okay we are going to call this meeting to order yes okay um and i know there's one we need us i know there's one we need a super majority on i was in your seat yeah um but uh commissioner cornell is about five minutes out so we're going to get started if we need to go slowly we'll go talk well i guess we have four people here so we would need a unanimous if he is not in the room okay all right welcome back everyone um the electric county board of county commissioners convenes this public hearing on the electric county fiscal year 2027 proposed millage rates and tentative budget as required by florida statutes chapters 129 and 200 and as advertised in our truth and millage notices if anyone in our audience is here for the purposes of contesting their assessment a petition for the adjustment with the value adjustment board should be filed by 5 pm september 14th you we've jumped ahead to the budget we need to do the assessments first i'm sorry that's the only thing i have i'm reading what i've been given the clerk the clerk will read the first item is going to be the fiscal year 2027 fire services non-advalorum okay well there you go that was good information now he's going to have to read the script madam chair uh this is the fire services non-advalorum assessment final rate resolution it is uh there is no change in the existing rate that we have tier one is 132.47 per parcel tier two is seven dollars and 28 cents per equivalent benefit unit the fy 2627 expected revenue is 24 million 420 271. we would recommend that you adopt the fire service final assessment rate resolution for fiscal year 2627 and authorize the chair to certify the non-advalorum assessment role to the tax collector okay do i have any comments or questions yes oh yeah no i was going to say the motion yeah all right i i uh move that we adopt the fire assessment final fire service final assessment rate resolution for fiscal year 2026-27 and authorize the chair to certify the non-advalorum assessment role to the tax collector second okay we have a motion and a second do we have any comments on the fire services non-advalorum assessment please come forward state your name and you'll have up to three minutes james carrington i live here at 10015 northwest 52nd terrace gainesville florida 32653 i definitely am a fan of the fire department watching so many issues especially with uh 9 11 coming so shortly after uh i mean 25 years or whatever is uh you know i i want to thank all our firefighters and emergency medical people but i do want to make uh the commission aware that we need a better way than just assessing homeowners fire protection i've never seen a fire hose even to empty the fire hydrants at brook point where i live a fire truck comes out there when an emergency medical person is needed but it doesn't seem to ever come out there for any other reasons in the 29 years that i've lived there so the uh simply put the assessment is not we can afford it out there i like paying my taxes it needs to be done but now my problem is is that all of us is that's an old community nobody's working anymore and this assessment is what 33 percent higher than last year's do we know what this is no it's saying the same huh it's remaining the same as last year 644 dollars it's remaining the same is that what so it's written city no what's the it may also be evaluation because our assessment is based on value you have right your property appraiser may have increased the value of your home which increases your ebus but it is not we have not increased the taxes at all okay that's a good way and that that's how we've juggled it all the long property appraisers with taxes rates we could never get those straight and still haven't gotten them straight but simply it's too much thank you thank you any other comments madam chair um jim conish i'm an expert in florida taxation and utility law you had a press release trying to duck the commotion caused by gru jacking their fire assessment up simultaneous with shifting storm water and solid waste off the gru bill onto the trim notice this is for the fire assessment yes okay you have been differentiating your flat lining of all these fees from that because people blame you for that as you know you're blamed for what goes on in the municipality i just want to make a note of the simple fact out there now in with the trim notice you talk about hardship assistance but you don't give any and let me explain why in the alachiconic code you have a number of sections that provide for hardship assistance the applicant must apply every year it's administered by the alachic county department of community support services there's no one in the office out by the health department it's abandoned and there's some at-home workers that maybe you can get through to them and maybe you can't ma'am sorry it's not funny because people may lose their homes over these non-valorem assessments now the form you need to get this assistance is not available online and when you ask for it they kind of imply that they that you have to prove your homestead owner to get it which is a flagrant violation of the public records law i did get a form email today but they don't make them readily available because they don't want anyone to have the the help there's a few important things to note number one the same standards apply to all four four non-advalorem assessments so if you qualify for fire you automatically qualify for the whole suite of four