A
BUDGET RETREAT OF THE BOARD OF
JUNE
28, 2007
The Lake County Board of
Ms. Cindy Hall,
UPDATE AND DISCUSSION ON
Ms. Hall stated that she wanted to give a brief update
regarding the South Tavares Campus. She
said that in April they came to the Board with some different proposals for
discussion regarding the buildings they were to construct in the
LOCATION OF JAIL
She stated that they had been planning to move forward on a
new jail but have had that on hold also because they did not have a specific
site, but they had been actively looking for a site. She mentioned that they had looked at a
number of areas in
REVISED PROPOSAL BY ARCHITECTS
Mr. Bill Burns of Ajax Construction handed out slides that
they presented to the Board, and stated that they had looked at different ways
to handle different revenue sources. He
presented an overview of the
Mr. Burns stated that originally the Public Safety building
was 38,000 square feet, but they would be reducing it down to about a 15,000 to
18,000 square foot, two story facility, which would include the
Mr. Jim Bannon, Facilities Development and Management Director, stated that
they would work within the budget for the proposed projects by reducing any of
the square footage down for the buildings or the amount of bays for the fleet
maintenance. He also commented that
within those numbers there was a lot of contingency, and hopefully they would
comfortably be achieving all of the space needs within that budget.
Commr. Cadwell
asked Ms. Hall about the jail.
Ms. Hall
responded that they would like to have some Board direction regarding whether
to pursue putting the jail at the South Tavares Complex also, so that they
could let their architects know whether to move forward with that, but was not
included in the total given for the Complex.
She mentioned that she would be talking about ideas for funding those
projects.
Commr. Cadwell
commented that with the Court System growing in the Tavares area, that it would
be logistically easier if the jail was located in that area. He also thought that they needed to take the
Conserve II property off the table, because he did not think they had a willing
seller and did not think they would want to put a jail there.
Commr. Hill
stated that the security in transportation was a large factor in moving the
Sheriff closer to the Courthouse, as well as requests from judges, the Public
Defender, and State Attorney. She
commented that the Sheriff would still need something in the
Sheriff Gary
Borders commented that they were currently at the Clermont Police Department,
which was a very small and old building, and they were being asked to move out
of there. He pointed out that he still
needed a substation somewhere in the south end of the County. He also mentioned that he thought the work
farm was a good site for the jail, but was concerned about the actual acreage
and whether it would be large enough. He
thought that they could make due with their existing jail site in the meantime,
but that the control panels needed replacing.
Ms. Hall
stated that they would like direction from the Board on whether to proceed with
the proposal that was submitted today regarding construction documents for the
Health Department; Public Safety Complex, including the Sheriff, Public Safety
Administration; EOC; and the reduced-sized fleet facilities, as well as the
location of the jail.
Commr.
Stivender stated that the reduction of the buildings was the direction they had
set at the last workshop, but they wanted to build them so that they could be
added on to.
Commr. Cadwell
commented that with the additional grant money they received from the State for
the EOC, it would be ludicrous not to build that facility at this time. He summarized Public Works would not go out
there, and they would build the Sheriff’s Office, EOC, Public Safety, a
reduced-sized Health Department, and a reduced maintenance area, at an
established budget of $60 million. He
also gave Ms. Hall direction to go forward with the jail site in Tavares, which
was determined to be 20 acres, and which the County owned adjacent land to.
LEED
CERTIFICATION CLARIFICATION
Mr.
Bannon explained that LEED stood for Leadership, Energy and Environmental
Design, and that there were different levels of LEED, which were Certified,
Silver, Gold, and Platinum. He stated
that it was about a sustainable design, energy efficiency, using single
materials and recycling associated with the building. He stated that typically it would cost an
additional 3 to 5 percent, but that they would get a return on the investment
in seven years. He related that in June
2005, the Board adopted a sustainability resolution with a goal of obtaining a
silver certification for all major remodeling and new construction, and in May
2006 their architects of the downtown project presented the status of those
projects and requested clarification from the Board of what level of
certification to pursue in light of cost and project schedule. He related that at that time, the Board
approved pursuing Certified certification for 320 West Main and Silver
certification for the
The
Board consensus was to direct the architects to build the projects using the
same type of energy efficient and environmentally responsible requirements as
LEED, but without spending the extra money for the certification.
