4-7-26 Special Meeting @ 1:30 p.m. - Apr 07, 2026

Good afternoon. Let's go ahead and call the 1.30 budget meeting, April 7th, to order. First item is the approval of the agenda. Got a motion?

So moved.

And a second?

Second.

Got two motions and two seconds. That's good. Any comment on the motion? Back to the board. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. All right, two items here. We've got the budget calendar, financial trends, and budget guidelines. And Mr. Crosby, you are recognized.

Right, so.

Got the overhead?

So we're going to start with the most accounting thing we have and the most difficult thing we do in the budget process, and that is correct the budget calendar. So that seems like the biggest challenge we have every year. So we've got a few changes in dates and things we've shifted around based on board needs and timelines. So we have today's meeting, May 1st. So last year we had revised the resolution that we send out to the constitutional officers, judicial officers, and it says by May 1st for last year and every other year, so we don't have to adopt that resolution every year. So May 1st, the judicial officers and constitutional officers will submit their budget request, which is a month earlier than required in statute. Technically, tax collector and property appraiser don't have to do it if they don't want to, but we ask them and they always play nice. So we should have all those by May 1st. May 5th, this has recently become a challenge. We've been working with LaToya on dates and trying to schedule dates, and now strategic guide update with commission. We had planned for May 5th at 1.30. I just found out that growth management had a pretty extensive meeting they had put on May 5th at 1.30, so I'm not sure if me and Missy are going to do a battle royale or exactly what that looks like.

I like Missy's chances, Tommy. That's true.

Yeah, I mean, I was going to say we may be able to move strategic guide to morning. We may – Morning? No, the morning is the PD discussion for the Wiesman track. We can always move that to June, but the animal one we could put on one in the morning with the strategic guide, I think.

Yeah, you could. There will be enough time.

Yeah.

Okay. Are you okay with that? Yeah. Are you okay? May 5th of the morning. This is the opportunity Donna's team has been working very hard with the departments in coming up with the measures and the goals and what we're aligning their budgets with that strategic guide that we've talked about. So this is her first one, and I think the first one is transportation. So it will have growth in public works, and so that will be the first element that they're going to kind of address with you and lay it all out. The EAR. Huh?

It fits well with the EAR, though.

Yeah, so I think it will be a good path forward to build on in the future dates. May 19th, we invite those judicial officers and constitutional officers to come in and go over their budgets. We ask that the commission make no commitments or promises, receive them and listen to their need, and then consider it during the summer when we talk about priorities and what's important. The May 20th, our CIP will be done. We will send it to the Financial Oversight Work Group, which is a bunch of accountants in different areas, like the Clerk's Office and the Sheriff's Office, et cetera, to kind of review the Attorney's Office to look at how we will fund the capital project plan and what it looks like, that budget looks like. So we will be ready to come back on June 2nd. June 1st, the estimated values will be delivered to us from the property appraiser, at least by June 1st. He usually does it a few days before. We'll have the special budget meeting with the capital budget and financial plan. And then we will also talk about a Alachua County Sports Event Center operational plan. One of the things we have been working with diligently on with economic tourist development is to come back with an actual full operational plan. The main purpose of that plan is we would like to see the board adopt some sort of mechanism to where they have the ability at the Sports Event Center to make operational decisions as they come up. So as people want to use the facility, if there are advantages to waiving certain fees or how they're going to handle concessionary issues and how they're going to handle paying referees. It seems like every event has a different parameters that those organizations work from. Like when the track and field came in, we didn't realize that, well, we did in the budget office. They did out there. But that traditionally they take out the referees to eat as a part of their compensation or they feed them lunch. And so all those things, if we don't build them in the plan and the board doesn't approve a plan, then it becomes back to when we're trying to pay bills. The clerk says, wait a minute, the board doesn't approve that. That's not on a fee schedule. So we're looking to have some type of operational plan like you would see at an O'Connell Center or at a Leon Conference Center so they can run the thing, you know, as an operation, as a business. So hopefully that will come in play and we'll be ready to go there. So we're going to bring that back June 2nd. Also in the afternoon on June 2nd, we're going to get into, again, the fee schedule and revenues. We'll have our best update on what revenues look like for next year. I would be surprised if the state is done with their initiative, but at least we should have all the other numbers from gas tax revenues and receipts and what our fees look like in terms of what we do charge for. It will be a revenue update and fee schedule shouldn't take a lot longer. It shouldn't be a long day. Adoption of financial and budget policies, which we do annually. We do have a few revisions in those. I'm working with the clerk's office on some of our debt policies and some of those things to bring them in alignment with best practices. Nothing major. We're not looking at any big surprises. July 1st, the tax rule is certified by the property appraiser or by July 1st. This year the county manager will present July 7th at 10 a.m. Then July 7th at 1.30 p.m. we'll have our next strategic guide update, which should be at the next level. I'm not sure if it will be the infrastructure or will it be social services. I'm not sure which piece of that she's going to roll in next, but she has a pretty good plan that she's been working on.

That's Donna Bradbrook.

Yes, her team. And then July 14th is during the afternoon of the regularly scheduled meeting. In the evening section, we're going to set proposed millage rates, set initial assessment rates, which include the hospital, fire, storm, water, solid waste, and sugar foot. I don't know that we have to set the hospital rates. We have it listed on here, but they do their own thing, and I'm not sure that's required. But the other four, we will set those initial assessment rates so they can be included on the trim notice. By July 17th, the county manager advises the property appraiser so they can include it on trim. Next page. Then in August, we will do our departmental review. And I guess I should have went back to we traditionally do a deep dive in the spring with the strategic guide updates going on. Those will all be deep dives, so we felt that that was probably more appropriate this year to spend more time on the strategic guide and how it impacts the budget versus trying to pick a department. You see the department's listed, so we'll do Heather's group, and then we will do Gina's group on the 4th. Again, the last, I believe it's the last strategic, no, next to last strategic guide update with commission. Then on the 8th, or excuse me, the 6th, I apologize, we will do my department's, and then we'll handle fire rescue will be on that morning, county manager's office, the environmental protection department, lands and climate. And then that will be all the departmental things. Then on the 13th, we'll come back in the afternoon, and we will finalize and make sure the board has had ample opportunity to make any adjustments of what their concerns are or make sure we're directing funds towards their policies. By August 13th, we will have, I'm supposing, a budget from the state of what they plan to do from property tax reform. If they're going to do something legislatively or put something on a ballot, all those things should be known by August 13th, so we'll know. And so then you can make some final decisions on millage levels that you want us to bring back in the September meeting. We will take action on the fee schedule, the FTE chart, and the capital budget and financial plan, so we'll go ahead and adopt those at that 13th meeting. August 20th is just a placeholder, if needed, can be canceled. There have been occasions where the board at the last minute has requested for the sheriff to come back or for someone to come back with a project that they've asked, so that's just a hold spot. August 21st, property appraiser has mailed out trim notices by then. September 1st, Tuesday, we have a strategic guide update with commission. Now, our first, like I said, calendars are always fun. Our first public meeting, we had intended to be scheduled for Tuesday the 8th, and the school board has first option of dates, and they have selected that date again, which will be off of our normally regularly scheduled meeting date, and this is the second time in two years. And last year, we kind of understood here's the way the calendar fell with September 1st and Labor Day and all those things, and we're not sure why they're doing it again this year, but I think the manager wanted to address part of that.

Michelle? Yes, Mr. Chair, we did, as staff did reach out to their staff and asked that they move this. Last year was because of where the dates fell. You know, for decades, we have done the first regular meeting and the second regular meeting of the month to adopt our budget. We did defer to them last year because of the way the dates fell. They chose our regular meeting date again this year. We did ask them staff to staff, and they are not inclined to change it. I am hopeful that this doesn't continue to happen because what ultimately – so last year we did defer the airwaves to them at their request as well. But what also results, even though we have basically the rights to Channel 12 under our agreement for that time, is I can't schedule things for the evening of our regularly scheduled meeting that the public may really want to attend because they may also want to attend the school board meeting. So that eliminates an evening meeting for us in reality on a regularly scheduled meeting date. So I'm just – I'm making you aware of that. They do not normally – that is not a normal meeting date.

Superintendents decided and the board went on. Yeah.

So, I mean, I don't – like I said, we – staff had a conversation with their staff. Their staff took it to their administration, and as I understand it, and the answer is still no, they're not changing it.

So, yeah, they get – under statute, they get –

Under statute, they're first, we're second, and then the cities come next.

Move our regularly scheduled Tuesday meeting to actually Wednesday. We've never really done that.

No. And I think that becomes confusing for the public as well. I think we just say we can't have a night meeting on a regular board meeting day. Now, potentially that –

And then we come in on Wednesday to do our first initial public hearing.

That evening. We'll have to have a special day for everybody to come in just to do the first budget hearing.

So, I'd say we tentatively move forward with that. We have staff continue to see if the school board will differ and go back to their Thursday meeting dates like they historically have done. If they want them, we'll just do it on the 9th. Yeah.

And I don't know if the – Okay. You know, the board wants to make that request of them instead of staff, but – I mean, I don't – We don't want to do a chair letter, do we? I mean, do we?

I don't think we do. I think I don't want to call. I have to wait. Yeah, I think we save our chair letters for –

I think we should maybe not do a chair letter, but I do think we should communicate to them that this is a real – like, this is causing a real hassle, not just for our staff, but also potentially for the public, because – and for hearings that we may have just scheduled for development, and so we need to make sure that they don't – like, to ideally get ahead of next year of them doing this, just communicate that.

So, I am happy to call the chair and communicate that and see if he can bring that up, and if not, then let's just move for the 9th. So, I'll call the chair tonight.

At least I'll do it again. How long do those – how much time does it take to make that presentation? Is there a way to split the night? No, ma'am.

No.