non-advalorem assessments moreover there really is no deadline because at any time in the year you can apply for the next year and if you get it there's a way to force the tax collector to take the money away from you and give it back to the property owner going back three years so this whole thing there's some hard deadline to ask for hardship assistance is is is misleading at at the very minimum so in the city of gainesville 16 people despite the huge increase in these non-advalorem assessments have qualified so far 16 so i will be talking about this matter with respect to all your non-advalorem assessments to try to explain to people what these things are you don't dispute it with the value adjustment board you dispute it with the unit of government imposing the non-advalorem assessment that's a totally different process thank you we are on the non-advalorem fire system we have a motion on the floor and that was public comment we're closing public comment and we will move it back to the board okay uh any further discussion all those in favor say aye aye aye any opposed motion passes okay mr clerk next item next is the fiscal 27 solid waste non-advalorem assessment final rate resolution and the recommended action is to adopt the solid waste final assessment resolution for fiscal year 26 27 and authorized the chair to certify the solid waste non-advalorem assessment roll to the tax okay and the solid waste rates will remain the same again and go ahead you're recognized um mr chair as you said the solid waste will remain the same approving the waste assessment rates for fiscal year 26 27 will allow the county to collect approximately 13 million in non-advalorem assessments to fund the universal curbside collection rural collection center and solid waste management programs and you have the breakout based upon the accounts that are there uh staff is recommending approval adopting of the resolution and authorizing the chair to certify the assessment role to the tax collector so moved we have motion and a second to adopt the subways any discussion any public discussion on this item mr kosh welcome back sir i would reiterate again that all citizens are entitled at any time to apply for a hardship exemption from the stormwater non-advalorem assessment which will be combined with the ad valorem taxes and um you know if not paid could trigger sale of a tax certificate and loss of your property sir there is a fundamental difference between an ad valorem assessment and a non-advalorem assessment the first difference is ad valorem assessments are based on value non-advalorem assessments are not based on value ad valorem assessments are imposed by a taxing authority non-advalorem assessments are imposed by a unit of city government so to challenge that you have to go to public works as handling solid waste as a matter of fairness if i'm paying for the rural collection center and using it i don't need curbside collection so i don't think it serves any public purpose to have two solid waste assessments forcing you to have curbside collection on on a second home like on the river that's ridiculous and that's uh exploitive thank you thank you mr kosh any anyone else all right back to the board any further discussion we got another one does a gentleman oh yeah please come forward stand as yourself james carrington 10015 northwest 52nd terrace gainesville florida uh again uh my neighborhood and uh where i live uh which is city of alachua although it's a gainesville address does a wonderful job of picking up our solid waste uh i'm i'm not sure that any of my neighbors even even know where there is a uh solid waste collection center i think the rate needs to be based on something other than just across the board simply put everybody's going to pay for it we can certainly afford it and we'll continue to pay for it if that's what you vote on but there needs to be a greater uh look into this than just passing it simply thank you thank you anyone else or once gone twice let's bring it back to the board any further discussion by the board all those in favor say aye aye any opposed that motion is unanimous and quenelle's in the room back in the room okay next item mr clerk chair the fiscal 2027 stormwater non-avalorum assessment final rate resolution adoption hearing and the recommended action is to adopt the stormwater final assessment resolution for fiscal year 2026 27 and authorize the chair to certify the stormwater non-advalorum assessment role to the tax collector okay so that this one is the actual stormwater assessment and again it remains the same you're recognized so sorry uh the rate will remain at 60 per equivalent residential unit and will generate a maximum estimated of 3.6 million dollars in revenue i move we adopt the stormwater final assessment resolution for fiscal year 2026 27 and authorize the chair to certify the stormwater nod ad valorem assessment role to the tax collector motion a second any discussion all right back to the public mr conish welcome back mr chair i would like a little leeway to try to educate people about this okay with the city of gainesville i'm challenging mine and i expect i suggest everybody take a close look at what they're doing they're quadrupled the price at about 150 in eru instead of 40. and their methodology is weak weak with respect to the duck pond and many other neighborhoods systematically but it's important to note that stormwater is estimated it's polluted it's billed