FUNDING
FOR MAJOR PROJECTS
Ms.
Hall stated that they had been talking about funding concepts and would be
bringing back some more specific ideas to the Board, but wanted to describe
conceptually how they were moving towards piecing that together, and there were
several large projects they were moving forward on. She specified that one of the projects
already slated was downtown Tavares, and they had already done bond issues and
did not need to address the funding of that anymore. She commented that the Conserve II property
could be funded from different sources, and that they had about $12 million set
aside for that purchase. She also noted
that they had $4 million set aside that was earmarked for their first debt
service payment on the bonds that they just issued in May, which did not have
to be made until next year, and they had about $20 million in bond money slated
for the renovations at the downtown jail that they could shift to the South
Tavares site. In addition to that, the
Board had approved a few years ago a bank loan line of credit for about $15
million out of their sales tax fund. She
reported that all of those sources totaled about $50 million, and that other
options were to make the project a little bit smaller, increasing the bank
loan, or prioritizing the buildings.
Ms.
Hall stated that the initial discussions regarding the jail project had been to
look at a design build construction process with a public/private partnership
where the contractor would end up financing, which was similar to a lease to
own operation. That way, they would not
have to pledge a revenue source and issue bonds against it.
Ms.
Hall reported that another large project they were in the initial stages of
working on was the 800 megahertz system, which would cost about $32
million. She commented that they had set
aside some money to start that this year, but it was likely that they would
need to do some financing on that project also, such as a bank loan or a
tax-free lease provided by Motorola.
Commr.
Hill asked if the legislature prohibited them from including things onto an
existing MSTU.
Ms.
Hall responded that they did not prohibit them from doing anything, and the
only stipulation they had with MSTU’s was that they were ad valorem dollars,
and it would take extraordinary votes from the Board to increase them.
Commr.
Hill then clarified that they would be able to include the EMS MSTU and expand
it to do Public Safety and that those options were not off the table.
Ms.
Hall noted that they were working with their financial advisor to make sure they
were not in a position of being over debt, because there were debt levels that
might trigger bond rating agencies to start getting nervous, and they would be
careful to avoid that threshold.
Commr.
Renick asked if having regular intersections rather than round-a-bouts would be
a lot less expensive for the downtown project.
Mr.
Bannon stated that when they got the prices from the construction manager on
the downtown project, that would be defined as an alternative that they could
keep in or take out. He also commented
that they were moving forward with the design based on direction from the
Board.
Mr.
Sandy Minkoff,
Commr.
Cadwell told Mr. Bannon to get back with them on the cost of that and that they
needed to have a discussion with the City regarding that.
BUDGET CONSIDERATIONS
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS TO DEPARTMENTS
Ms. Hall mentioned that in putting together the budget from
the direction they received from
REVENUE AND CRA ESTIMATES
Ms. Regina Frazier, Budget Director, talked about the
implications for the taxes for next year after the 9 percent rollback they were
required to make, which would be a general fund millage of 4.7548, down from
the previous millage of 5.225. She
reported that their assessed values had increased, and the preliminary numbers
went up about 18 percent, with about 40 percent of that being due to new
growth. She noted that the net effect
was a decrease of about 2 percent or $2.3 million to the general fund. She also reported that they expected to
receive approximately $106 million in ad valorem revenues. She explained that some of the other major
revenue sources for next year would also be going down, due to the level of
building activity, and they were expecting about a 37 percent decrease, or
about $370,000, over the adopted 2007 budget in the zoning, planning, and
permitting revenues, as well as some potential decreases in the State revenues
of about 5 percent, or about $1 million.
Ms. Frazier explained that the other factor that was brought
in to the legislation was the CRA’s (Community Redevelopment Agency), and the
formula they would now use deducted the values of the CRA’s out of their
calculation for getting to rollback, which would increase to some extent the actual
rate that they got to adopt. However, they would get their dollars based on
whatever rate they set. She stated that
they also had three expanded CRA’s and one new CRA coming on board this year,
so the net effect of the CRA’s would be about another $700,000 over what they
paid this year.