I would definitely not do that with the public, but the window for that first hearing is between the 3rd of September and the 18th of September. That is the window. The school board has the first pick. We have the second pick, and then every other – children's trust, cities, everyone else has to fit in around that.

So, Anna just said, could we do time certain 6.30, an hour later?

No, I would not do that to the public habit, because you don't know how long their budget meeting is going to last.

Ours go quickly. I don't know that theirs will.

Well, but if we went first.

All right. How about I call the chair, see if they can move it to Thursday the 10th. If they can't, then we'll do it again this year on a Wednesday night. Does that – do you guys agree? You concur? You concur?

Whatever.

Okay. All right. I'll call the chair of Vue when we're done today.

Okay. First public hearing, you adopt the adjusted tentative millage rate, the adjusted tentative budget, and the final assessments. In the final budget hearing on the 22nd, you will adopt the final millage rate and the final budget. And then October 6th, Donna's team is going to come back and kind of summarize and conclude what you've passed and how it's going to align with the strategic guide holistically. Okay?

Any questions? Just a request right now. I don't think that that 9th is being held on our calendar. Will you make sure that somebody blocks that on our calendar? Thank you.

Yes. We'll make sure that's done. It was still up in the air even until this morning. We got word that there wasn't an indication that they were going to change that.

All right. Board calendar. Next up, financial trends.

All right. That was the hardest part. The rest are just numbers. Okay. And these numbers are what they are. There are no policy decisions in this. This is a, we look at our taxing funds as a five-year history of the general fund. The general fund, don't forget, includes your O-1 fund, your unincorporated area. It used to be called an MSTU, but now it's the unincorporated general fund that we track dollars separately if they're just outside of the cities. The O-52 is your revenue recovery funds. The projects you set aside for those, that $50 million that came in in 22, the MSBU for fire, the MSTU for law enforcement. You have, it won't be in this numbers, but in 26, we actually separated the step-down money for the CRA with Gainesville so we could keep it segregated. It was causing a lot of angst with staff to remember to make sure as that money is being collected that we don't roll it back into fund balance one day. So we've got it set in a little sub-fund as well. So those are all the sub-funds that are involved. And then we also have the ambulance fund. Again, O-91 is a sub-fund of the general fund, and that's quite, again, for the same reason, so that we can appropriately segregate the ambulance services and y'all know what those costs are and how much they're being subsidized. So all those are now consolidated under the general fund. Your other taxing fund, again, are the MSTU for law, the MSBU for fire, your gas tax funds, and your stormwater funds. We have considered, but we have not included your tourist development funds. They're just so unique, so they're not included in the, quote, taxing funds that we present here today. But this is to show you the growth in those budgets and those revenue sources. As you can see, taxes, which the majority of which are property taxes, have gone from 162 to 225, so about 8% annual growth rate in your taxes, which is fairly consistent with cost of inflation and population growth and what we're seeing, especially in the market. Permits, fees, and special assessments, this includes your fire assessment. So that's went from $15 to $25 million. That's been a 12.3% increase. The largest one, again, is the fire assessment in that. We also had the stormwater assessment as well a few years back. Interlocal government revenues. Most of these are your state sales tax funds and state dollars that are coming in. That's grown from $8 million to $14.3 million, about a 15.6% increase. Charges for services has grown from $17 million to $25 million, about 10% annual growth. And that, again, is mainly your fees for your aim of the services. For your aim of the services. So those fees are the largest fee collection we have in the county. Judgment fine and forfeitures is a small amount. An innocuous amount. Miscellaneous revenue. Biggest component of that is probably interest earnings that come in. Some other things that happen. One-off type of revenues that are not really a revenue. There are other sources, if you would. Your other sources are fund balance numbers, although those are not showing up there. That other sources is going to be your indirect costs. The biggest one you see is going to be grants and aides at $74 million. $22.23 is the ARPA, the revenue recovery money that we switched over after ARPA. So your transfers are in that between funds. And, again, that was a big one in $23 million in your CARES dollars.

Do we have a sense of the growth numbers compared to other counties and or other entities, like our ambulance fees increasing by 9.5% versus what's happening in other jurisdictions or other areas?

So we don't normally compare our revenue streams to others very much. We normally are comparing it to population growth and inflationary factors are really what's pushing it. We do work a lot with the chief. The board actually just passed the fee schedule. It would be 200% rate. So it's pretty standard. I don't know if we're out of the norm of the rates that we're charging on the fee schedule. So part of that is also more transports as well. So just not rate increases. Not just rate increases, but also.

Right, amount of volume.

Right. So that's by type. Again, the next one is by revenue source. So the general fund, 8.6% increase. So that's under the average. MST for law enforcement is a little higher. Remember, in general fund, we've reduced the millage all of these years that are in here, plus one of these years that roll back. In the MST law, we keep it flat. So that's why it's a little higher percent increase. It stays at 3.5678 or it has. The MST for fire, that's your largest growth area, which is the assessment. That's went up 12% a year average. We had a big move two years ago on the fire assessment. And we'll talk about why on the other side. Most of that revolves around salaries and program growth. Stormwater is at 13%. We had an increase from $2 to $3.3 million. We had a significant increase a couple years back. And again, that has to do with salaries and maintaining the cost of Vermont to maintain the stormwater basins and some of those things, mowing and that are labor costs involved. So the fee was increased. And also Steve's area had a lot of water quality project improvements they financed for the other half. So that went up to $3.3 million. And then gas tax just went up from $7.6 to $12.6. Part of that is we had some debt come off the books that were being used. Gas tax was funding. And that money, instead of going into debt, now goes into the gas tax fund for operation. And then two years ago, we started taking $1 million of communication service tax from the general fund and put it into the gas tax fund to help with their, if you'll remember, a couple of significant things that changed or the policy decision was made to no longer use inmate labor. So that cost had to be picked up by staffing more staff, if you will, to pay. And then we had the government minimum wage that we have been able to increase base level salaries for all employees. And we're at $1,850 an hour, which is significantly more than it used to be. So the costs have been driving up. There's operational costs and gas tax. So that's why you see the revenue increase. We've had to identify more revenue to go in there. Also, we were able to get rid of the debt, not issue more debt, because the infrastructure surtax. So that's obviously has benefited a lot, our ability to do actual construction work in roads. On the expenditure side, and...

And that number is not in here, that infrastructure sales tax revenue.

It is not. That is not. And surtax is not in this. That would really skew everything and make it difficult to understand the trends. And we will talk about that specifically in the capital budgeting and finance plan, when we'll talk about surtax. Trends on the expenditure side, overall, the growth has been from $228 million, and these taxing funds are $340 million. So it's about 10% per year, as you can see, in annual growth, which is not far off of inflationary numbers. So, I mean, we're managing pretty well there. Total growth of $112 million over 10 years, over, excuse me, over six years. In the functional areas, again, the board's commitment to public safety, fire rescue has, including ambulance services, up $25 million. That's about a 14% per year. So that's over the 10% overall. So it's the largest area of growth, fire rescue. Law enforcement has a modest growth, actually, under the norm, $16 million on the law enforcement side, 6.5% per year. You're going to see that shift, I believe. The board is well aware of the last, especially the last four or five years, the challenges that they've had with fully staffing the sheriff's office. So everyone seems to be across the board on our side and the constitutionals are getting closer, a lot closer to being fully staffed. So you're going to see those expenditures hit a lot more often. But right now, that's where they're at. The jail is up by $19 million. That's 11% growth per year. We have implemented some things. We had a lot to do with the food cost a couple years ago. Again, that's where a lot of their vacancies were. They're finally filling in corrections, the corrections area. And then we also have some inmate medical costs that have been going up. So we've been managing that. So that's the annual cost. So public safety has gone up in just those areas, about $60 million. So half of your growth in expenditures is in public safety in just those three areas. When you look at public works, your infrastructure, normal growth, again, about 8% a year growth, around $9 million. Your community support services area, same thing. It's about $9 million. It's about 13% growth. It's a little higher, but dollar-wise, it's not being that impactful. IT is only 4% annual growth. The non-departmental, that's a large increase. It's about $9 million. But if you will remember, 21 to 22, we started transferring. We increased the transfer to the road construction of about $6 million a year. So your general fund's eating a significant hit on that annual construction transfer. So you've got that. You've got the nickel. And you've got the general fund transfer that's over $7 million now. And then you have your nickel local option tax that goes all to construction.

Why is it considered non-departmental instead of public works?

Well, we rolled it into non-departmental because we didn't want it saddled to a department. That was the only place we could really put it. We could have added a public works. It was, you'd your numbers way out of whack. We just wanted to, that was a different commitment. That's not an operational commitment. It's a construction commitment. That's why. It's actually in our books in 7,900 and public works is where we track it. But for these purposes, to show trends, we felt it was more important to show it as that transfer out. General government is normal. Full 7% growth annually per year. Environmental growth, parks altogether is about 3% a year, much less. A lot of environmental are through grants and through state money, state funding. Parks is doing a lot with the infrastructure surtax. Growth is split between a fee-based program in Fort Jen and then what they do in review. Courts are a small growth. They're a small part of what we support from an operational standpoint. When we talk about infrastructure, that's a different story. Like we talked about property taxes, our support mainly there is the infrastructure we have to provide in terms of building, getting ready to build a substantial courthouse, which is going to be a substantial debt service payment. So when we talk about, look at this in a couple years, you're going to look at a $5 million a year debt payment. It's going to be coming out of your general fund money to support judicial offices. Key drivers of public safety, the largest of which is the transition to Kelly Days and Fire Rescue. That has a significant increase in the number of FTEs that we've added, which are costs. Then we added the McAnopee Station. That was a significant cost demand. And then right now the Mobile Integrated Health is paying four out of the ARPA funds. But, you know, the board, kind of a pilot project, but it sounds like the board is pretty happy with the way things are going. Two years from now, we're going to need to identify if that's going to be a permanent funding stream. It's probably going to be general fund impacted, so we're going to need to talk about that then. I don't think it's premature until we know what happens with property tax reform, but just I need you to kind of file that away, and this is going to be a decision point in a couple years. And then we also added three FTEs for parental leave. Everyone else kind of has to absorb the work pretty much, but out there they have a minimum staffing level, so we actually added one FTE per shift to address the parental leave at Fire Rescue. The second driver throughout the program, again, we talked about inflationary costs. I'll refer back to the presentation the manager made. We have about 25% inflationary impact over the last six years, and our COLAs have been about 23%, so we're a little under that from a pay standpoint. And we do keep up. FRS has increased every year. It looks like it will again this year for high risk. And we haven't felt the fuel impacts in this presentation, but obviously right now we are feeling them for future years and what we're looking at for next year's budget. Hopefully that's not a long-term impact. Hopefully that will adjust after world events transpire and finish. But right now we are obviously feeling that. Driver 3, again, is the capital. We talked about the road transfer, and then we also picked up $1 million a year in housing. So the housing trust is a part of the general fund budget about the time the infrastructure surtax passed. So that's $1 million as well.