up front annually discount for early payment penalties apply as with the other four non-advalorum assessments for fire and solid ways other three for a total four there is hardship exemption and usually when you get it for fire you get you get the whole suite that could be done anytime and if it's wrong for next year was wrong probably for the last three years and you can get your money back believe it or not there is a mechanism to do that not that you would want anyone to do that because if that happens you have to pay it back out of general funds so that's why you know these forms are not floating around that's why you don't someone have someone when you walk in the door offering you this because you don't want to pay people stormwater you'd rather them just eat it in the city of gainesville they estimate out of stormwater they think they're going to generate 11.6 million and they estimate 1500 to three thousand dollars in hardship exemptions and sir it would be surprising to me if you surpass these numbers given how secret this statutorily mandated mechanism is because of your policies thank you thank you mr conch so the city's getting a little preview of mr conch's comments on thursday ours is 3.6 million um next speaker please we uh james carrington 10015 northwest 52nd terrace gainesville florida we in brook point don't pay for any stormwater runoff and uh i'm just wondering uh i wonder why i can't contribute to to the uh taxing authority for our neighborhood we all live on turkey creek or a branch thereof thank you thank you sir all right anyone else all right back to the board commissioner yeah i just uh we do have our community support services office here so i thought maybe they could share with us their operating hours when there are people on site and how people can access the hardship exemption form miss tuck welcome you recognize thank you mr chair claudia tuck director alachua county community support services we are actually open 24 7 effectively many of our programs operate we have the residential program we also have the crisis center and victim services that work after hours we have 97 ftes and about 80 positions are filled and most of the employees are in the office um monday through friday 8 30 to 5. however many of our staff are out in the field almost you know more than half of our social services staff are out in the field visiting clients um so it will vary at times and so folks if they want to request a hardship exemption they do have to call and that's on our website um right now we're in the midst of making a lot of our forms ada compliant that's one of them so we can't put it on the website until it's ada compliant okay great thank we can go back several years thank you you good all right anything else all right all those in favor of the motion say aye aye any opposed that motion is unanimous thank you okay mr clerk next item mr chair it's the fiscal 2027 sugar oak sugar foot oak cedar ridge special assessment district for non-advalorum assessment rates adoption hearing and the recommended action is to adopt the sugar foot oak cedar ridge special assessment district final non-advalorum assessment rates and final rate resolution and again this one will remain the same at ten dollars per unit um so moved we got a motion in a second any further discussion i just see the gentleman in the back there he is we appreciate you yes all right any public discussion to the sugar foot back to the board all those in favor say aye aye any opposed that motion is unanimous good job okay mr clerk next item chair that takes the fiscal year 2027 public hearing to adopt the tentative millage rates and tentative budget you read the script mr chair i just wanted to explain real quick because this came up with the first motion and then was mentioned again in the second the way our fire assessment works it is a two-tier process the first tier is a flat rate that is basically considered like a standby rate that everybody pays the second tier is based on the value of the structures on the property so vacant property doesn't get a two-tier second tier valuation because there's no structures to protect but those that do have structures it's based on per five thousand of value so those um so that's how the second tier to the rate itself is determined so if there's a change in the structure value that triggers another threshold then that next tier of payment would apply so that's why i said that it's based it could be based on a change in the value if there was a change in the value of the structures on the land okay thank you slieberman okay tommy so i think we're going to get started on this we'll take a break at 5 30 for public comment let's go we should be done we should be done all right let me start i start yes okay all right i can read it the alaska county board of county commissioners convenes this public hearing on the alaska county fiscal year 2027 proposed millage rates intend to budget as required by farb statutes chapter 129 and 200 and as advertised in the truth of millage notices if anyone in our audience is here for the purpose of contesting their assessment a petition for adjustment with the value adjustment board should be filed by 5 pm monday september 14 2026 this information was included in the trim notices petition forms were available from the property appraiser's office this evening we will take a number of actions related to the adoption of the proposed millage rates and