Ms. Hall commented that every department had met their
obligations of submitting their proposed cuts based on what they felt were in
the best interest of the County.
PUBLIC WORKS
Mr. Jim Stivender, Jr. stated that the largest part of the
Public Works general fund was in Parks, and the County had authorized a lot of
expansion in that area in the last two years, which meant that they had more to
maintain than they had in the past. He
commented that eliminating the grant programs out of the general fund would
result in a 10.8 percent cut. He also
reported that citrus crop revenue from the properties was in the amount of
$45,000 this year, even though they cleared three-quarters of the property and
the ball fields were under construction in Umatilla.
Commr. Stivender inquired about the orange trees on the
Mr. Stivender responded that they did not get a crop this
year but would get one next year on the 100 acres of what was left.
Mr. Stivender went on to state that they had talked with the
County Manager’s Office about the 2007 MSTU figures, which totaled $6.3
million, and commented that 50 percent of the Parks money was for positions and
50 percent was for maintenance of the facilities. He related that the 2008 MSTU figure was
lower at a total of $6.1 million based on direction from the budget office, and
50 percent of that money would go towards working on the Ferndale Preserve
site. He also explained that $4.6
million of the MSTU revenue was earmarked for stormwater in 2008. He requested
forgiveness from the Board for the $550,000 payment to the stormwater fund and
stated that they were moving forward with the Parks program and had adequate
funds in the stormwater program.
Commr. Cadwell stated that there was stormwater work done in
the parks projects internally, and they could separate that money out to pay
for the stormwater, and instead they just put it in the fund. He commented that he was confident that a lot
of that money was spent on stormwater-related things anyway as part of that
entire MSTU. He stated that if the Board
was not comfortable forgiving the payment, he suggested that they at least
defer it a year. He also opined that he
did not have a problem with the request.
Commr. Renick and Commr. Hill had doubts about forgiveness
of the payment.
Mr. Stivender stated that stormwater had been a very healthy
fund, but that they had been hurting in revenue for parks and roads, and when
the fund grew more, they wanted to continue the parks and roads and maintain a
steady level of revenue annually for stormwater.
Commr. Hill commented that it took years to get the
stormwater fund to that point. She was
concerned about any projects being put on hold and thought they needed to look
at some maintenance items in various areas of stormwater.
Commr. Cadwell asked Mr. Stivender to separate what they had
spent on stormwater for the parks projects out of the general cost for each project
so that they could make an educated decision about whether any of that money
should be forgiven.
Mr. Stivender stated that they had been rolling over a lot
of old grants in the Sales Tax Grant Program that were given to the cities or
non-profits years ago that they were asking for forgiveness or extensions on,
and asked the Board to notify those that have extended their grants for over
three years that they would use the funds for the capital work for County
Parks. He also asked to end the grant program
to cities and non-profits and utilize the $350,000 to do work at PEAR and other
sites.
Commr. Cadwell stated that the reason they did the grants 14
years ago was because they did not provide ball fields or opportunities for
active recreational activities, and the cities carried that
responsibility. He commented that if
they were to cut that grant program out, they had to make sure that they were
taking care of all their responsibilities and kept moving forward in that area.
Commr. Renick commented that the cities were providing
services to huge numbers of county residents, and they needed to do this at the
same time that the clause was changed so that the cities could charge more
money for county residents.
Ms. Hall informed the Board that they had an opportunity to
partner with
Mr. Stivender stated that they were shifting the percentages
around in the sales tax transportation revenue from what they had used it for
in 2007. He specified that in 2007, they
used 65 percent for road projects, 30 percent for resurfacing, and 5 percent
for sidewalks. He explained that
resurfacing roads had become more of a priority, and they were going to defer a
couple of widening jobs, so they had earmarked 40 percent for road projects, 50
percent for resurfacing, and 10 percent for sidewalks for 2008. He also reported that they were proposing
three new Benefit Districts for Road Impact Fees for a total of nine, but would
be phasing out the old ones. He noted
that they would be bringing the Board the 2008-2012 road program on August 21,
but the Board would get a rough draft of that in July. He commented that they would be concentrating
on fewer projects and that impact fee revenues had dropped 37 percent in the
last two years. He mentioned that they
were making large cuts in the County Transportation Trust Fund, after going
through a tough exercise to do that by eliminating some capital and
maintenance.