What line item is that, Tony?

This is just a key driver, so that's part of that non-departmental that we talked about. There's $1 million a year in housing as well. Yes, I'm sorry. I should have mentioned it then. And your social housing programs, again, that's your CSS budget we just talked about. So that's kind of the key drivers of what's driving costs right now. And I think that you'll see, obviously, 10% annual growth is much more than you've seen in prior years when it was 5% or 6%. But we all know what the inflationary factors have done. We know what we've had to do in terms of, you know, we know housing has produced in terms of property values. In a minute, in our guidelines, we're going to talk about preparing for this year's budget, outlining the guidelines, but it's good to have this framework of where we are and where we have come from to get your minds wrapped around how we move forward into this budget year, which is why we do it. The last thing I want to show from a trending perspective is talk about fund balance. So I kind of promised you this at the next budget amendment, but this seems like a better place to do it in a little more time when you're focused on budgetary information. So we have talked, or I have talked, a lot about in the past, and I think Commissioner Chestnut has talked a lot in the past about where we were in 2014, 2013, 2014, 2015, and kind of how we had to improve the financial condition. And Manager Lieberman came on board as the manager. We've continued that process and made pretty good strides in strengthening while at the same time being able to provide some tax relief on the millage levies. So to do those two things requires some discipline on the expenditure side. And so as staff, we appreciate the board always taking that into consideration as you move forward. One of the things we've been successful with is looking at our fund balance trends. So in 2019, we'll go back to the year, this is 2020 to 2025 growth, so we start with 2019 as a baseline. Our general fund, this is a general fund ratio. The reason why we're looking at general fund is because really it is the backstop for everything, right? So if something happens in the economy, if something happens with FEMA, if something happens with a storm, you're not looking at all these other specialty funds to absorb it. We're looking at the general fund and how it's going to be impacted. This general fund revenue does not include the ARPA funds, even though they're a sub fund, because that was a one-time pot and you've already designated all those monies to go somewhere, right? So no need to include it in the trends. This is really an emergency management ambulance trend. The general fund and the MSTU unincorporated used to be. Now it's general fund unincorporated. So it's those three pockets of money. So in 2019, we were at 15%. If you'll remember, best practice is to have a 17% ending fund balance. That's a minimum. And that's so you have two years' worth of funds available to cover you until taxes start being collected in November. So we have to function really October and November to pay bills. So that's a minimum. The sweet spot is 20% to 25%. I would not recommend going higher than 25% just from a standpoint of you are doing this out of people's taxes, and they would rather see you leave it in their pocketbook than keep it in your pocketbook, right? So it's kind of the area we're at. We're approaching that, and we'll talk about that in just a minute. So in 2019, we were at $163 million in general fund revenue. We had an unassigned fund balance of $24.5 million. What unassigned means is just that. It hasn't already been designated for, like, the revenue recovery funds, and it's not for projects that were unfinished in the general fund that are getting rolled over into next year. So these numbers come from the clerk's office as actual financial numbers, not budgetary numbers. So we went from $163 million with a $24.5 million unassigned balance, fiscal year 25, which you have not received the annual financial report yet, but Todd believes he's in a good position to provide these numbers. General fund revenue was $246 million, and we have a $57.9 million unassigned fund balance, so we're at 23.9%. My approach for the 26 budget would normally be to start eating into this a little and get us back to that 20% and 21%. That's kind of where my comfort level is, and that's originally what we had talked about doing before the state decided to not tell us what they're doing yet. So we're just not comfortable with eating away with ongoing costs yet. So the manager has implemented within the county no new FTEs this year. We can move things around as we need to adjust, and that's kind of the direction we're working with on the budget. We do have a COLA in. We do have health insurance FRS increases in. We do have all the programs that the board has asked us to commit to. We are building those into the budget that you'll see, and a lot of cooperation from constitutionals. I'd like to publicly indicate that working with them this year has really worked well. The board asked us to go to the sheriff and work on a three-year financial plan, and we have, and we're able to meet his needs that he has, which are some beginning deputy pay that he's brought to you. Body cameras is probably the one big hit. It's going to be this year, but we're prepared to handle that because it is kind of a one-time initial hit of a couple million dollars. But they'll be revisiting the body cam issue. We are doing a jail study. It's actually an RFP is on the street, our proposal to find someone to come give us a cost analysis of what's better, renovate versus build a new jail, what's the best long-term implication, not only just cost-wise but functionality-wise with the things that the board has requested of the sheriff. The sheriff's agreed to do some things. How is it being managed? Is there a better way to manage it that will reduce long-term costs? All those things that y'all have been talking about, you had an update today. So we're on the same page with what the sheriff and his team are trying to accomplish in alignment, and I believe that they seem to be in alignment with a lot of things you've asked them to do. So we're working on that. We will talk about revenue streams. There are some decisions the board has made that have revenue impacts. We'll talk about those in the fall after we know what the state's going to do to us, but we just want to make sure you're aware there are a lot of decisions that are made that impact revenues. We want to make sure that we're all following your policy and that you understand the impact and you still want to continue down this path. So having said all that, again, I think you'll see the budget not using a lot of this fund balance, trying to stop it from growing. But when we get to September, the board may be able to make some adjustments at that time. So this is just kind of a guideline to walk us into the budget guidelines, and then we'll talk about those decision points and what this means for those decisions.

I would say you have positioned this board for the uncertainty ahead, as strong a position as I've seen in the last six years. So thank you. Any questions on trends, commissioners? Are we ready to go to guidelines?

I just want to ask everyone a question about the FTEs. Yes. The FTEs are going to be frozen going forward. Or are they freezing even the ones that are available that have been requested now?

We're not going to freeze positions or hiring. We're just talking about the number of FTE requests. No new. Oh, new. Oh, that's what, okay. They can fill vacancies, and they actually can maneuver positions around as needed to better serve their needs. Okay. Great. But we don't have a lot of demand right now. We're still just filling the positions we've had. We're actually getting to a good place, and that's functioning well. Okay. We actually have on the next agenda a couple of battalion chiefs to resolve an issue there. And, but it's a, I won't say cost neutral, because I don't want, anyway, it's pretty close to cost neutral. I don't want to commit to something that may or may not happen. We believe that's what you're doing.

We don't want you and the fire department on the same page, God forbid, right? We're trying to get there.

When the chief starts with me and Tommy talked, I get a little nervous. But we, no, I think we're in good shape with that, with what we're trying to accomplish there and what he's trying to accomplish. Yes, ma'am. We're not freezing hiring or freezing positions. We're just not adding new. Okay. Thank you. I'm good.

Yeah.

Yep. Okay. All right. Okay. Budget guidelines.

So the document in front of you, we're going to do it as a PDF instead of a PowerPoint. Okay, so budget guidelines. Again, budget 5% of reserves of operating revenue for the general fund, the MSTU law, the MSU fire and gas tax. Part of that has to do with absorbing the discounts people get on their tax bill, which is a 4% discount. We usually collect about 96% to 98% of those, but that's part of that. The other part is obviously unknowns, what the unknowns are. Our budget 10% of operating revenue is an estimated ending fund balance in the general fund, and 5% in law and fire and gas tax funds, again, to absorb any economic downturns or disaster recovery. So the goal, again, at the end of the year to have a minimum of 17% of expenditures to carry over for the next year for liquidity until new revenues are received. So the 10 plus 5% is 15%, I guess it's pretty close. You see that we're between that 20, we're at 23 now. So 20 is not much more than the minimum. We're almost at 20.

Almost three months.

Internal service charges and indirect charges, we budget those for everyone else. We let them know what they're going to be, so that way the general fund recaptures the efforts of technology, O&B, and the manager's office, the law office, all of those get charged out through an indirect cost model. Again, inflationary factors, mainly towards our COLA, and also utility bills. A lot of our contracts have automatic inflationary components in them. Changes in population, which is running about 1.2% to 1.5% a year is our change of population. And economic efficiencies, there should be times where we gain efficiencies by running larger operations. We're all a part of preparing for this budget. Property tax revenue. This is our plan right now. I hope you like our plan. I think we have come up with a good plan. With the unknown, first of all, let me jump down to assessments. So we right now have no increased plan, increases in assessments for fire, stormwater, solid waste for this coming year. We have enough planned increase coming in through additions to the rolls to cover those increased demands and still do the things we talked about to cover inflation. It's going to be tight, especially solid waste. I will say that we are intending, during this current year, you'll see a budget amendment coming up, to reimburse solid waste for the dollars they put into the eco loop, that we used to call the eco loop, because initially it was supposed to be a solid waste initiative. So they actually put out the dollars from solid waste fees for the infrastructure and the blacktop and utilities and all those things that went out there. If it's going to be more focused into other economic development activities, it's not really going to meet the rules of solid waste, if you will. It should be in reverse by the general fund. It should be a general fund activity. Mr. President.