the budgets the final public hearing on these matters will be held on tuesday september 22nd at 501 in this same location the natural county administration building jack durance auditorium i urge you if you have not already done so to get a copy of the agenda so you may easily follow the proceedings this evening citizen comments will be taken following the overview of the intended budget by the county manager and the assistant county manager for budget and fiscal services county attorney will now present an overview of the truth and millage legislation followed by the county manager's explanation of the proposed and rollback millage rates madam attorney so in 1980 the florida legislature adopted what is known as the truth and millage legislation or trim as it's called the goal of the legislation was to ensure that the taxpayers were advised of the public hearings at which the local taxing authorities budgets and millage rates were to be considered and adopted each year the property appraiser completes an assessment of the value of all property and certifies to each taxing authority the taxable value of the property within its jurisdiction each taxing authority then notifies the property appraiser of its proposed millage rate its rolled back rate and the date time and place of the public hearing to consider the proposed millage rate in the tentative budget once the property appraiser receives the information their office sends a notice by first class mail to every taxpayer on the assessment roll the notice contains the information from the taxing authorities as to the proposed millage rate and the time and place of the public hearing the notice sent to taxpayers is called the trim notice the trim notice lists what the taxes were for the prior year what the taxes will be if the proposed budget changes are made and what the taxes will be if no budget changes are made this information is listed for each taxing authority the notice also lists all voted levies for debt service the purpose of the trim notice is to provide taxpayers with sufficient basis basic information to enable them to participate in the public hearing process thank you miss lieberman one of the requirements of the truth and millage legislation is to provide information about why proposed millage rates differ from the rolled back millage rates the proposed millage for the board of county commissioners county-wide levy is seven point two one zero seven mills which is zero percent greater than the rolled back rate of seven point two one zero seven mills the proposed millage for the board of county commissioners municipal service taxing unit law enforcement levy is three point five six seven eight mills which is five point four seven percent greater than the rolled back rate of three point three eight two nine mills rolled back millage rate is defined as the millage rate which exclusive of new construction additions to structure deletions and property added due to geographic boundary changes will provide the same ad valorem tax revenue for each taxing authority as was levied during the prior year the trim process requires that a notice of tax increase be advertised when the current year proposed aggregate millage rate exceeds the calculated aggregate rolled back millage rate the aggregate rolled back millage rate is calculated by dividing the prior year estimated property tax revenue by the current year taxable property value multiplied by one thousand the current year taxable value does not include new construction and tax increment cra values for the 2026 tax year the proposed aggregate millage rate of eight point six six zero eight is point eight one percent greater than the aggregate rolled back millage rate of eight point five nine zero nine resulting in advertising a notice of tax increase the current year fy26 property tax revenue for all taxing units excluding voted millage is 229 million 156 thousand 150 dollars the fy27 tentative budget property tax revenue of two hundred thirty two million five hundred seventy seven thousand two hundred eighteen dollars is three million four hundred twenty one dollars and three million four hundred twenty one thousand sixty eight dollars greater than fiscal year 26 the increase in property tax revenue is necessary to fund the appropriations to operate the general county and mstu law enforcement taxing units tommy crosby assistant county manager for financial and facilities resource management will now present an overview of the tentative budget for fiscal year 2027 mr crosby mr chair the total county tentative budget for fiscal year 2027 is 974 million 151 thousand eight hundred forty two dollars which is a net increase of 25 million two hundred thousand three hundred dollars compared to the county manager's proposed budget of 948 million 951 thousand five hundred forty two the details of the changes are reflected in the fiscal year 2027 tentative budget included in your agenda packet i have a quick presentation similar to last year's to go through i want to update you on our property tax data and summarize some of the expenditures that the board had requested during our meetings so tommy hold on one second is there anyone here for public comment at 5 30. okay let's go ahead and pause the public hearing um that way we can have public comment not related to the public hearing and then when we get back we'll we'll proceed with your presentation if that's okay sure yeah i don't want to brush