RECESS AND REASSEMBLY
At 10:20 a.m., the Chairman announced
that the Board would recess for twenty minutes.
COMMUNITY SERVICES
Mr. Fletcher Smith, Community
Services Director, stated that department-wide, with the exception of Library
Services, they cut about $46,000 out of operating expenses and travel
promotional items, including reducing the number and amount of grants they were
giving to the Children’s Commission, by maintaining the amount of grants that
were requested for the current year, which was $217,000. He also recommended that they change their
policy regarding indigent burials, by allowing cremation only, which would save
about $23,000.
Mr. Sandy Minkoff,
Commr. Hill commented that the
judiciary would require burial for unclaimed bodies.
Several Commissioners expressed
misgivings about the pauper cremation issue.
Mr. Smith stated that the
downloadable audio books program that was being eliminated would be funded out
of state aid this coming year, and that the We Care program had a sufficient
operation reserve in their non-profit account to carry them forward for this
coming year. He stated that currently
they assisted people on the Assessment Hardship Program for fire and solid
waste up to 150 percent above poverty level, and he recommended that they
reduced that to 100 percent above poverty level, which would reduce that by
over $81,000. He also proposed to reduce
4,500 in Transportation Disadvantaged trips, which he opined could be done;
reducing Lifestream’s allocation by 10 percent; and reducing the Health Department’s
annual allocation by 10 percent.
Commr. Hill asked Mr. Smith about
teen court.
Mr. Smith responded that they
generated revenue which offset the majority of their operations.
Commr. Cadwell commented that he knew
that they were planning on utilizing current staff for the Cagan Crossing
Library, but pointed out that they had commitments from Osceola and
Mr. Smith stated that one of the
things they were looking at doing with that library was to use some of the
vacant positions they had not filled this year there, so that they would not
have to hire any additional personnel, but they would probably have to have
reduced service hours.
Ms. Hall commented that there were
some new positions in general that would be included in the general fund, but
they had been included into the flat dollar figure and absorbed in that manner.
FIRE SUPPLEMENT FOR TAX EXEMPT
PROPERTIES
Ms. Hall stated that one of the
things they were proposing to eliminate was the substantial supplement that was
supplied out of the general fund for a number of organizations to cover half or
all of the fire assessments. She
commented that there were some state and federal buildings that they were
required to supplement, but that other than those requirements and County-owned
and municipal properties, their proposal was to fully charge all other entities
for their fire assessment, which would save the general fund about $538,000.
Commr. Cadwell stated that they might
start getting calls from churches and non-profits, and they might need time to
figure out if this proposal would work or not.
JOB GROWTH INCENTIVE PROGRAMS
Ms. Hall stated that the Job Growth
Incentive Program currently contained about $880,000 that was carried forward,
so they were proposing to not fund it for the next year at the $125,000 level
and to reduce the membership for the EDC (Metro Orlando Economic Development
Commission) from the current rate of $1.10 per capita to $1.00 per capita or
what was typical of other counties in the area if that rate was less than
$1.00. She noted that reducing this rate
to $1.00 would save about $40,000.
Commr. Cadwell stated that he would
rather just give Ms. Hall direction to renegotiate the County’s contract with
the EDC after looking at what the other counties were doing. He commented that as they moved forward with
their economic development program, they might look at that and set a new
direction. He opined that the Job Growth
Incentive Fund was one of the best things they ever did, but they had outgrown
that, and he thought they could look at projects that were important enough to
support with tax dollars on an individual basis.
ARTS AND CULTURE GRANT PROGRAMS
Ms. Hall related that an item that was
on Ms. Dottie Keedy, Economic Growth and Development Director’s, budget was
pursuing some arts and culture grant programs, and they were proposing to
include $50,000 for that type of program.