On that front, is there, you know, that we keep having the conversations, and this isn't necessarily the time, but Gus will hear me, and then maybe during his section of the deep dive, we can have that conversation. While we were talking about making this a more broad economic development, industrial park, and having, we still talked about it being focused around circular economy, one. And, I mean, I get it, him not wanting to fund the whole thing, but one of the big things that we need for that is a real MRF. And I wondered if he's had any thoughts, I guess, that just a heads up, Gus coming to a theater near you, the concept of the MRF, and could some of those savings be plowed into that concept and, like, a public-private partnership or something like that?

He has, and he will bring it back, and we have had those conversations. I think that even as such, if that's where we go, I still think it's not a direct impact necessarily on our ability to collect fees and distribute and take what we have to take to New River at this time. So I think the general fund is probably a more appropriate place to seed fund that until we can get things going for all of it out there because it's not really impacting. He's not seeing any benefit in his funds, in his enterprise funds. Maybe one day he will, but we're a long way from seeing that. And I think we're seeing solid waste struggle a little bit in that area financially because even if we do it, it's going to take a little time before we start seeing those financial benefits. And we just believe it's appropriate that we not take it out of people's, their fees for what they're really paying for and get rid of waste for now.

Manager Lieberman? Yeah, I was just going to basically say what Tommy's been saying. Unless we can show that there is a dedicated waste stream that is going from our transfer station to whatever is on that site, it cannot be out of the solid waste fees.

I mean, that's what a MRF would be. Yeah, and we currently have a MRF.

We don't have a dirty MRF. We have a dual stream MRF that's currently in operation.

It's got to pay the fund back. Yeah. Pay the fund back and the second element in general fund.

And that will get all the waste through these unknown times. And then as things come online, if it is a MRF or whatever we're able to successfully bring it out there, if it starts impacting it, then we can address that then. But even then, you may want to do it through a reduction in fees versus making them pay for it. You know, that's a different conversation because you have other components, such as commercial waste and commercial haulers and what the city does. And there's a lot of other moving parts that three years from now, four years from now, may look different. So we'll address it now. Okay. And then, again, the fee study we've been working on, and we'll bring that back in June. And we'll look at all those balances in, and we want to talk about some of those things, decision points on existing fees and fees that we've eliminated. So back to property tax revenue. The rollback rate calculation is based on a change in taxable values from existing properties. Right? When we do the rollback rate, we do not include new construction or additions to properties. That's extra on top of money we get. That traditionally is about $4 million, okay, at 7.6 mils, where we're at. If the state does anything with homestead exemption, which it seems the path they're going down, what it does is it reduces taxable values at the end of the day. That's what it does. So your rollback calculation does some crazy things. Remember in 07 and 08, and I'm sure you all watched all the budget meetings in 07. I know you do, but, I mean, you had to. I didn't say that. Right. But the rollback rate was actually an increase in millage, I'll put it that way, because of the way the math works, because one goes down and one goes up. So if taxable values go down enough, you can actually increase millage to get the same amount of taxes. So what we're looking at is we know that a –

Well, that's what may happen.

So if we lose, you know, however many billions of dollars in taxable value we lose at Homestead. If it's another $50,000 or another $100,000, then we're looking probably at another $40 billion worth of lost taxes at the same rate. That's $20-something billion worth of taxes. So if they do that, if they put it on the ballot, you know, and it passes, it won't take effect until fiscal year 28, but it will be an ongoing issue. Well, that's not far off from a rollback rate calculation what we would need to do. So we're not going to reduce expenditures, but what we are going to do is we're only going to increase the budget revenue by $4 million. We're actually going to increase the budget by the whole amount. We're going to use the $4 million increase to cover the things we talked about, COLA, operational costs, inflationary increases. We're going to set aside the other $10-11 million of increased revenue, show a slight decrease in the millage rate, bring back to the board a pretty flat millage rate at the setting date in July, have it set aside in one-time type projects so we can start freeing up some big dollars. So we may look at our debt load, maybe some pego on that. We can look at some one-time influxes of money, set it aside that aren't necessarily critical. We're not about critical things. When the state comes back, if the state says, this is what we're doing, this is going to, if this passes, you can expect this impact. What we will do then is figure out for the board what that millage looks like to start building it in and taking that revenue out of those one-time projects, if you will, over the summer. And so at the end of the – we'll get to September, the board should know this is what we're expecting to get in revenue in the future, whether it's legislatively or whether it's a constitutional amendment, either one. Reset the bar so that we know what our revenue stream is, and we're prepared to absorb that in future years without draconian cuts, if you will, and without impacting your programs. So our goal right now is to be able to do this without coming back to you and saying, oh, remember this that we were doing with these new housing programs, these new environmental programs, what you wanted to do at the jail. We've got to re-vamp all of that because we don't have revenue coming in. So we don't want to spend all of that. Having said all that, our goal will be then, in September, is to bring you back. If that village – if they don't do any of that, they don't reach agreement, that we can either – you can decide then whether you want to reduce village more or you want to pay those one-time costs or you want to do other programs. That will be a late decision. Or you say, let's carry it forward into fiscal year 28. Those will be your policy decisions. Those are going to be late in the year. So you're going to have – so my goal is that you're so acquainted with what we have in the budget that we've been through the August presentations. We'll get to the August 20th date, if you will, at the end. You're not struggling to wrap your mind around all these big new changes. The goal then is to say, okay, here's what the new revenue is. Here's where we know where we're going. Here's what we can expect from a constitutional amendment. My best guess, my crystal ball, is that they're going to try to come up with something that they believe is palatable to enough voters to get something passed, whether it be another $50,000, another $100,000. I'm a little surprised they haven't talked about it legislatively. The last one was done legislatively, not through a constitutional amendment. Not the last one, but the one before that. They've done this – this will be the fourth time, I believe, that they've increased homestead. And one of those was done legislatively, not through a constitutional amendment. They do that, obviously, because if it's in the Constitution, then a future legislature can't undo it, I guess. That's the goal. So, don't know what they're going to do. I'm in the dark as anybody else is. But if – we will be prepared to come back to you without a dramatic impact. And the board can then decide, okay, we have another $11 million. We can expect this to be one-time money because the constitutional ballot's going on. We can expect this to go away because they do have a ballot on and it's not looking good for us. We can spend it, again, on these one-time costs. Or we can reduce millage to a rollback rate or to – or in between. We'll reduce the millage a little bit because we know that other people are going to be picking it up. The other side of that is in fiscal year 28, you may have to look at increasing millage, you know, based on what that value looks like. So, those are all decision points that you need to be thinking of longer term in August. Right now, get your mind wrapped around the expenditure side and the other revenues coming in and the projects that you've asked for us to look at. And then you can make that decision then. Does that make sense? Is that workable for y'all? That help? It's for the July meeting.

Mr. Alford?

One of the things that I keep reading, Tommy, is that costs – if property taxes decrease, that renters and business owners are going to be making up some of that lost revenue. How would that work?

Okay, so, biggest challenge with what we've heard – if the state just added the exemption without any other criteria, it would obviously be a lot easier to absorb under current millages. But if they add the components of keeping public safety untouched and they don't share in our – which you saw, 50% of all of our growth is in public safety. So, if they don't share in any of that, that means everything else has to cover that. Then the board will have to consider, do we increase the millage, which is where the renters and the commercial property – do we have to increase the millage to have some more revenue come in? Can we even afford to do anything else without increasing millage? So, that's where that component comes in.

I wanted the public to hear that, so thank you.

Right. And so, the board's well aware that – and what you're hearing is correct in probably a lot of places. We have built capacity. I don't like to call it capacity. We like to say we've decreased taxes. We've decreased millage quite a bit over the last nine years. But what we have actually done is built some capacity if we needed to increase that we could. So, that all goes in that calculation we were talking about. The rollback rate versus a roll-up rate. Because what it could be is if the taxes value went down enough, you may go from 7.6 to 7.9 or 8. So, that political climate of don't touch anything in public safety will have an impact on your ability to do what you're elected to do from other perspectives. This board has always been committed to public safety. Our fire rescue budget reflects that. Our commitment to the sheriff reflects that. The jail is a contract. So, that is something that we do through contract. We have agreed to make the sheriff over corrections through a contractual basis, not through necessarily a tax basis. All of those things are together. And they work – they function well. That doesn't mean you don't have to look at it. The CCC is another thing. That's through a contract. You know, we have shared costs. We think it's run well. We like how it operates. But, at the same time, you know, is that held harmless? So, those things we have to look at. But, yes, ma'am. Short answer to your question is in a lot of communities, including maybe local cities, that may have an impact on their middle of the living. And that's who will have to pick it up, is those people that are not – do not have homestead.

Good.

So, if we have a plan, I think we have a plan. And then, famous words of the A-team, I love it when a plan comes together. So, we'll do that. That will come together in September. Okay, budget guidelines. Law enforcement is 46% general fund, 54% MSTU. Law enforcement for the unincorporated area, we are looking to maintain sales tax, excess overall debt obligations at 90% of the general fund, 10% for the MSBU for fire rescue, public service tax, 60% general fund, 40% for MSBU for fire rescue. These two and the 40% for the CST, those three things, if you will remember in your fire assessment study, things like the paramedic certification and the medical things that fire does, can't be paid for out of the fire assessment. So, we have to have other funding sources. That's where this money comes into play. Again, two years ago, we transferred, instead of 60% general fund for the CST, now 20% of that goes to the gas tax fund, the road maintenance fund. And we took that, went out of the construction, production, construction, transfer of the $8 million that we do there. We've reduced that to increase their operational road money by that million dollars. Okay.

That 20% is a million?

Yes, sir.

Yeah.