through that and i think it's important information so we're going to go ahead and open up public comment at 5 30 which is not the public comment for the public hearing this is just public comment not related to the public hearing mr connor you recognize mr chair um you know i see these massive um utility projects going in the county right of ways regional wastewater systems and um i own property along northwest 280 second drive the dirt road that goes up to the now um dead post springs with no flow and um just the systematic failure to to regulate the right of ways um these people are going in there they're unregulated they don't pay anything you know there's other people that are going to want to go in there then you're going to want to save four trees but you know you don't have any jurisdiction i don't understand like why we go decade after decade once they get through the county sir they're gone you won't be able to put the brakes on you know they'll go right to the coastline i'll probably be a few miles closer in the future but um you know i just don't i really don't understand that um the our sky high gru bills it's not a good tax base for you because they're already exacerbated by um surcharges that you don't care about and then you're putting your county utility tax on in a pyramid fashion you know the bills are a problem sir the bills are a big problem particularly for businesses although they're a problem for everybody and um you know i just really wish like even hutch at one point suggested rolling back or eliminating the utility tax on electric just electricity even at one time he suggested it admitting that you know okay we had a bad contract something along those lines and maybe we'll roll back the utility tax but the bills are a problem and you don't need to be uh stepping on them the way you the way you do and um going back to northwest 282nd drive a guy went into an abandoned log cabin he paid too much for he put a pole in the right-of-way put in an underground service big 200 app service to his uh dilapidated building in in the in the right-of-way other people are paving their driveways like right into the county right away i'm building them up exacerbating flood flooding hurting adjacent property owners uh and you you don't seem to care i asked clay electric how can you put the pole in the county right away so they said we do it all the time and then you know someone wants to bring in underground internet well guess what there's obstacles all over the place it's just no way to manage an asset free use of right-of-ways city and county is on gru books at as an asset worth 800 000 and you sued in the for the privilege fee in the 90s thank you thank you miss conch anyone else wants to address this board on anything not on the agenda my name is james carrington i'm live at 10015 northwest 52nd terrace gainesville florida and uh you can see i dressed up to come here today so you'd remember me and the real reason that i came here today is not so much the simplicity of a budget which i thank you for every year and i thank you uh for what we uh what you've accomplished this is this is you know my accounting commission but what i want to speak for is the seniors in our county uh i'm an octogenarian you know i'm nervous all the time i shake uh i can't uh i can't articulate like i did when i was uh uh a radical uh at the university of florida and as a graduate student in philosophy but uh uh i uh i do want to speak for the seniors my wife and i attend the senior center in in uh uh by the fire station and highway patrol station on 121 and 441 that area uh city of alachua is building a uh hathcotch center rebuilding hathcotch center for seniors and i i would like you to focus on a picture of our community all pulling together uh in budgets and everything else you know and one of the things is is that children are on one hand and seniors are on the other seniors are you're homeless you're unemployed every seniors who who is over 80 i would dare say is probably close to being unemployed or wish they were unemployed and uh uh uh and you know children get bus transportation do seniors get bus transportation i don't have long to and we're not going to solve the problem here but what what you are going to solve the problem is is we don't want our seniors treated less than our prisoners uh be careful with your budget budget and i speak first to the sheriff's office you know the prison is the biggest expense you've probably got i speak to uh uh the other constitutional agencies what uh are your constitutional agencies and your own agency being paid seniors get 2.7 percent and i understand this year we may go up to three percent budget increase in our social security remember that keep in mind look at the big picture let's balance this big picture children seniors thank you so much thank you mr carrington thank you anyone else all right we're going to go ahead and close the 5 30 public comment and then reopen back up the public hearing and we're back up to mr crosby's review of the fiscal year 27 budget highlights mr crosby you recognize thank you mr chair so you have a presentation that was included in the packet as well i'm just kind of updating the data that we normally go through and we've added a couple of expenditure slides at the end um the 2025 county village rate which was for the current fiscal year we're in rank in 67 counties is the last and we some of this data is old data just because