Commr. Stivender stated that she was
the Chairman of the Lake County Cultural Alliance, which was organized after
the Cultural Advisory Committee was abolished and set up more like the MPO
where the cities would have representation on that board. She related that they were at the stage where
they were appointing those representatives, and she would work with Ms. Hall
and Ms. Keedy for allocation of that money.
She also mentioned that part of the function of that
DEPARTMENT OF TOURISM AND BUSINESS
RELATIONS
Ms. Hall stated that they currently
provided about $75,000 per year in an incentive program for the disabled, and
they were suggesting cutting that.
Commr. Cadwell asked Mr. Greg
Mihalic, Tourism and Business Relations Director, what they had paid out in
that fund.
Mr. Mihalic responded that there were
a few more applications coming out on July 17, and that would be the 23rd
award that they had given in the year that this program had been funded, at
$3,000 apiece. He specified that there
would be $66,000 that had been expended, and there would be about $50,000 more
left in reserves for that funding. He
clarified that they were recommending not funding it with any new money, so
they would use up the $50,000 and then the program would not be available
anymore.
Commr. Cadwell asked that before they
made a decision on that, he wanted Mr. Mihalic to give them a breakdown of the
companies that applied and how many people they were talking about.
EMPLOYEE PROGRAMS
Ms. Hall mentioned that one of the
things proposed to be eliminated was the funding in the amount of $10,500 for
the Certified Public Manager’s program.
She commented that it had been very successful and that they had sent a
number of people through it, but they were at a point where they could hold off
on that for a year or two, and she did not consider that to be too
detrimental. She also mentioned that
they had eliminated the holiday lunch.
Other things on the list included eliminating county-logo items
distributed during training classes, eliminating funding for Toastmasters,
reducing publications and registrations by 50 percent, and eliminating the
funding for the holiday food gift certificate.
Commr. Hill commented that they were
spending $378,000 on the wellness program, and that 97 employees took advantage
of that and 700 did not, and they might want to rethink that and redo that
program.
Commr. Cadwell commented that that
program was tied into the reduction of their insurance rates.
Mr. Jack Jackson, Director of
Operations for the
Commr. Cadwell commented that it was
a great stop-gap measure for them for the south end of the County, but he was
concerned about the fee involved and that it would not be run like a County
facility.
Mr. Jackson stated that they hoped to
be more self sufficient in the operations of this venue in the future, and saw
this as only a temporary measure.
Commr. Cadwell opined that he thought
that a majority of the Board understood the dire situation in south Lake
regarding the fields and that this was a pretty inexpensive way for them to
fill in a little of that gap with someone that was already existing and
providing programs. He also told Ms.
Hall that he did not want to take it out of the current Parks and Recreation
budget.
GROWTH MANAGEMENT
Ms Hall stated that they handed out
Growth Management budget reductions, list of costs, number of special areas
planned, some studies, and different operating expenses.
Commr.
Hill stated that they did a lot of work with GIS for different other government
entities, such as the School Board and the cities, and asked if they were still
doing it.
Ms.
Kitty Cooper, Geographic
Information Services (GIS) Director, stated that they
would probably be involved in the mapping for the cities and the redistricting
because of the census data, but they had not done any work for the School Board
recently.
Commr.
Hill asked if they got reimbursed for that.
Ms.
Cooper stated that they had an interlocal agreement that said that the County
did specified work for them that was solicited for each different agency or
municipality in return for getting data back from them, and they did not get
reimbursed.
Commr.
Cadwell stated that GIS was funded through general fund dollars, and that was
one of the areas that they thought was a service.
Commr.
Stivender explained that most of the cities had hired people to do it now once
their grids got established, and the School Board was using Mr. Will Davis.
Commr.
Stewart expressed concern about deletion of the Special Area Plans and thought
that the citizens had put in a lot of hours of their own time to do the one for
Mount Plymouth/Sorrento. She also
pointed out that one of the main emphases of that was to recognize the
importance of the County’s rural vistas.
Commr.
Stivender stated that she had asked staff to look at Ferndale and Yalaha over
the years and they had been meeting with the groups out there, and that was
something staff could work with those organizations on doing once they got the
Comp Plan done to look at how that was going to be designated so that they had
their rural village or urban standing.