A little over. Pending part of the legislature, again, the state budget has not been adopted, so they're going to special session. Last year was pretty late in the year, before we even knew what that looked like. Some things that are impacting our budget office, if you will, more than any actual dollars, is local government finance House Bill 1329. I don't know if the governor has signed it yet, but there are transparency measures that require local governments to post searchable, downloadable budgets, and employee salaries online. It's not a significant impact to us in how to do that. We already have our finance portal that does expenditures and checks. This is more about showing people salaries.

Is there a position or are there actual names?

Names. Names. Yeah.

Quarterly. What's that?

Quarterly.

We have to provide that information now quarterly with every employee's name from...

Yep. Got it.

Budget accessibility. Local governments must maintain budget documents in line for five years. We already do that. Fiscal accountability mandates the local governments identify 10% of potential budget cuts without impacting essential services such as fire and police. Again, they're excluded. The rest of us will go through this exercise of what it means, 10% potential budget cuts, and we'll not implement any of them, but we're going to show you what that means from a service delivery perspective. And that goes back to your question, Commissioner Wheeler. What does that mean in terms of whether it's animal services, environmental impact, community support services, housing, all of those things? We're going to show the board and let the public see what that means in terms of service reduction. I don't think it will necessarily play out as positively as some think because that's what's happened to the entire initiative when they talked about eliminating all homestead. Everybody wants property tax relief, but they started realizing the services that they were going to lose and what that meant. It became a different conversation in the public. So we will do that exercise and bring it back to the board as a part of our August initiatives, one of those sessions.

Okay.

And just let me add, if I could, the salaries, all of our pay was always public record. Somebody just had to make a public record request for it. Now we have to physically put it out. Everybody from the person who makes minimum wage has to have their name and information, and they're publicly pushed out every quarter all the way up through me and you all. So, but we will comply as required. So it's not that it wasn't public record before. It's just now it's kind of more pushed out into quarterly what we're making. Yes.

Yes.

We'll follow the law.

Yeah. Right.

It just seems like quarterly is a lot. It seems like yearly is all you would need.

But it'll be an automated process. It'll be an automated process that will pick up the data. So that bill will go in effect October 1st of 2027. So that's when we'll start rolling it. Other pending legislation that we are seeing how it impacts us, affordable housing and the Live Local Act expansion. Also, I'm not prepared to discuss today about, because I don't know it well enough yet, but we also have our numbers have shifted on the amount of available housing. So that may have impacted our resolution anyway. So we're working with the attorney's office and community support services and the housing groups to kind of figure out what this means and what the new bill looks like. It is trying to expand it into more areas of provide people to remove themselves from the tax roll. But I will.

So, you know, if you just didn't cut all the property taxes and make everybody's property taxes go up, they probably wouldn't have to do this because it would still be a fourth.

I was about to say, this goes back to Commissioner Oliver's earlier statement. It's not, somebody's going to pay the taxes somewhere. So as you continue to, you know, I'll do it like sales tax exemptions. If they continue to take sales tax exemptions for things, it's coming from somewhere else, unless you're going to cut the total tax revenues coming in, you know. And so, you know, as you have more exemptions and more exemptions, that's what happens. Somebody's going to have to pick up the tab unless you've cut the tab, which is their goal, obviously. Claims against government, sovereign immunity is going up to $350,000 to $500,000. So that's an increase that we're having to adjust for in our self-insurance pool and what we may have to charge all the departments for that to handle those type of claims. And then, again, property tax reform and any referendum proposes.

Okay. Chris, there's any questions on the guidelines?

I just have a quick question about how all of this uncertainty in terms of what we're looking at in terms of taxes coming down will affect our outlying municipalities. The monies that we're getting are coming from wall spaces, public places, right, that we're trying to disseminate.

So surtax shouldn't be impacted by these initiatives. These are really geared mostly towards homestead exemptions and then the live local stuff, which overall that's not a huge impact. Most of it's the homestead exemption.

Okay. So that will only impact those municipalities based on what they're collecting.

It'll be their general fund. They've got some tough decisions to make as well. Okay. Actually, some of their decisions are a little tougher just because of the nature of the services they're providing. You know, police is a large part of most of their budgets as well, especially City of Gainesville. That's a large portion of their budget, and they have their own fire department as well. They do have an assessment as well, but those are going to impact that. They're going to have some tougher decisions. Our decisions are going to also revolve around we're pretty far down the courthouse construction, and we're pretty well out the gate on the animal services building. But when you're looking at future phase two, phase three, what does that mean? I mean, that debt payment is going to have to be a consideration in the totality of the budget. One of the things that I've worked on a lot, and you know that you may have heard, we've talked about rolling vehicle replacement back in the general fund and fleet, some of those things, because everything needs to compete. The sports need to be fully aware of everything that competes. Nothing's automatic. So the board has, y'all need to see that, you as a commission needs to see those tough decisions for policy decision purposes. You know, everything's got to compete for the dollar. Ambulances are going up to the prices they are, fire apparatus, all the things we've seen that cost a lot, stretchers are $75,000 a piece. Those things have to compete. So it's only fair that we show you everything. That way you can make an educated decision.

Okay, Commissioner, I need a motion to adopt the budget calendar. Budget submission resolution for constitutional officers.

So moved. Second. We do not need the resolution passed. That was passed last year. Oh, we don't need that. That's an old motion.

Okay. Do you need us to adopt the budget calendar?

Please. So moved.

Got it. Second. Commissioner Alford and Commissioner Wheeler with a second. To adopt the budget calendar. Any public discussion? Back to the board. Mr. Blunt, welcome. Thank you for being here.

Thank you. Two comments. One, I hope one of you is entering into that calendar with a determination to catch up, to allocate some money to catch up on the long, unfulfilled promise of economic development out east just past Greater Bethel and Eastwood Meadows and Eastside High School. The commitment that was made 30-plus years ago to do focused economic development there. And this has been done. And also, let me quote this, a lot of the money that we could or should be spending on reinforcing our infrastructure and transitioning to clean energy sources, that money is now instead being directed to recover from the disasters that have occurred because of the spending we haven't done on reinforcing infrastructure and transitioning to clean energy. This is an article about the impacts of population shifts, and they're talking about how rising sea levels and storm intensity and extreme heat is driving South Floridians inland and north so that we're going to have far quicker population increase than we've been projecting.

Thank you, Colley. Thank you, Mr. Blunt. Anyone else? Okay, back to the board. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion is unanimous. Okay, Tommy, thank you. All right. Mr. Clerk, next item is the?

Update on Northwest 122nd Street Extension Project.

Okay, the recommended action is to approve the removal of a portion of the multi-use path for Northwest 122nd Extension to preserve several large oak trees. Mr. Gavarete, this is your item.

We're going to remove our multi-use path.

There's some on both sides. We have multi-use on both sides of the street. Yeah.

We need to clarify which side that is.

Good afternoon, Commissioner Ramon. Go ahead. Mr. Chair, Commissioner. Ramon Gavarete, Polyworks Director. As of today, we still don't know if GRU is actually going to provide us the easements that we will need in order to realign the roadway. So I just want to make that statement up front for the commission to understand that. If GRU comes back and says, yes, we'll provide you the additional 17-foot permanent transportation easement plus a 20-foot temporary construction easement, then the current plan is to keep the east side multi-use path, which is actually the one around the trees. But we were actually moving the road and the multi-use path to the west, so the multi-use path will still be close to the trees to have some shade or some semblance of nice walk. But in order to do that, we do need an additional 17, I think it's about 17 feet of transportation easement, which is almost saying right away, and a temporary construction easement. I sent an email to Mr. Belarski. I want to say it was yesterday. The days blend. And he responded this morning basically saying, well, we need a design. Staff has been working on a design for the realignment. But truth be told is we don't want to do a complete design until we know that we're going to be able to do the job. But we have enough. And I sent a sketch to Mr. Belarski and copied his staff, like Mr. Chad Parker, where we show that the road can be moved over and stay within the proposed permanent transportation easement. And the temporary construction easement is only needed to be able to grade from the multi-use path down to their property. I have not heard back from that email from this morning.

The road wouldn't be in the right-of-way, just the construction. You'd have a construction.

There will be portions of the road in the transportation easement that will be provided by GRU.

Right.

It's a little bit confusing, I understand. So you have the road right-of-way that was dedicated slash purchased.

Yep.

Then you have already a 20-foot transportation easement that staff very difficultly had negotiated with GRU staff to be able to have facilities within that 20-foot easement. There's a 17-foot section between that easement and the 50-foot buffer that they want for their 180 kV, I think, 180, something like that.

138.

138 kV line. If we're going to shift the road over to the west, we need an additional permanent transportation easement plus a temporary construction easement to be able to do the work. So we have not received confirmation from GRU that they will provide us the easements. At this point?

And the effect would be, instead of a multi-use path on both sides of the road? Only on one side. It would just be on one side. But it would be, okay.

We'd still need to get an easement.

Right. Regardless, we still would need to get a permanent easement plus a temporary construction easement. We spoke with the contractor. They are still working with the county. They have other work to do right now. So they're not using the C word, the claim word, at this point. They do have a lot more other work that the county has provided them. They're one of our annual roadway contractors. Having said that, I don't know how long we're going to be able to keep holding this project right now. They're still working on it, but not to the efficiency that I'm sure they would like. And the truth is, I don't know how fast we're going to hear a definite yes or a definite no from Jerry.

Do you know if they're still using a property utilization committee to make these decisions, or is it just a group in?

I have not heard that term in a few years, so probably not.

I think it's just, I think it's Ed and his staff.

Yeah, well, the staff were the property utilization committee, but it was a little more formalized process.

Well, staff, I know staff has reviewed it. I've been in communication with Mr. Chad Parker, and if that last name is familiar, it's because it is Travis's twin brother. Oh, wow. Is that right? Wow. They know the request. Welcome. We just haven't received a definite yes or a definite no.

So you're looking for, if we want to proceed this way, for a motion to give you that authority, assuming we get that approval from them, and if not, just proceed.

