and brought down a few new people who had more years in service and so consequently, the increase -- the merit increase would be over and above that which was budgeted for 97-98. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I guess I just want to be really careful if we have 1,000 county employees that we're giving one particular increase to and then if we turn around and do something over and above that for the Public Defender's Office, it causes me a little discomfort. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: How many lawyers in the public -- how many lawyers in the Public Defender's Office would be sharing this $10,1007 MR. SHOAFF: There's going to be -- I don't have that exact number in front of me, but the increase by the transfer of attorneys would be $4,765 and the merit increase set aside by the appropriation act by the legislature was $4,449, so that amounts to 9,214, and then there's a couple other incidental things that I don't have listed here. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I think Jean had -- MS. GANSEL: If I could just -- Mr. Shoaff was not here during the first meeting, so he's not quite sure -- Jean Gansel, and what had happened was, their request was over 7 percent for their professional fees, which are for two public defenders, one secretary and one investigator that are state employees but are paid for by the county. I had reviewed that budget and it exceeded the 3 percent that was allocated for county employees and had pointed that out to the board, and their direction was to reduce that to the 3 percent that was consistent with county employees' increases. Since that time, I've received communication that actually their employees that they have there now are higher paid employees, they are employees with more experience that were transferred from Fort Myers to the Collier County office because of some of the criticisms that the public defender had been receiving from the judges with the experience of the attorneys. So actually, these employees are in place at this point. What they are requesting as a percentage increase over what they're currently making is less than the 3 percent, but consistent with the state increases. I wasn't aware of that at the time that the budget was put together, so they're requesting that they be allowed to give their state employees the state employee increase, which is less than the county is awarding. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's just that the base we're computing the percentage on is higher than what it was when we did the budget originally? MS. GANSEL: Exactly. There were transfers that were made with higher -- more experienced attorneys. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I -- well, I'd like to see that -- MS. GANSEL: Oh, that's another thing, it's a 48 percent increase over what is currently budgeted, as opposed to the -- it's a 10,100 increase over last year's allocation, but 4,800 over what has -- is in the budget at this point. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I guess I'd -- I'd like to see that in some written form before I go ahead and do anything on it and it may or may not work, but my concern again is -- is I know that it's a unique situation, an individual situation, but I bet if we put every department head up in front of us and they described their unique situation, there would be times where we could bounce the dollar total or the percentage total higher and -- and it would make perfect sense, but overall, each of them has to deal with a particular percentage and -- and I hate to alter that, despite the great job you all do, and I'd like to see that -- see what you've just described written down for me between now and two weeks from now, with the actual numbers, but I -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Would you like to suggest then that this be an item for discussion at the final budget hearing and -- MR. SMYKOWSKI: Sure. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: -- in the meantime, provide basically what you've said in written form so we can take a look at it from an individual perspective so we can make a more informed decision at the final hearing. MR. SMYKOWSKI: And we do have some correspondence we'll just try to make sure it's as succinct and clear as possible as to the net dollar increase they are looking for in -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Please make sure Mr. Shoaff sees that before it comes to us so he can confirm that that is -- so we don't sit here and argue in two weeks about the memo that we got. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Sure. MR. SHOAFF: Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you. MR. SMYKOWSKI: So we'll just add that to our wrap-up list for the final hearing. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. Which, if I'm not mistaken, is one of only two items on the wrap-up list at this point? MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We just doubled the wrap-up list. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Doubled the wrap-up list in one fell swoop. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Actually, it will be the same, virtually, as tonight with, hopefully, some up to date info on the Marco Island scenario. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Fernandez, how many speakers do we have this evening? MR. FERNANDEZ: We have 12. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We have 12. For those who have not had the opportunity to address the board in the past, the public comment is limited to five minutes per person. If someone else has pretty much stated your position and you're supportive of that, any courtesy you can provide us and everyone and just not being -- not duplicating their comments would be appreciated, but there is a timer in front of you and we will be adhering to that. Mr. Fernandez. MR. FERNANDEZ: First speaker is Mr. A1 Newman, and then Karen Acquard. MR. NEWMAN: Good evening, commissioners. A1 Newman, Naples Park Neighborhood Watch. We're all for the sheriff's budget, as you can tell. We have -- we're witnessing crime increase, and without the increase in the sheriff's budget, I don't see where we can see any decrease in the crime. I would appreciate you taking another look at it and see if you can come up with some more money for it. He needs it. Thank you. MR. FERNANDEZ: Karen Acquard, and then John Grassl? MS. ACQUARD: Good evening, commissioners. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Karen, I'm going to have to -- if you have been called, we'll call it the on deck circle, if you're on deck, if you would like to go ahead and come on down close to the microphone, as soon as the person's done, we can just rotate you in. Hiss Acquard, please continue. MS. ACQUARD: Okay. My name is Karen Acquard, and don't ask me why I get to be a nervous wreck when I get up here. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I'm a nervous wreck when you're up there, too. MS. ACQUARD: I am up here because I've noticed that the majority of the county departments are seeing a 10 percent increase, but not the Sheriff's Department. I'd like to say at the onset, neither myself nor any member of my family has ever attended the sheriff's academy, nor do we have any plans to. He has been on the receiving end of my grumblings and my, I hope, gentle naggings, and now you're about to be. The population of this county keeps growing and it's spreading out into areas that before were undeveloped. The Sheriff's Department has to staff by miles that have to be covered. Collier County is, land mass-wise, the largest county in the State of Florida and probably the most diverse. You have virtually uninhabited land that is ideal for narcotics trafficking and growing so it has to be patrolled. You've got farmlands and you've got metropolitan areas. To compare our county with other counties such as Pasco, the best you're gonna come up with is apples and oranges and fruit salad and we're going to come up without sheriff's deputies. When we lived in Naples Park, we paid about, between 800 and $900 in taxes, I don't remember what it was, it was quite a few years ago, and we could get a sheriff's deputy in five or ten minutes. Now I live out in the Estates, my taxes are a little over 1,700 and it takes 25 or 30 minutes to get a deputy. I realize people in this county that live in some of the higher income areas are paying a lot more taxes, but I feel we have -- out in the Estates, have the right to have equal protection from the Sheriff's Department. You have a substation in Golden Gate City. You have a substation in Immokalee. There is about 40 miles in between. I'm in the in between one. I'd like to see some sheriff's deputies in our area, and unless he has a budget that will go along with the growth in this county, he can't supply it. Now I'm about to make some people unhappy that were friends. One of the items that is high on the budget is beautification of medians. Well, you know, thousands have come to this county without beautiful medians and thousands will keep on coming, but I can't see them coming if we have a high crime rate. I am hoping that you will reconsider and give the sheriff's budget a higher priority than what you are so that we can have a better response time if we need a deputy out in the Estates. Thank you. MR. FERNANDEZ: John Grassl and then Douglas McGilvra. MR. GRASSL: My name is John Grassl from Gin Lane. As I have seen today on the agenda, I am very happy. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you keep up the good work. Thank you. MR. FERNANDEZ: Douglas McGilvra then Robert Bennett CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: You've been awarded another five minutes, sir. MR. MCGILVRA: Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Doug McGilvra. I live in Naples Park. I'm also part of the Naples Park Neighborhood Watch, so you know where I'm coming from. I support the sheriff, but let me tell you one thing, folks. I have never seen a bunch of people that are able to handle bowls of Jello the way you people are, so many changes in so little time have occurred here in this budget and you people are doing the best juggling act I've ever seen. You ought to be on TV. It's tremendous. I mean that as a positive thing, and I know that you are doing your best to keep the budget down here and to keep the costs down and to keep the taxes down and that's all to be commended. However, on the other side of the coin, you've got another obligation to us and that's health, safety and welfare of all the people in Collier County and that's where we find a difference of opinion between perhaps you and I, and that is in the sheriff's budget. The sheriff does need more money and I see it from a kind of a parochial viewpoint, all right. Naples Park has got about 42 square miles. It's in North Naples and it's 42 square miles of area. There's only 42 officers in the substation up there. Now, Naples Park itself is one square mile. We've got about 8,000 people in Naples Park. That's about 2.4 percent of the total people that are in the whole North Naples area -- I mean 15 percent of the whole group that's in the North Naples area, but only 2.4 percent of the area, and we have to supplement the sheriff's activities in order to really keep our area looking good and keeping good and keeping it down by a neighborhood watch patrol. There are about 260 neighborhood watch patrols in the whole Collier County area. They're all there for a reason, they have to be. We can't get enough police to do the job of patrolling. They're out running back and forth taking care of calls for service. They can't do the job of patrolling, so I ask you really, really to do some consideration here when you're doing all this reconsideration and Jello juggling, keep the sheriff in mind on it, please. Thank you. MR. FERNANDEZ: Robert Bennett and then Allen Shoaff, if he