She did not think that money was needed to hire someone to do it and
that they had a staff that was already working on it.
Commr.
Cadwell was concerned about how they were going to do two Special Area Plans
while they were in the middle of working on the Comp Plan.
Ms.
Carol Stricklin, Growth Management Director, gave a background of how the
Special Area Planning money got into the budget. She explained that they had a workshop with
the Board in 2006 to talk about some of the Special Area Planning types of
activities that they had done in
The handout also mentioned that out
of state travel and conference budgets had been deleted, that three vehicles
were turned in from Planning and Zoning, and that all overtime had been
deleted.
INFORMATION OUTREACH
Ms. Hall stated that the Board had
requested about a year ago for them to place money in the budget for a citizen
newsletter, and they were proposing to cut that. The handout listed the costs of that as being
$30,000 for printing and $25,000 for postage.
Commr. Hill thought it would be nice
to continue and include the newsletter, especially if they were going to reduce
their groundbreaking events and that sort of thing. She commented that they needed to market
themselves and make sure people understood government and what they were doing,
especially in the case of the tax reform situation, to dispel any
confusion. She wanted to keep the
newsletters in the budget.
Commr. Cadwell commented that a
regular newsletter and an information piece on an upcoming constitutional
amendment were two separate legal things that they could do or not do.
Commr. Renick stated that she
thought they could do without it, and there were other sources of information
out there that the public could access.
Commr. Hill suggested that with the
tax notices they put a little explanation like the one they had last year at
budget time that was very informative.
Ms. Hall stated that they could
still do that, and they put that together as part of the public hearing process
to give to people who question how the process ran.
OFFICE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Ms. Hall referred to the handout
regarding the Information Technology budget reductions, and stated that she did
not have costs on that, but assured the Board that they met their reduction
criteria. She listed some of the cuts as
office supplies, training, travel, and some delays in the purchase of
technology and maintenance.
Commr. Stivender questioned the
statement in the last paragraph that they were paying a large portion of the
technology bill for the constitutional offices, but that she understood that
they were paying it for the BCC.
Mr. Steve Earls, Information
Technology Director, stated that they paid the costs related to
telecommunications and internet usage, which cost a total of about $100,000 a
year, including libraries.
Commr. Hill asked if some of that
money came out of Article V.
Ms. Hall stated that they had some
special funding for the court operations, and they could take the technology
costs that supported the court system out of the Article V revenue that came
in.
Mr. Earls specified that the overall
costs for IT for 2008 would reflect $300,000 - $400,000 of cuts.
PROCUREMENT
Commr. Hill wanted to clarify that
making cuts in dues would not preclude the Procurement Department from taking
required continuing education courses and earning certificates that they needed
to maintain.
Mr.
Bernard Schwartzman, Procurement Director, responded that it allowed them to do
what they needed to do, and did not pay for an extension of what they had done
before. He explained that it provided a
basic level.
PUBLIC
SAFETY
Commr.
Hill asked that under the countywide radio program section, if the position
being eliminated in the 2008 budget would be a new one.
Mr.
Gary Kaiser, Public Safety Director, stated that it would pertain to the
existing radio system, and that they were scaling back some things in
anticipation of the 800 system. He
explained that those were contracted professional services for tower
maintenance and assessment that they were putting off, pending the move to the
800 system.
Ms.
Hall clarified that some of that may be some operational types of costs for the
people that were in that program, such as the publications dues and things like
that.
Commr.
Stivender wanted to make sure that those reductions would not be a detriment to
their system or to the safety of the citizens.
Mr.
Kaiser responded that they had been very creative and had been able to stretch
some warranties on equipment. Also,
since this was the first year of this operation, they realized that they did
not need that much money, so they scaled that back, and they had been frugal in
what they had been doing. He also
commented that the ability to move to the new system gave them some flexibility
in the way they maintained what they had.
Commr.
Hill asked what the aid to other agencies under the cable franchise was.
Mr.
Kaiser explained that was primarily a contingency for repair of the equipment
they used to link up the franchises if there was a breakdown.
Commr.
Hill inquired about the reduction of equipment under animal services.