I have some comments.

Okay. So we've got, oh, I'm sorry, Commissioner Alford and, yeah, Commissioner Alford, go ahead.

So I read the letter back from Ed, and he talked about my comment about their easements. Their easements are really not that different from other utilities. What is different is their buffers and how they approve them, and so they appear to be and seem to be a lot more strict about things, because I think a lot of the times they're trying to plan in future utility needs. Anyway, I did find out it was 138 kV lined, which is part of their primary transmission network, and because of that, there should be able to be some negotiated flexibility. So the reason why, so I did some research, so that's why I'm talking so much. The reason why they need that buffer is because of conductor swing due to heat or wind, equipment access for bucket trucks or for rebuilds, public safety clearance, of course, and then space for future upgrades. So, you know, when I worked for Duke Energy and Progress Energy, there was an opportunity for mitigation for some of this, and so, you know, they want to be able to go out and fix a line at 3 a.m. during a storm safely, as safely as they can. So when we offer mitigation, it would be something like stabilized access lanes or gates or turnaround space for trucks or additional easements somewhere else on the site. So basically, we would be, instead of just saying, hey, can we reduce the buffer, we say, hey, we've actually improved overall safety more than, you know, just asking for this favor. So I'm curious if we've tried that option with them. Have we offered them anything? Is there anything we can offer? Is there a place where GRU has been asking for us to have access that we could trade in order to increase overall safety?

Mr. Chair and Commissioners, we have been discussing easements with GRU, not just for this road, but also for 53rd and others. And part of the negotiation has always been if they actually need to close the road, they can close the road.

Right.

That's one of the big ones, yeah. Of the big negotiation points. And quite frankly, if we are in their property with an easement, they do have that right to do so. As far as, obviously, there's going to be a multi-use path. There's going to be a lot of earthwork underneath. It'll be stabilized. So that's going to be an improvement there. When we actually do the grading to match the current ground, if you go out there, the 50-foot buffer is just already a limerock road there. So as far as stabilization for them to be able to move their equipment, safety and all that, that's already there. So we will maintain that during construction, obviously. That is part, that will be part of the agreements, I'm sure. You know, the other issue that we did here, you know, working with Duke Energy also during the hurricanes of 2004, one of the concerns about large transmission lines of this is the arcing of the power. You know, I mean, just because the line is up there doesn't mean that you cannot be affected 20, 30 feet away if it's all sudden arcs and it impacts you. So they do have that safety buffer there for a reason. So, yeah, to answer your question, yes, that's part of negotiations. They will be able to do that. But we are going to be on their property anyways, even without these negotiations, we already have a 20-foot transportation easement on their property where they do have the right to shut it down if they need to, to be able to fix anything.

Okay. I was just trying to figure out if there's, you know.

Sounds like they have. I mean, it sounds like you offered them to close the road if they ever need it.

They can do that by the way also on 53rd.

They could have done that anyway. That was a negotiation. That's just right. But, you know, we have a lot of other property around the county, and I didn't know if there was something, you know, if there was any opportunity for any trading or...

They have not asked for anything in addition to properties. They already have all the easements that they need.

Yeah, they're good at asking for easements.

If you want my power, you're going to give me an easement. That's their approach. You know, that's a problem.

You just have to drive through Butler Plaza to figure out their easements, yeah.

But that's what we are today, Commissioner. Okay. And the challenge is, I don't know how long we can keep holding on a definite yes or a definite no.

Okay. I'll make a comment that, you know, I wrote the letter and sent it over on the 25th. I called him. We had a nice conversation. Really appreciate him turning around a letter on the 26th the next day. And then I was super pleased to see, Ramon, you responding to his letter on March 31st. So, I want to thank staff for moving on this, based on our chair letter request, as quickly as possible. Commissioners, what do you want to do? Do you want to move forward with this recommendation, see if we can get GRU to work with us?

I move staff's recommendation.

Okay. Second. Got a motion and a second. And how much time do you think we need before our next meeting, have it resolved by? Do you think that's a good deadline for meeting next week?

When your next meeting is next week. Tuesday? Tuesday. So, in a week. I don't know if we're going to have a response by then.

They have the drawings, though? They have the design?

I did copy the commission today on a typical section where it's an exaggerated cross section, by the way. So, when you see the distance, look at the elevation. It's actually a 6 to 1, so it's pretty flat. Okay. So, 6 foot horizontal for every foot rise. So, it's a lot of area to flatten it out. So, again, we do know that they need to move their vehicles and their trucks in that area. So, next week, if we can hear something between now and next Tuesday, it will be perfect. Okay. Another two weeks after that, I don't know that we can wait.

All right. Well, if we can just get an update, a manager comment at the next meeting, I'll reach out to Mr. Belarsky again if this motion passes. And thank him for working with us and see if we can get this resolved one way or another so we can either move forward or really save the trees.

I think that's the best idea if you'll call him. Just call him back.

Yeah, I'll just call him. I'll call him again tonight. Thank you. Got a couple calls to make. Okay. Anyone, any further discussion from this board? Anyone from the public? Come on. Tamara, welcome. Thank you all for being here.

Sitting through all that numbers stuff. Yeah. Either one.

You can do either one. Yeah, right there.

You're fine now. You're fine. Am I okay? Oh, yeah. You're great. Well, first of all, I just want to thank all of you for listening to your constituents. We've been here several times about this road and I was so gloriously happy when I heard the bulldozers pull in one morning. Didn't realize it was going to happen, but it was happening. And so we're very thankful. This is going to give us two extra exits onto Newberry, which is becoming more and more dangerous every day. Since they built the Aldi's directly across from the entrance to South Point, we're having people pulling out of Aldi's, making U-turns where we are trying to get out on Newberry. I have seen numerous wrecks almost happen and several that have happened. And so this road is really needed. And we thank you for listening to the neighbors, the South Point neighbors, who are now concerned. And this was a surprise to me when they contacted me and told me that they're out there getting ready to take down trees that are in our backyards. And that's basically what is happening. And I know one of the very passionate young women wrote letters to some of you. And I sincerely appreciate your response. We brought this to Stuart Cullen's attention in public works. He, Brian Kaufman, and Aaron Burke came out and stood in their backyards and listened to these neighbors talk about how this road is going to affect them. And we appreciate that so much. I mean, that's just, we sing your praises all the time because we realize that you have responded to us. So we are concerned about these neighbors. It doesn't affect me. It doesn't affect Paul. But we are here speaking for these people because we understand exactly how they feel. They have children who play out in their backyards. And now there's going to be a road back there. The one thing I want to tell you, I appreciate your thinking outside the box and trying to come up with a solution for this, for eliminating one of the walkways. Here's my thoughts on this. I don't believe we need walkways back there on either side of this road. And could we eliminate both of those? And the reason for that is South Point is advertised as one of the most walkable neighborhoods in Olajuwa County. We have sidewalks everywhere. People walk every morning and every evening. And that road is only going to be used by South Point residents. We also have another walking path that cuts through the woods in the back of the neighborhood that connects us to Fletcher's Mill. So I wonder if you could just take that into consideration as we go forward.

Okay. Thank you for your comments. We'll respond after public comment. Anyone else?

Thanks again. What was her name? Hey, Paul.

Come on up.

What was her name? Her name. Oh, what was her name, ma'am? Mary Jo. Thank you.

Paul Moore. What she said. I don't need to repeat, except I really do appreciate the commission's willingness to be flexible and the staff working overtime to try to accommodate the residents and to take into account trees and the people who felt that they were going to have a tree barrier forever back there. In fact, one of the residents was told before buying the house seven or eight years ago that the county wasn't going to do anything with that property back there for about 30 years. I don't know how they were able to be told that, but I'm sure that the next time they buy property, they're going to check everything out before they sign on the dotted line. They had to pay an extra $10,000 for their lot because it had tree barrier back there. Anyway, thank you very much for doing what you're doing, and we hope that we're going to be able to get that GRU easement through because that road is needed, you know, as soon as possible, and by golly, if it doesn't happen, I hope we don't go back to square one. We won't.

No, no, no, no, we're not. We're not going back to square one. Okay, thanks very much. Thank you, Paul. Mary Jo, come up to the microphone real quick.

I ask one more question. Would there be anything that we can do? Would it be helpful for us to attend the GRU meeting?

No, we're past that. Yeah, but this is a quick decision. Their staff's working with our staff. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that offer, though. Anyone else? All right, back to the board. Anna?

I just wondered if, don't kill me, Ramon, but if there is, if there's a short distance of these houses, the stretch that now has no barrier, if there's any consideration of fencing or other barrier or replanting barriers that are going to provide that buffer for these people. I know I've been approached by the person who lost a sale.

Yeah, and in our motion last week, we had asked, actually, for growth management to check on, because the developer was theoretically supposed to do something. I don't know what.

I think, I'm going to address the planting. We have been already working with Lacey.

Great.

I just went blank on the last name. Our arborist.

Holesworth.

Holesworth. And in that 15-foot buffer that was never planted, if we get permission from either the developer or the HOA, there's conflicting reports as to who owns that buffer still today. Some people have been told that it's still the developer. If we get the authorization, Lacey is able and willing to actually plant some small trees in that area. Granted, it's not, they're not going to be big trees from the very beginning. They'll be small ones and they'll have to be developed. That's one thing that we have already spoken with her to do about, to do that. So, that's one plan. As far as the developer or the HOA planting the buffer, that's Mr. Hayes' realm. So, I'm going to let him speak to that.

Come on up, Mr. Hayes. Welcome.

Mr. Chair, thank you. Jeff Hayes, Growth Management Director. I did look into the development approvals for that phase of South Point. That is a low-density buffer. I would say if we were looking at that, and that phase was in 2006, I believe. If we were looking at that today, it would have a planting requirement of trees, shrubs in that area. I looked at the landscape plan. There were no trees or shrubs shown, so I can't speak as to why. One thing about that is, and Missy and I were out there at the end of last week looking at it, some of the homes have fences. Some of them do not. They're in their own backyards. A low-density buffer in our code currently, and I'm sure it was the same in the past, does not require fencing in and of itself. So I think looking at, in the future, us coming in and planting would be something that would be doing.

