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BCC Minutes 06/15/1998 B (Budget Workshop)BUDGET WORKSHOP SESSION OF JUNE 15, 1998 OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as the Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing board(s) of such special districts as have been created according to law and having conducted business here having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m. in BUDGET WORKSHOP SESSION, in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: ALSO PRESENT: CHAIRPERSON: Barbara B. Berry Pamela S. Mac'Kie John C. Norris Timothy J. Constantine Timothy L. Hancock Michael Smykowski, OMB Director Robert Fernandez, County Manager CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Good morning. I would like to welcome you to the first of three sessions for the budget for the Collier County Government. If you'd please rise for the pledge of allegiance and then we will begin. (The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRPERSON BERRY: One change that we would like to make to this schedule happens to deal with the Friday session. Due to the fact that the Sheriff has another commitment in Federal court and we don't like to get in the road in that kind of thing, so we're going to move him up on Friday to Friday morning, instead of Friday afternoon, to accommodate his schedule. So if you'll just make note of that. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: And all other elements of that schedule stay the same. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Yes. Everything else remains the same, but he will be moved up on Friday morning. Okay. This morning, Mr. Smykowski, we will begin with you. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Okay. Thank you. For the record, Michael Smykowski, OMB Director. I would like to welcome you to the budget workshops. The first thing I would like to do is introduce the OMB staff. Jean Gansel; two new staff members, Michelle Murray and Nelson Stephenson; Gary Vincent; and our secretary, Pat Graham. She's controlling things from the budget office mode. I think Phil is assisting our little technical difficulties here with the power blimps. He's joining us DOW. Our schedule for today -- I will just go through a general overview. Ad valorem tax implications of the budget, then I will do a power point presentation that just kind of highlights a number of the major issues within the budget in a very macro viewpoint. The items then in terms of budget review will include the debt service funds, the trust funds. Those being areas where the Board has actually more of a limited policy-making role just because of the nature of those funds. We'll move into the unincorporated area general fund, then we'll move on into the balance of our special revenue funds, primarily MSTDs, taxing districts. Many of those have citizen advisory groups, then we'll move into the enterprise funds, internal service funds and capital funds. We have scheduled things over a two-day period and then allowing Monday for a wrap-up session as needed. Any questions in terms of the schedule? (Commissioner Constantine entered the boardroom.) MR. SMYKOWSKI: And on Friday will be the general fund essentially from "A" to "Z", all the departments, the constitutional officers, capital projects funded by the general fund and even funds that receive operating support via inter-fund transfers from the general funds, such as EMS and road and bridge. So we'll look at all of those. They're not truly general fund, but by nature of the funding for those departments we'll consider them with the general fund. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. MR. SMYKOWSKI: And if we have any items, either wrap-up or that we manage not to get through the bulk of materials, that will be pushed back through Monday as needed. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: That's fine. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Okay. Quickly we just have a power point presentation that outlines some of the major issues and decisions that were arrived at in this budget. Obviously the workshop hearings are going to be held June 15th, today; Friday, the 19th; and next Monday, the 22nd. The presentation format will be similar as in the prior years based on Board direction. The Board will be serving in a Board of Director's capacity. The basis of review will be an exception basis. Presented -- things will be presented on a fund basis. As I indicated, today we'll be going through groupings of funds, such as debt service, trust funds, instead of on a functional basis. As in the past, we will have two books. Summary books include summary of tax rates, tax dollars and property values, summary data for the general funds, divisional and agency summaries for the general fund, summaries by fund type and summary of proposed expanded services. The detail books include program summary information, performance measures, individual fund or department spreadsheets and budget highlights. In terms of the financial budget overview, it does include a pay plan adjustment within the Board agency effective October 1st, 1998 equivalent to three percent of gross payroll. There is one percent of personal services budget for merit pay. We utilized a four percent attrition rate as in the past. And there is a proposed additional one percent merit pay funded with a reduction in State retirement rates. As you know, we're required to be a participant in the Florida retirement system. Rates have actually gone in our favor I think for the first time since I've been employed here in ten years. They actually went down over two percent, which was -- COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: We're all the way down to paying 40 percent in benefits package to the State now. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Overall in terms of total employment, 2,445 employees distributed roughly equally between the Board of County Commissioners under the County administrator and the constitutional offices. Total County administrator employees, 1,175 proposed. The largest division, of course, being public works as would be expected followed by public services. What we've done in the next page of this presentation is identified budget highlights in various areas and the relationship to the Board adopted strategic goals. The first strategic goal is a fiscally sound and stable County government. Areas within that, the general fund millage rate proposed is less than the current year millage rate. There is $1 million in gas taxes proposed in the road and bridge fund. Over the last few years you'll recall we've transitioned gas taxes from road maintenance to road construction. Gas taxes are an appropriate source of revenue to fund road maintenance activities. We're attempting to reverse that trend somewhat. We still have a fully funded road program and we're trying to draw back some of that gas tax money into road and bridge operations and decreasing the reliance on general fund support. So dollar for dollar that has essentially a $1 million impact in reducing the operating transfer from the general fund. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's great. Wonderful. I'm glad to see it happen. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Thank you. One other thing and kind of a little heralded success I think with the County -- we oftentimes don't do a good enough job I think of beating our own chest. We've taken over the regulation of privately held utilities over the last -- I think it was about two and a half years now. The PSE rate when we took over that operation for administration of those utilities was four and a half percent. The PSE rate is still four and a half percent. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Our compliments to staff on that. That one I can remember we wanted to bring control local and we can actually do it cheaper than they can. We get the best of both worlds there. MR. SMYKOWSKI: That is correct. The rate proposed within Mr. Wallace's operation for utility regulation was three percent in FY '98. We're proposing a further reduction on that to one and a half percent in FY '99. Essentially we have about $1.1 million in reserves in that fund. And that is set aside for any expert witness fees, rate cases or in the worst case scenario if the Board had to take over a privately held utility in a condemnation type taking that money would be available. Mr. Wallace had experience with that in Sarasota County. If you do get involved in a situation like that a million one, while a large sum of money, can also disappear very quickly if you have a highly contentious either rate hearing or a takeover situation. So, again, the rate is going to one and a half percent putting -- putting money back in rate payers' pockets. The second goal is effective drainage for stormwater. In this area there is an additional stormwater maintenance crew proposed and additional equipment, funding for the preliminary engineering of the gateway triangle, funding for the Belle Meade stormwater master plan. In conjunction with FEMA, there's a cost-sharing program for an Australian Pine removal from the drainage easements. Obviously we're trying to -- they're trying to be proactive in insuring that the drain system works at optimal efficiency prior to hurricane season. So they're actually providing funds for you to remove potential damaging elements that would either clog the drainage system or damage property within that area. In addition, the NPDES stormwater program implementation as proposed in FY '99. That would regulate drainage outfall. The third goal is improved infrastructure. The principal capital projects proposed: Five million gallon per day plant expansion at the North County Wastewater Treatment Plant, design of an eight million gallon per day reverse osmosis project of the South County Water Treatment Plant. And the three principal road segments slated for construction include Golden Gate Boulevard from 951 to Wilson, Livingston Road from Radio Road to Golden Gate Parkway, and Immokalee Road from 1-75 to CR-951. Okay. The next goal was small-town feeling with quality urban services. There are proposed enhancements in code enforcement and building inspection services, increase maintenance efforts in wastewater collections. That includes a valve maintenance program the State can locate in a system, as well as -- COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I'm just curious how you're going to tie in wastewater collection with small-town feeling. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Quality urban services. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Oh, that part. MR. SMYKOWSKI: That part. And, finally, as noted in the paper this weekend, there is actually a bark park proposed for animals. And that would be located in the north end of the County. COMHISSIONER HANCOCK: People living near that love that name. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Thank you all for doing that and giving us that name. I really appreciate that. MR. SMYKOWSKI: I think that's a parks and rec type thing. I'm sure I didn't dream that up. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to utter that in a public meeting, but I did. The next goal. Citizen-oriented government responsive to neighborhoods. We've got the Bayshore/Avalon MSTD implementation; EMS units proposed in the northern Golden Gate Estates and Isle of Capri areas, response time driven issues; and a Blue Bill parking lot/neighborhood park proposed. Diversified economy with expanded job opportunities. There is continued support of the economic diversification program in conjunction with the Economic Development Council of Collier County. I had supported $250,000 as it was in FY '98. Net increase in total positions is 121.5. The Sheriff has 48 and they're spread across a number of divisions in the County administrator's agency, a number of them growth-driven. We also reflect the impact of the reorganization here. That's why you'll notice things like the management office is decreasing by 11. Within the general fund -- again, this fund is for governmental services provided to all County residents. It includes the City of Naples, Everglades City and the City of Marco Island. It is funded primarily by ad valorem taxes. The tax impact of the proposed general fund budget -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Excuse me. MR. SMYKOWSKI: -- is a decrease of $6.09 per $100,000 of taxable value. Service enhancement highlights include, as I indicated previously, enhanced stormwater maintenance, one of the Board's strategic goals; two EMS units; enhanced library and animal control services; additional law enforcement presence through the proposed addition of road patrol and investigative elements; phased operations at the South Naples Community Park; and enhanced public health care services. Portions of the general fund budget increase -- the largest component is the Sheriff, followed by the County administrator. Our reserves also increased as a result of the increased expenditures. The MSTD general fund provides municipal type services to the unincorporated area residents. It excludes the City of Naples, Everglades City and the City of Marco Island. And like the general fund, it's funded primarily by ad valorem taxes. Samples of services provided include code enforcement, long-range planning, law enforcement, and parks and recreation. The tax impact of the proposed budget is an increase of 42 cents per $100,000 of taxable value. A major policy decision in the unincorporated general fund is that the City of Marco Island contracts with the Sheriff for road patrol at a cost of $1,053,100. That's in keeping with the Board's budget policy. We had that discussion. There were two options for funding road patrol in Marco Island. Option one was reallocating those costs to the general fund and the Board was very clear in their direction that they did not want to force the balance of the County to pay for Marco Island's Sheriff's service. The second option obviously was a contractual arrangement between -- with the Sheriff and the City of Marco Island. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: With the basic understanding there being that the City of Marco will get the same thing as the City of Naples gets for their general tax dollar. If they want more than that, they can contract for it. That's how you came to that $1 million figure? MR. SMYKOWSKI: Right. And the cost is based on the Sheriff's people -- the staff actually went back and reviewed the service calls from the Marco Island substation and determined that 72 percent of the service calls from that substation were into the corporate City limits of Marco Island. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Got you. MR. SMYKOWSKI: As a result of that, 72 percent of the cost -- of the proposed cost of the operation within that substation is the $1,053,100. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: I posed a question to the County Attorney last week that once we have an answer, which should be before Friday, will help make sure that we stay on an even plane and in complete agreement with the settlement we have with the City of Naples. We've always said to treat the City of Marco the same as the City of Naples. Don't treat them any different; better, worse or whatnot. So something I have coming from Mr. Weigel may help us understand that a little more clearly. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Further on today we'll move into the special revenue funds, many of which are supported by fees. Building permits or development fees; our community development fund; special taxes, such as the TDC; ad valorem taxes; fines; surcharges. Many of these districts are for specific purposes. Community development, tourist development and our special purpose taxing districts, which include road maintenance MSTDs, the beautification districts, roadway and drainage MSTUs, our fire control districts, Golden Gate Community Center, and street lighting MSTUs. A few of these funds actually restricted use. ADA compliance, 800 megahertz radio system and the enhanced 911 system. Internal services define -- they account for operations providing services to other County departments and operate on a break-even basis. There's a total of seven funds, including the Department of Revenue, property and casualty, group health, workers' compensation, fleet management, motor pool capital recovery and OCPM. Highlights include a three percent increase in the Board paid health premiums, settlement of the old workers' compensation claims, a buildup in capital recovery reserves for future vehicle replacement, OCPM staffing reflecting the impact of the reorganization. Internal service funds. The percent change from FY '98 budget. The largest increase is in the capital recovery fund as we continue to build -- accumulate sinking funds for the eventual replacement of the vehicles that we currently have. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Will you walk us through -- I couldn't tell from the colors. What is the second highest and the -- MR. SMYKOWSKI: The second highest -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just hit the back arrow button and -- COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Hit previous on the menu. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Here we go. Thanks. Workers' compensation fund. An increase there as we pay out old claims. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And that purple one is property and casualty or something? MR. SMYKOWSKI: The purple one, yes. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And then -- COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Purple is health and life. The kind of pink is property and casualty. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Just take me down -- there is four bars here -- highest to lowest. MR. SHYKOWSKI: Okay. The highest is fleet capital recovery. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Got you. MR. SHYKOWSKI: The next one is the workers' compensation. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Okay. MR. SHYKOWSKI: Next one is property and casualty. And the first one reflecting an increase of about five percent is Department of Revenue. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And you see the three that are either net or reductions also. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Correct. Fleet is relatively flat. Health and life and OCPM down obviously reflecting, again, the reorganization where some of the positions are going to facilities management, some to parks and recs for direct services. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thanks. MR. SMYKOWSKI: You're welcome. Enterprise funds operate somewhat like a private business. These include utilities, County water and sewer, Marco water and sewer, Goodland water, solid waste management. It's important to note that the only proposed rate adjustment within any of the enterprise funds is a slight increase in the disposal portion of the mandatory collection. It represents about 2.3 percent, but the balance of your rates for your utilities are -- the current rate structure is adequate to fund operations. A year ago -- we have relatively only about six, seven months experience with the new rates that were put in place last year for the County water/sewer district. Revenue sources in the enterprise funds. These, again, are primarily user fee funded. Water/sewer fees, solid waste tipping fees, mandatory garbage collection, special assessments. Other revenues include utility assessments, franchise fees and recycling grants. Expenditure areas include water and wastewater operations, utilities debt service, utilities capital improvements, solid waste collection and disposal, and recycling programs. Changes in major enterprise funds revenues. In all cases you see slight increases primarily growth driven. As I indicated previously, the water and wastewater revenues they're projected very conservatively at this point. They may be adjusted upward in the future, but, again, we only have a relatively short experience with the new rate structure that is in place. Capital improvement program includes growth-related capital improvements in the CIE. There are also non-CIE projects per department needs for replacement and/or renovation. Total program of $158.3 million. Obviously roads continues to be a high growth area. As I indicated in the opening of the presentation, the three principal road segments that are slated for construction. In the wastewater area that's one of the other large proportions of the total. That is a function of the plant expansion in the north end of the County. Total revenues. The fund balance is actually a carryforward. It is the biggest component of that. In a lot of cases over it just accumulated. Impact fee funds may not be spent immediately. In some cases those are collected over a period of time to make the next upgrade to system capacity. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: 11.2 percent of impact fees then is current year collections and the 49 is a carryforward of prior years impact fees or -- MR. SMYKOWSKI: The carryforward would actually include, in addition to impact fees, gas taxes and all of the funds that are in the capital improvement. It might -- even inclusive of the ad valorem support from the general fund. A large -- the carryforward is so large because in a lot of cases you're accumulating impact fee funds for the next eventual increase to a system capacity in water or wastewater. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Is it usually that big of a fund? I mean, is that an increase over prior years or is that 50 percent regular? MR. SMYKOWSKI: That is not uncommon. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. SMYKOWSKI: And the bond and loan proceeds are actually fairly high. They include -- at 20 and a half percent that includes a -- the next regional park which we'll talk about at approximately $14 million, as well as the SRF loans for the wastewater treatment plant expansion. We get low interest rate loans from the State. It's revolving fund loans and that's at about $10 million. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. SMYKOWSKI: That concludes the -- at least the opening power point presentation. We'll move back. Let me move back into the summary book in the -- in the first section, which is summary information under property tax rates and dollars, which are on pages one and two of the summary section of your summary book. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm sorry I don't know this. But just the very first one -- MR. SMYKOWSKI: The very first -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The boundaries of the road district budgets -- of the road districts now that we've eliminated the Marco road district, could somebody just show me those maps? CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Go to your big book. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: They're in the big book? MR. SMYKOWSKI: Sure. Nelson, would you mind just running down and getting a copy of the map? When we get to that point -- when we're going to discuss those in detail, Mr. Stephenson will provide you a map so you can see what the new district boundaries will look like. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you. I haven't got them in my head yet. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Overall on page two, total taxes levied or proposed to be levied in FY '98, $92,656,400. And they're spread -- obviously, the general fund being the largest. There is a number of the MSTUs. Frankly, the bulk of the section on page two is the small various taxing districts that we levy taxes in. Again, beautification, road maintenance, street lighting districts, et cetera. And we'll cover those in detail later on. But for the overall purpose of magnitude, 92 -- roughly $92.7 million. The summary of the proposed budget by fund overall is 475.4 million. It is a 1.7 percent increase. I would like at this point to -- Commissioner Mac'Kie, you brought up the road HSTDs and those changes. I feel an obligation that the Property Appraiser's staff, as well as County Attorney, have worked with us very hard and in a very cooperative manner to bring about all those changes at the last minute as Mr. Skinner works towards preparing the final certified values. It was a lot of somewhat last minute chaos, but -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I bet. MR. SHYKOWSKI: -- their staff was very cooperative. I appreciate all of their efforts. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: That's great. MR. SHYKOWSKI: Okay. That moves us into the debt service funds. There is a separate tab for debt service in your summary book on page G-1. Frankly, here the Board has a very limited policy-making role. These are just budgeting for debts on outstanding bond issues. The total proposed is approximately $27.4 million. The one thing of note is fund 207, the Marco Island beach renourishment. Those were paid off this year per the Board direction in the FY '98 budget utilizing TDC revenues. So there is no proposed budget in FY '99 for the beach renourishment fund 207. Other than that, again, it's principally the outstanding -- outstanding bond issues and they're in most cases very similar to what they were in the previous year. Not, frankly, a whole lot to talk about here. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Then let's not talk about it. MR. SHYKOWSKI: Indeed. Let's move on to the grant and trust funds. There is a separate tab in your summary book, pages D-1 and D-2. Overall on the grant side on D-1 there is an increase of 17.3 percent. Again here, frankly, budgeting for the grants that we anticipate receiving. Many of them long-time type grants. Natural resources grants are for artificial reef construction. HPO is the transportation disadvantaged. There's $100,000 which comes from the general fund. RSVP grant is for the volunteer program that Betty Stuver runs for us. In miscellaneous grants that includes the emergency management preparedness grants administered by Mr. Pineau, as well as the forestry grants which provide some funding for radio equipment for the Ochopee fire district. EHS grant funds are budgeted there for future equipment purchases. There is a library grant this year. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Excuse me, Mr. Smykowski. On the EHS grants, are we dealing with -- we're not dealing with recurring costs; those are equipment purchases, correct? MR. SHYKOWSKI: That's correct. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Thank you. MR. SHYKOWSKI: The library grant there was no budget appropriation in FY '98. In FY '99 there's a proposed grant of $68,800 and a library automation grant. It will provide hardware and software to view and to research on the on-line catalog through the library system. Parks and recreation grants, frankly, are the -- it's your summer food grant program providing lunches for school children. County aging program is -- there is a small general fund contribution. We leveraged a number of funds for the services for seniors program, which, in the long run, actually saves the County money by keeping people in their homes as long as possible. Otherwise, they would be into a potential nursing home type care which the County might be responsible for in Martha Skinner's general fund budget for social services. So the idea there is to keep people in their homes as long as possible. And then the Sheriff's grants have -- they have a whole host of different grants. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just on that one, the question we always ask is making sure that we don't end up funding what looks like a free ride in any of these, but particularly in the Sheriff's Department, in the next year or three years later. Looking at -- credit to the Sheriff for getting $1.2 million worth of grants, but an adopted budget of $200,000 and picking up almost a million more than that, what is that going to mean long-term for the County budget? MR. SMYKOWSKI: A number of those may not necessarily be positions, but within the Sheriff's budget the net increase in total positions that I alluded to in the power point presentation -- in current service he does have a number of additional positions above the adopted FY '98 level. And when we address the Sheriff's budget on Friday, I'm assuming that will be a topic of discussion there. They're aware of that, as well. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Okay. MR. SHYKOWSKI: There are a number of additions, in addition to the expanded they're looking for -- COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: There's a discrepancy of plus or minus 30 positions as I understand it. MR. FERNANDEZ: Twenty-nine. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: It started with the cops grants, correct? MR. SHYKOWSKI: That is correct. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: It's just that we've been -- I know we're just setting the stage more or less for Friday. The Sheriff is aware of this. We've been very vigilant on grants. When we get, quote, unquote, "free money" from the Federal government that has a time frame of three years, that will come home and hit the taxpayers at the end of those three years in full. And we need to understand that before we step foot towards any of those grants. We need to know that we can pay for those positions in three years. The last thing I want to do is sit up here and hear, "I'm going to have to take officers off the street because we have 30 grant positions that hit home in one year." COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Do you think we'll hear that? I'm shocked. MR. SHYKOWSKI: And, again, we will have an opportunity on Friday to address that. And we'll be sure that the Sheriff's staff is watching as we speak here and that they will be prepared to address this question. COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I apologize, but what is this section eight HUD 92 percent down? MR. SHYKOWSKI: That is just the balance of funds. The carry-over from prior years. We did get a CBDG grant for the Shellabarger Park improvements. Frankly, that's just a residual fund balance that's in reserves. COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: But we're not -- we haven't applied for any section eight money or why is that so significantly down; we just haven't sought any? MR. SHYKOWSKI: We did receive that grant in FY '98 for those improvements. That's what the whole budget -- the adopted '98 budget was for -- was for those improvements in Shellabarger Park in Immokalee. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: So we ought to be seeking more money in HUD I guess is the only point that I'm making. MR. SHYKOWSKI: That's correct. That doesn't mean we will not necessarily get any money. At this point though none is -- COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Guaranteed. MR. SHYKOWSKI: -- guaranteed. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. SMYKOWSKI: We can always -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Luck out. MR. SMYKOWSKI: -- appropriate grant awards by budget amendment, but at this point we're not -- the budget does not anticipate receipt of a CBDG award. MR. FERNANDEZ: Madam Chairman, that's essentially what the entitlement category -- the urban County category is all about. We wouldn't be competing every year if we were in that urban County status. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That 200,000 magic number. MR. FERNANDEZ: That magic number of a population of 200,000. We wouldn't have this uncertainty of whether or not we were applying and be eligible and so forth. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But if we had -- if we are successful in Marco joining us and if we're successful in getting that application in after the fact, then this will change to a significant number. What is that; $1.5 million of -- MR. FERNANDEZ: That's what we understand the formula to yield. That's for a community development grant. This is section eight, which is separate. I don't know if we're making that distinction for budget purposes today. They are separate programs. MR. SMYKOWSKI: On page D-2 are the trust funds. These are restricted use. In many cases the budgets from year to year may vacillate quite a bit up or down because they're based on volatile revenue sources based on things such as the amount of donations we receive in a given year for the library or the amount of property that is confiscated in law enforcement activities. So within -- within these budgets there are some large increases or decreases. By virtue of the type of revenue that is funding these operations or these funds, that's not unreasonable that it would vacillate from year to year. Confiscated property, for instance, we don't budget a certain amount of how much -- how much property do we anticipate the -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That you're counting on them getting. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Right. So in most cases that's why you see the forecast being much higher in confiscated property than the adopted budget is because the estimate is based on activity that has taken place and property that has actually been confiscated up through that point in time. There's a decrease in the Sheriff's training grants. It's my understanding that the State statutes have been revised and the -- and it's reduced the amounts of money available going to training. GAC land trust. Frankly, the increase there is due to increased reserves. Obviously the revenue source here is sale of -- sale of property within the GAC boundaries that are used for future improvements within that district. So as property is sold until we -- until the advisory committee makes recommendations and they're brought forth, that money is just budgeted in reserves. The GAC roads trust fund. We had actually not budgeted anything in FY '98 anticipating closeouts and final use of the available dollars there. That was for paving in the Golden Gate Estates area. There was a small amount of fund balance, $47,400, which is forecasted to be utilized. That would then exhaust that fund completely. And you see in the road districts we're forced to levy ad valorem because this source of funds has been depleted to do paving in the Estates area. Animal control trust fund. Not really a whole lot. An increase carryforward there results in increase reserves. Library trust fund. The proposed use of that money is for just replacement typically of capital equipment and furniture within each of the branch libraries. Mr. Wallace's operation, utility regulation. We talked about that. Again, the proposed fees are slated to be reduced further from three percent to one and a half percent. The increase in the budget is a function though of previous year fee carried forward. As I indicated in my opening presentation, there is approximately $1.1 million in reserves for potential rate hearings and/or if we were forced to take over the operation of any of those privately regulated utilities or privately held utilities. Drug abuse trust fund. The percent increase is very large, though a nominal increase in the dollars. That money is a small portion that goes for drug abuse programs. There were no forecasted expenditures. That money just rolls over. The law library is a self-supporting entity administered through the Clerk. The criminal justice trust fund there is an increase in available funds. The budget increase is 36.8 percent. In this case that's quite a good thing because all of that revenue is transferred to the general fund. The only expenditure with the available revenue is an operating revenue to reimburse the County for costs of things, such as the medical examiner. So in that case the larger the increase the better off we are because, again, that is an operating revenue to your general fund. Next we'll move into the unincorporated area general fund. As I indicated in my opening remarks, the proposed dollar impact or millage impact is 42 cents per $100,000 of taxable value. The value within this district has changed dramatically. That is on page five in the summary section of the summary book. Overall, there was a decrease of 11.2 percent in the total taxable value in this district. That is a function of Marco Island no longer being a part of that district by virtue of the fact that they will -- that they have incorporated. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Let me interrupt, Mr. Smykowski. Madam Chair, what's the pleasure of the Board on -- because I know GNAC has a budget review committee and I know we have others that have always been involved in budget review. Some funds like MST general fund itself have an impact on the taxpayers more directly than others. How are we going to take public comment? Are we going to do it by fund; are we going to do it by day? It seems in the end we spend the same amount of time taking the comment, but some of the funds it seems more appropriate to take them afterwards because of their broad nature. I think the MST general fund is one of those. So can I ask what the direction of the Board is? Most of these that we're going to discuss today aren't going to have a lot of input, but the MST general fund may. I think it may be most appropriate to hear those comments while the administrators are still here. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: What is the pleasure of the Board? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I know what we did, particularly when we get into the general fund items like on Friday, we'd have comments at the beginning of the day and have comments at the end of the day, rather than each fund. If you look at Friday's schedule -- CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Right. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- it just isn't very workable in terms of everybody get up every 15 minutes. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: With each one. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: See, for me I would rather have -- you won't be surprised. I would rather have comment on each individual fund. I just -- particularly this one MSTD fund and then -- more comment earlier is welcomed and more useful, frankly. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I thought last year we had done better only because the year before we waited until the conclusion of everything. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That is ridiculous. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think we realized that we've got to have some input on the front end. I think we did a pretty good balancing act last year in having it at both the front and back end. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: For the purposes of today, since it's a lighter schedule, can we try it at each fund and see how it goes? CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Sure. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah. I like that idea. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: That's fine. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: And then we can decide on Friday whether that's appropriate or not. Is that okay with everybody? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's fine. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: That's fine. We'll proceed that way. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Okay. That's fine. For folks interested in speaking, there are speaker sign-up forms in the hallway on the table. If you would prepare one of those, please, on any topic you would like to speak. That will move us into the unincorporated area general fund. And that's a separate tab in your book, Section B. Pages B-1 and B-2 reflect the total funds summary. Overall, appropriations decreased eight percent. There are some proposed expanded services within parks and recreation. I will just comment quickly on other things that may have changed. For instance, in fire control and forestry that's an assessment based on the number of acres in the outlying area, the number of acres that are charged the three cents per acre have been reduced as the State and the Feds buy up additional land in the outlying areas of the County. Franchise administration reflects a large decrease. That's a function of two positions from the reorganization. Again, those -- Ms. Merritt's position and Ms. Arnold's moving to the general fund under public information. Graphics and technical planning. There is a decrease there due to the retirement of a long-time County employee and replacing at the lesser cost. Long-range planning. There's an overall decrease there. We had one position that was transferred to the Community Development fund 113. So essentially we took a tax-supported position and moved it to a fee-supported fund. Other general administrative. There's a large increase there, but that is the indirect service charge payment to the general fund. Within the reserve categories you'll note that reserves are down almost $1 million. There is actually a logical explanation for that. Within the adopted FY '98 budget there was consideration that the Board was weighing the possibility of implementing a telecommunications ordinance. And the estimate revenue from that was $1 million. As a contingency, we increased the budget reserves by a like amount because we did not know what the Board's sentiment towards that fee was. As it turned out, the Board opted not to implement the telecommunication ordinance so we did not fund operations based on that fee source. So we had a contingency budgeted at that point to offset potential revenues so it wasn't damaging to this fund's budget. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I didn't understand that. Just to move you back up to cable TV. Is it because of the reorganization that cable TV is moving out of this fund? MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And it's going where? MR. SMYKOWSKI: To the general fund public information. Ms. Merritt is going to head up the public information efforts. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I guess the theory being that that's a Countywide benefit and not just an unincorporated area benefit? MR. SMYKOWSKI: That's correct. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That makes sense. I just have to watch those when you take them out of there. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: On the expense side, Mr. Smykowski, if I may? CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Sure. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Under parks and recreation I know we haven't gotten revenue yet. One reason we're seeing a 5.9 percent increase is just a simple position being added, but on revenues we have a significant reduction of over what was budgeted. $70,000 less. I read the reasoning in the long version of what we have been provided. I guess my concern is -- and I will mention it now and let Mr. Olliff deal with it. Did we just simply overestimate revenues last year? If these funds -- the MST general fund revenues are important. You know, that's what I kept coming back to. Did we just overestimate revenues or are there conditions that were not listed in our long version? MR. SMYKOWSKI: I think it's more a function of the Immokalee community. The park folks have discovered, frankly, that if you charge $1 for some entity nobody shows up. You know, everyone is interested, "Yeah, yeah. Come to the program. Oh, it's $1." And then on the day the program is supposed to take place no one shows up. Mr. Olliff can elaborate further, but, frankly, I think it's a function of the community itself. MR. OLLIFF: I thought you were going to get away with this whole morning doing it by yourself. If you look on the -- well, I don't want to point you to the detail page. I don't think this is on. If you'll look from last year's revenues to current year revenue estimates, we actually increased our revenue estimate by over 50 percent. And that was extremely aggressive. We had hired a new person from Lee County who thought that they could generate -- it is on -- who could try and generate that kind of revenue. And, frankly, it wasn't as a result of lack of trying. She had special events almost every weekend. What Mike said is true. When we found out we would charge $1 or $2, people just didn't show. And I think the $100,000 revenue number that we historically collected in the Immokalee area is about what we're going to get. And we're going to try and budget a little bit more realistically next year. That's why you see the impact. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: So it was, in fact, taking a shot at increasing the programs in Immokalee and trying to offset them with a portion of revenue and not for them to be self-sufficient in any way, shape or form. We found that those offsetting revenues just weren't materializing. MR. OLLIFF: Correct. Right. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Before you go, part-time ranger position expanded for Immokalee. Tell me what that is for. MR. OLLIFF: We don't have the ranger coverage in Immokalee to cover the number of hours that the public is in the parks. We certainly don't have enough to cover the full time that the parks are open. We generally don't try and worry about early during the day when the parks are not that crowded. What we worry about is from the time school is out until the parks close at ten o'clock at night. We don't have the coverage to be able to provide a ranger in the entire Immokalee park community for that entire time. So what we're trying to do is just make sure that there is at least one ranger that can cover the seven days a week when the public is in the park. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: And now with school being out that's probably even more important. MR. OLLIFF: In that particular community I would say ranger coverage is important. MR. FERNANDEZ: Madam Chair. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Yes. MR. FERNANDEZ: On the previous point raised by Commissioner Hac'Kie on cable franchise, there should be a transfer from the cable fund to the general fund to cover the TV portion of that. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I was going to look there. MR. FERNANDEZ: There should be. Thank you for catching that. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: My other question on this was on code enforcement. And this is going to come up in any -- in any department that has positions freeing up because of the incorporation of Marco Island. This is the same question that is going to be fired at you. That is, we are adding a position in code enforcement when we are actually freeing up a position that was being utilized on Marco Island. So the net result to code enforcement is two and a quarter as opposed to one new position. Mr. Fernandez, am I characterizing that correctly? We had one and a quarter FTEs on Marco Island that now is not being used there. So, in essence, the growth is not one code enforcement officer, it's two and a quarter. MR. FERNANDEZ: I am not sure of the quarter. I know that there is two. COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. MR. FERNANDEZ: We have characterized the code enforcement increase -- the adjustment from Marco as an expansion as though that position had not existed prior to the current -- the proposed fiscal year. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So we don't have to watch for any sort of secret positions here? I mean, that's the -- MR. FERNANDEZ: We required each one of those that were previously related to Marco to be characterized as an expansion so it will appear in the expansion column. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Good. MR. SMYKOWSKI: That is correct. You will see that also on Friday in road and bridge. There is seven positions that were previously -- similar circumstances where they previously provided service. Again, per the adopted budget policy, if we were going to retain those employees or request to retain those employees and enhance service in the balance of the unincorporated area that would be treated no differently than an expanded service. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Does that explain the multiple number of people increasing in the MSTD fund? When we look at MSTD, we see multiple increases. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Which multiple increases? COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: It's actually in administration. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Like 25 in parks and rec, 24 in code enforcement. Is that what you're talking about, Tim, on B-27 COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Yeah. MR. SMYKOWSKI: In general there's not a lot of increase there. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: It will come later in administration. Go ahead. MR. FERNANDEZ: The only expanded are the two in code enforcement in that list. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Correct. And one of those expandeds is funded by a transfer from the Community Development fund 113. So essentially, yes, there's one position that previously did work on Marco Island that is proposed or recommended to be retained to enhance service in the balance of the unincorporated area. The other one is funded by a transfer from 113 by virtue of the fact that that position is going to be involved heavily in sign permits and all that are new development related. So, again, we have tried to -- based on the Board's previous direction that anything that is building industry related, the building industry should be paying for that. So in this case we have a code enforcement officer proposed to be funded via a transfer from the Community Development fund 113. COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Again, I just want to make sure that as we look at having services that were being applied to Marco Island and no longer are applied that we are not just finding positions for those people. That we're meeting specific needs and the needs can be identified. Code enforcement I understand, but there are other areas that we're going to come across that there will be similar questions. MR. SMYKOWSKI: That's correct. And in those cases we'll be sure to clarify. The expanded descriptions do indicate when they were previously allocated to Marco Island service, but we'll be sure to -- during the road and bridge discussion those seven employees that will COMMISSIONER HANCOCK: Okay. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: My question -- and I'll go ahead and tell you -- is going to be whether or not we have an adequate increase in staffing because there is just such a demand. I mean, everywhere I go that's what I hear is we need more code enforcement. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Just as a policy thing, I read it -- in two different sections in here we talk about to provide an aggressive proactive program, most notably the amendments to the minimum housing code ordinance and the exotic removal ordinance. And, Hichelle, I hope we spend more time on that housing ordinance than we do exotic removal. While surely we want to enforce the second one -- just as we talk about Bayshore or we talk about Golden Gate or the Manor or any of those places -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Please. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: If we are tight and shorthanded, I hope we're allocating more towards those needs. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: More human than plant. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: I have a question about the exotic removal. How many agencies right now look at exotic removal? COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Well, at least the Feds and the State. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Well, how many people do we need to look at the exotic removal? COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: The State is actively -- I mean, look at Key Island how actively they're doing the exotic removal program there. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Well, that -- Commissioner Constantine, I think we're thinking along the same way here. How many -- I mean, if you've got the State and you've got the Federal group looking at this, how many more people do we need to have looking? Why does the County have to pay someone to look at this? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: Because we adopted an ordinance saying we would. So you've got to go to the ordinance. What I'm saying -- CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. Why did we adopt an ordinance then? COHMISSIONER HANCOCK: What I'm saying is I'm not so sure at this point it's as much a budget discussion as it is a discussion on the ordinance that the Board adopted indicating that we had rules of exotic removal. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: We can give direction here in budget discussions. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. I'm just looking at a $73,000 figure though, but if we've got -- how much oversight do we need? And this almost borders, in my opinion, on overkill. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Do we supplement those programs or are we just watching them take down the trees? MS. ARNOLD: For the record, Hichelle Arnold, Code Enforcement Director. Is this on? COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: It's as on as it's going to get apparently. MS. ARNOLD: Okay. That position would partly look into exotic removal, but as you indicated there are other agencies that are responsible for that program at different levels. We are trying to look at other aspects of environmental maintenance, not solely exotic removal. A lot of our planned unit developments have or were asked to come up with programs for monitoring their exotic removals and that's something that we really haven't taken care of. And this position would partly be responsible for that, but that's not -- as Commissioner Constantine indicated, that's not the sole responsibility for that position. It would also involve minimum housing codes, signs and other ordinances that we're responsible for. COHHISSIONER HAC'KIE: In other words, part of this position is going to be to monitor -- to respond to complaints where PUDs have not met their exotic removal requirements? MS. ARNOLD: Right. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Where developers haven't or where '- MS. ARNOLD: We really haven't had the staff to look into a program -- developing a program making sure that the planned unit developments themselves have a program that identifies how the exotics will be removed and how they would be monitored so they're not growing back or -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Again, while that's a concern, I hope that if we have limited number of staff hours they are spent on human beings more than this. That's probably a policy discussion we should have some Tuesday. I'm like you, I think there are a number of different agencies doing this. I think in one specific case what you're referencing there with the PUD -- Fox Fire when they put their golf course in -- their additional nine holes of golf course were required to go back and remove -- not from the land that they were on -- they had to do that anyway -- but from the old course that had been there for 15 years, 14 years, they had to go back and do a number of changes, which may or may not be appropriate. MS. ARNOLD: Right. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: But it seems like probably not the highest and best use of our staff time to be out monitoring that, instead of on Bayshore or in the Manor or in Golden Gate trying to do housing codes. So as a policy issue, we probably ought to look at that. I don't think there is any question we need more in the way of code enforcement officers. How they spend their time is probably -- CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Yeah. Don't misunderstand. I'm not -- I'm not talking about the officer per se. I'm talking about the assignment that they are given. And I have to agree, I would much prefer that they spend more time looking at the housing side of it and making sure that there is compliance there than worrying about that Brazilian Pepper tree, though I know it's a concern. And obviously the State and Federal people think it is. But if they think it is so much of a concern, then they ought to do something about it. And if it's a general concern in Collier County, then instead of coming out of the community development fund it ought to come out of the general fund. If it is a continual -- if this is a general concern, I believe -- that is my interpretation of the general fund. Maybe I am wrong there. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: No. You're right. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: The general fund is for a Countywide concern. And if this is a Countywide concern, then that's where the money ought to come from. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And if we're going to have an exotics removal program -- if we're going to have it, I think we need to start in our own backyard. If we're going to spend money in exotic removal, it needs to be exotic removal on County owned property. That's what's pretty shocking to me is that we're forcing other people to pull them out while we have them on our own property. MR. SHYKOWSKI: We actually do a portion of that in the park's budget. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: A little bit. Not much. MR. SHYKOWSKI: The amount, frankly, is staggering if we budgeted it all in one bite. So we have taken an approach, you know, over a five-year period. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And forcing other people to do what we're not doing ourselves as a government is a little disingenuous. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, frankly, it's fairly consistent though with what we do. Again, I'll refer to the Fox Fire issue. They had, I think, a two-year span in which to achieve theirs and we tried to work out whatever is financially feasible. So if it's financially for the County to do it in five years, we shouldn't hold ourselves to a different standard than we're doing everybody else. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I bet we're not up to five years. I bet we're up to about 50. MR. FERNANDEZ: Madam Chairman. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Yes, sir. MR. FERNANDEZ: If we're -- you can stay a minute. If we're through with the exotic discussion, I would like to bring up another issue. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: This is an exotic discussion. MR. FERNANDEZ: Since the Board expressed an interest in additional code enforcement officers, I'm concerned that I may have been a little stingy in the request here. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I think so. MR. FERNANDEZ: I would like to give Michelle the opportunity to let you know about the need for the four that she requested. We limited her expansion to only two. And that's a little unusual in this forum, but I thought I would give her the opportunity to tell you about the other two to see how you feel about them. MS. ARNOLD: Well, one of the four was the Marco position. Currently we have investigators that are distributed throughout the County by territories. And one investigator was responsible for Marco Island and the surrounding area. We felt that we would need to maintain that particular position to cover the remaining of the area and enhance some of the enforcements we currently have in our other areas of the County. There was a position that we were asking for for a senior investigator. Currently we have two supervisors that do some monitoring of our investigators' work to make sure that we're in accordance with our regulations. And what I was requesting was a senior investigator to be partly patrol, partly supervisory. In fact, I would like to have all three supervisors go back out in the field so that we're kind of monitoring from that aspect, as well. The third position was for a sign investigator. Presently we have one person primarily involved with all sign regulation -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Boy, do we need that one. MS. ARNOLD: -- be it new construction or going back and retrofitting some of our old signs that are out there that are not consistent with our plan. We have an amortization period that's coming due within the year and that was to address some of those older signs so -- those nonconforming signs. And that person currently is doing a tremendous job, but he needs a lot of help. And then the fourth position was for environmental related. It would take care of some of the Fox Fire type PUDs. And what I've seen since I've been in that office is that a lot of our environmental related enforcement actions come too late in the process where some of the developments have already been transferred over from the development community to some of the associations. They don't realize what the impact is for removing some of these exotics or maintaining their exotics. And we would like to be able to address those earlier on so that when the associations get the development it's less of an economic impact on those developments. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Translation there is make the developer who made the commitments do the exotic removal before he turns over the responsibility to the homeowners' associations who then have to do a special assessment to be able to meet his commitment. And that's not right. (Commissioner Hancock left the boardroom.) COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Agreed, but I'm not sure that I'm convinced on that particular one. I think the other three I'm comfortable with. I'm not sure I'm convinced on that particular one that the way to achieve that is necessarily by creating a new position. It seems to me if we did particularly on the very front end of projects to streamline that a little bit we may be able to do that without adding in another body. I guess what -- just a suggestion. What we might do is add the one, instead of both, and put a little asterisk by it and then just look in our wrap-up and make sure we have adequate funds to do it. I don't want to commit ourselves to something now without seeing what all our other priorities are. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I would like to see this particular request come back though during wrap-up so we can see if we can. If we have done our normal cut and slash routine, we'll probably have funds to do this with. MR. FERNANDEZ: Madam Chairman. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Yes, sir. MR. FERNANDEZ: Just to add to your thinking on this, one of the additional two positions can be funded through fund 113 supported by building fees. That might help with the general fund impact. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Yes. I guess my -- well, I made my statement how I felt about this particular one, so -- okay. We'll move on. MR. FERNANDEZ: Thank you, Commissioner. MR. SHYKOWSKI: As I indicated in the opening presentation on B-2, there is $1,053,100 on the revenue side of the budget that reflects the Marco Island Sheriff's Office contractual payment. When we have the Sheriff's discussion perhaps it will probably be more appropriate to address that in conjunction with the whole Sheriff's budget, but that is -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: One question is: Have we gotten any kind of response yet, Mr. Fernandez, from the City Manager there about -- about this particular item? MR. FERNANDEZ: On the issue of contracting? COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Yes. MR. FERNANDEZ: No, we haven't. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Okay. MR. SHYKOWSKI: That concludes the unincorporated area general fund. Again, the big policy issue remaining is the Sheriff's Office contract and it will probably be more appropriate to deal with that in conjunction with the whole Sheriff's budget on Friday. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. All right. MR. SHYKOWSKI: We'll move right into the special revenue, which is the next tab. MR. FERNANDEZ: You might want to take the public speakers. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Oh, yes. Speakers. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Let's see if we have any public speakers on that one, please. MR. SHYKOWSKI: I am sorry. Sure. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: No? CHAIRPERSON BERRY: No public speakers? Everybody is happy. Okay. Proceed, Mr. Smykowski. MR. SHYKOWSKI: Okay. On pages C-1 and C-2 are the special revenue funds administered through the support services division. They are but two. The 800 megahertz radio system is -- this is actually maintenance of the system. The big issue here, frankly, is the expanded service request of $227,500, which is maintenance for the 800 megahertz radio system because warranty coverage on the system expires in March of 1999. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: How long was the warranty for? MR. SHYKOWSKI: Mr. Daly is here. I think you have to speak very closely to that microphone. MR. DALY: Good morning. John Daly, Radio Communications Manager. The warranty was two years. We started the warranty in March of 1997, so it expires March of 1999. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Has the -- I mean, I don't guess that the calls for service or whatever you'd call it -- the demand on the system so far has been anything like a quarter of a million dollars for maintenance. I mean, if you had to pay for the maintenance that otherwise has been covered by warranty, would it have been $227,000 or would it have been half of that or a third of that? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: How did we get this number? COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Exactly. MR. DALY: This number was based upon the responses to the RFP in 1994. It required that each of the respondents provide maintenance quotes for the third, fourth and fifth year following the two-year warranty. So the budgetary figures we utilized were based upon the quotes that we received in the RFP. That's where those figures came from. And maintenance involves more than fixing things that are broken. I mean, there is some ongoing testing and alignment and tuning of the system that the techs do on a daily basis. So this is not strictly a repairing things that are broken. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Yeah. Because you've been spending $837,000 on that, so there must be something. MR. DALY: Where is that? COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Isn't that the -- CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Current service. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: '97-'98 current service, $837,600. MR. DALY: No. We have been building reserves in the fund 188 for the eventual responsibility for maintenance post-warranty. We've been spending approximately $130,000 a year in operation, with the remainder of the funds that are in 188 staying in reserves. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: colored page here, C-i? supposed to be -- MR. SHYKOWSKI: Yes. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: MR. SHYKOWSKI: Yes. year. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: MR. DALY: Yes. Is this a misprint on this -- on the teal It says fiscal year '97-'98. Is that -- '98-'99? That should be -- those years are off by a Okay. So that 227 is an exact number? COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Any other questions? MR. SMYKOWSKI: The second fund there is the ADA improvement fund. The revenue source there is handicap parking violations. What's slated -- the improvements slated are $10,000 for handicap access in the courthouse building itself for $10,000 with the balance of money going to reserves. Again, the funding source is a surcharge on handicap parking violations. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: And what percentage of that do we spend and how much of it do we put in reserves every year? MR. SMYKOWSKI: Well, the proposal for FY '99, $10,000 is the actual proposed expenditure, the balance of 15,100 in reserves. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: It seems -- MR. SMYKOWSKI: Skip Camp does have a committee that he works with though that prioritize things. And as needs come up, this is an available funding pool that if there's an immediate need with the budget amendment that we -- at this point though there are no slated improvements scheduled, other than those courthouse improvements for $10,000. This is a readily available source where you're not hitting the general fund reserves. So if a need materializes, there is $15,000 that is available. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. MR. SMYKOWSKI: On pages C-5 and C-6 are the fire districts that will be administered under the new emergency services division. The first issue I would like to address is the Collier County fire control budget. Again, the proposed millage is two mills. Distribution of funds in FY '98, Isle of Capri got $31,800 and Ochopee, Golden Gate and East Naples got $77,800. The proposal for FY '99 is to keep Isle of Capri at 31,800, Ochopee at 77,800, and Golden Gate and East Naples would be $70,150. And that's based on the number of responses within the districts. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Question here on expanded services. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes, sir. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Service previously provided by the Marco Island fire district, which will primarily be taken care of -- that district will be taken care of by the City, as I understand it MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Why would we then assume a service that had previously been provided by that service for $93,000? MR. SMYKOWSKI: The Marco Island charter says that the service will be provided by Marco through an interlocal agreement with the Board of County Commissioners. For the rest of the Board's awareness and just to clarify for anyone who may be watching, Goodland and Horrs Island were previously provided fire protection by the Marco Island independent fire district. Goodland and Horrs Island are not included in the City boundaries of the newly incorporated City of Marco Island. De facto then they become a -- they become a member of the Collier County fire control district. The Collier County fire control ordinance says that if you're not in a fire district, then you are included in Collier County fire. And, frankly, including them here is a means -- since they are not incorporated municipalities, there is no other means to get the money from -- for that service from the residents within those two respective areas. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Do you have any idea what the overall budget of the Marco fire district is or was? MR. SMYKOWSKI: I do not. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Or balipark. I'm just thinking -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Shouldn't they absorb this, instead of us? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, I'm thinking that and I'm also thinking if we have to do an interlocal agreement, this is a tiny, tiny percentage of what their coverage area would be, whether you measure it by mileage or by number of homes. I mean, any way you measure it, it is a tiny, tiny percentage. It just seems like 93,100 probably isn't a tiny percentage of the fire district's budget. I'm wondering how that number was arrived at and if there is some room to alter that. MR. SHYKOWSKI: That expanded is two mills times the taxable value of Goodland and Horrs Island. We got taxable value numbers from the property appraiser for those two areas specifically. And we reflected it as expanded, (a), because it is new and different than the previous year and, (b), it also just segregates the amount of money that those two areas would -- that would be generated by a two mill tax levy on those two areas. And that frankly -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And do we anticipate turning that 93,000 over to the Marco fire for them to provide the protection? When you said that their charter sets up for an interlocal agreement, I assume that's where you were going, but I'm not sure. MR. SHYKOWSKI: Correct. That is subject to approval of the interlocal agreement. And assuming one could not be reached, then they have essentially $93,100 with which to buy fire protection service from some other provider. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Okay. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It just seems like a steep price per household a two full mill. MR. SHYKOWSKI: It is. The millage impact is they were paying .88 mills as part of the Marco independent fire district. They will, in effect, be paying two mills now. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Wow. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. I think one other one that needs to be pointed out -- I know we have some folks here from the Ochopee fire district area. If you'll look at the PILT funds -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Oh, yeah. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: It's a decrease and it's an increase. Were you going to point that out? I'm sorry. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes. I would. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Go ahead. MR. SMYKOWSKI: I just wanted to deal with Collier County first since Collier County fire -- there are transfers to these other districts from Collier County fire. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Sorry. I jumped ahead of you there. MR. SMYKOWSKI: That's okay. In Ochopee fire we're reducing the general fund support of the -- of the Ochopee fire district. Traditionally that has been $357,800 through the payment in lieu of taxes received in the general fund and then passed on through to the Ochopee fire district. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Which is just amazing. I mean, how did we do that? Is that -- I mean, how could we do that? CHAIRPERSON BERRY: You can do that. COHHISSIONER HAC'KIE: How could we transfer that general fund support for that particular fire district? MR. FERNANDEZ: Madam Chairman. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Go ahead. MR. FERNANDEZ: From the best that I can tell, it has been historically thought that the PILT funds are generated by virtue of the fact that the Federal government owns the property that, for the most part, is in the Ochopee fire district and that would have been a revenue to that district if it had been taxable. In reality, it is a general fund revenue. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: There was a time way back when the school system used to get some of those funds, the payment in lieu of taxes. And that did change -- I don't know how many years ago, but there was a change in that particular situation. I did inquire about this. I said when we got those funds -- when the school system got the funds, did those funds go directly to a school in that area and the answer was no because they do go into the general fund. It's the same situation as what happens on the County level. Since that time they do not get these particular funds. For whatever reason, I don't know. But it still boils down to the same thing that just because those lands are located where they are, it's not a general understanding that the money has to be directed. This was a policy decision apparently that a previous Board had made to go ahead and direct those funds in that particular area. MR. FERNANDEZ: Madam Chairman. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Mr. Fernandez. MR. FERNANDEZ: Our intent was to remove general fund support completely as directed by the Board of County Commissioners. However, if we had done that we would have exceeded the four mill cap. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Right. MR. FERNANDEZ: So we left in the amount of PILT funding that would keep us from going over the millage cap, but it takes them to the millage cap of four mill. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: It takes them to the millage cap, right. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Just acknowledging then, what percentage of their total budget are we subsidizing with general fund dollars? MR. SHYKOWSKI: $276,000 of $900,000. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: A third? MR. FERNANDEZ: A third. MR. SHYKOWSKI: Roughly a third. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: A third of their budget is being subsidized, despite our best efforts to stop that. MR. SHYKOWSKI: That is correct. The millage would have been almost seven mills if you deleted it completely. And obviously there's a four millage -- a four mill cap. So what we did was reduce to the extent we could and stay within the millage cap. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: We have to address that somehow in the next year. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: But, in effect, though -- let's go back just a minute to those lands. Are those lands actually in their fire district or are they served also by State forestry or that group, as well? I mean, you have to look at the service provided and sometimes there's a little misinformation as to -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Who does the work. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: -- who does what. And I think that's important to note. MR. SHYKOWSKI: And you could also make the argument from the general fund perspective that the general fund should retain more because obviously the Sheriff patrols out in that area, as well. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Right. MR. SHYKOWSKI: And that money would accrue to the general fund, as well, if it were taxable. So I would say the general fund could easily stake as much a claim to that money certainly as anyone from Ochopee could. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: That's true. Okay. Thank you. MR. SHYKOWSKI: Okay. Obviously then the millage impact there is going from 2.6063 adopted '98 to four mills. So it's approximately a 1.4 mill increase. That's listed at the bottom of page C-3. And then Isle of Capri fire, that's the same relative millage and service level as in the past. The adopted millage was .7921. The proposed millage is .7919. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: And the 7.2 percent increase is due to valuation of property? MR. SHYKOWSKI: That is correct. That will move us to C-9 and C-10, which is the community development fund. Overall, $14.8 million in total appropriations. On the expense side on page C-9 there is a large increase in reserves and that's due to the carry-over of permit revenue. Obviously, in the last year or so there has been certainly strong, continued growth in the building industry. That is, however, designated for -- at least in part for acquisition of a GIS system. So while, yes, there are $7.1 million in reserves, this fund would be a primary source utilized to fund the acquisition of a GIS system, along with public works since they would be a large part the principal users within -- within those areas. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Can someone justify the planning services spot that is outlined for expanded service there? CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Go to page C-12. MR. SHYKOWSKI: I think Mr. Hulhere is working his way up to the microphone. There are -- the proposed expandeds are listed on page C-12. Again, this fund is supported principally by building permits and fees of the development industry, not ad valorem taxes. MR. HULHERE: Commissioner Constantine, that is the environmental specialist one position that you're referring to? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's the one. MR. HULHERE: In analyzing our levels of service, we found that most consistently the one area during the review process where we were late was in the environmental review. As you may or may not be aware, we have just two environmental specialists working currently. And although in some respects some of the petition load is down, for example, site development plans probably will decrease a little bit over this next year due to the Marco Island incorporation; nevertheless, other activity levels are up significantly. And I hate to bring up the issue again, but one of the issues is exotic removal inspections. They can be conducted in two ways. And the way that we're involved is during the development and review process. And we have one engineering inspector who goes out and reviews during construction for landscape compliance and exotic removal compliance. And, again, as I envision this position, it would be shared 50 percent between current planning and 50 percent in engineering review. So half the time would be spent in the field and the other half reviewing environmental permits. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Would there be any objection if we put an asterisk on this one and just -- I realize it is its own fund, but to look at it again in wrap-up. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Wrap-up item. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, for my money it's -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That may just give us a chance to kick policy around in our head for the next week. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thanks. MR. MULHERE: Sure. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Personally, at that -- I would rather see it at this point than hiring a person to go out afterwards. COMHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Right. That way we can have a discussion of where it is appropriate. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Exactly. Continue, Mr. Smykowski. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Okay. The balance of the expanded services are on C-12. That includes three additional inspectors. Obviously, with the strong continued growth in the building industry and the number of permits pulled, frankly, the inspection work load is staggering when you look at the number of inspections and how much time and how many inspections they perform on a daily basis. So this is designed to augment that and just eliminate some of that -- streamline some of that work load and more evenly distribute it so that we're still performing quality inspections. COHHISSIONER HAC'KIE: What is this $73,800 transfer in from the HSTD general fund under expanded service on the yellow page, C-97 MR. SHYKOWSKI: That's actually on the appropriation side. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Right. MR. SHYKOWSKI: That's an expense transfer out to fund 111 to fund that code investigator position that we just talked about. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Okay. MR. SHYKOWSKI: This is why you see -- this is the corresponding side to that entry. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: This is where they're paying for that code inspector. MR. SHYKOWSKI: Right. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Okay. Thank you. MR. SHYKOWSKI: Rather than break up the department and show a portion of the department in one fund and a portion in the other, it's simpler just to leave all the -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: It makes sense. MR. SHYKOWSKI: -- positions in code enforcement and just show the transfer. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Thank you. MR. SHYKOWSKI: In addition, with the additional inspector associated is one additional customer service agent to assist in the acceptance and processing of the permit application. As you indicated, the 73,800 is the transfer to fund 111 to fund that code enforcement position. That moves us on to C-14. Three special revenue funds within -- under the umbrella of community development and environmental services. Fund 108 is the pollution cleanup fund in which we receive $500,000 from FDEP for petroleum site cleanup work, contaminated sites noted within Collier County that are deemed eligible. Frankly, this has been a great program for us because if it weren't for these dollars we would be doing it with our own dollars. So to the extent to which we receive continued funding is a plus for us. The pollution control and prevention fund 114, again, is a Countywide tax. So all taxpayers in Collier County are paying that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: They voted to do that. MR. SMYKOWSKI: They did indeed up to a tenth of a mill. We're not even at the halfway point. The adopted FY '98 millage was .0452 or $4.52 per $100,000. The proposed millage levy in FY '99 is .0413 or $4.13 per $100,000 of value. There is no expandeds within that program and the same level of service. Within the SHIP program -- frankly, this is the management of the affordable housing trust fund revenues that the County receives to assist with down payment, rental rehabilitation, et cetera. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That's State funding, right? MR. SMYKOWSKI: That is correct. Correct. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: So there's no expanded services anywhere in this -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: No. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: -- group of funds? MR. SMYKOWSKI: That's correct. Okay. That moves us into public works on C-17 and 18. As I indicated in the power point presentation, these are a number of the special purpose taxing districts. In a lot of cases residents within these respective taxing districts have voted to tax themselves for a -- for a given reason. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Did you get that MSTD map? MR. SMYKOWSKI: Sure did. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thanks. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The question I'm going to have here, Mike, after you do that is the distribution of those employees previously providing service on Marco. That equates to 14 expanded positions, which just seems like an awful big chunk. I know we want to take care of our employees, but either through attrition or -- is there another way to handle that, other than having what amounts to 14 expanded positions? MR. SMYKOWSKI: Actually, it is seven. There are -- these are just each of the respective road HSTD's pro rata share of the same seven. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Okay. 175,000 is what we're looking at? MR. SHYKOWSKI: Yes. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Is there another approach to that via attrition, via -- is there some other way, other than just saying, "Well, we've got seven extra employees this year, so I guess we'll have extra service"? COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Well, we desperately need some extra service in a lot of places. I don't know if that's the magic number. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. MR. FERNANDEZ: Madam Chairman. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Yes, sir. MR. FERNANDEZ: We didn't just put these expanded services in here because they were existing employees. We reviewed the need expressed by the department, the service level proposed and made our recommendations based on that. And Mr. Kant and Mr. Ilschner are here to talk about that. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Is it just an amazing coincidence that the numbers match up? MR. FERNANDEZ: It's amazing. MR. KANT: Edward Kant, Transportation Services Director. In view of the Board's goals and in view of our work load, we felt that it would be appropriate to take those positions and redistribute them in the remainder of the County to help augment the request for a more urbanized level of service. That's -- that was the thrust of that request. A lot of the actual services have to do with litter control, better use of the mowing equipment, a higher level of mowing and cleanup on the roadsides. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Can you give me some real life examples? MR. KANT: Additional work on the swales. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Will I see 951 mowed more than once every six or eight weeks now? What will I see differently? MR. KANT: As an example, everything west of 951 and south -- including 951 and south -- including south of Immokalee Road in that block, if you will, you will see both an increased -- increased frequency of mowing, as well as a better level of mowing due to a different type of equipment. There is a difference between using a flail mower, say, and a bush hog as opposed to a real type mower, which is more appropriate for an urban setting. MR. ILSCHNER: Ed Ilschner, Public Works Administration. I think one of the significant improvements will be the ability to use this crew in the area of litter control and litter pick up prior to mowing. I have driven Golden Gate Parkway out to 951 on several occasions after having it mowed and there are small million bits of pieces of paper that are extremely difficult to pick up after that. This additional crew will allow us to address that issue on all the urban roadway systems inside 951, as well as some of the requests we're receiving in the rural area for litter control and pick up. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I appreciate the fact we're trying to improve the level of service we're doing. I also appreciate the fact that we want to take care of existing employees, but it does seem like an amazing coincidence to me that if what Mr. Fernandez has described is accurate that we broke it down by what specifically our needs were and it just happened to turn out to be the exact same number. This isn't the only department where this happened. There are several transfers. I'd appreciate you lining those up for us where those employees that were previously on Marco are. I just -- I want to make sure that we're not making work. MR. KANT: Well, I think it's important, too, Commissioners, to recognize that over the last ten years, especially over the last six years, we've experienced a significant overall reduction in personnel while the number of road miles has actually expanded. There was a reorganization back in 1992 which dropped us from 120 to 99 positions in road and bridge. We have been working with this same 99 positions, including Marco, for this period of time. And we're trying to meet the needs and meet the requests of the citizens and the direction of the Board. At the same time, we have never -- I don't want to say never. To my knowledge, we have not requested additional expanded positions before this point in time given the same programs. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The bad news is that argument helps support -- bad or good news. It helps support Commissioner Constantine's position that you have been able to do -- if what you were here to say today, Mr. Kant, was, "You guys keep installing all this great landscaping on Davis Boulevard and elsewhere with grant money and I've got to maintain it and I need more people to do that" -- if that's what you were here to say -- MR. KANT: This has nothing to do with the landscaping, Commissioner. What we have done as a result of that reduction in force in 1992 and at Board direction based on the fact that litter pick up is not considered a safety or mandated issue, there have been a great deal of cutback in that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We have all those adopt-a-road programs. I mean, do we have a significant -- MR. KANT: Ma'am, that is not funded by -- that's volunteer. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's what I mean. Do we have a significant litter problem? CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Yes. In rural areas. MR. ILSCHNER: We have a significant litter problem in Collier County, Commissioner. The adopt-a-road program is not effectively addressing that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Do we have a $175,000 litter problem is the question? MR. ILSCHNER: We probably have in excess of $175,000 litter problem throughout the County. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Two questions, Ed -- both Eds. When those cuts were made, I mean, were 21 people no longer employed by the County? MR. KANT: That's correct, sir. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: They just lost their jobs in 19927 MR. KANT: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Okay. I think that's an important distinction. Because when we talk about reorganizations, in some of the cases they were just shifted to a different department. MR. KANT: No, sir. These were positions which were eliminated and people were laid off at that time, sir. MR. ILSCHNER: Right. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What additional roads are we doing now that we weren't doing then, as far as the mowing and litter? I think that may have been Commissioner Hac'Kie's confusion. When we say additional roads, we've beautified a number of areas, but I don't think we've added too much in the way of new roads, except Goodlette. MR. ILSCHNER: It's a matter of -- it's the level of service and frequency. And there is a changing expectation in the urban area from 951 west towards the beach with respect to the time frame of getting back to that mowing activity and that litter pick up and control activity. We're not keeping up with that demand. COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'll tell you that in my district the only places where I've heard complaints are -- I mean, Bayshore people do complain that there's not adequate mowing and attention paid to them. And it may be -- you know, the majority of my district being in City of Naples, I don't hear those complaints, but if you guys aren't hearing them either -- CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Oh, I've got the complaints. MR. ILSCHNER: I might add, Commissioners, that -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's the final question really. What is the realistic change on 951, on Immokalee, on wherever? Right now __ CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Go further out in the Estates. MR. KANT: In some cases our frequencies are running from -- anywhere from about five to eight weeks. And we want to try to get those frequencies down to three to five weeks, preferably in the three to four-week range, especially during the growing season. In some cases, depending on the way the medians are planted, some of the grass, for whatever reason, seems to grow faster than others. And we'd like to get those frequencies down to about three weeks, in some cases even two. I might add one of the consequences of our rather aggressive concurrency management campaign has been that we have added a number of four-lane roadways in the last ten years and we've planted medians with the -- the grass plantings have been a better quality grass planting. They grow better. They require more maintenance. And I do want to stress that none of this work is associated with the landscaping improvements because those are handled by separate crews altogether. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Did we not add a mowing crew anytime between '92 and now? MR. KANT: I don't recall. I can't answer positively, but I don't recall adding a specific mowing crew, no, sir. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you. MR. SMYKOWSKI: We can check on -- for wrap-up purposes the number of positions added in road and bridge since that period. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It sounds to me like that -- if you guys are sure that we need this level of increased service, but, otherwise, it seems to me like a wrap-up item just to be sure we pick the right number. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Well, I think I can -- I'm just going to speak for my district at this point. I can tell you there has been an increased awareness and perceived need that there needs to be more work out in the area on out east. I get repeated phone calls in regard to the area between Everglades City and Chokoloskee. Many of you do not frequent that area, but there are a lot of people that do that are not residents here. And it's a very narrow roadway. The sides need to be mowed. It needs to be kept up on a more timely basis. Just on out east of 951 in the Estates area, Mr. Ilschner and I had a meeting with some residents out there very concerned about the litter problem. We've tried to do a number of things. Mr. Ilschner has tried to do a number of things to try and address that problem. And, unfortunately, it boils down to people having to get out and take care of some of these things. So that's -- that's as best as I know in my particular district what the situation is. And I've got two-thirds of Collier County. So, you know, that's the way it is. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'll defer to my lack of knowledge for the need for that increased level of service out there. If staff says we need it and you say we need it -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I agree there is probably a need for additional. I am just curious if seven is the number. That's all. Mike, will you give me that information? MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Mike, how much more do we have on this particular area because we need to give our court reporter a break? Do we have one more? MR. SHYKOWSKI: There is a fair number of districts here. If you want to take a break right now -- we also have a speaker. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Why don't we take a break now? It is a quarter of 11. We have, I think, pushed our limit here. We will take a break for about ten minutes and then we'll come back. (A recess was taken.) CHAIRPERSON BERRY: All right. We will continue, Mr. Smykowski, please. MR. FERNANDEZ: Madam Chairman, it might be a good time to take the speaker that we have registered at this point. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. Certainly. MR. FERNANDEZ: She didn't indicate a subject, so we can ask her if this is the appropriate time. Janet Vasey. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: I think any time is the appropriate time. MS. VASEY: Thank you. Janet Vasey, for the record. I did have a couple of comments on the road and bridge section. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. MS. VASEY: I know you all would be very surprised to know that we don't have the answers. We just had a couple of areas of concern that we wanted to bring to your attention. You've actually hit on several of them. If I could direct your attention to -- in the big book to page 128-A. A-128. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: 1287 MS. VASEY: Yes. A-128 and 129. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Just a second. Give us a moment here. Go ahead, Janet. MS. VASEY: Okay. Down on the bottom of page 128 -- A-128 are your performance measures. And in there the miles of road that we're talking about haven't really changed. They've pretty much stayed the same. Just as a -- kind of a start point for some of the things. Also, at the top of page 129 the narrative under current '98-'99, these seven positions have been held vacant. So these are not people that -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: That are going to lose their jobs. MS. VASEY: -- you have to take care of or need to be worried about. The positions are vacant already. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I appreciate you pointing that out. We didn't get that previously. MS. VASEY: Well, it is written down. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Well -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It was not mentioned verbally to us. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Isn't that interesting? MS. VASEY: I just wanted to -- MR. SHYKOWSKI: We're going to address this fund on Friday though because the road and bridge principal funding source is a transfer from the general fund. The only reason that the other flip side of this came up in the first place was that the transfer in is from the road HSTDs. We will have a full opportunity to go through the whole road and bridge budget on Friday as part of the general fund discussion. MS. VASEY: I'm sorry. I was looking at both parts. MR. SHYKOWSKI: I understand. It came up because of the funding side from the -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: They're coming in. MR. SHYKOWSKI: -- road HSTDs. MS. VASEY: Also, we're talking for all these positions -- there is $207,000 for the seven positions that you're identifying here and then there is another position for the road and bridge traffic operations, which you'll get on Friday. We're talking about the totality is $235,000 in eight positions from what I have been able to tell. The way we look at the requirement is, yes, there probably are some valid requirements and complaints that are being raised. But as you look at this, we would just suggest that you look at what isn't being done and what the impacts are of it not being done in your analysis of whether you should continue -- whether you should fund these positions in 1999 or not. That's just sort of the way we look at it. Yes, you can improve the level of service and the frequency, but what is the impact if you don't? There probably will be some questions, some complaints, but how do the areas combined with where you're seeing the money and the people applied? If you look at the areas where the people are going -- let's see. I've got it down here somewhere. Four of them were going to HSTD Three, which is East Naples, Golden Gate and South Naples, I think. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Wait. MS. VASEY: Two of them were going to HSTD Two, which is North Naples and Naples Park. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: HSTD Three is really not South Naples. It's really north of 41. That's why I got this little map. That is HSTD One south of 41. MS. VASEY: Okay. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: It's basically John's district and my district sort of. Mine is in One, his is in Three. MS. VASEY: Well, you're getting -- just for information, you're getting about four of the people looking at the expenses and then one person is going to the Golden Gate rural Collier County area. So when you're thinking about where you're getting the complaints, maybe apply those people to those areas and see if you think that there are big problems. I guess that's the -- most of what we had. I will save one or two things for Friday then. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. HSTD Three though happens to encompass some of the area that I've gotten the complaints about. MS. VASEY: Okay. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: That's where we're getting the -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: One person. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: No. We are getting more than that. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: You're getting about three. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: We're getting about three people in that area. If you look at that district, that's the one that runs all the way out east of Desoto. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Sure. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Which is south of Immokalee Road. It encompasses Randall Boulevard, that whole Golden Gate area. Golden Gate proper, I guess, pretty much. No. Actually, it's just on the east side, right? It does not -- it's basically the area that has been some concern. MS. VASEY: Okay. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: That is good. Thank you. MS. VASEY: That's a way of looking at things. Thank you. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: These maps that we were given aren't up-to-date in the first place because we took action -- was it last week or the week before -- to take Marco out of Number One and just delete Number One and move what was left of Number One into, what, Number Three, was it? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We still have Five here. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Right. One and Three are combined. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: One and Three are combined, less Marco. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Less Marco. That is absolutely correct. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Which answers your question, Pam, as to why they would say South Naples is Three. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Because part of it is now under our new configuration. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So is this map good then, John? It doesn't make sense. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: It is, but the numbers aren't. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: What you do is you take Marco Island out and put this into here. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. So it's an old map. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: It's an old map. MR. FERNANDEZ: Madam Chairman, I understand we'll have accurate maps on Friday. Mr. Ilschner says we will have maps at our discussions on Friday. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: We will have accurate maps on Friday. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you. Because that was what I wanted to know is where -- CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Yes. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Thank you. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Correct. Now, we're in the road MSTDs. Obviously MSTD One, fund 102, there is no proposed tax levy in FY '99 due to its consolidation with MSTD Three. There are proposed expanded services listed on C-18 within each of the remaining districts. Fund 103, repair street and drainage system on Lismore Lane; median maintenance on Bonita Beach Road pursuant to the interlocal agreement with Lee County; and, again, the pro rata share of those seven positions that we'll address completely as part of the road and bridge discussion. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. MR. SMYKOWSKI: In fund 104 essentially you're dealing with contracted maintenance on Davis, phase one; pro rata share estimated for Davis, phase two; and CR-951 for, again, a pro rata share of nine months Golden Gate Parkway segment to Golden Gate canal; a pro rata share of the seven positions; final design and landscape on U.S. 41 parts "A" and "B"; and expansion of the road resurfacing effort. As I indicated earlier during the trust fund discussion, the GAC roads trust fund which was the funds remaining from the Avatar settlement going back many years will be -- will be exhausted this year in an entirety. As a result, the road resurfacing efforts would have to be funded through the taxing district fund 104. And that's proposed at $197,500. Again, 106. Again, the seven positions -- pro rata share of those seven positions. The millage impact is relatively small within these districts. It's about a $1.40 increase in fund 103, about $2.80 in fund 104, and actually a decrease of $8 in fund 106. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I have just one question. Tim, this is just out of ignorance on my part about the deal -- what the deal was on the GAC trust fund. It was just there as a supplement to the -- what would otherwise be the County's general obligation and now that it is gone, it is our duty to step up and fund it or might one argue that they have an obligation to have a special district now for that GAC money? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No. Pretty much number -- there were a number of things that were kind of half done, if you will. Everything wasn't -- as part of the settlement, GAC agreed to put some money aside -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: To finish work? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yeah. To finish those things so that -- whether that's either roads, some of the things that were paved in the Estates or some of the things within the City. And different things were differentiated in there to complete things they really hadn't done. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I see. MR. SMYKOWSKI: In fiscal year 1979 they gave us $1.3 million. Initially we just used the interest each year to pave -- pave lime rock roads. As the Estates began to boom, we -- we -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Started utilizing the principal. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Pursuant to Board policy directions, we started utilizing the principal. And since 1979 we've had that revenue source. Obviously over an almost 20-year period that is now gone. Hence, we have to use the ad valorem MSTD to replace the revenue that was previously available. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you. MR. SMYKOWSKI: On the street lighting districts, obviously no proposed expandeds. Collier County lighting actually goes down about $4.50 per $100,000. Marco Island -- that is no longer an MSTU to be administered by the Board. That was assumed by the City of Marco Island. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What is the time frame if a particular community would like to get into the lighting district and have lights? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: How long does it take to get in the district to add themselves? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yes. Is that a similar setup that you've got to do it by the end of the year so they can be on -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Yes. That's it. MR. FERNANDEZ: Special assessments. MR. SMYKOWSKI: January 1 you'd have to have something in place to be able to levy taxes in the subsequent year. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Naples Production Park street lighting is virtually the same. Retreat, there is no proposed tax levy there. Within the beautification districts, Marco Island, we're not proposing a tax levy. Again, the City of Marco Island assumed responsibility for that operation in March of this year. Golden Gate -- the next few districts each pursuant to their citizen advisory board levy a constant millage. Golden Gate, a half mill; Radio Road, a half mill; Lely Golf Estates, one and a half mills; Immokalee, one mill. There are some expandeds proposed in Golden Gate and Radio Road on page C-20. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Can I just ask a general question about those MSTU budgets? I mean, having had my first experience with the Bayshore MSTU, you know, those citizens' committees get their budgets and their -- they accept them because they don't have much else to do. I mean, in this case they didn't have much else to do. There is a lot of questions though like about what are these plug numbers that an MSTU gets charged $5,000 for transportation and $6,000 for general administration. And, you know, is there any backup you can give me at some point for substantiating those numbers or are they just out of the air? MR. SMYKOWSKI: No. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Because it looks to me like the MSTUs are underwriting some general fund functions. Because I didn't get $5,000 worth of service out of, you know, general administration or $6,000 worth of service out of transportation staff just for this MSTU budget. And I understand it's not the only one that -- where these questions arise. I think we've got to do a better job of justifying that or cut it. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I think if you sit down with Mike you may be able to see a justification on that. I have -- like right now is a great example for me because Golden Gate Parkway and that whole beautification district has been in place for a long time, so I can see ongoing services. Radio Road is brand-new. I don't necessarily see all the ongoing services as readily apparent as I do in the other. However, it's kind of a building process. And so I'm fairly comfortable with the numbers there. And I know our Golden Gate beautification group goes through those in some detail. I have some confidence Mike can probably make you comfortable with those if you sit down with him. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I want to do that then, Mike. And one of the points that makes me think that they're odd is I understand that the -- the charge, for example, to the Bayshore MSTU for the tiny MSTU there is the same administrative charge as there is to a larger district. It doesn't have anything to do with the mileage or the amount of hours that staff is spending. So, anyway, just a heads up that I am going to want to talk about that. I don't understand it. It doesn't look right to me at this point. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Okay. A portion of that is the indirect service charge, which is the payment to the general fund. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Which I don't understand the justification for. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Okay. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What do you get for your indirect service charge? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Administration. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Oh, boy. Thanks, but no thanks. MR. SMYKOWSKI: You're getting purchasing services on all the bids. You're getting -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, we'll talk about it later since everybody else seems to know. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Okay. The expandeds on page C-20 and Golden Gate beautification. $6,500 for the landscape services on CR-951; $10,000 for the landscape and irrigation on phase one, part "B"; $70,000 for mowing, edging and trash removal and some median work on Golden Gate Parkway; $4,800 for refurbishment of a welcome sign. Within Radio Road, development of a streetscape master plan and an annual maintenance contract for Radio Road medians -- and medians and -- median improvements and construction. So essentially it's all wrapped up in one there. Medians and the associated maintenance of said medians. Bayshore is a new fund with a proposed tax levy of three mills, fund 160. In the drainage and roadway maintenance, Pine Ridge there's no proposed levy. Victoria Park drainage there's a small tax levy. It's actually about half of what it was in FY '98. Naples Production Park and Naples Park drainage there's no levy. Pine Ridge Industrial Park, a small levy of .1123. Naples Production Park maintenance is essentially unchanged. There's a small increase in the levy there. Sabal Palm Road, that goes from 5.45 to 4.8 mills. Continued efforts there to secure permits for that roadway construction. Hawksridge due to increasing value, the tax levy is about half of what it was. It goes from .22 to .11. And Forest Lakes there is no proposed levy. Marco Island renourishment there is no budget at all. Again, that is one that was taken over by Marco Island. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: I think we have some speakers. MR. FERNANDEZ: You have another speaker, Madam Chairman. Eric Watler. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. MR. WATLER: Good morning. Eric Watler with GNCA. Listening to the Marco Island discussion about people, I'm confused. Maybe I'm the only one, but I'm confused mainly because there's reference to various fund this and fund that and fund something else. I don't understand all those funds. I don't think I ever will, Mike. So I just wonder whether we could have a simple statement that said, "This is the revenue that we don't get that we used to get. This is the cost we're not going to incur that we used to incur. This is the number of people involved. That's what they used to do and that's what they don't do anymore." And then what comes after that is a separate decision. But right now it's not clear to me what those numbers are. And I wondered whether it might be helpful to discuss that once we know what they are. I think there was some confusion earlier on about 7 and 14 and, no, that's this fund or, no, that's that fund. I would just like it to be clear and simple. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I don't think I'm confused. I think I understand it. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: If there is a way as part of the process to kind of outline that particular -- whether we may grasp that or not, but if members of the public don't want to go through a two-inch binder -- I know Eric probably has, but some people may not want to. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: No. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: If there is a way to kind of boil that down and simplify it overall, maybe we could. How challenging would that be, Mike? MR. SMYKOWSKI: Not very, actually. MR. WATLER: And one other question. MR. SMYKOWSKI: We'll put it on one piece of paper to make it as simple as possible. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. MR. WATLER: When we talk about the need for a new code enforcement or more code enforcement and more building inspectors, there doesn't seem to be any specific -- it's like, "Well, all the work that we have to do. All the growth that there is." Sure, you can see it if you've got to drive around, but there is no cost justification relative to a forecast made by a department manager. Yeah, we've got this kind of work load quantified by whatever measure it is they use to quantify to justify the adding of people. It always seems kind of vague. Do you think we could be more specific in agreeing to their request for more people? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Maybe we can get that as part of our -- because those are coming back as part of wrap-up. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Right. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Okay. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Based on what's forecasted and at what percentage of growth and that kind of -- those are the questions you're asking? MR. WATLER: Yes. Some numbers. You know, how many code enforcement things do they have to do during the course of a day and that kind of thing. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Their performance measures. MR. WATLER: Yeah, yeah. As opposed to, "Well, there's a lot of growth." Well, sure, there is. So what? MR. FERNANDEZ: We can address that in wrap-up. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Thank you. We have some other speakers, too, don't we? MR. FERNANDEZ: You have two other speakers, Madam Chairman. Batty Berger and Kent Orner. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. Batty would be first. MR. BERGER: Good morning. Batty Berger. I'm a resident of Port of the Isles. I was not prepared to speak today. I thought our -- Commander Wilson of the Ochopee fire district was going to handle our needs. And I'm not accustomed to public speaking. I guess I have to do my best. We're a community between 951 and Everglades City. Not too many people know that we exist. We have maybe 600 units rating 100 -- 700 units rating about 100 year. We'll build out between 11 and 1,500 units soon. We are -- we feel we are in need of additional EHS and fire protection. Our -- Commander Wilson tells me that we're -- at the most optimistic response time in EHS, we're at 15 minutes. And that's the standard for -- for a rural response. We have an RV park as a small part of our development. And the owner of the RV park has offered 2.69 acres for -- to the County for their use as they see for emergency services. This area was inspected by Commander Wilson last -- about a week ago and he deemed it possible to -- acceptable with some further professional people to come and visit the site. And my -- and my question or request is for the Board to consider having this -- this area service EHS for the -- for the County. I understand that the backup -- if Ochopee is dispatched, the backup is out of Naples and they're more than 30 minutes. So in addition to the -- and if they're dispatched, the reverse is required. So I need some help in really delivering this, but my -- our request is for the Board to consider EHS services at Port of the Isles. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Thank you. MR. BERGER: Any more questions? Any questions for me? I would have difficulty answering them, but -- thank you. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Mr. Berger brought this to my attention last week. I passed this information along to Mr. Ochs. He is aware of it and they are -- we'll look from here. As you know, there had been a proposal for three EMS locations this year. They selected two of the three. As I tried to explain to Mr. Betget, I didn't think that this meant that there would never be one in that area, but perhaps if it wasn't in this year's budget it probably would be considered in next year's budget. And he also mentioned at that time, which -- until his phone call, I had not been aware of a land -- possible land donation for a site. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's great. MR. FERNANDEZ: Next speaker, Madam Chairman. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Thank you. MR. FERNANDEZ: The next speaker is Kent Orner. MR. ORNER: My name is Kent Orner, a resident of Chokoloskee Island. I'm also on the advisory board for the Ochopee fire control district. I would like to see these PILT funds remain intact because of the area even though you're increasing to the full extent of the four mills. These funds can be used very effectively, particularly in the expanded area that we have, the 850 square miles in the district, which would also have 1,100 square miles of District One. Thirteen percent of the costs in the proposed area are 15 miles from the nearest station. And when we leave the area at Everglades City to receive a backup it takes at least 40 minutes for another available unit to come in and provide coverage for the Everglades City area. One of the big areas is, like you say, the Everglades National Park, which supports about one million visitors per year. And there's a lot of money generated to the surrounding area, including Naples, in reference to rooms, restaurants, rental cars, whatever. And there, again, I would like to see these PILT funds remain in effect because we do need extra coverage down there at times. We would like to hire a couple of additional fireman at the same time to provide this safe coverage. On the Alley they're up 20 percent -- I'm sorry. Up 20 calls per year and the last three years Ellory Park response was 15 to 30 minutes away to get up there on the Alley, particularly on 75 east of 29. So that's about all I have to say for you. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Thank you. Do you have any questions for Mr. Orner? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I think not. Thank you. MR. FERNANDEZ: No other speakers, Madam Chairman. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. MR. SMYKOWSKI: That moves us into page C-24, which are the tourist development funds. Frankly, here there is not much to talk about as the bulk of the money is placed in reserves pending action in the upcoming year based on the applications received for funding. It does reflect one position for administration which was previously budgeted in the general fund last year for coordination of -- and, again, this was part of the reorganization that was moved to housing. We've actually just reflected the position directly in the tourist development tax fund. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We can kind of put an asterisk by that, as it, again, may not be necessary by the time summer is over. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: With bated breath. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You and me both. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Page C-27 and C-29 are miscellaneous special revenue funds. The first of which is the Golden Gate Community Center, which is a decrease in the proposed millage from .3189 to .3007. There is an expanded service request there. A secretary due to continued growth in programming within the facility. And that is a cost-sharing effort with the general fund. The museum obviously has shifted to tourist tax funding. There is a proposed volunteer coordinator position to -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That position I had a question on. Each year we have something that is trendy and I think it was last year or the year before volunteer coordinators very trendy to be requested for throughout different departments. I think ultimately we added a position somewhere which was a volunteer coordinator to be shared by several different departments. I am wondering if we might not include this as part of that, rather than yet make another addition. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: You know, I would have thought that, too, until I really got a better understanding of what this person would actually do. I mean, they have what seems -- what is, in fact, a full-time job need. They already have a part-time volunteer coordinator and they're wanting to bring up to a full-time because of the amount of staff that we don't provide to the library because of the functions that are -- to the library. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Museum. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: To the museum. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I was with you. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Yeah. Same sort of story. You know, who is going to show up on Tuesday morning, they don't show up and then we end up moving a staff -- paid staff person into that position and their work load gets behind. It seems to me that there is a lot of justification for this expenditure and that -- from a very practical standpoint, it sounded like -- I don't see how they're functioning without it. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I had the same sit-down with the Friends, as I assume all of us did. It just -- as we get to a point where we're spending 10, 20 or $30,000 for a volunteer coordinator, I start wondering why you wouldn't just fill a position in lieu of the volunteers when you get to a certain financing level and then you wouldn't have to worry about whether or not they showed up on Tuesday morning. I don't think that's what's happening here. I mean, it's a smaller addition. But it just seems, again, that if we are going to have someone to coordinate, perhaps they can do that in more than one area simply than just a person at the museum and then a totally different person at the library and a completely different person on the first floor of Building "F". And maybe if we're going to have a volunteer coordinator they can best manage several different departments. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Maybe Mr. Jamro can enlighten us on this a little bit. MR. JAMRO: I will attempt that. Good morning, Commissioners. Ron Jamro, Museum Director. I think you need to realize how many hours are involved in a given day in organizing a volunteer force and how many things can go wrong with that volunteer work force and the kinds of contact you need to maintain there on a continuing basis. It is quite a bit if you're looking for one position to be shared throughout many County departments. That is asking quite a bit from one staff person. We have tried a variety of approaches to this, too, incidentally, going from maybe a volunteer could serve as a volunteer coordinator, maybe a member of Friends of the Museum or one of their board members could serve as a volunteer coordinator. Eventually we even succumbed one of the museum staff, my secretary, into serving as volunteer coordinator. None of those have been entirely successful or satisfactory because of the time factor involved in that. We -- you know, the Friends believe sufficiently in the position to contribute towards its -- at least its first year as a pilot program to see how it would work out and as a measure of their commitment to the program. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: While I appreciate that, it's a red flag just like the Sheriff's Department grant. When I hear, "Well, at least this first year." And then next year it's going to be one of those, "We can't do without this. However, the Friends don't have money to give and we need that much more from .... MR. JAMRO: It could go the other way, too. The position is so successful and the Friends rely on it so heavily that they may fund it entirely. So I would never rule out any of those other options. I know what you're saying. I'm -- I'm there on a daily basis and we are now enjoying the benefits of two and a half full-time employees at no cost to the County as a result of volunteer efforts. I really encourage you to continue that trend. I think this is the way to go. MR. SHYKOWSKI: Again, the proposal is that the Friends would fund half of the cost of the $11,000. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I am going to support that. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: I am not opposed to this. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'll yield to the majority of the Board. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Thanks. MR. JAMRO: Thank you, Commissioners. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: While you're here, get the County more involved in the Diamond Jubilee stuff. It's our anniversary, too. MR. JAMRO: We opened a new museum in Everglades City as -- and we've had other events, as well. But, you know, we have certain publications that we have done for the event. Really in November we're currently drawing together all the segments of the community for a 75th anniversary for more of a Countywide participation, if you will. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Good. MR. JAMRO: But we're always alive to pulling in various segments. We've been busy out in the Everglades City area for awhile. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Sure. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: And if any of you haven't seen and been down to the museum, please go down there and take a look at it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I haven't. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: They did a great job. MR. JAMRO: And meet our new museum manager. She's really excellent and has lots of exciting plans for the museum there. Thank you, again. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Thank you. MR. SMYKOWSKI: The next fund is public guardianship in which guardianship services are provided to indigent incapacitated adults. There is a proposed fee increase here. You'll recall there was a budget amendment required midyear this year from court's administration, Mr. Middlebrook, as they were transitioning from guardianship services being provided by individuals to a -- more of a contract basis. There is a proposed increase of -- in the civil filing fees from $4 to $6.50. You will recall at that Board meeting the Board's policy direction at that point was just to address the interim fix to get us through the balance of FY '98 and then at budget time we would address the upcoming fiscal year. Mr. Middlebrook is not here. We can probably address that when we address the court's budget on Friday, if you would like. But, again, the proposal is to increase the civil filing fee from $4 to $6.50. We'll make a note of that for Friday. The clerk's records modernization fund. Overall, that's 100 percent fee supported due to a decrease in fund balance. Overall, the fund appropriations decrease. They are accumulating reserve funds for purchase of an imaging system. In the E-911 phone system the big issue there is the proposed expanded service. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Obviously, we want to maximize particularly the new system they're putting in for 911, but do we have any idea what this additional position for data input is? MS. GANSEL: Good morning, Commissioners. Jean Gansel. The position will be for false alarms that they receive. They need to keep record of the number of them. And, I believe, there's a fine at a certain point. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: In the City we get a bill if your alarm goes off and they show up and there was no bad guys there. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm just amazed. I mean, it's a pretty complex new system they're putting in there. I'm amazed that at the push of a single button you can't indicate, "Oops. False alarm." I'm wondering -- and maybe we can mark that. MS. GANSEL: They will be at your meeting tomorrow, the E-911 budget. Both the decrease in the monthly fee on your charge will -- and so they will be here at the meeting tomorrow, possibly -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Maybe we can get that answer. I mean, I'm just -- as I look at it, what do you do for 31,000 bucks a year? CHAIRPERSON BERRY: I'm going to tell you I was amazed of the number of alarms -- false alarms that the Sheriff's Department handles. I mean, I just find it's incredible. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: What's the number for 9117 COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Okay, Homer. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: We'll continue. MR. FERNANDEZ: Madam Chairman. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Mr. Fernandez. MR. FERNANDEZ: Before we leave that one, I had asked the staff to take a look at maximizing the use of this funding source as an alternative to ad valorem funding. In other words, if there were activities that we have in the ad valorem funded portion of the budget that are eligible for funding under this funding source to maximize that. And I just thought I would get some Board direction before we pursue that any further. It may involve raising this fee to the maximum 50 cent charge. Is it 50 cents? MS. GANSEL: Yes. The maximum is 50 cents. I have discussed that with the Sheriff's employees. They have assured me that they have reviewed the legislation and that to their satisfaction they are funding everything possible in that fund 199. Although, again, they would be here -- I advised them to be prepared to discuss that when they discuss their budget. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: You're talking about for these false alarms, Jean? MS. GANSEL: No. Just the whole budget as -- the budget as a whole with the -- it's for the State-wide emergency -- MR. SMYKOWSKI: The statute outlines what costs can be charged directly to the E-911 phone system charge. Obviously, if there are ad valorem dollars that we could reallocate to this fund, that would be a funding option to explore. And that's something the Board can get reassurance from the Sheriff's staff at the Board meeting tomorrow because you will be asked to adopt the proposed fee schedule -- CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Okay. MR. SMYKOWSKI: -- for the upcoming year. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: All right. MR. SMYKOWSKI: That concludes the special revenue section. What is scheduled for today is enterprise funds -- the balance of today, internal service funds and capital funds. It's quarter to 12, I am just curious -- CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Do you want to -- do you want to stop at this point and -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Good break. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Good break and then this afternoon -- MR. SHYKOWSKI: It might be an appropriate time. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: We'll resume this afternoon with the enterprise funds, internal service funds and capital funds. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: How much time are we going to spend do you think? COHMISSIONER NORRIS: All day. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Okay. CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Well, your schedule -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: If we are, fine. I don't care either way. It's just that we've breezed through most of these this morning. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I mean, if it's another hour -- MR. SHYKOWSKI: There are a number of expanded service requests COHHISSIONER HAC'KIE: Okay. MR. SMYKOWSKI: -- in the enterprise funds in water and sewer. It COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: We better -- CHAIRPERSON BERRY: Let's take a break at this point in time. It seems like a good time. And then if we can get through quicker this afternoon, fine. Perhaps we won't be here until five o'clock. Let's take a break now and we'll resume then at one o'clock. MR. SHYKOWSKI: Okay. That's fine. (A luncheon recess was taken.) CHAIRMAN BERRY: We'll reconvene. We will be starting with the Enterprise Fund; is that correct, Mr. Smykowski? MR. SHYKOWSKI: That is correct. We're going to be on pages E-1 and E-2, which is the County Water/Sewer District, the first page after your Enterprise Fund tab in your summary booklets. Overall, the appropriations in Fund 408 are decreasing 5.2 percent. There are a number of expanded services. As I indicated in the opening -- my opening remarks the revenue side is budgeted very conservatively as we are -- just have six or seven months of actual revenue under our new rate structure which the board approved as part of the FY 98 adopted budget. Frankly, E-3 and E-4 are the expanded services that are proposed. If you'd like to, we can just run down the list. CHAIRMAN BERRY: That would be fine. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Public Works Administration, there's a buyer position to coordinate procurement efforts of $45,500. As the note indicates, the operating budgets were reduced by a like amount to reflect the anticipated costs of savings associated with this position. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Do other departments have their own procurement people? MR. SMYKOWSKI: No. MR. CONSTANTINE: Isn't that usually a purchasing function? MR. SMYKOWSKI: That is correct. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Then why is this one different? MR. FINN: Good afternoon, Commissioners. Edward Finn, Operations Director of Public Works and Interim Water Director. This position that you're looking at is actually a position that has been requested for the last three years. Believe it or not it was a result of an extensive Q-plus story, as we used to call them, when we were still involved in the Q-plus process. Simply, this is a buyer position that will work within the Public Works section largely for the water and the wastewater departments, to facilitate the procurement of goods and services for those departments. Between the water and the wastewater departments, the amount of procurement for services is really quite substantial, in the neighborhood of six or seven million dollars. Chemicals alone account for in excess of $2.5 million; electricity is another $2 million. The thought here is that a buyer working directly in these departments is going to have a significant impact, while improving the level of service and freeing up field personnel to work on direct field operations, rather than having to be partial procurement experts. The purchasing department has a great deal of difficulty in adding staff to its department because it's in the general fund. The thought here is that the Enterprise Fund would support the position. The position would be jointly managed by the purchasing director and myself in an effort to put the effort where it needs to be, where the money is being spent. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It does make sense to fund it out of the Enterprise Fund instead of, you know, if that's what the position is going to serve entirely. MR. FINN: Right. MR. SMYKOWSKI: You also have a number of field personnel that, on a day-to-day basis are requisitioning supplies and all, so you would have just a centralized effort within the Public Works to coordinate that effort, and let those people focus on their -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Could I ask a question, please? What we need to do is justify the work load to -- verify the work load to justify the position, because six or seven million dollars of purchasing doesn't justify the position. If that happened to be one item you bought once a year, I mean, that doesn't justify a position. So you go not by the number of dollars but by the number of purchasing exercises that you have to go through and how much full-time does it take. So that's how we need to justify it. Can you do that? MR. FINN: I believe I can do that. I believe the point you're making is a very valid one. The situation as it now exists literally is we have water and wastewater personnel whose expertise is in the operating areas. That is, they are plant operators and/or distribution collection experts. They are not purchasing experts. Those folks presently are performing this function to a great extent. That means that they're the ones out obtaining quotes and trying to work nominally with the purchasing personnel in the purchasing department. I think what I would like to tell the Board is that there simply are not enough purchasing resources to fully support the Public Works Department. This is the way to get nominally more support in the purchasing area. That is, we will have purchasing experts available to do the professional purchasing work that should be done by a professional purchasing person. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, that speaks to the professional level of purchasing, but my question was related to the work load aspect. Do we have the work load to justify a full position to do this? MR. FERNANDEZ: Meaning procurement. MR. FINN: I believe we do. We have a substantial number of work orders, POs that are issued. Frankly, they are not given the level of review that they should, given the resources that presently exist. MR. NORRIS: Okay. MR. FINN: If I can provide numbers for you to make you more comfortable, I'll be happy to do that. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Mr. Clemons, would you like to speak to this issue? MR. CLEHONS: I just wanted to make sure I understood the Commissioner. Would you like us to come back to you with the number of PO's we do annually? Is that the type of -- COHMISSIONER NORRIS: No. I'm perfectly willing to take the verbal verification here. I just wanted to make sure that we can verify that it's work load justified and not dollar amount. MR. CLEHONS: No, sir. You're correct in that, and we have looked at that and done that, yes, sir, we have. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. CHAIRMAN BERRY: I think the question would relate to is this person going to make a -- do a -- how many times is this person going to order chemicals or do that kind of thing, and then what are they going to do the rest of the time after they've made those purchases? MR. FINN: The way it's configured, chemicals are simply the single example. As we were going through the budget process, there was some desire on the part of the public that were involved in that budget process to have this position pay for itself. Frankly, we reduced our chemical and electricity budgets by an amount equivalent to this $45,000, because we're confident that the savings will materialize from this position. Certainly, chemicals and electricity are not the only thing they will be procuring. We also procured an enormous amount of contract services to do plant maintenance and other maintenance activities. Those activities also are going to benefit substantially from the addition of a buyer position. I think the message that I'd really like to convey is additional resources are needed in the procurement field. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Okay. Commissioner Constantine? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Mr. Fernandez, is this the beginning of a trend we'll see as far as decentralizing or somehow adding extras to our current purchasing, or is this just an aberration? MR. FERNANDEZ: I donwt see this as the beginning of a trend. I see this as an attempt to meet a specific need in this department, and to do that where you have targeted funding available. As Mr. Finn indicated, the management of the function will be coordinated with our centralized purchasing. I think -- and itws an important question. I think itws important to maintain the integrity of our centralized system as we meet specific needs. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Any other questions? MR. SMYKOWSKI: I'll just keep working my way down the list. The next item is for a specialized storage cabinet for record drawings in Water Operations. There's funding requested for a water conservation public awareness program. Within the Laboratory Fund, printing of a consumer confidence report, mandated. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I need some help on these that are mandated. Mandated by U.S. EPA; the next one required by FDEP and the following one has to do with Florida One Call Law and I notice two or three items here that have that. I need some help understanding each of those requirements. MR. FINN: Okay. The consumer confidence reports will be mandated in 1999. That is a federal mandate that's handed down to the local DEP office. It becomes essentially a condition of our operating permit. The requirement is to provide the consumer with some indication of the water quality and the tests that are conducted on that water. That is a requirement. We are planning to send out one within three weeks that is, will be colored a little differently to allow the consumer to be comfortable with it before they get the mandated one. We really don't have a lot of choice on that one. The next item I think that you mentioned -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Before you go on, would there be a way to piggyback the two there instead of separate printing, binding and mailing of public awareness on water conservation and printing, binding and mailing of the confidence report? Is there a way to combine those two and save 13, 15 thousand bucks? MR. SMYKOWSKI: I believe the regulations, when they are finally promulgated, are going to require the consumer confidence report to be a separate first class mailing to our customers. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: No funding from our friends at the U.S. EPA for that? MR. SMYKOWSKI: No, sir. The $80,000 for the additional sampling stations. Our water system is approaching the 100,000 customer threshold. At that point in time, the additional monitoring points are a requirement. We think this is a good proactive approach to have additional monitoring stations in place. Water quality is, of course, one of our primary concerns and I think that the Board should support this effort. Even if we don't reach the 100,000 next year, we will most assuredly reach it in two years. We are currently at about 93 or 94,000 customers. The stake and locate, the Legislature passed a law that required all locates to go through a central agency. That requirement has created a 500 percent increase in our stake and locate activities. And by stake and locate, what I mean is actually sending a crew out to a site in order to flag where the water and sewer utilities are. Staff has already coordinated on this and we have joined forces between the water and wastewater departments to create one section consisting of four personnel whose responsibility it is to do that. This is simply an additional vehicle that is required to maximize the efficiency of that group. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Any funding from our friends in the State of Florida on that? MR. SMYKOWSKI: No, sir. They actually charge us, believe it or not. CHAIRMAN BERRY: They charge us? MR. CLEMONS: They charge us per call. Every call they make they bill us for, and they bill them based on a core amount quad grid. Thatws why we joined efforts and combined it into one group rather than two, so wewre not getting two bills each month for the same call. And thatws how it started. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Maybe we ought to turn around and bill them. MR. CLEMONS: Wewve held paying them in some areas because wewve disagreed with some of the bills. But this is something that went through the House and Senate last year and was passed and we find ourselves on the receiving end of it. CHAIRMAN BERRY: We have to deal with it. MR. CLEMONS: Yes, mawam. CHAIRMAN BERRY: I understand. Go ahead. MR. FINN: I believe those are the mandated questions that Commissioner Constantine had. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Okay. MR. SMYKOWSKI: The balance of the requests are fairly self-explanatory. There is, in the entire water department budget, there is only one position being requested, and that position is to perform mandated testing of backflow devices. This is an area where we are going to experience personnel growth. This is an area that, again, is largely a mandate from the federal and state regulatory agencies and this is a program that is mandated by local ordinance that the Board adopted approximately a year and a half ago. The final request of $50,000 is -- COMMISSIONER MACTKIE: But the local ordinance was adopted previous to a mandated state policy? MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes, maTam. Yes, maTam. And the personnel additions were included in that. In fact, because of -- our implementation is slightly behind schedule and weTre not adding positions as originally anticipated, the Board will see additional positions as a result of the backflow prevention ordinance next year. The final request, $50,000, is to maintain additional wells being constructed to supply water to the new North Water Treatment Facility Expansion. That money represents half a year, six months of maintenance on those wells. The maintenance is -- I wonTt say itTs mandated, but it certainly is a requirement to run effective wells and to maintain our water quality. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Any questions? Guess not. Thank you. MR. SMYKOWSKI: On page E-4, ITm going to run through quickly the proposed wastewater expanded service request. Mr. Clemons. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Unfortunately, it wonTt be that quickly. MR. CLEMONS: That's fine. Are there any specific questions or would you like me to go through each one of them individually? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I do have specific questions, although it's going to cover most of them. But before we do, how long have you been in the position you're in, Mr. Clemons? MR. CLEHONS: Almost 12 years, sir. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Is it fair to assume that you would be comfortably categorized as an expert in the field? MR. CLEHONS: I would hope. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I guess that's my concern on the very first item. Requested funding is for an optimization study, $90,000 to have somebody come look and tell us how to better manage operational functions? I have a great deal of faith in your and Mr. Fernandez's ability to do that. I'm wondering what the extra 90,000 bucks to have an outsider look at it is for. MR. CLEHONS: The purpose behind it was to have somebody come in that had no bias. While I like to consider myself an expert on what I do, I'm afraid that there is times when I might have bias over the way the operation is run, simply because I have been involved with it so long. It was my feeling in speaking with individuals that do this type of work, that as a result of this type of optimization study, we could save more than the cost of the study beginning with the first year. If not for that reason, sir, I wouldn't have brought it forward. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: How long has Mr. Ilschner been with us? MR. CLEHONS: Just over a year, and has been in the industry for a substantial period of time, also. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm just thinking maybe he's our unbiased guy. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: So far I've seen evidence of that, you know, where he's been willing to make some calls that were different from calls made previously. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I appreciate your attempt to obviously streamline and make us as operationally efficient as possible, but I'm wondering if we can't set about that in some manner other than spending another 90,000 bucks. MR. CLEHONS: If that's the Board's desire, I would be happy to get with Mr. Ilschner and set up a plan to do just that. MR. ILSCHNER: Commissioners, it was my idea to ask Mr. Clemons to have this initially put forth to you, and certainly, I believe I could be unbiased and have had a number of years in the industry and could perform that function. But I don't have enough hours in the day to perform the functions I am presently required to perform for this county. I believe this is an essential service that we need to look at both our water system and our sewer system in the future with respect to optimization. I don't have the hours to do it, unfortunately. And I believe the outside agency could perform that and I believe we could achieve significant cost savings over the next five years if we undertook this particular initiative. Those cost savings would, of course, be identified in the study and brought forth to you. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Well, I have to say, you know, I've had plenty of -- you're not surprised to know that there are private companies who would love to run this section of the county's business and they have told me over and over and over that there's tons of duplication and lots of room for reorganization. And maybe -- I mean, there's a couple ways of doing it. One is to put it out for bid and then that didn't cost $90,000, and we get that, when the county bids to keep its own work. I mean, I know this was not you, Mr. Fernandez, but your predecessor once told us that his bid for keeping a county service in a privatized, in a privatization effort that his bid was not his budget. That if he had to bid it, it might look differently. And it seems to me one way we might want to approach this is, you know, we can do it through a privatization, put it up for a fee, and all of a sudden we get a different budget from staff. MR. ILSCHNER: We felt like, if I could -- go ahead, Mr. Fernandez. MR. FERNANDEZ: Go ahead. MR. ILSCHNER: We wanted to try to initiate this from the perspective of we felt it was simply a good management move, and not to be coerced by some outside activity from a bidding perspective to try to come up with cost savings over the term. That can certainly take place, where you said okay, let's just bid it and we'll have outside agencies bid and you guys bid and you figure out where you can cut your costs. We feel like that we can provide a service at a less cost than any outside private agency because we don't have a profit motive. Our job is to do good quality work at the least cost without a profit motive. I think that's a given. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: They say they can't because of the profit motive. MR. ILSCHNER: What I want to try to do is identify what we are not doing most efficiently and effectively. Identify that, not from the prospect of trying to avoid privatization and those types of moves, but to do the right things and do it at the least cost. That was my motive here. I simply don't have enough hours to go out there and spend the time necessary to identify those things at this point. Maybe in two years or five years I might have. But I'd like to achieve those cost savings earlier than that. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: How did you arrive at the $90,000 figure? MR. CLEMONS: I arrived at it by receiving a written proposal from an engineering firm that does that type of work. That figure we probably could have them sharpen a pencil on. Again, this is a number they gave to us upon asking the question. We had not defined any scope of service yet, or laid out for them exactly what we wanted done. So this is just a budget number that we received. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Did you ask for them or was that submitted to us unsolicited? MR. ILSCHNER: No, we asked for this. There are now firms out in the industry that are specializing in this type of activity to assist agencies to identify how they can achieve cost savings in their operation and become more efficient and effective. We know that these agencies are out there. I think it's an initiative that I wanted to get put in place. We simply didn't have the in-house staff to accomplish that. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Ilschner, you feel quite confident that the $90,000 could be saved over this fiscal year? MR. ILSCHNER: I won't guarantee the next fiscal year, but certainly, over the following fiscal years at the completion of the study, I'm almost -- I'm very confident at this point that we will achieve those kinds of savings over the next five years after completion of the study. We need to identify where those cost savings can be achieved and put them in place and implement them. So that couldn't be obtained during the next fiscal year, but certainly, the following fiscal year we could certainly work toward that goal. MR. CLEHONS: We would hope to bring back a report as soon as the work was completed and give implementation to their recommendations as soon as possible. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Any other questions? Okay, continue. MR. ILSCHNER: I appreciate your confidence in me, by the way, to be able to do that, and we'll work real hard to try to do those in the future. Thank you. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Thank you. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: On the others here, I have specific questions on each, but maybe an easier way to start anyway, is there are at least ten new positions I may have mentioned; twelve new positions. MR. CLEHONS: Actually, I think there is 13 in this total request, Commissioner. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you. Can you rank those in priority for me? I know this adds up to a million bucks, or whatever it is. MR. CLEHONS: I will. Can I share something with you just briefly? And I know you're busy. If you'd just turn to the fifth page, that's all I want to show you today. The fifth page will show you the way your collection system has grown since 1990. It also shows you your staffing from 1990. We've gone from 276 lift stations to 542, almost doubled in size. Miles of pipe that these folks maintain have gone from 315 to a little over 600. Staff itself, we had 37 people in 1990 doing the work; today we have 40. It's just not -- we've been hard pressed to try to keep up. Now, as far as, Commissioner, myself ranking these, the first request I would have -- and it's because it's mandated -- is additional people to meet the One-Call. That one, we used to do about 200 or less than 200 stake and locates a month. We're up to between a thousand and 1100 a month now. We've got guys running everywhere; we're paying overtime to do it. We're supposed to be there within 48 hours of the phone call; that's what makes it so frantic. And if not, we assume the liability. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Wow. MR. CLEHONS: It's been very difficult keeping up with this. My second would be the larger of the ones, which is the actual lift station maintenance itself. Those six men, or six individuals, that we would request to do that type of work, that would be my second. Third and fourth become a toss-up. One is a valve maintenance program. We've got several thousand valves out there today that we are not maintaining. Our concern there is when we need them that they work. On the other hand, we've got an INI problem we know, particularly along the coastal areas where we're taking in either fresh water or salt water and running that through our lift stations and our treatment plants, and that's just increasing our costs both electrically and chemically. We would like to reduce those, too. So that would be a toss-up for me as far as priority. But the other two I can do easily. The first is a mandate, the second is we just don't have enough folks. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Have we either transferred within the department or something? I know this is our seventh budget jump, six. We have certainly added a number of employees in here, and rightfully so. It's not a criticism, but as we've added additional pump stations and piping and so on. MR. CLEHONS: Right. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I don't see any increase in this area on this chart -- or three people over the last year. But were people either shuffled around within different departments or how is it that there's never been an increase here? MR. CLEHONS: Never out of this organization. We did hire some additional ones over the last several years that the Board approved for the treatment plant as those expansions occurred. You have approved several new operator positions, equipment operator positions, and things like that. But we have never shifted people out of this organization at all. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Did people do multiple tasks in '90 or '91 or '93? MR. CLEHONS: They still do. Yes, they did multiple tasks and still do. We have equated this to lift stations. In essence, it's more than that that they do. They go out and if you have a service lateral problem, the same service crews do that. If there's a break in the force main, the same crews go to that. They do a lot of different tasks. It's more than just going to the lift stations and checking those. But for the sake of being able to count, that was one of the easier things to lay a number on. Service calls, we have that, we didn't provide it. I could have and we did not. That would be my mistake. Simply, you did give us staff. Back in 1990, this Board authorized, I think, the addition of six people at that time as a result, if you recall, of the east and south wastewater system. We added about 52 pump stations and the Board gave us staff at that point. From that point forward, we have not added a lot, although the system has continued to grow. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Let me ask a question. You mentioned that you're using a lot of overtime to perform these tasks today. So the question is, of the total number of hours to perform these tasks, what percentage are overtime? MR. CLEHONS: We use -- COHMISSIONER NORRIS: And just get it close. MR. CLEHONS: I'm going to guess, Commissioner. I'm going to say roughly 10 percent. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Ten percent? MR. CLEHONS: Yes, sir. The problem with that is, we're not completing all the tasks. We feel like we're running from one problem to the next without always completing what we started to do. It makes completing the work that the men start very difficult. They get into the middle of a project, they get pulled off because of an emergency. When we try to get back to it, it may be several days and we receive customer complaints because of that. We're trying to get out of that mode, honestly. COMHISSIONER NORRIS: So you have 40 employees now in this division or this section? MR. CLEMONS: In that section, yes, sir. COMHISSIONER NORRIS: You're running 10 percent overtime and asking for 15 percent more employees? MR. CLEMONS: Yes. COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. MR. CLEMONS: The request is not just to alleviate or eliminate the overtime. It's also to perform services that we currently do not perform, such as the INI work or the valve maintenance work, where we don't have anybody doing any of that work today. COMHISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Questions? Okay. MR. CLEMONS: Thank you, commissioners. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Thank you. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Page E-6 of the Miscellaneous Enterprise Fund. This includes utilities, debt service. Just as in the case of the other county debt service funds, it's the payment of principal and interest on outstanding debts. East Naples Fire Hydrant. That fund has been closed out, Fund 421. COMHISSIONER NORRIS: There are no expanded service requests? MR. SMYKOWSKI: No, sir, and no rate changes, either. These are relatively stable or much smaller scale operations, obviously, than the county water/sewer district. Pages 7-A and 7-B are the Utilities Capital Projects. In the far right-hand column are the total project budgets for the upcoming fiscal year. Water Capital is on 7-A, the largest, by far, of the budget projects include backflow cross-connection, at $3.1 million; the 8 million gallons per day reverse osmosis, design of that plant at $2,049,500; and the aquifer storage and recovery at Manatee, at a million-five. Those projects -- two of those projects are principally user fee funded. The reverse osmosis, being growth-related, is impact fee funded. On page 7-B are the Wastewater Capital Projects. Here, by far the largest component of the capital programs slated for FY 99 is the 5 million gallon per day expansion at the North County Wastewater Treatment Plant that budgeted $20.7 million, of which 10 million-seven would be funded by loan proceeds. That's the SRF loan that we discussed in the opening remarks. Page E-8 is the Solid Waste Funds. First and foremost is Fund 470, solid waste disposal fund. You do see a large increase overall in the budget. Total appropriation of 18.4 percent, but obviously here the rate structure was designed to accumulate funds for the eventual construction of a new landfill site. The Landfill Closure Fund, Fund 471, is simply reserves, if the Board opted for the early out clause in their current contractual agreement with Waste Management. Solid Waste Grant Fund; relatively unchanged. Mandatory Collection; slight increase based on increased customer base. As I indicated in my opening remarks, the disposal rate changes with an overall 2.4 percent increase in the mandatory collection special assessment fee. That concludes the Enterprise Fund. Moving to the -- CHAIRMAN BERRY: Do we have any speakers? MR. FERNANDEZ: Yes, ma'am. One speaker on Enterprise, Janet Vasey. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I thought our policy was that each member of the public gets one chance to speak on the entire budget hearing. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Unless it's Janet. MS. VASEY: Is that the rule? COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, if it ain't, it ought to be. MS. VASEY: Well then, could I have some more time? I'll go over them all right now. (Laughter.) MS. VASEY: Janet Vasey, for the record. We did have a couple of comments in this area. On the sewer operations, we felt like that was a rather big increase. And having gone over the priorities just now and looking at the optimization study requirement, if you are inclined to accept that requirement, perhaps some of these new positions could be hired at a later date after the study and you find out if there is any efficiencies that would be recommended that would impact on people, rather than get a whole bunch of new people on board and then try to deal with that later. One of the other things that we noticed was on the stake and locate, apparently, that group is going to have four people on it, two from water and two from sewer. Water only needed to add one vehicle and apparently had the people and one of the vehicles; and sewer needed to add two people and two vehicles. I'm not sure exactly what that says, but one organization is able to absorb some of it and another isn't. Like I say, I'm not sure exactly what that means. Maybe sewer could absorb it, maybe water had extra people. It's just something we noticed. Also, as far as the priorities go, we felt like maybe some of this could be phased in over time. This is a fee-based enterprise fund; it's not ad valorem tax dollars. But we still thought a smaller growth in a given year might be more prudent, especially if you're interested in doing the optimization study. Thank you. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: That does seem to have a lot of validity. Why would we study -- MR. CLEHONS: The only thing that I would like to point out is that optimization study did not include the collection system unit. It was only for the two treatment plants. So the only place we're asking for increased personnel is in collections. The study did not envision including that work unit; it was to look at both your north and south regional wastewater facilities. So they won't be studying that particular work group as part of what we had proposed. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Any other questions? COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: No. CHAIRMAN BERRY: All right. Mr. Smykowski. MR. SHYKOWSKI: That will move us into our Internal Service Funds. Those are on page F-1 and F-2, the first one which is the Department of Revenue. Here on F-2 there are a couple of expanded service requests that are essentially growth and customer service driven, the first of which is two senior fiscal clerks based on the call volume within the Solid Waste increasing by a thousand calls per month. Currently there is no Saturday coverage and the Solid Waste Department is requesting the addition of this position and would fund that through a reimbursement from the Solid Waste Fund. The second fiscal clerk position would research all outstanding liens due to the county; water/sewer bills and impact fees. And there are seven to 10,000 properties assessed annually, 2,000 requests per month for estoppel, estoppel notices. That position is self-funded from the revenue generated from the issuance of the estoppel letter. The Board recently approved that action establishing the funding for those estoppel letters. There's also a senior fiscal clerk in the ambulance billing area. Due to not only increases in just the number of transports, but also changes in Hedicare and Hedicaid regulations that require additional time to process transport bills. That would be funded through EHS. The IT Department has moved to the general fund. That's why you notice the 100 percent decrease on page F-1. That will be addressed on Friday's discussion of general fund operation. Property and Casualty; there is increased billings there. Risk Management is allocating out charges for pollution insurance for all the various petroleum products storage and chemical storage that we have, which is potentially a huge liability of the county. In Group Health and Life, there is a decrease in carryforward balance and health claims expense within this area, based on an updated actuarial study. Workers' Compensation. There is an increase in the reserves there based on increased fund balance. There is one secretary position proposed to be shared between Property and Casualty and Workers' Compensation. Fleet Management is relatively flat. The budget increase is 2 percent based on increased carryforward. Actual fleet revenues decreased. The Board has made significant inroads in updating the average age of the fleet, so we're actually operating in a much more current in terms of average vehicle age. It's a much more current fleet, necessitating fewer repairs. As I indicated in my opening comments, Motor Pool Capital Recovery is increased significantly, as we increase reserves for eventual replacement of vehicles that are currently in existence. The proposal there is to replace 27 vehicles and one ambulance. OTPH overall reflects a decrease of 4.9 percent. Their position counts from adopted FY 98 levels reflects a decrease of eight positions. One was eliminated and seven positions have been transferred to other departments, five of which were a component of the reorganization plan recently approved by the Board. That's it for internal services. The only thing left is a discussion of the non-general fund capital projects. MR. FERNANDEZ: We have a speaker on internal services, Janet Vasey. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Okay. MS. VASEY: That was fast. Janet Vasey, for the record. We had a couple of issues in the internal services area. We did most of our analysis from the big book, so if you wouldn't mind, could I draw your attention to a couple of pages in the larger book? F-3, the Revenue Services Department. We were looking at the operating expenses and they doubled in the last two years from 103,000 to 214,000. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Where are you looking? Oh, operating expenses. MS. VASEY: Yes. The admin -- we're in the admin. area. Operating expenses go from 103 to 214, and the narrative talks to a $54,000 increase due to indirect cost reimbursements being higher. I guess it's more of a question than anything. It just seems like these are some large increases that we don't see reflected throughout the entire budget. Not everybody is showing major increases for indirect cost reimbursement, so we picked this up as something that seemed sort of strange. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Do we have an explanation for that? MR. YONKOSKY: That is the increase going from 161,000 in the adopted FY 98 budget to the 214,000. That explains the bulk of the increase in the operating budget. Obviously, one component of the indirect cost allocation plan, which is a revenue to the general fund, is a function of the number of employees and the dollars spent as a basis of the allocation. And that is the net result of their -- obviously, as the department continues to grow, the allocated costs grow commensurate with that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I don't know, I didn't quite get that about why the expense doubles in a couple of years as it continues to grow. MR. SMYKOWSKI: That's only explaining the difference between the FY 98 adopted and the FY 99 proposed. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So let's look at the bigger picture. The question she asked was doubling in two years. MR. YONKOSKY: For the record, John Yonkosky. The increase from last year to this year, the $54,000, is due to an overall change in the county's structure for telephones and the PC seats. Before, each individual section paid for their PCs and their telephones, but due to the change in indirect cost allocation plan, those charges now, the $54,000, are a part of indirect costs instead of a direct billing for a PC, a seat for a PC. So you see the increase here, but there was a similar decrease in the other sections, and it just shows up in this department. But it's everybody that's not funded by ad valorem taxes that has a PC is paying for, and their telephone, the per seat charge, as I understand it, through the indirect cost allocation plan. MR. SMYKOWSKI: That is correct. The other difference -- Mr. Tindall's going into the adopted '98 budget book to see the '97 actual compared to the '97 adopted, so we'll be able to address that. But the $54,000 addresses the difference between the adopted '98 budget of 161, and the '98 proposed of 214. MS. VASEY: Okay. Thank you. I guess we're not seeing any decreases. The decreases must be smaller in the other offices so that we're not seeing those as separate indications, and then this is a different way of handling it. MR. YONKOSKY: Well, I can't say about the other offices, but -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What about that, Mr. Smykowski? You would know. I mean, of course, John can't answer that question. MR. SMYKOWSKI: I'm not sure what the question is, I'm sorry. What is the question? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: The question is where are the corresponding decreases supposed to be found? That's what Ms. Vasey hasn't found. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just show us where they are. If this is explained by a transfer in the way we handle paying for telephones, that's the simplest way I can say it, and there is an increase here because there's a decrease in the budget that previously is where his telephones would have been paid for, just show us the page with the decreased telephone budget so we can be sure that they match. Isnlt that the question, Janet? Am I getting that right? MS. VASEY: Yes. We just saw this huge increase. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Okay, herels an example. If you turn to F-5 in current FY 99, and the last sentence under current, the office automation allocation decrease of 16,800 was offset in part by some other chart. But that is representative of the reallocation of those charges that were budgeted directly within each of the sections, 16-eight, and now being charged through the indirect service charge. MS. VASEY: Weill get with them afterwards. COMMISSIONER MACIKIE: Okay. Why donlt we just flag it then so until we understand it. I mean, I donlt understand it at this point. We just need to be sure itls not in there twice. It went down somewhere and came up somewhere. MS. VASEY: Our next issue was on F-6, the EMS one. It appears that we dropped one person between 196 to 197 going into the 197-198 year, and now welre adding one person back. And we were -- I know at one time you, as a commission, were concerned with so many people and watching the numbers of people that were being hired in DOR. So this kind of flagged with us what was happening, that you had people dropping out and then adding back in the next year. MR. YONKOSKY: Last year in the budget process, with the advent of the new EMS automated system, the thinking was to be able to transfer one individual from DOR over to EMS, and with the understanding that those people, as they gathered the information, would be able to put the information into the automated system and then transmit that back to DOR for the billing process. In reality, that created, after studying several major problems -- and we had a nationally ranked consultant take a look at the process, and were told through that report that the paramedics would end up eventually following two protocols. One protocol that they are required to by state and the local requirements of the EMS director, or Dr. Tober, and then the billing protocol, in order to maximize the income. In order not to train the paramedics to follow two protocols, which is very, very confusing, we are asking -- because now the direction is that that information that the paramedics will input into the system is just a demographic -- name and address information. All of the information that was supposed to be collected by them could still be collected by them, but it turns into major problems. Thatls why welre asking -- COMMISSIONER MACIKIE: Too many forms to fill out in the field, is that basically it? MR. YONKOSKY: Thatls correct. Then at the same time that they fill out a trip ticket for the state and county protocol, then theylye got to put information into the system for billing protocol. It was a good idea at the time, or we thought it was, but it did not work out. As to the actual number of people, and if you look at -- we started off, in 1995 there were four people and approximately 14,000 trips -- 14,200 trips that year. Welre looking at 17,600 trips this year and welre still -- welre still, if we get this one individual back, weill still be one individual below where we were three and a half years ago. MS. VASEY: All right. Thank you. I guess the last big issue we had was on the fleet, on page F-17. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Iim sorry, I hate to interrupt. But DOR didnlt exist three and a half years ago. COMMISSIONER MACIKIE: Thank you. COHHISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's about when it was created. So I'm confused as to when you say we're back to a person below where we were then, because when it was created -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: It was zero. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- the number of positions shifted all around doing different things than they had done before. So I don't know if that's an accurate representation or not. When we combine all those back to how it was three and a half years ago, I suspect we don't have fewer people now than we did then doing whatever the job. Maybe in an individual department, but overall, I'd be shocked if we had less people than we had three and a half years ago, doing that total job. MR. YONKOSKY: When the EHS billing -- they had four personnel assignments in EHS. When you created the Department of Revenue it went to three. Last year we shifted one over and it went to two, and now what we're doing is asking for that one back. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But that's not what he asked you. He asked you how can you say that you can compare to before DOR existed? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: These people are in EMS not DOR; correct? MR. YONKOSKY: There were four people in EMS that did the billing in 1995. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Right. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: My point is very, very simple. When DOR was created, it was supposed to create a certain degree of efficiency and lower the number of individuals required, an example being that, instead of having four individuals doing EMS, we only have three now doing it here, because when you brought all those different billing areas together, there was supposed to be an efficiency in numbers. So it just -- it bothers me a little when you turn around now and say well, even adding one back, we're still going to be below where we were three and a half years ago, because it was a whole different setup three and a half years ago. MR. YONKOSKY: I understand. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: It's not really comparing apples to apples. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: If you don't mind, Janet, while we're on the subject, what I wondered is does the status of -- a productivity committee was going to look at DOR and try to have some information to us sometime to help with budget. Do you know what the status is of that? MR. YONKOSKY: I believe that they are supposed to -- your direction was to them to bring that report back to the Board of County Commissioners sometime towards the end of this month or early next month. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But they've been working with you and -- MR. YONKOSKY: They've been working with us. They have been out there doing exactly what you directed them to do. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I guess my thought would be just to put a sort of a big flag here pending what we hear from productivity committee, and I have no idea -- there hasn't been a report to the committee. I would tell you, of course, if there had been. But just flag it pending what we hear from productivity, see if they have some suggestions to make. MS. VASEY: On page F-17, there were just a couple of observations here that concerned us. The carryforward line is increasing every year -- on the table in the middle of the page, it goes from 76,000 to 133 to 197, and the reserve requirement is about 96,000. It occurred to us that with carryforward increasing, it may be that we're collecting too much money. And so we throw that out as a possibility. If we don't need to be collecting so much, that would save taxes. Also, there's a mention of a fuel increase here for $100,000 and we've also been looking at the Sheriff's budget. You know, they've got a lot of cars, too, and they are not showing any fuel increase. So I was wondering if there was something -- if we're real positive we're going to be having this fuel increase or whether it's a big mistake to bring it up because then the Sheriff is going to want more money. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, no, it's interesting, because that's one of the things -- if you go back about a week in the newspaper and read his quote word for word, that's one of the things that he references is the expense of fuel. When he, Commissioner Norris and I were quoted in that article and the Sheriff was quoted in there, he talks specifically about fuel. So that just adds fuel to the fire, so to speak. MS. VASEY: Well, in the section on law enforcement, they break it down, there's not a big increase in the cost of fuel, unless it's someplace I didn't see it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So, are you prepared to answer the question about fuel cost increases? MR. CROFT: Yes. I'm Dan Croft, Fleet Manager. The fuel cost increase is based on, we get a scheduled price indexing for fuel, based on a report of the OPEC and non-OPEC countries going to hold back on crude oil within the next year or two so they can boost their prices back up. We're looking anywhere from a 10 to 15 cents per gallon increase in fuel. We took that on a midline course around a dollar thirteen -- correction -- about 13 cents a gallon more, which is the increase you see of the $100,000. Which way it goes, I don't know, because it hasn't started increasing. It's bottomed out this year. Fuel is the lowest it's been in years and it hasn't started going back up. However, the prediction is that it will towards the end of the year, actually towards the end of the summer, start increasing. When it was first announced, it went up about five cents a gallon, then it dropped back down again. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Does that also account for some of that excess carryover, just because we had to spend less than we would have had the prices stayed steady? MR. CROFT: Yes, sir, that's part of it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, if that's the case, isn't a carryforward something that could be used for that? If we've been budgeting too much for gas and now, gas is going to be cheaper, instead of continuing to carryforward, why don't we spend some of that money? MR. CROFT: Hopefully, we're not going to have that carryforward every year. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But e have it this year. MR. CROFT: We have it this year. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: But we're talking about the budget for this year, and strangely, by coincidence, what you have budgeted for the fuel increase is almost the same as the overage that you're carrying in the carryforward account. So the point is that if you don't budget for the fuel increase and deplete your carryforward account, if and when the prices rise, then it should work out for this budget year. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And next year you won't have to listen to us talking about this, you know, because you won't have a carryforward, and so -- doesn't that -- I think that makes sense. Mr. Smykowski or Mr. Fernandez, is there some glaring error there? MR. SHYKOWSKI: He would have no reserve. If you reduced the fleet revenue accordingly to bleed off that carryforward, you would have to make a corresponding decrease on the expense side of the budget, which would be to reserves. Frankly, between the fleet revenue, between new vehicles in the fleet and an analysis of the carryforward, you will note that budgeted fleet revenue is down, lessened, in part, because of the fact that you have available carryforward to fund operations next year. MS. VASEY: Would you have to bleed down the reserves? Wouldn't you be reducing the operating expenses? MR. CROFT: Operating expenses have been reduced for next year. But basically, if you look, all of the operating expenses are down except for that added fuel that's in there. There's $100,000 of added fuel and operating expenses are all down. A lot of that has to do with a reduction in the sublets that are going out to vendors. We are doing more work in-house and we've reduced that by some $55,000 on reduction of operating expenses. MS. VASEY: I don't know. It just seems like, to me, it seems like if you've got some increased carryforward, there ought to be some way to use that up rather than to increase your taxes to collect more. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Right. MS. VASEY: I guess I can't tell you where it shows up, but it seems like it should work that way. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Seems to me like it matches, like John said, nicely with the fuel increase. Somebody stop us or we're going to be taking it out. MR. SHYKOWSKI: Taking what out, though? COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: The fuel increase. MR. FERNANDEZ: She wants to cover it with carryover. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And let you cover it with carryforward. If fuel prices do go up. We taxed them for fuel prices last year that were unnecessary taxes. So we've got that money left over, we're carrying it forward to this year. Why don't we spend that on fuel this year? MS. VASEY: You would be reducing the fleet revenue line. MR. SHYKOWSKI: The only way the fuel expense goes down is if the anticipated price increase does not occur. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Right. MR. FERNANDEZ: So you cover it through carryforward. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: If OPEC does something and it goes up, then we use the carryforward to pay for it. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Is the carryforward dedicated to anything else at this point? MR. CROFT: Net reserves. MR. SHYKOWSKI: You have a 197,000 in carryforward and you only have roughly 97 in reserve, so 100,000 is going to fund operations already. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Okay, we can cut it. COHHISSIONER NORRIS: No. COHHISSIONER HAC'KIE: Why not? MR. SHYKOWSKI: You have 197,000 in a one-time revenue source -- COHMISSIONER NORRIS: It's already being spent. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: You've got carryforward reserves in your revenues so that you're spending them already, and they are not really carryforward reserves. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What is carryforward? It's money that wasn't spent, so it's figured as a revenue for you next year -- MR. SHYKOWSKI: Right. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- and you have set it aside for a specific use. MR. SHYKOWSKI: You have 197,000 of that carryforward available as a revenue source. You do not have $197,000 in reserve. So you're already using $100,000 of the carryforward revenue to fund operations. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: So if we didn't fund this gas tax potential increase and it happened, we'd have to pay for it out of reserves. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Right. MR. SHYKOWSKI: Yes. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: What other things might we have to pay for out of reserves? COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Anything that you didn't expect. That's what reserves are for. MS. VASEY: Well, how is this different from the adopted '98 budget why you had reserves of 92 and your carryforward was only 117 It was the upward trend that seemed to be a problem; because like last year in your adopted budget, you didn't have carryforward to cover your reserves, and now you've got well over carryforward covering reserves. MR. SHYKOWSKI: And not having the reserve or the carryforward, then you have to increase fleet charges in the subsequent year then to make up for that, because if you have carryforward roughly at the $100,000 level on an annual basis, the carryforward rolls over each year to fund the reserve. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: The reserve. MR. SHYKOWSKI: And then the fleet revenue is paying for the current cost of operation. If you bleed off very quickly in one year all of the one time revenue source, then in the subsequent year, you just have to increase the fleet rates to make up for that loss of the one time revenue source, and that's what you try to avoid, the yo-yo effect in the rates. One year, I don't know, seven or eight years ago in fleet, we had a big carryforward and instead of charging a quarter mile charge a nickel a mile. Well, that worked great in year one, but then in year two, it went back up to a quarter. And on every budget book page you saw increase in motor pool mileage rate, 20 cents per mile. So it worked great for a year, but then in the subsequent year, it came back to bite you. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I'm okay with staff's recommendation on this one. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I still don't quite understand the question about how it's different from last year, but I do understand where that 100 grand went, that it isn't just sitting there. MS. VASEY: And just one request on the next page on motor pool capital recovery. This fund is really increasing a lot each year. The reserves now have gone up another million dollars this year. And I recognize it's based on when the next set of vehicles need to be purchased, but there's a lot of things going on at one time. If you look on the left page, the performance measures shows that your average mileage of replacement is going up to 90,000. If you're getting more mileage off of them, it seems like you shouldn't need to be replacing them so often. So your years at replacement would be greater, rather than staying at six years. Maybe the whole thing needs to just be looked at again to see if everything is taken into account here from an overall recovery. Just seemed like a lot of factors were going in different directions, and so we throw this up as maybe it needs a review. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It is contradictory that we would be replacing cars faster when we expect to make cars last longer. MS. VASEY: Well, if you're going up to the 90,000 miles of replacement, and you would think that the number of years that you hold them until replacement would be going up. And you would think that you wouldn't be growing another almost 100 percent in your -- COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Capital recovery program. MS. VASEY: -- capital reserve for this, all at the same time. So it just seemed like all the factors seemed to be going in different directions and we were just wondering if you would take another look at that. COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Unless they're in a big hole before this year, or something. What is the reason for that? MR. CROFT: There's several different factors at work on the vehicle replacement. They are replaced based on mileage, based upon age, and based upon maintenance, with maintenance being twice the figure of the other; twice the weight of the other. It's an automated system. Although we take a look at each vehicle when it comes time to replace them, when it gets to its maximum number of points that vehicle is supposed to have, and sometimes we replace them and sometimes we don't. It's also based on, we collect money on these vehicles through history showing how long that that particular department is going to have that vehicle or how long they should be using it. There are some vehicles such as animal control they drive their vehicles 30, 35,000 miles a year, so we have them set up for replacement every four years. And that's just a general collection. We collect for a four year period. Host vehicles it's about a six year period. Some of them we have to replace a little earlier; some of them are replaced at seven or eight years. COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'm sorry, but the question I was trying to get to was, if the trend is, your forecast in your performance measure is that you're only going to replace a car, you know, instead of the goal being 70,000 miles, now the goal is 90,000 miles. What's the explanation for the fact that you're appropriating more dollars for replacement of cars instead of less dollars for replacement of cars when you expect to keep them longer? MR. CROFT: Basically, we collect for each individual vehicle. And if it's a four year period or a six year period, say, with the predicted replacement value of that vehicle is going to be minus the auction value that we're going to get for the vehicle. COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Because your cars are old and they are already farther up than -- COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: We could be replacing Chevy Blazers instead of Chevettes. COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: It could be. I just don't know why they don't say that, because that I understand. I'll let it go if you guys get it. MR. CROFT: We're selecting these vehicles, collecting each year. Sometimes we replace 15 vehicles, sometimes we replace 60 vehicles, just depending how many have to be replaced that year. This year -- next year, we are going to replace, with your approval, about 27 vehicles. The following year I'm going to recommend we replace about 60 vehicles because we had a large buy of vehicles in '94. For this year, this fiscal year we're in now, we only replaced 17 vehicles. We had no vehicles that were bought in '92. Now, that's just using the years' analysis. It doesn't mean that it's exactly six years that we're replacing them. We're using the basis, as I told you before, based on maintenance, age and mileage COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: If you have a chance to spend a little time out there at Fleet and watch the computer program they do with the cars and the history they do on the car, is pretty well done. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Any further questions? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: No, ma'am. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Thank you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Did we flag DOR? MR. SMYKOWSKI: Pardon? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Was there a consensus of the board that we flag the DOR budget until we got the productivity committee report, or was that just me? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I don't think we'll have it in time. CHAIRMAN BERRY: No, that's my only concern. MR. SMYKOWSKI: I just spoke with Mr. Vincent who is the liaison to the productivity committee. He thought sometime in July he'll have that report. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So we'll have it before final, but no sense in flagging it now? MR. SMYKOWSKI: Certainly, by the time you adopt the final budget in September, you still have latitude in late September to make final decisions on this budget. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's good. Okay MR. SMYKOWSKI: That moves us to the last element of today's budget, that's the Capital Improvement Program in Section H, which is essentially your impact fee fund. It's in your summary book, page H-3 is the parks capital that is funded by impact fees. We'll address the ad valorem component through Fund 306 on Friday. The largest component of this budget by far is the new regional park land and designed at $14.1 million, and that's reflected as being funded with loan proceeds. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Where is that new regional park? CHAIRMAN BERRY: Probably in your district. COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: You think? COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: The king of pork. CHAIRMAN BERRY: The king of pork. (Laughter.) COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: (Making snorting sounds.) COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I want to see that on the record. How are you going to put those pig sounds? CHAIRMAN BERRY: Proficient pig sounds, I would say, with all disrespect. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I just want to know where this regional park is. COHHISSIONER HAC'KIE: Let the record reflect I didn't participate in the pig sounds. MS. RAMSEY: For the record, my name is Harla Ramsey -- COHMISSIONER NORRIS: It's on; just talk close. MS. RAMSEY: -- Director of Parks and Recreation. Okay. We would like to answer that same question for you. In November of 1997 we put together a committee to look at six potential sites on the north side of Collier County. Of those sites, five of them had options or did not have enough developable land available for us. We are now researching again to see if we can find parcels of land between 150 and 200 acres that could accommodate a regional par in that location. North Naples. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: He's not even here. Cut it. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Pork man is not even here. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: He's not even here, let's cut it. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Cut it, cut it. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: We can cut that one out; he's not here. Commissioner HAC'KIE: At least flag it so we can scare him when he gets back. Sorry. MS. RAMSEY: It will actually be in Barbara Berry's district. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Yes. It's actually in my district. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, I reiterate. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: We'll definitely forget it. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Okay. Go forward, then. MR. SHYKOWSKI: Okay. The other large project of significance is the South Naples Park at $409,500. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: You live in John's district. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Could I ask you about a couple of these specifically? The Corkscrew Elementary School, what are we doing with it there? CHAIRMAN BERRY: What do you mean what are we doing there? COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What's the 300,000? CHAIRMAN BERRY: Is that the usual joint venture with the school system? MS. RAMSEY: Yes. We've got a map that will show you the conceptual plan for the new Corkscrew Elementary that's going in at Orange Tree. This particular area here on the green building bar is the school system, is putting in the elementary school and the first phase and behind that school you'll see a softball field and a soccer field and some basketball facilities. What we usually do with the schools is we help enhance those facilities so that we can use them in the evening when the schools are no longer using them at that time. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What are we doing for enhancements for $300,000, other than apparently lights? MS. RAMSEY: Host of it is lights. Some additional parking in the back they didn't have originally planned for, we've asked for about 50 parking spaces in the back so they would be easy to get to. And then we'll be utilizing the rest rooms inside the buildings instead of having to use a concession stand on the outside. I do have a breakdown comparison if you would like to have a copy of it, showing the costs that it would be for us to do that same kind of development across the road where we have 52 acres. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Do we get summer usage, not just after school usage but also summer usage for these facilities? Thought so. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: $300,000 lights. MR. OLLIFF: Actually, for the number of fields you've got, that is the cost. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: How many fields do we have? MS. RAMSEY: We'll have one softball field and we'll have one full soccer field and we'll have the basketball courts in there, as well. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Harla, is that also showing the middle school connected on there? MS. RAMSEY: Yes. The middle school is projected to be built in the following year, and so we don't have that in this initial plan for that. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Okay. MR. OLLIFF: The other thing I need to point out is, this is -- Tom Olliff, Public Services Administrator. This is the second half of the community park in the Estates Planning District. If you'll recall when we originally went into the Estates, population accelerated construction of that park ahead of the south park, and we built half of the park at the Big Cypress Elementary School with a plan almost like this one. The plan at that time was to build the second half of the community park on the other side of Immokalee Road, but what we found out is that the people don't live on the other side of the Immokalee Road there, and trying to get the children across Immokalee Road would have been -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Not a good thing. MR. OLLIFF: -- a difficult thing. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Build another $180,000 Fred Thomas Walkway. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Or a panther underpass and we could let the kids use them. Okay, sorry. MR. OLLIFF: We can do that if so directed. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'm sorry, getting silly. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: A couple other specific questions on your playground equipment generic, 100,000, I'm sure we have that need. But where will that end up being? MS. RAMSEY: That's a 306 Fund, but those are actually four different locations. We have two neighborhood parks which are currently utilizing the wooden playground areas, and I do have photos of those locations that need to be replaced. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Can you tell me where those locations are? MS. RAMSEY: Yes. Poinciana Village and Coconut Circle. One of them is off of Estey and the other one's off of Airport. Then we just recently took down the wooden play equipment at Golden Gate Community Park because it was a safety hazard, and we need to replace that particular equipment, especially the swings and things. And then the last one is Cocohatchee River Park, which has very little play apparatus at that location. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Harla, I would like to see the pictures of what you're going to be putting in. MS. RAMSEY: I just have some pictures of the things I'm replacing. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Oh, no, I've seen that. That needs replacing. MR. OLLIFF: This is the last community park wooden equipment that we're replacing. We've been doing pretty much a park a year. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: What you're going to put in there is going to last forever? I mean, that's what I was wanting to see, I mean, forever being a -- MS. RAMSEY: They'll be real similar to the ones that we're putting up if you've been over to Sugden recently, the plastic. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Lifetime warranty. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Is it similar to what's at Veterans Community Park or -- MR OLLIFF: At each of the other community parks you'll see some modular plastic type of equipment, and that's what's going in at each of these locations. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: At Poinciana's good, because there's a lot of kids in there, and right now what's there is dangerous. MS. RAMSEY: Yes, and we're talking about, if you want dollar figures, $20,000 each at the neighborhood parks and then the other would be split 30-30 between the other two parks. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I know Coconut Circle needs it. Picnic shelter, $40,000? MS. RAMSEY: That particular shelter will be located at Pelican Bay, where we have no picnic shelter at this time. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: What kind of a shelter? I mean, Habitat for Humanity practically builds a home for $40,000. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: What do you have for that? MS. RAMSEY: I know, they're expensive. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I don't think they need that in Pelican Bay. MS. RAMSEY: It's about 40 by 40. It's a large family reunion kind of picnic pavilion. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Where will it be in the park? MS. RAMSEY: It will be at Pelican Bay, and it will be located near the playground area. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: They've got that whole foundation building there. What do they need with a pavilion? MR. OLLIFF: This is in your Pelican Bay Community Park. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Grill hot dogs. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Well, they're not going to grill in the pavilion, either, I don't guess. I'm thinking of the foundation building that's over by the -- are we at the park by the fire station? MR. OLLIFF: Yes. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Okay. Well, that's where their building is. MR. OLLIFF: Not on our property, no. You've got a community park there that the public has access to. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I know. Not that they know they can use it. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: 40 by 40. MR. OLLIFF: 40 by 40. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: That's pretty big. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Hold a lot of hay. MS. RAMSEY: You can see one just like it at the Veterans Community Park. We're building it currently. It will be located where the bonfire was last spring, we put the new facility in there. But it's a 40 by 40 at that location. It's very nice. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: How did we identify that particular priority, I guess is my question? I mean, $40,000, a couple more neighbors -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Where I was going with this is picnic shelter and bark park, both. I'm sure they are wonderful things but if we could flag them, and at least, at the end of our budget process we'll be able to put that in better perspective as far as how high a priority they are. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Been there. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: They may both be wonderful things if we can afford them, but if we find ourselves a little tight next Monday, maybe those would be on the "if" list. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Not having carefully looked at the newspaper article, the dog park -- CHAIRMAN BERRY: Bark park. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'm not going to call it that -- is where? MS. RAMSEY: The facility that we're using is off of Livingston, the extension of Livingston off of Immokalee Road there is a utilities building there. Directly behind that utilities building is 120 by 1,000 foot parcel, which is about a little over two and a third acres, or something to that effect. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: People are going to put their dogs in their car and drive over there to walk them? MS. RAMSEY: I had in one day 25 phone calls of support, from people with dogs. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'll probably get them now. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Again, I'm not saying cut it now. I'm just saying put it on our little asterisk list for next Monday so that if we find we're short on funds, we can prioritize that accordingly. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: If it gets down to immunizing children or having a place for kids -- or I mean for dogs to run -- MR. OLLIFF: These are impact fee funds. MR. SHYKOWSKI: Impact fee funds, too, as a reminder that they could be used to immunize children. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Keep in mind you can only let your dog run 120 feet wide. He can run as far as he wants back, but he can only go 120 feet wide. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: What's on either side? CHAIRMAN BERRY: People. MS. RAMSEY: There is people on one side, and -- CHAIRMAN BERRY: There's people on one side. I've already gotten phone calls of concern -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Well, you call it a bark park and -- CHAIRMAN BERRY: -- but you've worked on that, I think, pretty well and answered a lot of those questions. This isn't going to close off that gateway that's there, is it? You know, where the little utility building is and then there's a gate that goes back under those power lines? MS. RAMSEY: No. That road there kind of takes a little swing in and it does kind of go into our property line. We may have to readjust that road area. One thing to point out here is that I've got a committee of people working on this particular one, and I've told them that I want them to come up with as much money from the community as they could to fund this project. So I'm looking for matching funds from the community. MR. OLLIFF: We've gotten requests for this every year and primarily, they want us to designate an area of the public beach to be able to bring their dogs. And rather than bring a proposal like that to you we're trying to do something on the cheap, frankly. We found some property the county already owns and we're trying to work with the local veterinarian society and the local K-9 clubs to try and help split funding with us to do this. We're trying to make it as low cost as we can. It would primarily be sods and park benches. And if they come up with, believe it or not, exercise equipment for the dogs, then they can do that and install it. But we're trying to respond to an amazing number of calls for this. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Things for your dog to jump over so your dogs can get exercise, you know. Little Foo-Foo needs to foo-foo over the barrel, and all that kind of stuff and run through -- MR. OLLIFF: Your county administrator is proposing fire hydrants in the park. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Thanks. CHAIRMAN BERRY: In various colors and heights. You might want to add various heights -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Maybe we can get that in the fire district budget -- CHAIRMAN BERRY: Yes, for the vertically challenged dogs -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: -- they've got the money. MS. RAMSEY: Actually, the K-9 unit comes and uses our playgrounds quite often to teach their dogs how to go through the tunnels and up the stairs and ladders. They do use our equipment quite often. CHAIRMAN BERRY: I'm not kidding. This is a big thing. MR. OLLIFF: I'm frankly amazed that I'm standing here talking about it, but -- COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Maybe we should scrap the regional park and put that 14 million into a bigger park. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Put it right in there for the dogs. Think how many calls we'd get. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Yes. Park ranger vehicle, where is that going to be used? MS. RAMSEY: When we put in the south park and the second park coming in on line we did not budget for a vehicle for the two rangers that were to be located at Sugden. So currently they're kind of stranded. If I put them with a vehicle, I can move them throughout the East Naples area. Right now, the ranger that's in that area, East Naples Community Park and Bayview and Marco Island are all underneath the one area with one vehicle. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: And $156,000 bleachers -- MS. RAMSEY: That's actually three different things. There is a stage in that particular item. There are two pottables, bleachers, and what we found over the last year and a half that I've been there, is we move a lot of bleachers. And when we move a bleacher, it takes a lot of man hours. It actually takes about $84 an hour for us to move a bleacher around the park sites. And so if we would put, get two bleachers with wheels, we could just hook them up and go and one guy could do that. It's a cost saving, a manpower savings for us in the long run to do that. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: It is logical. MS. RAMSEY: And a Workers' Comp and some liability, because every time we move a bleacher, the welds start to release and they get weaker and weaker, and then the repair bills come up. So we think that it's more prudent to move bleachers with wheels than to do them on the back of a truck. CHAIRMAN BERRY: $100,000 for exotics removal? MS. RAMSEY: Yes. Those are located -- COHHISSIONER HAC'KIE: If we don't start doing it in our own back yards, guys. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Well, I understand. But this just ties into our discussion this morning. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: More money. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Where is this, where do you want to do this? MS. RAMSEY: We're going to finish Lely Barefoot Preserve area, we have a little bit left to do there. Veterans Park has a section -- we did half of it this year; we want to finish that park next year. East Naples Community Park has an area behind the skate park and the tennis courts that needs to be removed, as well. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: What was the last one? MS. RAMSEY: East Naples Community Park. And then Tigertail has a number of Australian pines right near the concession stand that could topple over and take out the concession stand and the restroom facility in a storm. There is, in the Sugden numbers, if you look there, there is also $80,000 of exotic removal in the wetland area that is basically the management plan says that we need to do that, and that's in conjunction with a grant. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Well, if you're going to have parks you have to take care of them. MR. SHYKOWSKI: H-4 is the Library Impact Fee Fund. The proposed purchases are 618,000 books, publications and materials that are growth-related to add to the library system collections and the balance of design on the North Regional Library for $50,700. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Are we bumping up our number there, Tom, a half? We've tried to each year bump up our own requirement and fund that. MR. OLLIFF: We have. The level of service actually increases by .05 books per capita annually and this budget reflects that. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Thank you. MR. SHYKOWSKI: On page H-5 is the EHS Impact Fee Budget. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Glad you stood here all day for that, Mr. Jones, aren't you? MR. JONES: Watching you folks inaudible). (Laughter.) CHAIRMAN BERRY: Love it. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: The man s the administrator. MR. SHYKOWSKI: That's why I beat him to the punch before he gets started. It's tough to get him to stop. CHAIRMAN BERRY: I love it. MR. SHYKOWSKI: The proposed expenditures are two medium duty ambulances for $230,000. Those are the units in Isle of Capri and Golden Gate Estates, along with medical equipment and radios for $120,000, aviation repair and maintenance for $16,000 and a station for 100,000 in the Golden Gate Estates area. Again, that additional unit. On pages H-6 and H-7 is the Roads Capital Plan. H-6 is the forecast of projects in the current fiscal year and H-7 is a matrix showing the various funding sources for each of the projects in the Road Funding Plan is just shy of $54 million total. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I know this isn't your department, Mike, but Mr. Fernandez, we always talked about that we were going to get quarterly sort of informational reports for the Board about where we are on these projects, because they are the kind of things that we get calls about that people want to know, and I just want to emphasize how much I'd like to have that. MR. FERNANDEZ: Okay. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: For the good of the budget, I'd be willing to cut the 9.6 million Livingston Road project. That's in my district. Just for everyone's benefit. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You're just that kind of guy. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, that makes it four to one. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Again, the principal projects are Golden Gate Boulevard, 11.6 million, Livingston Road at 9.6, and Immokalee Road at 4.1 million. Fund 341 on page H-8 is just a Road Assessment Receivable Fund. That money is all budgeted in reserves. Frankly, that's used as seed money for -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Mike, I'm sorry. I meant to ask you one that's on that road capital question. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Is that where if we wanted to see more money in the -- what do you call the community program for traffic calming, or whatever we call it in this county, do you know what I'm talking about? Is that where it would be? Isn't that a traffic -- yes, sir. MR. SMYKOWSKI: Neighborhood traffic management? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Because I've seen neighborhood traffic on here with about -- MR. SMYKOWSKI: 100,0007 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- and I just wonder how many applications you have pending, how many projects you're able to get to. MR. KANT: Edward Kant, Transportation Services Director. We presently have 36 applications in various stages of being processed. There are about six that are actively being worked on. A lot of the applications, because of the process, are requiring some more citizen involvement. We have requested this year $100,000 be put into the program. Depending on what the final designs turn out to be, that could be two or three projects, it could be six or eight. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: See, I think we're kind of misleading people in a way, because we tell them we have this neighborhood traffic calming program when they call you up complaining about, you know, the speeding cars through their local streets, which I'm sure you guys get, because I do. We say call Mr. Kant, we've got this neighborhood traffic calming program, fill out the application, go through the process. In reality, it's going to be years before anybody can get any solution with the level of funding we're putting into that program. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Well, that's only partially true and what I always add onto that call, Mr. Kant, is go through the process COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: -- that there's a dollar figure attached and realistically those neighborhoods are going to have to participate themselves, and how much they are willing to participate usually goes a long way towards how quickly that project can see reality. MR. KANT: We've found, if I may, Commissioners, we've found that the level of funding is not as critical to implementing programs as it is to gathering neighborhood consensus and coming up with solutions that are acceptable, both to the neighborhood and from a safety and traffic operations point of view. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Because that's a staff intensive operation. MR. KANT: It's very staff intensive, yes, ma'am. We have one individual that's assigned to that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I just wonder if we staffed it adequately to address what I find to be a significant need, that people are searching desperately for some solutions to their neighborhood traffic problems. And then they get in the process and the process takes so long, not for any reason other than we haven't, I don't think, funded it adequately. MR. KANT: As I say, our experience is once we get to the first workshop, which, assuming we get an adequate consensus of the people to want us to move forward, from that point on, between the first workshop and beginning to see solutions which could be implemented, is what takes the time, because typically there are people in the neighborhood that are affected that are not pleased with what they see and -- COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Sure. MR. KANT: -- it is difficult, at best, it is difficult to get the consensus that's required. Frankly, we don't believe that it serves either the Board's time, the public's time or staff time to bring you proposals which we do not believe have the support of the neighborhood. COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Mr. Kant, of the 36 that you've got pending, how old are they? MR. KANT: Some of them have been in process almost since the project began. I can think of one that, as an example, the one that immediately comes to mind is the Lakewood community. We had come up with what we felt were workable solutions presented to the neighbors; that is, presented it to the affected residents. The residents, some of whom were very much in favor of it, all of a sudden found that there was a significant portion of people in the area that were very much not in favor of it. As Commissioner Constantine points out, the issue of funding came up only to the extent that one of the things that I've tried to work with my staff in doing is finding out how willing people are to participate to some extent, because that's usually a good sign of how really interested and how really bad they perceive a problem to be. That's been part of the sticking point with these folks. COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I'm sorry, Mr. Kant -- MR. KANT: The biggest problem has been that nobody wants to agree on anything and we can't force it down their throats. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I was going to say how many of the 36 are just lying dormant, not getting attention? COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Right. That's my question. How many have you not gotten to? MR. KANT: At least 15 to 18 of them. Mostly because they can't get enough people to sign a petition. COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: So here's my question. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Not because staff is leaving them be. Is that where we're trying to -- MR. KANT: That's correct. COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: How many have you just not been able to get to because staff, you don't have staff to do that? MR. KANT: None. We can get to any one of them -- COHHISSIONER HAC'KIE: Then never mind. MR. KANT: -- that wants to be gotten to. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Thank you. MR. SHYKOWSKI: On page H-9 is Solid Waste Capital. We addressed the bulk of that in the solid waste discussion. There is $1,020,000 budgeted, frankly, as a contingency for legal fees associated with discussions related to the placement and location of the new landfill. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Of the what? MR. SHYKOWSKI: Of the new landfill. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Oh, my favorite subject. MR. SHYKOWSKI: H-10, is the Museum Capital Fund. It's just reflective of a forecast. There was no money requested from general fund in FY 99. We can pass dredging, residual cashes, budget and reserves. That concludes our workshop for today. Friday again we will have the general fund from A to Z with the Sheriff going first. COHMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I got a banquet at 7 o'clock Friday night, so we should wrap it up by then. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Good luck. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: We'll be done. CHAIRMAN BERRY: I figure about 8:30 Friday night, don't you? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Nothing's changed. CHAIRMAN BERRY: About 8:30, 9:00 Friday night? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Something like that. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You and the Sheriff have fun, then. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Okay. Do we have any other speakers, Mr. Fernandez? MR. FERNANDEZ: No other speakers. CHAIRMAN BERRY: If there is no one who wishes to address us, then we will recess this meeting until Friday morning at 9 o'clock. There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 3:00 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL BARBARA B. BERRY, CHAIRMAN ATTEST: DWIGHT E. BROCK, CLERK These minutes approved by the Board on presented or as corrected as TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING BY: Kelly Blecha, RPR and Kaye Gray, RPR