Mr.
Kaiser explained that the reduction was in two replacement trucks and two new
style, climate controlled replacement bodies that protected the animals rather than
them being out in cages, which in his opinion was not a good idea.
Commr.
Renick stated that she did not think it was a good idea to use the old wire
cage trucks, and that she thought they might be putting themselves at risk
there as far as animal rights lawsuits.
Mr.
Kaiser responded that they did not have any other place to cut from the Animal
Services budget.
Commr.
Stivender commented that they had added some municipalities over the last year,
and she thought they needed the new trucks.
FACILITIES
DEVELOPMENT AND MANAGEMENT
Ms.
Hall stated that there were a couple of items they had on the Facilities
Development handout that she wanted to talk about that really were not going to
be cuts. She explained that they were
funding the repair of the Historic Courthouse roof through sales tax money they
had available to do that and taking it out of the general fund. She also explained that they would fund the
$478,000 upgrade to the locking system in the jail through current year funds.
Mr.
Todd Thornton from the Facilities Department stated that would include the
locking system for the existing jail along with all the related control panels
and the areas where the guards were stationed.
Commr.
Stivender asked what other operating supplies that they would cut that would
add up to $50,000, as indicated on page 13 of the handout.
Mr.
Thornton explained that those were part of their general building maintenance
budget, and that during the year a considerable number of unanticipated
requests came in for maintenance from the Sheriff or the building maintenance
crew that they try to place money in their budget for.
Commr.
Stivender commented since the buildings were getting older, she thought they
would need money in there for that.
Mr.
Thornton responded that they did leave some money in there that they felt was
adequate if they did the minimum amount of required maintenance to keep the
buildings operating.
Commr.
Stivender stated that she had a problem with that philosophy, especially since
they were in the process of building brand new buildings.
Commr.
Hill inquired about the reduction of overtime.
Mr.
Thornton responded that their original request included a certain amount of
overtime in each area, with the assumption that there were some night and
weekend duties, but they had removed all that in their plan and would attempt
to deal with that in other ways.
Commr.
Hill asked how they would do that, because there would be circumstances which
necessitated that employees would have to stay during those hours.
Ms.
Hall explained that there were a couple of options they had, one of which was
reimbursement if it was a request from another entity, and the other was to
stagger schedules, and if someone did work overtime, that person would take
time off during the week to offset that.
Mr.
Thornton also added that they would not neglect any true needs, and if it was
necessary to pay overtime in order to do that, they would bring money from
another source inside the department to do that.
DEPARTMENT
OF ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES
Ms.
Hall mentioned that at one of the last workshops, Mr. Daryl Smith,
Environmental Services Director, was looking at some of the rates for the solid
waste fees and that they were going to be proposing to increase those from $174
to $200 per year for the residents in the unincorporated areas. She pointed out that it was still on the low
side of what city residents paid for their pickup, so they were still remaining
conservative. She stated that it would
allow them to reduce the supplement that was going into the general fund by
about $3.2 million, and they felt that they still needed that additional money
in the general fund for the services.
Commr.
Renick suggested that instead of increasing the rate, they should look into
decreasing the service from the current two pickups per week.
Mr.
Smith stated that to do that right now, they would have to renegotiate with the
15 franchise collectors, which would not put them in a good position. He pointed out that if they waited until the
contract expired in 2009, they could explore the cost benefit of having one
collection per week.
Commr.
Hill asked if the increased cost would be in personnel or in operations.
Mr.
Smith explained that part of that was the collection service, because they
increased automatically every year.
Commr.
Hill asked if the increased revenue due to the increased number of households
was offsetting their increased costs.
Mr.
Smith responded that each one of them was contributing more to the system, so
their costs increased as a result of that.
He noted that the increase they were proposing really just covered the
cost of the mandated increase they had for the collection services just to
bring them up to where they needed to be.
Commr.
Hill asked about the Covanta debt.
Mr.
Smith explained that they were trying to reduce that and that sometime in the
future, it could be a true enterprise fund system.
Commr.