Okay. So essentially, if the HOA or developer, have we worked out if the developer has turned that common area over to the HOA?

Mr. Chair, we can look into that. We can look into that and make sure we're dealing with the appropriate party.

Yeah, so to the extent we can get approval, then that can be a potential solution. All right. Anything else? What I would say, Mary Jo, on eliminating both, it's part of our code to have it on both sides. That road, while it currently is going to serve South Point, there's another neighborhood going in that connects to the backside of Arbor Greens on the west side of the road that will use that road. And eventually, that road long-term is going to go up to 23rd, and then long, long-term, 39th. And so we need to have some multi-use path. Two is probably would be great, but in this case, I'm happy with one. Okay. Anyone with discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion's unanimous. Okay. Thank you, commissioners. Thank you, Ramon and Jeff. All right. Next up, we've got public comment, which is an opportunity for anyone from the public to come give us their thoughts on anything not on the agenda. Barry, did you have anything you want to speak to us about, or are you just here? Okay. All right. Well, thank you for being here. Anyone else? All right. Next up, we've got commission comments. Anything added that happened? Okay. Yeah. Hannah.

Yeah, I guess I just wanted to bring up just a quick, like, drop in the bucket for the conversation around budget, and that is that we had a big conversation about our literacy initiative with the joint city-county meeting, but we, and we said to Peek, like, bring us your grand plans and tell us how you can expand your impact, but I don't know that we really thought about what that means, and so I just want to bring forward that, number one, they are expanding, and I met with her after that to find out kind of, like, what's going on, you know, and they do have a lot of, they've had a lot of demand for expansion, they've had demand now for summer programming, and our budget runs October to, you know, September, but the school district time frame runs August to June, and so I just, I think there is some interest in having a little bit of additional support to be able to get through the summer in that early planning beginning phases of the first of the school year. I don't think that's a significant impact, it's probably something, you know, just like a budget amendment on what they've already got, but moving forward, I just, I wanted to sort of touch base with you all about the, you know, she said she needs the 500K to be able to do the expansion that she wants to do. I'm in full support of that. I just wanted to touch base with you all because she's in her planning phases now, and I think it's important for her to hear or to understand, is that where we're going with this ask, you know, with her to put together a budget, or are we asking her to stay within the 200 or, you know, 200 plus inflation that we've already allocated because I think it's going to make a big difference to her in how she plans for her summer and into the next school year. You know, I feel like her efforts are going to be to expand to, I think it was like almost the doubling of the kids, to offer some summer programming and to begin the pilot in earnest with the jail and DJJ and a few other initiatives. So quite a lot of expansion from what she was already doing.

Yeah, so I'll give you my comments and certainly would love to hear from my colleagues, but I will tell you that the Children's Trust made a moonshot 500 plus thousand for three years, knowing that the first year was really laying out the programming and the processes, but that we really needed to continue that funding. I was blown away by the results that I saw at the joint meeting, and it's that kind of outcome-driven results that I like to fund. I think that is, if we truly are going to try to solve this in three to four years or at least make a big, big dent into it, I hope our staff is putting that into this budget. I heard, Tommy, today we're going to prepare for a rollback, have a pot of funds to use one-time funds or paying off debt funds, and this is one of my top priorities. And so if there's small amounts to get us to the summer, you know, $25,000, $50,000, I think we've increased the manager's authority. If she hears from this board that this is a priority, she can make that decision without even coming to us. But I would certainly support it if Pete came to the county and said that. I think we have to lead, too. I think the city heard the same information we heard, and the school board obviously is ultimately responsible. And so I would like to signal that we are committed to that in this budget cycle early without actually making a motion to approve anything until we have the budget.

Right, I mean, obviously we need the budget, but I just don't want them to spend all the time. And putting together that $500,000 budget, we seemed so enthusiastic about it. We weren't serious about it. So thank you for that. I guess I'd love to hear from all of you, too. And I will say I was really impressed. I went to the Children's Trust meeting. They had a meeting because, you know, I think they heard loud and clear that all of us are also like teachers. Like we need to support the teachers in the school day. And that's where kids are learning the most, and that's their primary educational needs. And they invited the Helios Foundation and the folks that have been working in parts of South Florida, like Pinellas County, Indian River, those areas, and what they've been doing to do a similar approach, but bringing in professional development training supports for teachers and bringing in paraprofessionals and volunteer programs and support programs for teachers so that they can improve the school day and having amazing results. I mean, really, really phenomenal results. And all really driven, teacher driven, like working with the teachers on the approach and just phenomenal results. And so that presentation, I think, was with a lot of the providers and the University of Florida was there. Of course, Teresa was there organizing this initiative. And so I think there was a lot of interest and momentum and sort of pivoting a little bit, I think, thinking about how they do some of that work, which I think strengthens the work that we're doing out in the community with PEAK. You know, it gives the school day focus and the teacher focus with some of the funding coming from the Children's Trust. I mean, they can't fund actual teachers or fund actual school district budget, but they can do wraparound supports. And for early childhood, so looking at those pre-K supports, those, you know, providing supports and coaching to our pre-Ks, to our daycare centers that are providing that early literacy foundation so that those kids can go into kindergarten ready to learn to read. So I was really enthusiastic about that and excited to hear it, and I just thought I would share that because I got to be in that meeting, and I really appreciated that approach. I'm excited to see where that goes, and I'll keep you guys posted.

I mean, the generational impact of a child learning how to read that could not read last year, it's not just the child. It's the entire family. It's the brothers and the sisters. It is, if we're really serious, it is where we have to invest, and we will receive multiple benefits down the road by making those commitments early.

Mr. Chairman, may I add your conversation just very quickly? The different organizations you're talking about being brought into the community, you know, to teach teachers. I really hope that we would also utilize our professional teachers who are in the field, in town right now, rather than hiring outside agencies to come in and direct them. So let our local teachers explain. No, we are.

Peek and UFLY are in our community.

I understand, but I'm talking about teachers in the field.

That is their approach. I'll send you a little bit. I can send LaToya information so she can get it to all of you. That would be great. I would like to know. All of you. But I think what they did, I'll send you some links. Actually, I think I already sent them through everybody, but I'll send them again to Michelle and to everybody, and they can send them out, but what their approach is, it's bringing in professionals like the Lassinger Center who they work with primarily from UF that have, like, the training tools and everything, but it was working with actual teachers who have experience in using these tools and who have had success with these tools and actually also providing stipends and funding support to help these teachers because a lot of times they're having to do this on their time off, on their days off, on a lot of the paraprofessionals as well are having to do this on their weekends and evenings, you know, the trainings and the coaching sessions.

There's just so much money being spent on hiring professionals to come into the area or hiring new materials and new, you know, strategies that could be put into teacher pay. And we, I think, goodness gracious, I still interact with teachers who are at Westwood. Jeremiah and Seth Harp and Armando are all teaching together at Lincoln. You know, we have people in the community. Jeremiah taught in Kuwait, for heaven's sakes. He taught in Norway, for goodness sakes. You know, we could utilize, and the professionals that I taught with at Westwood, there's still several there because they know they're the best available teachers in our county that are not leaving because they know they have more to offer, they have better to offer. And any time you start talking to teachers like I work with who are still in the field, when you talk about university folks who are teaching teachers, they're not teaching kids now. And our society is so different. And Jeremiah tells me all the time, Mom, the teachers, the kids you taught are different now because they are so tuned in to the technology. Their brains are different. They're not doing the same things that we did before. So I have to accept that. But at the same time, direct instruction where you have a teacher right there in front of you who can see whether you're hungry or tired or frustrated is much better than a machine, you know, that you're glued to. And I just, you know, I get real defensive when I keep hearing that the university, the people at the university know best about how to teach our local kids. Well, we're using them to train our teachers. And I find it insulting. That's all.

Well, I don't think PEAK is doing that. That's what you think? Do you think PEAK is doing that? No, PEAK is not.

No, I'm just saying that every time we have this conversation or I hear you all talking about the advantages of what we're doing for the community or for teachers, it feels really insulting. I don't want to think of a better word because we have teachers who are really doing the work. They are the first responders. Well, I don't want to insult. I just want to help. What I want to say is that are you in the classrooms? Have you been to a classroom? I would think that our school board members have not been into a classroom.

Well, I guess that's what I wanted to say is I think the other advantage of us funding PEAK directly and them being out in the community and doing that one-on-one direct tutoring and mentoring sessions with kids that are behind and providing them supports is that they've started doing some interventions in Westwood, which they talked about, that's been really successful. And so they've been meeting with the school district, too, to think about how they can come in to support for kids that need that extra boost, that aren't in the right places, that aren't in the grade level and aren't able to keep up and then provide that direct tutoring. So we're providing some of that support as well as she goes into this expansion phase. She would be looking at some of that as well. But I don't mean to offend at all. What I was – I guess what I was trying to say is I was actually happy because a lot of what you had said about that, about sort of teacher-driven and teacher-focused training.

I hear what you say, too, Anna, and I know you're listening.

But I think – what I'm saying is I think that they are, too. Like what I saw was that they were bringing in – and when I say bringing in, I don't mean that they're paying them. They just came in to talk about what they had done and how – because they're getting numbers. They're getting – they had literacy rates almost as bad as ours were or worse. And they are seeing huge swings in the literacy rates in their counties and massive increases and really amazing results.

It's going to take a community – I get that.