needs to speak again. Then Peter Pye. MR. BENNETT: Robert Bennett, a citizen of Collier County, and I guess I'm here to speak to the sheriff's budget and the need for it. I have spoken before, I speak again. The citizens' academy seems to be somewhat misunderstood. I hear people distancing themselves from it. I -- I make myself closer to it and I'm proud to be a graduate of the citizens' academy and attended their postgraduate courses. You know, there are about 800 graduates of that academy and there are going to be more. I've talked to a number of them and a number of them are here, as a matter of fact, and those I've talked to are very much in favor and see the need of this budget increase. I think that's an opinion that's a good opinion. We are not victims of the sheriff's propaganda. Not to state that there is any propaganda. We are not victims of it may have been inferred at times. We are educated to the sheriff's operation. We've been talked to by every element of the Sheriff's Office, deputies and their officers, lieutenants and captains, the undersheriff and the sheriff, attorneys and we know pretty well what goes on. We've ridden patrol, many of us. We've done other things, and I wonder if -- have any of you done that? CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Yes. MR. BENNETT: Have you been through the sheriff's academy? CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Not through the academy. I've ridden with officers. MR. BENNETT: I would highly recommend it. It would be great. You could learn a lot. It would be helpful, I think, in making your decision, but you have a decision to make now, and I just want to say, I'm proud to be associated with the sheriff's academy -- with the sheriff's academy and the agency to the extent that I am and it's a very professional and competent group of people. They are not incompetent. They are very competent. They are very dedicated. This has also been demonstrated by the fact that they are one of the few accredited sheriff's agencies in the United States, one of the first, so please consider this. It's needed. I'll just touch a moment -- we were talking a minute ago about some geography. Well, the Golden Gate substation, they have a very large population, a lot more mileage and no more deputies than they have in North Naples. Lots of problems, so you need to support that. Thank you. MR. FERNANDEZ: Peter Pye and then Dennis Pearlman. MR. PYE: Peter Pye. I also live in Naples Park. I've lived there just over six years. The explosive growth in that area also means we've had an increase in crime. There's evidence that this crime is -- the criminals and gang activity is coming just over the border from Lee County. Recently there was some graffiti on one of the walls in Naples Park. We phoned the Sheriff's Office. Within a little while, that was immediately removed. Sheriff Hunter is keeping on top of it. He's keeping gangs down, he's doing an excellent job, but he can't do it without the men and without the manpower that he needs. Somebody said to me once that Sheriff Hunter is a damn good sheriff, but he's a rotten politician, and they iljustrated that by saying that most people with their budgets, they'll put some fat in it, they'll pat it out a bit, so when it's going to be cut down, as they know it will be, he's then got enough to do what he wanted to do originally, but Sheriff Hunter won't do that because he's too honest. He pares it down right to the limit, and then when you chop some of it, he's got to rethink all his strategy. Please, give him the money that he needs for the men so he can continue doing the very good job that he is doing. Thank you. MR. FERNANDEZ: Dennis Pearlman and then Bill Ruie. MR. PEARLMAN: Dennis Pearlman, executive director for the State Attorney's Office. On behalf of our State Attorney, Joe D'Alessandro, and Public Defender, Doug Hidgley, I appreciate the support the board is giving for our technology issues. I'd also like to thank Mr. HcNees and Mr. Ochs, Jean Gansel, Mr. Smykowski and also Bill Coakley for working with us on this issue. Thank you very much. We'll continue to give you the best prosecution effort that we can. Thank yOU. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you. MR. FERNANDEZ: Bill Ruie and Janet Vasey. MR. RUIE: Bill Ruie, I'm a resident of the City of Golden Gate. I come before you today as a concerned citizen, a voter and taxpayer of Collier County. Sheriff Hunter and his dedicated staff have prepared a budget request that I have full faith in. The budget request is as trimmed of excess as it can get. In the 18 years that I have lived in Collier County, I have enjoyed the protection that has been provided by one of the top law enforcement agencies in the state. I have watched the Sheriff's Office come up with inventive ways to keep their budget requests as low as possible through federal grants, confiscated funds and numerous volunteers. If we intend on keeping the excellent law enforcement we have, we have to be willing to pay for it. It is my belief the general public also feels this way. I feel that if the sheriff is not given the budget that he is requesting, then we will be taking a step backward in the area of law enforcement in Collier County. I am not willing to take the responsibility for that step backwards. Are you? What we save today, we will have to make up for in the future at who knows what cost. I urge you to reconsider your decision and have the faith in the Sheriff's Office that I and the voters of Collier County have, as they are the ones that had enough faith in Sheriff Hunter to elect him. Thank you. MR. FERNANDEZ: Janet Vasey and Mark Middlebrook. MS. VASEY: Hi, Janet Vasey, for the record. Good evening. I had a few thoughts on the Marco Island funding adjustments that you've talked about here this evening and I wanted to maybe put a couple of things in perspective for you the way I see them, and with the adjustments that you've discussed so far, you're talking about being in balance with no revenue expected at all from Marco, and I recognize that you're going to take a little time and look at that in more detail. With regard to that, I have a couple of suggestions and I really do believe that you'll be able to get a good bit of -- of some of this revenue back from Marco Island. Functions like the sheriff and EHS, while not paid for out of 001, are still funded by transfers from the general fund, so to the extent that money is saved in -- in sheriff or in EHS, you could have less of a transfer to those functions. Sheriff and EHS functions will still be required, either by contract, or if Marco Island wants to hire their own EHS and sheriff, they probably would draw from some of our personnel which would reduce our costs, and so that would be ultimately a savings, and I know that since I'm up here speaking to you on the budget, you expect me to address carryforward and revenue reserves, so I don't want to disappoint you. I think that -- I want you to understand that 1.25 million represents only 10 percent of your carryforward. It represents about 25 percent of your revenue reserves and that's -- this is one of the reasons why you have revenue reserves, so just -- those are some thoughts I had on that. So as a recommendation, when you evaluate the financial impact of the Marco Island incorporation on the Collier County budget, please give full consideration to these alternatives, and I suspect there's still some room for further tax reduction or alternative spending. Thank you. MR. FERNANDEZ: Mark Middlebrook and Ernie Gangl. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Good evening, Mark Middlebrook, Senior Deputy Court Administrator, Twentieth Circuit, Chief of Operations here in Collier County. I feel like a broken record. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Can you shorten that title because -- MR. MIDDLEBROOK: I wish I could. I certainly don't like writing it, that's for sure. I feel like a broken record coming up here again on behalf of the chief judge of the circuit, Hugh Starnes, who is out of the state right now. He would like to have been here to convey this personally, but again, on the fourth floor, the judges have asked that you reconsider the funding needed to at least begin the architectural studies and any other necessary permitting that must be done. The reason we are asking is that we are out of court space. We are out of chamber space for the judges. Some of the news organizations have been doing some stories on this. We have seen some information given to them stating that the commission is aware that there are times that courtrooms are not being utilized. That is absolutely correct. There are times courtrooms are not utilized, just as there are times offices aren't utilized all throughout the government center, but we aren't -- we aren't discussing the times that we are down. We are -- we are anticipating the busy times, such as season, the first week of February when we have all the DUIs come in from the holidays, we have no courtrooms and -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Not exactly the same season we think of, Mark, but -- MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Well, we deal in cases and -- and again, as you increase -- as the sheriff is fortunate enough to increase the number of deputies that he's able to provide this county, that's going to generate more cases, and that's what we are driven by as far as receiving more judges. So again, we are asking that you reconsider that. I understand the problems that you are facing now because of the City of Marco Island. The judges are aware of that. However, we are trying to resolve this through a budgetary request instead of some other manner and that's why we are here asking today that you reconsider. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Mr. Middlebrook, how close is the circuit to appointing a full-time additional judge, because we keep getting, you know, a judge here, a judge there, but they won't appoint the position, they won't fund it, they won't fund the necessary staff with it. It's kind of cart before the horse, you know, we're out of space, but the 20th Circuit won't even recognize the need and appoint a full-time judge. Is there anything in the hopper for that, because the caseload is keeping people in jail that we'd like to get out, so -- MR. MIDDLEBROOK: The problem is, the State of Florida, through the legislature, determines through cases how many judges will be assigned to each circuit, and the 20th Circuit, it goes by our entire circuit as far as receiving a judge. It does not go by county. Unfortunately, we're one of the many circuits that have multiple counties in the State of Florida, so I cannot answer your question as far as a full-time judge being assigned to Collier County. I can assure you that as the caseloads increase -- and again, we have taken some innovative action, we've just appointed two general masters to hear certain cases that they are authorized by the state to hear and free up judges' time to hear court cases. We're limited to what we can do. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I have a question about the -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I did hear you. Thank you. I just -- I've had that discussion with judges over the last several weeks and -- MR. MIDDLEBROOK: We anticipate more judicial assignments to Collier County. I can't give you an exact number, but it's obvious that our case numbers continue to grow, and that's -- basically, it's all dependent upon the legislature at this point as to how many more judges come into this circuit. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Mr. Smykowski, in the campus planning dollars, a couple hundred thousand dollars, does any of that include the planning for the court expansion? MR. SHYKOWSKI: I don't believe so, no. That's more future space plan needs. Mr. Camp -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Can you come tell us that on the record, please. MR. CAMP: For the record, Skip Camp. Part of that does include -- not correctional, but judicial. Judicial, but not correctional. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So how much '- MR. SMYKOWSKI: To what extent, Skip? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Right. How much money is in there for planning for judicial expansion? MR. CAMP: I don't know what the dollar amount is, but -- but the total program is -- is in there, the total judicial program is in there. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's included? MR. CAMP: That's correct. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: We really need to address those, sir. We are looking at -- we are looking at probably two to three years to build the fourth floor, if that is, in fact, the floor that we are going to utilize, because the building has to occur at nights and on weekends because it can't occur during court time. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What I heard them saying, Mark, is that today we've added back in or the majority of the board added, how much is it, two hundred and -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Two hundred and sixteen COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- for campus planning that's going to include judicial expansion planning that -- MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Well, does that include architectural drawings and so on for this floor is what -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Oh. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: No. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: That's the money we're seeking. That -- that was the money that was removed in the initial hearings and that is the money we are asking to have replaced. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I see. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mark, I -- I understand your frustration, but you remember the news clipping I dragged out in June -- MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Very well. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- and the bottom line was, I mean, we don't have another judge being assigned here and we don't have any idea when it will happen and we really don't anticipate a -- you said the legislature has to do that, so it's not going to be until next May at the soonest? MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Right. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And -- so, I mean, next -- next year, God willing we'll get that appointment, but that opens up the opportunity to make that a reality, and I've seen Skip Camp do some amazing things on campus as far as getting things done in -- in a timely manner, so I don't know that it will take two years to complete anything. I think they'll do that in a timely fashion. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: If they'll make that permanent assignment, we might be spurred on to look at it a little bit harder. MR. MIDDLEBROOK: Well, I'll certainly convey that to the court administrator and let that be your view. Thank you very much. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Commissioners, just to clarify on that issue, Mr. Tindall verified the dollar amount that would be required for the architectural design of the fourth floor, that was $285,000. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: No. No. Got to be kidding. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Well, we've already done it on other floors. Can't we just move it upstairs? COHMISSIONER NORRIS: It's already built. I mean, you're just talking about putting in the walls, 285,000 to plan that? COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Maybe now something instead of the lawyer jokes, we can now start making architect jokes. I can hope. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Not a chance, but what the heck. MR. FERNANDEZ: Ernie Gangl and then Sheriff Hunter. MR. GANGL: Good evening. My name is Ernie Gangl and I'm one of the COP officers for North Naples. As a lot of you know, I attend a lot of the neighborhood watch meetings. COP means community oriented policing. It's my job to go to the civic associations, the neighborhood watch associations and try and listen to all of their problems they're having in their different communities that they have. In North Naples alone, we have over 32 associations and 32 communities that we're really concerned about, and a lot of the questions that they ask me is, how can you better serve us with the amount of people that you have, so that's why when it comes to neighborhood watch, it's very important that we take the neighborhood watch and have them work directly with us on the basis of, they're helping us and we're helping them. So we ask the neighborhood watch programs to do a lot. We have them go -- go out there with their patrols and look for criminals. We have them go out there with their patrols and patrol our -- our school crossings, because when we're helping out in school crossings, we cannot really send an officer out there to try and help them. we're out there asking them to do law enforcement functions in some ways. It's just like our courtesy notices are the same way. I want to give you some figures, if you'd take this into consideration, if you would, is so far this year in 1997, we have 166,125 complaints. These are dispatch calls for this year for the whole Collier County. Taking into consideration North Naples alone, because that's my district, okay, we have 36,652 calls so far this year. Take an average of anywhere from four to five deputies per shift in consideration, and when you take consideration, okay, of the time off for sick, vacations, let's say we have an average of four deputies per shift, if you take that in consideration on 36,552, divide that by eight for eight months, you're talking 4,581 calls. If you divide that by 30 days, roughly, as an average, you're talking one thousand -- correction, 152 calls per day. Times that by the 12 deputies that you have for all three shifts, you're talking about an average of about 12 calls per man. On an average, when we go to a call, if it's a burglary call or if it's an arrest call, sometimes it takes us two to three hours to go into the jail to book somebody in, okay. If you're taking a burglary report, sometimes that takes two to three hours by the time you figure all the paperwork. an average of five reports a day is what a deputy can really handle and handle efficiently. He is asked to do 12 calls, okay, 12 reports per day to try and get all of this through. It's impossible. That's why I ask you to consider that the numbers are there, the numbers balance. If you take a look at it, take that in consideration, and I'm actually up here because of a concerned citizen, too, as we need our law enforcement. Thank you. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Can I just ask you a question? There's three million extra over last year in this year's budget. If we're not spending that on additional deputies, what's the higher priority that we're spending it on? MR. GANGL: Sir, I don't know that. The sheriff will have to address that. I just want you to know -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Okay. The money appears to be there. MR. GANGL: -- that's what we're dealing with, the actual cause that we're dealing with is -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I appreciate that. MR. GANGL: -- the patrol deputies themselves. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I appreciate that. To me, that's -- that would be the highest priority, but apparently there's a higher priority, because there's another three million dollars and you're telling me there's -- there's not additional deputies appearing, so maybe the sheriff can answer that, but it's a priority issue to me. MR. FERNANDEZ: Our final speaker is the sheriff. MR. HUNTER: And you bet I can answer that. As you know -- actually, you could answer that, Mr. Constantine. Just for the record, I'm Sheriff Don Hunter, Sheriff of Collier County. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you once again. The three million dollars, as you know, Mr. Constantine, would go towards wage adjustments consistent with what the board has adopted as policy this year, but unlike the Board of County Commissioners, we will not adopt the policy to give deputies a raise on October 1 across the board. We are having to phase that in at anniversary date as a result of the reduction of our budget proposal. I am here to ask the board one more time in our public hearing to reconsider your position and restore the proposal, not -- not completely to the original level, but to the 7.8 percent adjustment as we had discussed in the first workshop. That would give us adequate funding to hire the additional 13 people that we discussed with you, five road patrol deputies, four bailiffs -- is this working okay -- four bailiffs, three youth relations deputies and a marine patrol officer. It would also provide us with adequate funding to provide the salary adjustments consistent with the board policy and the other items that we detailed before you in the workshops and are prepared to detail once again. You heard from the public. I've had petitions signed, 153, I believe, individual citizens that have approached us, members of the citizens academy, which as you heard, is not a propaganda arm of the agency, but rather a group of citizens, approximately 800 of them, who have attended special educational sessions. You see these citizens academies cropping up across the nation and we believe as law enforcement executives, that this is a viable way of conveying information to hold us in law enforcement accountable to the public we serve. It is a way of conveying information about how the agencies serve the public, and there's approximately 800 graduates of that -- of those academies. We have civic associations who support the position that the agency needs the money that has been proposed, the compromise number, which would raise us to about 7.8 percent this year. I will remind the board that we have, over the past many weeks, reiterated the position that we found ways of cutting the original proposal, one of those being that we were reverting to our policy of paying on anniversary date for salary adjustments. That saves about $500,000 from the original proposal. We have agreed to phase in the 13 expanded positions if the board will fund those positions, saving approximately $225,000. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm sorry to interrupt, but you just said by phasing in through half the year, you save roughly half on the increases; is that right? By phasing those in on anniversary date as opposed to on October 1st, you save about a half a million dollars? MR. HUNTER: Is this the salary adjustments now? Approximately $500,000, correct. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And it would be -- MR. HUNTER: That's our estimate. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It would be -- okay. I'll hang on to that. Thanks. MR. HUNTER: Okay. And finally, the other element of the adjustment that we had proposed to the board during the workshops was that due to the fact that the actuarial study came in post-proposal, after we originally submitted our proposal for this year's budget, we were able to identify a new position that we believe to be actuarially sound, and that would also result in a reduction in the original proposal of about $200,000, so we're at about $900,000. That brings us to a 7.8 percent adjustment for the budget this year. We were asking for approximately 1.3 million dollars in addition to the three million that you're providing. I remind the board that the three million dollars that has been suggested added to this year's funding level will not provide adequate funding to carry on current services if we -- if we adjust our salaries consistent with board policy. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I've really got to ask you on that, because you said in response to my initial question that the three million dollars would be eaten up by salary adjustments and you've got roughly 1,000 employees; is that right, ballpark? MR. HUNTER: Well, roughly 900. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Okay. That will make my point even stronger, because with 1,000 employees, they would each have to be getting a $3,000 raise to eat up three million dollars, and unless they're averaging $100,000 a year, which I'm pretty sure none of us are, they're not going to get a $3,000 raise consistent with board policy, so I'm really having trouble finding the argument that the salary -- those adjustments are going to eat up the whole three million dollars. MR. HUNTER: Well, first of all, let me assure the board, I'm sure that the viewing public understands that those are not salaries that we're talking about, that a salary includes -- on top of that salary adjustment, you have benefits that are paid under state law for retirement, withholding taxes, and that that whole number would go into that package, and any time that you adjust salary base, you're going to add in benefits based on the new base. I'm not suggesting that members of the agency are going to receive $3,000 wage adjustments this year. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Could you -- COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Could you explain to me then how that three million is going to be eaten up in -- MR. HUNTER: Perhaps -- yes, I certainly can, but I'm going to ask for some assistance because you may get into some numbers and some specifics that I don't have in front of me. The detail, I'd ask Crystal Kinzel to explain, and if she may approach the podium now, we'll get into the specifics. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Because it's $3,333 on average per person. MR. HUNTER: No, I'm not suggesting that. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: But that' -- that is what you're suggesting if you're saying it will be eaten up entirely -- that three million will be eaten up entirely by those adjustments. MR. HUNTER: No. I apologize. I'm not trying to suggest that the three million dollars is going to be completely consumed by salary adjustments. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Let me ask, Mr. Smykowski, on our budget page from the 97-98 proposed, when it goes from 96-97 forecast expenditures to the next column, 97-98 current service, does that mean that in order to provide to the community the same service that they had the year before, not increasing it, but just the same number of people doing the same job, this is what the new cost is? MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes, it's essentially the inflationary cost of what you're doing today. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. So I'm -- I'm going from the budget document here because I don't want to -- the three million, I think that's important because we keep -- I keep getting phone calls, why are you cutting the sheriff's budget, and I think that's -- that's hilarious because it's -- there's no -- the word cut isn't even in the arena, but under current service in our budget, the amount of net cost to general revenue is $52,670,000. In other words, cost adjustments, cost of living wage adjustments for all the existing employees and so forth, in order to provide the same service people had last year, this year it's $52,670,000? MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. The total budgeted amount in net cost to general revenue is $53,665,400. In essence, a million dollar difference. So when I read that, I'm seeing that to have the same number of people, same number of deputies on the road, same number of people in the 911 dispatch center, same amount of office space, same electric bill, plus cost of living for salaries and inflationary, in other words, plus or minus 3 percent added on to every single cost that was within the department last year, the board is going, it was proposed here, a million dollars over that. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. MR. SMYKOWSKI: There's roughly a million dollars identified as expanded services. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. In what we have approved under the current millage rate, is that 53,665,000 still a valid number for the Sheriff's Office or is it lower? MR. SMYKOWSKI: No, that is -- that is the number inclusive of the reduction -- up at the top there you'll see the budget reduction in brackets, 2,248,200. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. The reason this is important to me is that -- and the sheriff said himself that to -- you know, he can't do what he did last year. I think what we're really talking about here is what can you keep up with growth-wise with that million dollars, because no one's out of a job. No one has to be fired. No one's being let go. The same number of people, the same number of cars, the same number of dogs, the same number of bullets, the same number of pieces of paper, paper clips, lights, it's all there, plus 3 percent on all of it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But there's been growth in the community. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Exactly. So let's talk about the growth. There's a million dollars to handle growth. Now, what I hear from people who spoke today is they want more officers on the street. There's a million dollars beyond giving everyone their cost increases, increasing inflationary rates and so forth. There's a million dollars beyond that. So I think where your question is most appropriate is, everyone's telling me they want more officers on the street. I assume they're telling the sheriff the same thing, so what we're really talking about here is a million dollars to handle a 4 percent rate of growth in the community. MR. SMYKOWSKI: The one thing that I need to add though to the discussion is, the 2.2 million dollar reduction that was made, the Sheriff's Office has not identified how that would be implemented within their agency. That is, in fact, why there is that line that just says budget reduction, because they were not specific in identifying -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And we didn't want to tell him how to do it, because we figured he could hear from the same people we could. MS. KINZEL: But I think the numbers you're referring to at the top -- for the record, Crystal Kinzel, the finance director. I think the numbers you're looking at at the top, Commissioner Hancock, do not include the reductions that you have made to our budget, and that's what Mr. Smykowski's saying, that the 2.2 million that's down at the bottom line will have to reduce those line items. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: No, you're not -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Let Mr. Smykowski explain it to her. MS. KINZEL: Okay. The other point that -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Wait, wait. Let's -- let's correct that. You made a statement on the record, so let's go ahead and correct that. MS. KINZEL: No, I said I thought you were looking at the top number which didn't include that, which is correct, but you were looking at current year -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Right. MS. KINZEL: -- the fifty-three million. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: You see the numbers I was looking at and they're correct? MS. KINZEL: Yes, they're correct for that year. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. MS. KINZEL: But let me explain. When you use last year as the basis for the three million adjustment, remember that last year is already reduced by a 4 percent attrition amount or 1.7 million dollars. We have, over the last year, hired over 117 people, March to March, because of the pay plan implementations. We are then assuming a full staff. If you're looking at our actual staff -- and the way we project our salary information in our budgets is person by person. We go through and we allocate their anniversary date, their actual person by person anniversary date and what would that equal then for next year's salary. On top of that, each benefit is calculated. So when we're saying that we can't do what we did last year with the money you've given, that's because you're giving three million on top of last year's budget, less the attrition amount. So you're taking the base as last year's base that's minus the attrition. We've hired those people this year. We're in a different budget year with a 4 percent salary increase. We need that additional funding to bring us up to today's level of staffing with your budget policy, and as a matter of fact, taking away the anniversary date, we've saved the 500,000, but we will only be able to give our people raises on anniversary date, not October 1. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Pause, Crystal, if you would, and let Mr. Smykowski comment on -- because that -- what you just said was new information that I understood for the first time today with copies of letters that I got to the -- to the three male commissioners that -- that -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Somebody's writing just the male commissioners? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah, because actually the two female commissioners had already voted for a 7.8 percent increase, as I recall. I assume that's why you wrote -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Must be because I'm a guy. MS. KINZEL: No, the reason is it was directed to the few people that didn't seem to support the -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: To Tim, Tim and John. I'm sorry I made the gender remark. MS. KINZEL: We copied everyone. We apologize. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm sorry. I didn't mean it to be gender related. It was just an easy way to identify, but reading those letters was the first time I understood this issue about perhaps we have misunderstood what is an appropriate base number on which to add the three million dollars that the majority of the board wants to give. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Please don't say we. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Perhaps some people have misunderstood. I would like to know if you could explain that. If you agree with what Miss Kinzel just described as the inappropriate base number on which the decision was made -- I believe that a majority of the board thinks that they are looking at last year's budget number and adding three million dollars to it, and if that's an incorrect assumption, help us understand that. MR. SMYKOWSKI: The adopted '97 budget was -- inclusive of the board paid expenses was 51.3 million dollars, and that was net of the attrition. The proposed budget currently is 54.4 million dollars, net of attrition. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Apples to apples. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Apples to apples. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: What I hear Miss Kinzel saying is that -- and I've heard this -- we heard it last year, too, when we were talking about the 14 percent increase, which was, we don't experience that attrition, and during this year's budget discussion, I caught them. I caught them using different methods for measuring attrition. You showed 1 percent attrition in your budget presentation this year. MS. KINZEL: No, that was based on numbers -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Let me finish, Miss Kinzel. You showed 1 percent attrition in your budget figures because you were basing it on number of personnel. We base attrition on dollars spent on salaries. Now, when I saw that, I asked you at that time to look at the dollars, and what you came back with, if my memory is correct, was 3.7 percent dollar-wise in attrition last year. So you did experience the 4 percent attrition that we asked you to budget. Now, what you just said about hiring 117 new people is projecting that you will not experience that level of attrition this coming year -- MS. KINZEL: That's correct. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: -- and that's how you're factoring in that that three million dollars isn't really three million dollars because you're not going to have -- you're taking, what, is it, 1.7 million for attrition? MS. KINZEL: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. You're saying we're not going to experience that, so you're subbing that out. I'm saying you will, and next year when you show us you haven't, we're going to have to go to reserves, but my point is, it is apples to apples because we were basing our numbers on a 4 percent attrition that you experienced, that you showed us in the budget hearing you experienced. We're saying next year we would expect, due to turnover and so forth, you're going to experience the same amount of attrition, even though you've hired the new positions. You have more positions, so actually, you know, attrition can still occur, so we have to take that 4 percent out in both numbers. We can't leave it in one. MS. KINZEL: Okay. I think -- for the record, let me -- let me give you an identification. Our 1997 request was for current positions with no expanded positions to fund what we need and we're just talking about the sheriff's personal services operating and capital budget, not the paid by the board, that's kind of a separate element, but I can mention that, but just to do the current positions that we have in the budget would require 56,131,700 in a total budget. We added or requested to that, 13 additional positions, which would be 980,600. That would bring our total requested need, which was per our original budget book, to 57,112,300. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Can I -- can I ask you a question on that? MS. KINZEL: Okay. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Did you -- or do you not forecast expanding approximately fifty-one and a half million dollars this current fiscal year? I just want to know we're on the same number there. MS. KINZEL: The current year? CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Yes, this year. MS. KINZEL: The current year, we will probably break even. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: But I need a -- I need a dollar amount on that. What are you going to spend this year, because that's what we base our increases on? MS. KINZEL: Okay. We will calculate that for you this year. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. The reason I'm asking that is because I have it at just over fifty-one million and you're telling me to do what you did this year next year, you need five million dollars more. MS. KINZEL: That's because of the positions and the filled positions, and let me -- let me go on just a little bit. Off of the fifty-seven million, the board asked that we reduce 1.7 million in the attrition amount. That would bring the submitted request down to 55,328,000. The board has asked that between the paid by the board and these funds, the Sheriff's Office reduce another over two million dollars. That brings the actual amount available for these services that we have requested, current services would be fifty-six million. The board is saying, we will give you fifty-three million, which is three million over last year's fifty million amount. That is short of current service payment. If you take the existing positions that we have allocated and filled times their percent allocation and anniversary date, we need at least 1.3 million dollars back to bring us to the 7.8 percent that we talked about at one of the workshops. We need at least that to pay those salary increases. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: So what you're -- what you're saying is that unless we increase over what we currently have, you're going to be letting people go? MS. KINZEL: I'm saying we will not be able to pay the current expenses of the Sheriff's Office and we will have to look at other mechanisms and we will have to -- I can let the sheriff address that. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And Mr. Smykowski, I read in my budget book a three million dollar difference. I hear from Hiss Kinzel a five million dollar difference. Now, you know, if you're going to spend fifty-one million dollars this year and you get 3 percent over that, it's fifty-two and a half million dollars. Now, when we budgeted positions last year, the 14 percent year, we budgeted those positions for the entire year, didn't we, or did we phase some of them? MR. SHYKOWSKI: Yes. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: They were budgeted for the entire year. So if we budgeted those positions last year for 12 months and it took staggered periods to hire them, because it's not an easy process to go through, there were 12 months of expanded positions paid or -- or made available to the Sheriff's Office, so where does the five million dollar jump? I -- I'm failing that logic. It just -- MR. SHYKOWSKI: The clearest indication that the attrition has materialized this year is the fact that the Sheriff's Office has not come back for a supplemental appropriation from reserves, and at -- at my last discussion at the staff level with the sheriff's people, they would not be able to live within the 51.3 million dollars. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: So doesn't that support what Commissioner Hancock just said? I mean -- COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Yes. MR. SHYKOWSKI: Yes. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: So -- so I'm lost again. MR. SHYKOWSKI: There is attrition. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: There is attrition at about 4 percent. MR. SHYKOWSKI: -- and there has been in the -- and there has been in the past, and essentially we're banking on the fact that it will materialize in the future, and the extent to which it does not is essentially the board risking having to dip into reserves to make up that difference, should it not materialize. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: If there's a response to that, we should hear it. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Commissioner Hac'Kie, Commissioner Norris had a comment and then we'll go to whatever response there is. Commissioner Norris? COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Whenever we're into the Sheriff's Department budget discussion, here's the -- here's the problem of the way this discussion goes, in my opinion. We're -- we're -- we're appropriating three million dollars extra over last year for the Sheriff's Department. It's not our job to tell the sheriff how to spend it, but all we hear from the Sheriff's Department finance department is that if we don't give them more than the three million dollars, they won't be able to perform X, which in this -- this year is the expanded salary increases. Well, you know, there's a lot more in the sheriff's budget than salary increases. There's -- what is the figure, fifty-four and a half million dollars for next year? CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: 53,665,000. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: There's $53,600,000 that he's got to work with. That's his job to work it out, not ours. I mean, he's getting 3 percent more, and another thing I think the public at home -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Three million more, not 3 percent. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I'm sorry, three million more, which is 6 percent. The public at home needs to understand also, we've had a lot of speakers up here that -- that referenced the growth of the county in relation to the sheriff's budget, and it needs to be pointed out that over the last two years, the growth in the county has been approximately 10 percent population-wise, while the sheriff's budget in those same two years has been 23 percent or over twice as fast as the rate of growth of population. So for someone to come up here and accuse the county commission of not funding the sheriff's budget to the level of the increase in population is simply not the case. MR. HUNTER: Hay I address that? COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Sure. MR. HUNTER: Just in response to your statement, Mr. Norris. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: The two previous years were the ones I was referencing. MR. HUNTER: Correct, and if you'll go back a little bit further, you'll see that we have not kept pace with growth in this county by trying to maintain a very low budget request to you, one year 2 percent, 6 percent, less than 1 percent. We had a catch-up year, just as you did, just as you often do from time to time and I can't -- I don't believe you can fit a catch-up year to a certain pace for growth in that particular year, and if you'll remember that when we calculate growth, we're always talking in arrears. So you'll get a population number that reflects what happened last year. We're trying to project into the future for the new budget in the new year and we see development springing up, especially in the north end and the east end in the -- in the number three district and number one district and we are trying to keep pace with those kinds of growth factors as well because we can't come back to you mid year and say, we need to adjust to hire 50 people. The three million dollars -- the five million dollars we're talking about, just so that the viewing public and -- and the budget office is reminded, we're not talking about just salaries and benefits. I'm talking about fuel for vehicles and shotguns, radios, insurance costs, everything associated with the budget, and when we say that if you -- and I'm not going to be able to give you a specific number, but when you look at this year's budget and if you're only adding three million dollars to what was allocated last year, I am satisfied that we will not be able to cover all expenses plus the 13 positions and do what we need to do for the new fiscal year, and that's what I'm trying to convey to you. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: And I'm -- I'm glad you brought up the point about trying to anticipate what the growth will be for the future, and therefore, base your budget request on that -- that figure, because that's a very good point. We happen to have a very fine planning department in the county and it's -- it's their opinion and my opinion that the growth over the next fiscal year will -- will be outpaced by the growth of your budget that we are approving here or attempting to approve here tonight over the next two weeks. MR. HUNTER: Are you saying that the growth next year will outpace the growth of my budget next year? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I'm saying that the -- no, the other way around. MR. HUNTER: The reverse? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Your budget will outpace the projected growth of the county over the next year, and -- and we have a planning staff that tries to keep track of that. I understand that it's like looking into a crystal ball and so do you and nobody can -- can -- MR. HUNTER: Your -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: We'll just have to wait and see, but that's what we feel. MR. HUNTER: Unfortunately, your planning staff is not looking at the same factors that a law enforcement agency would view to be critical to trying to propose to you a budget that would be sufficient and necessary to perform law enforcement and correction services. They're not predicting the number of outstanding warrants, the number of calls for services coming into the agency. What they are trying to predict for you is the number of housing starts, the number of people who will move into this county. We also have a planning element, and the planning element has been very effective and accurate in terms of coming within hundreds of hundreds of thousands of calls coming into the agency in predicting what will happen next year. We -- we know that we had 270,000, roughly, calls for service in our last full calendar year and we're predicting even more than that in the next calendar year, increases of 12, 15 percent and we want to be able to respond to those calls for service, but in addition to that, we want to be able to patrol the new areas that are going in, the new developments and the new single family homes that are going into the estates area, especially, and into the north area, as well as provide for the services to individual new residents and new visitors to the area and I -- I understand what you are saying, but I want the viewing public and the board to remember that we aren't able to merely look at population base and say, we only had 3 percent or 5 percent new people coming to this county, full-time residents, so therefore, we only have to add another X number of people. We're looking at the actual number of calls for services, the actual new patrol areas that have been reconfigured by internal roadways that have to be traversed in order for law enforcement to perform its function and for the new homes and businesses going in that require some level of security and patrol. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I realize you use a different formula. I think the only reason Commissioner Norris was making that comparison was just a moment ago, you referenced population, I know several of the people who stood up referenced the growth in population versus the growth in your budget and that it should keep pace, and I think if -- if that's the comparison they are making or you have made prior to right now, then we're just trying to make sure they understand we are keeping up, we're going well beyond, and you said a five year picture is better than a two year picture, that there are spikes in certain years. A ten year picture would probably be even more accurate. I mean, the longer you look at the time frame, the more accurate, the more those spikes are going to be offset, and if you look at a ten year time frame, your budget's tripled, and in that ten year time frame, the population and calls for service and so on have come nowhere near tripling, and so, I mean, we can play with statistics, we can throw them out all day, but in a nutshell, I just don't believe it takes an additional five million dollars over what you had last year to deliver the same service, and I think it's a disservice to the public to suggest that there's going to be some danger unless we give them -- give you an additional five million dollars, and I mean, at our hearings in June, it was dogs and bars and you and I have laughed about that since, but I just want to make sure that -- a three million dollar increase is a pretty healthy increase and I think -- are there different things that may need to be prioritized? I'm sure there are, and -- and I have utmost confidence you'll be able to do that, but I -- I see the deputies and crossing guards and some of those as the high priorities, and I suspect you do too. You get the same phone calls we do, and so when we say we won't be able to fund new deputies, that's your choice. There may be other things that are lower priorities, I think, in the Sheriff's Department than -- than deputies and -- and the service they provide. So as you look at what can or can't be provided with an additional three million dollars over last year, you need to make that priority call. MR. HUNTER: Well, let me clear up a couple things. First of all, I don't recall saying that our budget is associated with growth and population base. If I said that, I apologize. What I said was, growth, growth -- we're not keeping pace with growth. When I say growth, I'm talking about calls for service, traverse roads that are going in in record numbers, new housing starts, new business starts, more visitors to the area from either the east coast, west coast, north of us. All of those features and factors. More VIP visits that require some contact with secret service or Florida Department of Law Enforcement. There are a number of features that are changing in the law enforcement scene that we have to respond to that equal growth, and when I say growth, that's what I mean. I'm not trying to suggest that we're looking only at population base and I'm not suggesting that your planning department needs to look at all these other features. I'm merely trying to say that when I come before you and I talk to you, I'm speaking in terms of those types of features rather than a certain number of additional people per day or per week or per month coming to Collier as permanent residents. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Sheriff, can I ask a quick question on that point? We talk about -- in the jail study we just had, we talk about an at-risk population. The fact is, most of our growth are people that don't spend time in jail. I mean, we have a lot of retirees and if you look at who's at risk for -- you know, who's going to come in contact with your road patrol deputies more often, our demographics favor that every time we have ten people move in, what in another community may be three of those people are going to get to experience the fine facilities down here at the county, we're experiencing two. It's a little less because of the type of people that move here, so you're very -- I agree with you about growth and crime rate versus growth and population, but I think it almost -- it doesn't favor increasing your budget because of the demographics. Doesn't that play into it? MR. HUNTER: No. Actually, I -- I can understand your position, but without having looked at the -- at the actual data, the studies have been conducted by me personally and it's available to you, should you wish to review it. It's clear that when you have a well-educated, affluent new population base, that they have a tendency to request more -- they request more calls for service, more service from your service providers, and we're not talking about how many people we put in jail. Those new people -- I'm not trying to suggest that the new people moving into Collier County are going straight to the jailhouse. We do have a very high -- COHMISSIONER NORRIS: That may be one way to slow it down. MR. HUNTER: We do have a high incarceration rate compared to other counties. We are a very conservative county in terms of putting people in jail. I don't do that. The judges do that. We try to respond to that. We just had this discussion yesterday and I appreciate -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And I apologize if I mixed two unrelated issues, I apologize. MS. KINZEL: As simplistic as that, the visitors who come here, the part-time residents, those who vacate their properties and ask us to provide extra patrol while they're gone for the season, those who do come here, they're well-educated, they are above the median income for the nation, they ask for additional services. They have more questions than other people. They want to see some service for their money. They want to see the patrols on the street, and they are sophisticated enough to know when that is happening. The reverse, the inverse of what you stated is actually what the truth is, and that is, we can expect more requests for services due to the fact that we have this type of person moving to Collier County, and we don't want to dissuade those people from coming here, but they happen to be victim targets and higher targets than some other groups of people because they do have the wealth and the property and those things that are valued by the other element. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: And I appreciate that clarification, and obviously you understand that my comments were related to the -- the comments by members of the public who said that perhaps Collier County was not keeping up with funding in relation to population growth. MR. HUNTER: Certainly, and they would have been somewhat correct in the sense that population growth is -- is an element of the formula, but perhaps a smaller element. We need to extend the citizens' academy for a few more weeks and provide that part of the educational -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Speaking of which, what does that academy cost you every year? MR. HUNTER: Nothing. Our -- we do serve cookies, but many times our citizens bring the cookies in with them. The actual instruction is provided by exempt members of the agency who are paid no overtime. They come and they do it because it's beneficial to the public and to the agency and it's good business. So it's not costing us anything, per se. There's some de minimus number I can attach to Publix cookies, but -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Just curious, because it sounds like to me, a county government academy is long overdue because we sat here, and I apologize, I don't mean to step on your toes, Commissioner Berry, I know you had a question, but I heard someone compare the county this year as 10 percent and the sheriff as 7 percent, and that's not right. Well, last year the sheriff was 14 percent and we were 2.2 percent, but no one was screaming that we ought to be bumped up to seven and you ought to be brought down, so we do respond in flexing cycles to -- when there is -- it's kind of like a balloon, if you squeeze it one place, it pops out somewhere else. There's only so much money the taxpayers have, and so in years when there has been an adjustment high on the board side, maybe that was your 2 percent year. I wasn't here, I wasn't responsible for it, and I'll say that time and time again, but in a year when there was a bump on your side, we did drop on our side, so that flexing occurs. So whoever -- I don't remember who said it, but it's not a one-way street. We do remember it comes from one pocketbook, and I know you're aware of that. Commissioner Berry, you -- COMMISSIONER BERRY: Just to clarify a point, with the growth in my particular district which encompasses the estates area and the -- the vast roadways out in that area, if you were to get this raise, what exactly -- what -- what benefit would they see in the estates in terms of road patrol, et cetera, or out in that general area? MR. HUNTER: What would I estimate they would receive in terms of road patrol? COMMISSIONER BERRY: What would you -- what would you see as an increase or would you see any increase at all out in that area, say the Immokalee Road area or out Orangetree and the Estates, Randall Boulevard and that east of 9517 MS. KINZEL: As far as demand on services? COMMISSIONER BERRY: Right. In other words, what -- what would you -- what could they expect if this were -- if you were to get the raise that you're asking for? MS. KINZEL: Oh, well, I remind the board that all that has been requested this year in this budget in order to fund the salary adjustments, fuel increases, oil increases, maintenance, vehicle insurance costs, et cetera, we've only asked for five new road patrol positions, four bailiffs to -- to attend the courts, three youth relations deputies and a marine patrol officer, so if you try to spread those five road patrol officers out -- these are only the -- the positions we're getting through the general operating accounts, not through the grants, but the five would not go very far, because that's one 24 hour post, meaning that would represent one position in one district if we were able to fund that this year. COMMISSIONER BERRY: Because of the shift, right? In other words, that's one person -- MR. HUNTER: Shifts, days off, court time, training time, academy time. We only have a certain number of hours per year that are made available to each position or each person that we hire, so that would represent -- COMMISSIONER BERRY: So the bottom line then. What you're telling us is, even if these dollars are allocated, you're not going to see -- in other words, the -- the public is not going to see an increased road patrol? MR. HUNTER: Even if we were able to get -- if we were restored to the 7.8 percent level that we're proposing, we're only talking about five positions for patrol, and then the four bailiffs and the three YRD and a marine patrol officer, and I am reminded by finance, I am reminding the board that we're talking about $7.33 per year on the average home in Collier County, and that, I believe, is a -- not an unreasonable figure and most people would see that as acceptable. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's one way to look at it. One way to look at it is how many millions of dollars it is total. MR. HUNTER: We have to look at how many hundreds of thousands of people that come to Collier County as well that must be served and that need protection. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Every year, the paper loves this part of the budget hearings -- MR. HUNTER: Absolutely. COHHISSIONER HANCOCK: -- because it -- it's a great time to make it look like one arm of government's disagreeing with another. It makes for wonderful hay and in the end, nobody really gets the skinny because everyone's being defensive. The -- the straightforward approach that I've tried to take on this is that last year, we all know the reasons for this why there was an increase in the Sheriff's Department last year and we all pretty much agreed with them. There was some -- some disagreement, but we bit the bullet last year and did what we had to do and we cut the, you know, the bejesus out of a few county programs last year to make it happen because it was a priority, it was important. Well, this year, it's kind of the same pitch, you know, the same priority, the same importance, except that we can't continue to cut some of those same county programs and face our constituents in that arena, so what I've tried to do is look at, and this is where we have a disagreement, if it takes, generally, cost of living increase and that includes oil, gas, you know, the things you cited, the index is 3 percent. What Hiss Kinzel said earlier about needing fifty-six million dollars is eight and a half percent over the fifty-one million the prior year. So in order just to keep track, apparently, there's something that is causing an eight and a half percent increase, even if you don't hire another individual, and I, like Commissioner Constantine, can't -- can't swallow that because we have a CPI. It's established based on the -- the sale of goods in a broad section of -- of, you know, lumber to -- to, you know -- COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Toothpaste. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: -- to toothpaste, and it just -- you know, why -- why it takes eight and a half percent for you to keep track and yet it takes us 2.7 or 3 percent is something that I haven't seen any justification for, so I have to go with what everyone else does, and that's CPI. So I'm looking at not just you keeping track of what you had last year, but another million dollars on top of that. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I might point out, Mr. Chairman, that about two weeks ago in the Wall Street Journal, the number thus far in 1997 is 1.8 percent. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: So, you know -- COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Annualized? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: So the fifty-six million dollar figure has just thrown me for a loop, because how it takes eight and a half percent for your agency to do what they did last year is -- is beyond me. I -- I don't know where the money's going. MR. HUNTER: Well, let me explain, and maybe you can take a week or two and come over and visit with us and I will detail it even further because I'm -- I'm very interested in cooperating with the board and helping you to better understand where the money goes. Unfortunately, I asked Crystal to verify something on the sheet that I need to speak to you, but let me reassure the board once again that about, I believe from the information I just saw, we're talking about 1.4 million dollars in salary adjustments and benefits based on the board's policy. There are other increases that will be included in the proposal as we detailed it before the board during the workshop. There were capital expenses. We're trying to convert the computer system over, just as you are, to the year 2000 so that the computer recognizes that number as opposed to 1900 or 1800 or some other number. That is an increase. We have an increase, as I said, fuel and oil, and you may tie that to the cost of living index, but you know that the cost of living index is a composite index that doesn't look at specifically fuel and oil that perhaps a sheriff's office or law enforcement agency that deals with vehicles on patrol may take a heavier hit because they aren't budgeting fuel and oil and not clothing expense or bread for the table, although we do have some of that for the inmate population and perhaps the cost of living index is -- is not -- the consumer price index is not necessarily the index that you apply towards a law enforcement agency, but I'll accept that. Cops grant matches, where we have gone out and obtained additional people to help staff up the agency to meet demands for patrol and call for service response, we have scheduled almost $500,000 in order to meet that federal obligation in order for us to retain the positions that we have hired through those grant mechanisms. As you know, we've been successful to the tune of about two million dollars' worth of grants that we have used successfully to help fund the Sheriff's Office so that we're not back before you asking for those. The 13 expanded positions equal almost $600,000 in the budget proposal. We are contributing monies that you don't see tied to a consumer price index back to help run the drill academy, which we believe, and I will continue to maintain the position that it's a viable and necessary resource for juvenile crime abatement. We went through and detailed for the board some of the costs associated with the budget proposal in our workshop, auto parts and repairs that perhaps you don't have to struggle with as -- as much as we do, operating supplies, operating equipment, training. There was a whole list of items that we detailed for the board during the workshops that constitute the total budget proposal package. This is not about just wage adjustments or just benefit additions to a base number. This is about all of those things that happen to an agency over time that we are trying to be supple enough to respond to and to be prepared for the next year. We understand that due to the fact that the board has other pockets, if you will, to pull monies from through fees for service, you're not relying upon the general fund. You're adding 35 positions. You're trying to keep up with the growth and services, and that's prudent. I'm asking for 13. We are trying to respond to different elements of the population base, different types of services. We consider them to be just as significant as the board believes those service -- those services that you provide are back to the public as well, and I -- again, I guess I would end my statement and my presentation by asking the board to consider that, reconsider your position and let us work towards restoring to the 7.8 percent adjustment that I believe necessary in order to hire the people, fit with your policy for salary adjustments and keep us equal to board programs. Let us be responsive. Mr. Constantine's statement that it's my decision whether I hire people with the money you've provided or I do something else with it. Well, I can assure you that if I hired people with the money that you provided but ignored the wage adjustments, I'd see people going away from this agency in quicker terms than I have before because we are -- we would not be keeping pace with wage adjustments in the region, and we've just been brought to parity last year, and we would -- we would be going exactly backwards. I can't do away with fuel and oil -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And that's certainly not what Commissioner Constantine suggested. MS. KINZEL: Well, I -- I certainly hope not, and I just wanted to clarify that for the record, that we're not talking about wage adjustment versus hiring new people. I'd like to have both, just as the board is doing, in order to keep pace with the demands on a modern law enforcement, just as you are trying to keep pace with your demands, that you not only need to maintain your wages and salary, your salaries and benefits in order to retain qualified and experienced, well-trained people, but you also need to hire additional people in order to meet the demand. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Sheriff Hunter, what wage adjustment are you talking about? MR. HUNTER: What wage adjustment? CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Yeah, because you said 1.4 million dollars in wage adjustments. Now, last year we did the -- the adjustment agency-wide based on the pay plan. When you said 1.4 million dollars, that's 3 percent of your total agency budget, so -- and I know -- I know that your personnel is -- is a high degree of your agency budget, but not 100 percent of it. So what wage adjustments are you talking about? I thought we did that last year. MR. HUNTER: We did. We did adjust last year's, you did, and you'll be adjusting this year, as we will, hopefully, if we have adequate funds. I -- I said 1.4 million -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Wait, back up. Back up. There it is right there. You said, hopefully if we have funds we'll -- you'll be doing more adjustments. MR. HUNTER: We'll be adjusting wages this year close to board policy. Your policy is to adjust October 1, ours will be on anniversary date. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: So that's -- we're talking about cost of living then, right? MR. HUNTER: Cost of living and merit, correct. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. How much do you plan on spending on wages next year, because you quoted me 1.4 million dollars in wage adjustments, and that -- MR. HUNTER: Well, I was very careful to qualify, since the paper had walked over to the other side of the room, it's actually about 1.3 million. It's not 1.4 million. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. But it's -- that's still almost 3 percent of your total agency budget. We're -- the cost of living is only on salaries and you -- MR. HUNTER: Which is 80 percent of our budget, correct. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. So there's -- so there's a 20 percent discrepancy? MR. HUNTER: Plus benefits. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Because -- MR. HUNTER: Well, no, when I say 1.3 million, I'm talking about salaries and benefits, based upon the wage adjustment that you've approved as policy at three plus 1 percent. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. What -- what is your total dollar amount spent on wages? MR. HUNTER: Yes, we do have that number. Just a moment though, give me -- give me a moment and we'll find that. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I know that this is kind of dragging on, but this is important to me because I -- I'm trying not to let anything get spunned. Too late, but -- we're going to get a paper change, so everyone tell jokes amongst yourselves for a few minutes. Okay. We're ready to go. Do you have the -- the dollar amount on wages? What -- just -- of your budget, what are your wages? MS. KINZEL: I'm sorry. For the record, Crystal Kinzel. I'm going to try to add it up very quickly back here, if I give Jean her budget book, just on the salaries, but commissioners, I think the other critical element of just the salaries, we also have overtime at the agency and we've discussed that before. We also have benefits, and remember that our retirement, for example, is, for about 70 percent of our people, is 10 percent higher than you pay on retirement, so even though we're giving a similar rate adjustment -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Well, why don't you come on into our retirement group? MS. KINZEL: We can't do that. State of Florida dictates 27 percent for State of Florida employees at high risk. We are on your retirement. It's all Florida state retirement, but they do assess a higher element of risk on law enforcement officers, which, again, makes up about 70 or 80 percent of our work force. Right there is going to be a 10 percent margin above and beyond that. I can assure you, we have implemented in our salary amount, we'll add it up in the budget book, we should have had that number, I apologize, but we go person by person, and I'll go back to that. We run a report that says this is what so and so makes today. If we add 3 percent COLA and a percent for merit, which is your policy, on their anniversary date, this is the amount we have to assess to the budget. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Okay. So we should have 4 percent of your total personnel costs equaling 1.3 million dollars, right? MS. KINZEL: Well, the benefits are on top of that. Then you have an additional 27 percent on top of the salaries. You have also then -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Does that -- does that not appear in your budget? MS. KINZEL: Yes, it is all in the budget. The 1.3 million that he's counting includes all of that. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Correct. MS. KINZEL: We can go line by line on the budget book, but I can assure you that it calculates on a per-person basis, and we're not asking for any additional salary adjustment above and beyond board policy. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Let me ask the question out of curiosity, and it's just an aside actually, but if the agency were privatized, would you still have to pay the 27 percent retirement fund? MS. KINZEL: Privatized law enforcement? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Uh-huh. MS. KINZEL: You would probably have to pay some sort of benefit. I mean, what -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Just -- just a point of curiosity. MR. SMYKOWSKI: The answer is no. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Bob indicates no. MR. FERNANDEZ: You are required to pay the Florida state retirement prescribed amount for a special risk -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Or if a charter were -- MR. FERNANDEZ: -- because another agency would not be under the Florida state retirement system. MS. KINZEL: And the board is under the Florida state retirement, so -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Correct, unless we became a charter county. MS. KINZEL: Whatever. You could still be under the Florida retirement, it's my understanding, but -- MR. SMYKOWSKI: The salary number's 43.4 million and that's -- there's approximately 32.2 million in law enforcement, 10.1 million in detention and corrections and 1.1 million in judicial. That's total personnel services, all inclusive of benefits, overtime, health insurance. MR. HUNTER: What was the number? MR. SMYKOWSKI: 43.4 million. MR. HUNTER: And that doesn't include the attrition number, correct, Mike? That's -- that's backing out the attrition number, so that's net? MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes, that's the gross. MR. HUNTER: Okay. That's net, so that's less than 1.7, and let me -- if I may respond to that one issue, although I don't want to drag us back into the attrition discussion -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I thought we cleared that hurdle. MR. HUNTER: -- we do try to predict which positions are going to remain vacant, and certainly when we hire someone to replace a member with some tenure in the agency, you get some benefit because you bring a person in at base, whereas that person who departed perhaps was at top of grade. Many times that's not the case for us. If we have a departing member who served as a talecommunications dispatcher for six months to a year, they're going to be replaced with a talecommunications dispatcher who's making exactly the same amount of money as they -- as the incumbent before them, so it's very difficult to say on the attrition discussion exactly what our attrition's going to be, other than to try to equate it to positions. If we know that we can fill our positions, I can make that representation to you. I cannot predict exactly how much money we're going to spend on those positions, although I know what we pay for those positions. Each position within the agency, I can't predict who's going to depart next year and what we are going to wind up having to spend to pay the person coming in to fill that incumbent's position or that former incumbent's position, so I hope you understand that we aren't attempting to play a game. We talk about numbers of positions in the agency authorized by the board, how many of those have been filled historically, how many we believe can be filled next year, rather than the total number of dollars we will spend on that. We can program the number of dollars required to fund all of those positions, but we don't know who's going to depart and what we're going to pay in order to replace that person departing. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: And you know the board's commitment is the same as it was last year, should you not experience that attrition, we stand ready to process a budget amendment and then we'll revise our fiscal policy regarding your department next year on the attrition, so there's no hesitancy whatsoever that if you don't experience the attrition that we're going to say, you can't make payroll. That -- that's not the position at all, and so I -- I think we're, you know, the attrition will pan itself out with the new positions that have come on line and so forth, so we'll be able to take a look at that next year. This kind of comes down to, you know, we still only have $174,000 without going back and -- and finding other dollars within other county programs to cut until two weeks from now when we can find out where we sit, so in that meantime, you know, I'll continue to -- to try and take a look at the things that I have questions on that don't make sense and there's a -- there's a basket full of them right now that -- that this -- you know, maintaining the position takes five million dollars. I just -- that one is still -- still got me, but I'll -- I'll take it upon myself to see if I can't answer some of those questions. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Chairman, do we have any other public speakers? MR. FERNANDEZ: No. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We have none signed up. Any further questions for Sheriff Hunter? MR. HUNTER: Hay I make one more statement? I look forward to working with you. Those basket full of questions, if you'll share that with us, we'll have -- be happy to respond to those as best we can. We may not have an exact answer for you the first shot, but we're dealing with a fifty -- fifty plus million dollar budget, and although it may require some digging, we'll certainly find an answer, and any of the questions pertaining to law enforcement, corrections, functions, philosophy, concepts, abstractions, standards in order to comply with accreditation, we can certainly respond to those kinds of questions and how we do the business of maintaining safety in this community, and I appreciate, again, the opportunity to speak to the board. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I -- I would like to ask you if -- if it is possible to have the finance staff put in writing for -- for me and for anybody else who wants to know it, as simple an answer as you can give us to Commissioner Hancock's question about why it takes -- is the number six million dollars more -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Five million was what Miss Kinzel indicated, five million just to tread water. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: For status quo. Help us quantify that. I think that's a very valid question. MR. HUNTER: We will. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Any further questions? Sheriff, we got out of here without anyone really raising their voice. It's a good day. MR. HUNTER: Just as I expected. Thanks again, and if you'll let me know the questions, we'll respond. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you. Mr. Smykowski, at this point, all we need to do is set the next date and time for the final hearing; is that correct? MR. SHYKOWSKI: No, there are two resolutions you need to adopt tonight. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: In that case, we'll adopt the two resolutions that we need to go through. RESOLUTION 97-345 ADOPTING THE TENTATIVE HILLAGE RATES FOR FY 1997-98 - ADOPTED HR. SHYKOWSKI: Okay. The next item on your agenda is 3(E), resolution to adopt the tentative millage rates for FY 97-98. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Chairman, I will make a motion to adopt the resolution for the tentative millage rates. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll second the motion. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion and second. I didn't close the public hearing, but it is now closed. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I don't think you have to. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I don't think so either, but just to make sure. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion carries five, zero. RESOLUTION 97-346 ADOPTING THE AMENDED TENTATIVE BUDGETS FOR FY 1997-98 - ADOPTED COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Hr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion that we pass a resolution adopting the amended and tentative budget. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: We have a motion to adopt. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Second. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you. Any discussion? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Motion carries five, zero. Smykowski? And with that, Mr. MR. SHYKOWSKI: A few more housekeeping items. Proposed millage rates, general fund 3.6864, 2.2 percent over the rollback rate. County-wide, 3.7316, 2.1 percent over the rollback. Aggregate millage, 4.4908, 3.2 percent over the rollback. Point of clarification, just so we're clear. The -- the discussion focusing on the additional sales tax, we are going to incorporate those changes and -- including the space plan and the computers and the reserves for fund 301, just so that -- CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I think that was the board direction. MR. SHYKOWSKI: Okay. And finally, the announcement of the final public hearing will be in this room two weeks from tonight, Wednesday, September 17th at 5:05 p.m. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: I sense we're going to see a great number of the same people. MR. SHYKOWSKI: Indeed. CHAIRMAN HANCOCK: Thank you, everyone, for being here. We're adjourned. There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 7:38 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COHMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL ATTEST: DWIGHT E. BROCK, CLERK TIMOTHY L. HANCOCK, CHAIRMAN These minutes approved by the Board on , as presented or as corrected TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE, INC. BY HEATHER L. CASASSA, RPR