Hill opined that philosophically, she thought that it should come from the
general fund, because everyone in the County should pay for that debt. She also asked if they could save some of the
$7 million that the two new cells would cost by combining them and making it
one cell for disposal ash. She inquired
whether they had talked to the cities to see if they would stay with them if
they increased the tipping fees.
Mr.
Smith stated that they had taken a preliminary look at the market, and they
believed that they were within the range of the market at this point in
time. He related that they planned to
talk to the municipalities to see just what reaction they had to the ten
percent rate increase.
Commr.
Cadwell commented that the long-range goal for an enterprise fund was to have
all the expenses for that particular business paid for by the fees generated
from the users and not supplemented with the tax dollars, which was what they
were trying to do.
Commr.
Hill stated that she did not see any problem collecting and paying out of
general fund dollars for the Covanta debt.
COURTS
BUDGET COMPARISON
Ms.
Hall stated that page 16 of the handout contained a recap of the money that
they funded for part of the judicial system.
She opined that it was good news in that they came in lower and they had
some of the Article V money.
CONSTITUTIONAL
OFFICERS
Ms.
Hall stated that the Clerk of the Court had requested two new positions in
internal audit, and commented that they could discuss it to see if they felt
that was needed. She also noted that the
Supervisor of Elections budget increase was quite large for next year because
there were elections and primaries next year.
Ms. Hall also explained that additional costs for the paper ballots that
they would be doing were included in the budget and that they were buying new
voting machines, and the State was paying for about half of them. She also noted that the Sheriff’s budget
contained a larger increase to keep up with growth, and part of the reductions
they were looking at in some of the other areas could free up some money to
fund some additional money for the Sheriff.
Commr.
Cadwell stated that he asked the Sheriff to try to cut at least $1.5 million
out of that as a starting point, and he would try to do that. He commented that he thought that as they got
closer to balancing the budget and if the revenues were better than they anticipated,
then they would set some money aside for Public Safety to divide between the
Sheriff and the 800 megahertz system. He
wanted to make sure the Board was comfortable with that.
REVENUE
VALIDATION FORMS
Ms.
Hall informed the Board that there were a number of forms that they would now
be required to submit to
Ms.
Regina Frazier, Budget Director, stated that they were provided with the
calculations used to get to the 9 percent reduction amount, and they had to
validate and certify back to them that those figures were correct or incorrect
by next Monday. She reported that her
calculations showed that there were some errors in there that did not benefit
them or change the 9 percent.
On
a motion by Commr. Stivender, seconded by Commr. Hill and carried unanimously
by a vote of 5-0, the Board approved the authorization for the Chairman to sign
validation forms.
OTHER
Commr.
Stivender stated that she was on the Florida Healthy Kids Board, which had a
new grant process coming out that was time sensitive. She explained that the grants would have to
come back to the Board before they went to
Mr.
Fletcher Smith, Community Services Director, stated that there were two grants
that they were looking at, but the one that Commr. Stivender was talking about
began in July 1, which was an outreach marketing grant.
Commr.
Stivender stated that they were trying to get this money expended, because if
they did not, it would go back to the government. She wanted to know how the Board felt about
staff going ahead and preparing those.
Ms.
Hall stated that they would all talk about that further, and if it seemed like
a good idea and they needed to move forward with it right away, they could ask
for retroactive Board approval.
LEAGUE
OF CITIES
Commr.
Hill stated that League of Cities had asked that they sponsor their annual
event again this year, and she was not sure whether it was on the cuts this
year or not. She specified that this was
called Sponsors’ Night and would cost $400, but she thought it might be
included in their membership fee.
Ms.
Hall stated that she thought it was probably already budged for this year.
UCF
MEDICAL SCHOOL SPONSORSHIP
Commr.
Hill related that a couple of years ago, they were one of the sponsors to bring
the medical school to the University of Central
Commr.
Cadwell did not think it was appropriate for the Board to do that, but felt
that they could write a letter to their hospitals and businesses encouraging
them to participate.
ADJOURNMENT
There
being no further business to be brought to the attention of the Board, the
meeting was adjourned at 12:25 p.m.
__________________________________
WELTON
CADWELL, CHAIRMAN
ATTEST:
__________________________
JAMES
C. WATKINS, CLERK