that's where it comes out of dor they haven't updated it for current year so we use the most current year available so last year's the the year we're in fiscal year 26 data we rank 52nd in aggregate millage at 9.0492 mils and 41st in general fund county millage at 7.6 mils so the value of this information is we are annually accused of and said that we are at the top of the list and the most taxed millage in the state and we are not we are 41st and we'll talk a little bit more about how it could be less and why it's not less so this board has done a very good job over the years of reducing millage the per capita rate which is the tax per citizen on the county government levies alachua county is at 761 dollars state average is 991 so we're the 32nd lowest property tax per capita i think that's an important distinction as well there's a big one there's a big one that we we tout but i believe it's better to see it in writing and be able to publish it so people can understand that 10 straight years we have reduced general fund millage by 7 1.7 183 mils that's a 19.2 reduction in millage levies it's almost a 20 reduction in 10 years tom if you could add um leon county to this slide next year i was talking to some folks from tallahassee over the weekend and that's our peer county sure because when we 10 years ago we were way above them and we are now below them property tax data the 2026 tax roll for 27 again this is talking about what's not only assessed role and why we have to be at the level we're currently at a lot of county taxable value we have 68 percent of our value is on the roll so that means there's 32 percent roughly that are off the roll mainly because the university of florida state state properties etc federal properties at the state level the average is 83.88 percent where the eighth lowest percentage in the state of assessed value and that is the other seven are all very small counties so the lafayette's of the world where it's all national forest and those up in the panhandle taylor county etc so our alachua taxable value is 56.3 percent of its just value when you look at the number the impact of assessed value versus taxable value in alachua county our assessed value is 39.2 billion dollars our taxable value is 26.8 billion dollars so that's when you see it in raw numbers that's 13 billion dollars worth value off of the off of the books state average again is 84 percent if we we were the state average that would generate another 6.3 billion dollars worth of value which could reduce our millage down to 5.85 mills and generate the same property tax rate wow so we have talked briefly knowing this never going to happen but payment in lieu of taxes the federal government does that with properties especially um account national forest gets us those kind of payment in lieu of taxes i know the state doesn't pay taxes but it would be nice to be recognized that we could do something to help counties that have large state holdings um in their county because we do supply services to a lot of those properties tax and assessment sources these are our major tax funds again the board has seen these many times this is more for public information our general fund which includes property taxes utility um property uh psts communication service tax cst sales tax state shared funds and then fees which is the largest of is ambulance fees um the mst for law enforcement is mainly based off property taxes the msbu for fire set is fire assessments we do contribute 30 40 30 40 40 40 40 40 of our sales tax utility tax and communication service tax split to fire msbu for storm water and solid waste are all assessments and then tipping fees for the solid waste facility road maintenance is gas tax and then we we supply a communication 20 20 communication service tax to them now started that three years ago to help operational costs conservation lands park master plan pavement management master roads and housing infrastructure are part of the one cent surtax the equestrian center the sports event center and grants are from the tourist development tax can i say something yes commissioner alford sorry um tommy do you mind um uh making the point that while we do have all those taxes for all of those things all of those taxes do not provide all of the funding for those things so for instance while we have the gas tax road maintenance it is nowhere near the amount that we need to do that maintenance uh that's a question i get asked over and over and over again so i just wanted to make it clear that while we do have these sources of funding the sources of funding are not adequate to provide all the funding necessary yes ma'am happy to so a couple of those that are critical in nature um ambulance services we subsidize about 30 to 35 percent of those fees the rest come from fees outside of that comes from tax dollars and the other one you just mentioned gas tax that's why we started subsidizing 20 of the cst to that fund to help it with operational costs to maintain it because gas tax collections unlike the state who has indexed theirs ours has been the same rate since it was imposed and so it's not enough as inflation has gone up to keep up with those those uh costs and those would be the two major ones that do that so that's a conscious point if we were to eliminate that csc tax it would eliminate road tax right road money thank you for bringing that up commissioner i'm not sure why this second block did something very