And it took a community-wide effort. But – so they just came to present on what they'd done. And they were doing – they were doing a teacher-centered approach where they were working with the teachers to think about what did they want, what did they need, how could they provide the supports that they needed to be able to be successful, to provide them with paraprofessional support in the classroom so that they could focus on teaching. You know, how could they provide them with the wraparound supports. And that's what they were asking for. It's what the teachers – so it wasn't – it wasn't like, let's bring in the experts and they'll do it for you or they're going to give you some new fandangled, like, thing with AI that you have to do. It was more like –

Wraparound support for the teachers.

Wraparound support for the teachers instead of just – I think what I was frustrated with or worried about with our original approach with – not so much with PEAK but with the rest of the literacy program is that it was still focusing on – a lot on external providers and after-school programs and the community and the libraries. And I'm like, look, we can't rely on our external things outside of the school day to be the primary way we're going to drive this literacy change. Like, the primary focus has to be in our school day and with our little ones that are just learning to read or else we're never going to get the kind of moonshot goal we want to get to. And that seems to be –

Folks that we're talking about, like PEAK or the group from the university, you know, if they would meet with the teachers after school one afternoon and just say, tell us what you're seeing. Tell us, you know, as a group, tell us what you're seeing in the classroom and these families and what their needs are. That is all PEAK. As one-on-one. Yes, with teachers, with providers. I'm just talking about the group so there can be like a group session, you know, to understand the – not just the teacher but the environment of the total school because we've just eliminated Stephen Foster, which I go regularly, to have an afternoon with the teachers in the afternoon and say, you know what, guys, you know, this is awful. This is really awful. And the group, the PEAK folks, can come in and let, you know, understand what it is they're saying. Or the schools that are still in session, you know, Williams or any of those, understand from the teachers what they're seeing because they are in the cutting – it's not just at the school, it's societal. And the kids' brain, they're the canaries, you know.

I think you'd be really pleased if you connected with Leah about her approach because I think she has that approach. And I think that you'd be really happy. I would love to sit in one of those meetings. PEAK is very different than the other components. The other components are sort of separate. PEAK's sort of like on a parallel path, working on one-on-one high-dosage tutoring for individual students and working with the school district, working with the teachers to sort of say, like, which students need it, how can I support, versus the bigger picture.

I would be glad to do that. I just don't want the idea that our teachers somehow are unprepared and not doing a good job.

I would highly recommend spending an hour watching the tutors work and seeing it. They offered that up to us a month or so ago.

You can do it any time.

Yeah, you can do it any time, but they sort of had a targeted week. They were asking for us to do it. But I was really, really impressed and surprised. Where are they doing that? They're doing it around the county, but I went to the McEnope. Oh, the community schools? They're after school, mostly.

The only place they're doing in school is at Westwood. They're mainly after school and after school programs.

I've been to Chris's program often, you know, to see what they're doing there. But I'm...

This is newer. I was really impressed.

Okay, good. It is impressive.

Mr. Chessa? Great.

You know, I'm not an educator and all of that stuff, but, you know, just my experience sometimes, you know, going to speak at school sometimes. It's been a long time I've stopped doing it because what I found out, teachers don't have control of their class, and they don't know how to discipline the kids in their class, and they let the kids do whatever they want to do. And that's the problem, I think, in the educational system. There is no accountability to the teacher to make sure that the kids are really learning. And, you know, I'm not an educator, but I just think that there should be some measures to say their performance is good or bad. And the problem is there is no performance levels for teachers because you have teachers who really don't care. They're there to just make a paycheck and not concerning. Because when I came along, teachers cared. They wanted you to learn. And if you didn't get it, they'll tell your parents that you need help or something in the subject. I don't think that is happening today. And that's the problem. I mean, teachers aren't what they used to be to me. It's just like a job. I want to check, and I'm gone. It's not about caring for the kids, making sure they learn, get an education. They're actually passing kids who can't read to the next level. And when I came along, if you didn't get it, you stayed back a year. You didn't get the opportunity to move forward, you know, until they knew you had it. You went on. But other than that, I mean, it's just frustrating to me to listen and to hear some teachers say what they're actually going through every day. And it seems like the parents don't care. Their teachers don't care, you know. And now teachers are social workers now, really, to be honest with you. They're telling kids about their hygiene, telling them what they need to do. And that never happened when I came along in school. So, you know, it's just frustrating to hear, especially when we have kids that's in the third grade and not on reading level. This is 2026. We're going back 30 years where people didn't learn to read. I mean, it's just frustrating to me. Are we going forward or are we going backwards? I just get frustrated. But I think that there are some teachers, don't get me wrong, there are some teachers who really care and really want the kids to learn. But then there are some who are there for a paycheck. I hate to say that, I don't mean to harm anybody, but I just think it's true. I mean, to let our kids pass through without knowing how to read, that's bad to me. You know, you've got to have some punishments or something or telling the parents, look, you need to get them tutored or something. But just to have them pass the kid along, you know, without any basic skills, that's horrible. They'll never learn.

Well, yeah, I think we're moving now into kind of a different...

And I'm sorry to start a literacy item.

I really just wanted to make sure we were... Yeah, no, no. We had sort of said to Peek in a general way, like, prepare that $500,000 budget at that joint meeting. But we didn't really... And I just wanted to... I knew that she was getting ready to do that work because I see her in lots of other forms, like the Safety Net Collaborative and others. And she was starting to talk to me about all this expansion. And I said, well, you know, let me just make sure that everyone heard that the same way I did and that we were on board with them creating an expansion budget. I certainly am, and I wanted to check in with that.

Don't get me wrong. Tutoring is great. I think that that's probably the better program for our kids because they're not getting it in the school system. I'm sorry.

The teachers that I've interacted with are dedicated public servants that are dealing with a lot in the classroom. And if we can help wraparound services to help kids read, that's my goal. And so SAP has kind of heard us, and we'll see, you know, as the budget progresses where we go. Thanks for bringing it up. Do you have anything?

Yeah, just going back to the whole tree issue, something that Belarski said in his letter really struck home to me, which is that the county commission has had ample time to develop a plan to save those trees over the last two years.

Yes.

So, you know, going forward, I feel like we should hold ourselves to the same standard that we hold developers. And when there are impacts to trees, we need to hear about it up front so that we're not in this place in the future. I, you know, and also require the, you know, the input from our arborists because they're not just there to plant trees, they're also there to, you know, to refer to us. So I don't know if that needs to be a motion, but I feel like we need to, we need to have that as a policy.

I think we did hold ourselves to, but we were going to pay the mitigation because we felt like the trees needed to be removed because there was no wiggle room in the right-of-way. So I don't think that we didn't hold ourselves to the same.

Hold on. We got Manager Lieberman. I've got a comment about that. I read Meg's email, and I agree with you, Commissioner. But Manager Lieberman, go ahead.

And I was also going to remind the board, we changed the policy midway when we were already through this process on what is protected versus what is not. And so that also kind of occurred right when all this was, you know, we were in the final stages.

But I think some of those trees would have already been on the list.

Right. And I'm not going to say they weren't or they were, but I just wanted to remind the board that that also occurred right at these final stages of planning after we had already been working with GRU to plan the.

My perspective on what Mary said is that, you know, we hold developers to you start with the natural environment before you do any design work. And I would like for our cross departments, all of our departments, as they're looking at this, to be looking at protection of heritage trees. This is not just an EPD thing. This is a Lachua County thing. And if it's a person in public works or a person in parks and rec or a person in whoever's looking at those plans, if they identify those trees, red lights should go up and we should get the right people involved at the design phase. And if it requires mitigation of heritage trees, it needs to come to this board, in my opinion. Because we could have offered the eliminate one of the multi-use paths a year ago and been in a different spot. But I'm really thankful for the work that's been done in the last month. I would love for that work to have been done in 2024, 2025. And so I would support a motion that asks staff to go back, look at the process, and correct it or add safeguards so that this doesn't happen again. I would support that. I would support that as well. Commissioner Prizia, and then did you hit your light or is that an old light? Yes. Yeah, Commissioner Prizia.

Yeah, I was just going to say, I mean, I definitely think that we should be involving both our arborist and our environmental protection staff, like water quality, water quantity type stuff in projects at the design phase. And if we're not doing that, then we should be doing that. And in every project that we, you know, because it would save a lot of times and review processes as well. So I would completely support that as well. It seems to make a lot of sense to me that our, and I didn't realize that they weren't involved in the design process until I read that email either. But I did think that staff had already taken it into consideration. They just didn't.

I just think this is an opportunity for us to relook at it. It's no blame to be placed. I'm not trying to catch anyone. I just think it makes sense. We're spending a lot of resources now to try to fix it. So it makes sense for us. Don't do it next time.

Yeah.

Yeah. That was my thought. That's why I brought up now instead during that discussion. So do you have a motion? Anyway, I would like to move that we refer to staff a review of our processes to protect and preserve heritage trees during any county activity that threatens them and to involve our arborist and EPD department in that planning process and bring back a change of policy that will help prevent the same kind of situation that we're in now. Does anyone want to clarify that?

I guess maybe we could just, can we just expand that a little bit to just say including our resident environmental protection staff in design phases for county projects?

In design phases for county projects. Yeah. That was kind of going without saying there.

Not limited to heritage trees, but I would say to all.

Just the overall. Right. Right. Yeah. Environmental. Basically holding ourselves responsible the same way we hold developers responsible. Right. Is what.

Like they can review our landscape plans and make sure that we're doing those right. And they can review our stormwater plans. They can do a tree survey. They can do those right. And do the tree surveys. Okay.

So we got a motion.

Second.

Got a second. Any discussion? Any public discussion? Back to the board. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? I have a motion to be unanimous. Okay. Thank you, Mary. Thanks for bringing that up. I appreciate that. Do you have anything? You good?

Nothing. Just to make sure everybody keeps rails to trails in their back of their mind as we're talking about budget coming forward. Just, it's still out there.

Still out there. Okay.

And on it, yeah.

Okay. Commissioners, we are concluded. 325. We're adjourned.

Out of here. Be here.