different whoa whoa you didn't like your font i would say so that ac is it on the paper it says it on the paper i don't know 191 million so but anyway okay one of the things the board that is so weird here tom put this on the overhead yeah just stick it on can we have overhead please yeah converting it to a presentation to a powerpoint strange things happen in the machine um okay so one of the the things the board had asked a while back and we've done some of this and i think this is a better definitive way to do it is the board you have a 974 million dollar budget frequently you're asked why can't we put more to roads why aren't you fixing our roads if you have this much money in your budget and and collectively you've tried to express that all that is not available for us to put the roads and we are limited on what we can move forward also the fact that a budget is not a financial statement it is a plan of action and a lot of that budget moves money between funds so that we can account for it that has nothing to do with expenditures or nothing to do with cash outlay if you will so what we've taken is your 974 million dollar budget and we have it into five different boxes and we'll talk about these boxes the first one is internal budgetary transactions 191 million dollars goes through the budget for things like transfers reserves things that are never spent they're just between funds some of them look like they're duplicate but it's a matter of using one fund to another outside agency funds 251 million dollars we'll talk about those as include constitutional officers but tommy hold on hold on yes so anna just brought up a good point so if you take the 974 minus the 191 yes sir you're immediately at 780 yeah 780 for around five yeah so that's kind of where we start before that's where we're going okay yes sir and okay so we'll go through the boxes internal budgetary transactions which is 19.6 percent of the budget you have 45 million dollars in budget transfers you have 6.67 million dollars in internal service funds that's um things like our phone system that we charge out to different departments the biggest one is your our health insurance fund our self-insurance fund and then you have reserves of 79 million dollars that set aside hopefully not spent so then you're down to 780 million dollars then we have 250 million dollars to go to outside agencies so if you pull that off of your number those outside agencies is 25 of your budget the sheriff receives 152 million dollars that's for the jail um the law enforcement agency the ccc and the court bailiffs so it's 152 million dollars the hospital assessment which we are just a pass-through agency of 65 million dollars we don't even touch that that's to help the hospitals at their request other constitutional officers this is the other four constitutionals received 28 million dollars career source five million dollars and the mtpo one million dollars so 251 million goes to outside agencies um they're at their either request or appropriation etc or their assessment mandates 34 million dollars in mandates this is our debt service funds for prior obligations the medicaid state match of five million dollars our debt service of 14 million medicaid match at five million dollars juvenile justice of four million dollars inmate medical three million dollars medical examiner two million dollars state court administration four million dollars this includes state attorney public defender and the judicial branch and the health department two million dollars so that 34 million dollars comes off the top as required so the next two blocks are really what the board has to spend and some of them are again outside of your ability flexibility so we have left right at 500 million dollars so half of your budget has been spent before it is in your hands really to look at 37.5 or 366 million of that are restricted funds this goes back to commissioner offers the point she just made a few minutes ago we have our infrastructure surtax 133 million dollars of that that has to go for infrastructure and things outlined in the ballot initiative we have targeted taxes these are your gas tax your cst your pst those things that have to be used for specific purposes you have your public safety acfr this is your fire assessment of 77 million dollars and your fees and your ambulance fees so there's a caveat some of this is subsidized by taxes but those obligations are also made through your collective bargaining agreement things like kelly days and staffing plans and how many units you have open your grants of 22 million and then your solid waste fund of 30 million dollars so those are restricted sources that have to be directed to a certain area and those are built in baked into the budget if you will some of those you do have to approve some of those you get automatically from the state some of those been approved a long time ago that leaves 133 million dollars or 13 13 to 14 percent of your budget is really now what you are looking at when we do our annual budget presentation that's what you're left with now this was a big point for the commission during our meetings this year is helping people understand when when they're frustrated of okay this is where all those dollars are going this is how much we're limited to this is our ability how much flexibility we have and what we're doing so in addition to reducing your millage to reduce your tax burden we really are allocating 133 million dollars 37 million of that is your maintenance of physical plan that's your utility bills that's your renovation plans that's your rehab keeping your roofs your air conditions fixed uh that's travis's team that's uh your utility bills etc and your property insurance roads 24 million this is over and above what's restricted by the infrastructure surtax this is actually your general fund commitment to roads so this is over and above it we'll talk about the combined roads budget in a minute that's an additional 24 million you've allocated to roads county operations 21 million dollars this is would be everything that runs the county hr my office manager's office county attorney's office your office etc these are all of your county typical county government operations housing and community support services is at 16 million those are departmentally program based dollars parks environmental and land conservation outside again of their infrastructure surtax 13 million dollars court services that's our operational court services our employees 11 million dollars planning and economic development and then uh animal resources at 5 million so i think it's important for the public to see that 133 million dollars is kind of the allocation method and again 37 of that is physical plant so you're limited to what you can control there so you're under 100 million dollars that you're actually allocating out to programs and have a lot of flexibility over so again we wanted to combine the bottom to show the county's priorities the board's priorities and that is public safety at 252 million dollars are allocated public safety across the budget and roads at 106 million dollars this is just in the 27 budget so i think that's important for you all to understand this is really great tommy really helps uh with the transparency of what our budget reflects what really stuck out to me is 358 million is public safety and roads of the 500 million restricted and remaining for county operations yes sir questions commissioners mr chair that concludes my comments i'll be happy to answer any questions any questions okay uh tommy thank you i would now like to go ahead and invite citizens to comment on the fiscal year 2027 proposed millage rates and the ten of the budget please come forward to either podium if you wish to address the board we do request each speaker limit their comments to three minutes the hearing will continue until everyone who wishes to address this commission has had an opportunity to speak okay citizen comments on the budget and attended millage going once going twice he just did that good yep okay we'll go ahead and close public comment uh of the public hearing all right mr crosby mr chair the doc the budget documents before you the fiscal year 2020 set of seven tentative budget includes the changes that were described earlier any additional adjustments to the budget can be made by motion at this time all right any adjustments by the board okay seeing none not nice for our commissioner in her eighth year that's okay okay uh miss liberman you recognize florida statutes require the name of the taxing authority the millage rate to be levied the rolled back rate and the percentage change over rolled back rate be publicly announced accordingly the lateral county board of county commissioners has determined that a proposed millage rate of 7.2107 mills is necessary to fund the tentative general county budget the proposed millage rate represents a zero percent increase over the rolled back rate of 7.2107 mills okay mary you wanna get started yeah um i move adoption of resolution 2026-59 establishing the fiscal year 2027 proposed general county millage rates second got motion a second any discussion back uh all those in favor say aye aye any opposed that motion is unanimous anna i would move adoption resolution 2026-60 adopting the changed revenue estimates and the fy 2027 tentative general county budget second got motion a couple seconds uh all those in favor say aye aye any opposed that motion is unanimous miss liberman florida statutes require the name of the taxing authority the millage rate to be levied the rolled back rate and the percentage change over rolled back rate be publicly announced accordingly the alachua county board of county commissioners has determined that a proposed millage rate of 3.5678 mills for the municipal service taxing unit law enforcement is required to fund the tentative municipal service taxing unit law enforcement budget the tentative millage rate represents an increase of 5.47 percent over the rolled back rate of 3.3829 mills okay move the adoption of resolution 2026-61 establishing fy 27 proposed remissible service taxing unit law enforcement millage rate second second all those in favor say aye aye any opposed that motion is unanimous mission wheelie okay um move adoption of resolution 2026-62 adopting changed revenue estimates and the fiscal year 2027 tentative municipal service taxing unit law enforcement budget second second all those in favor say aye aye any opposed that motion is unanimous okay this concludes the tenant budget hearing a reminder the second and final public hearing will be held tuesday september 22nd right here 501 in the alachua county administration building jack durrance auditorium 12 southeast first street on the second floor and i believe that concludes our business for the night um tommy great job thank you we'll see you again in a couple weeks we are adjourned