Welcome to the April 15th budget workshop number four. Commissioner Atkinson for the pledge. Pledge allegiance. Just a quick announcement for today. We will not have commissioners Goodson or Altman with us today. So, yes. I was wondering if I could request that we do four hours and end at five o'clock today. Okay. We have a request for 5 p.m. time certain. Commissioner Delaney. Second. Okay. Okay. All right. We'll all agree. Okay. Perfect. All right. We're going to end at five today. Okay. Frank. Okay. We're going to get started with natural resources. Amanda Elmore. Good afternoon, commissioners. I'm Amanda Elmore, deputy director of natural resources, and I'll be presenting the other environmental programs in our department. Virginia Barker ended the last budget workshop with an overview of one of the department's programs, the Save Our Indian River Lagoon program, or sorrel that you see on the right in green. I'll be giving you the overview of the programs in blue and their associated funding and expenditures, recognizing that there are 13 other departments eager to present after me. I will move very quickly, and I'll apologize in advance for the pace of my presentation. If we run out of time for questions, I'll be happy to get you more information at the break or at your convenience. Just my opinion, but I think we've, I've noticed the number of slides keeps going down. So, okay. Yes, I'm at 16 minutes all in. So don't rush yourself unnecessarily. So necessarily, I feel pretty optimistic about things today. Okay. All right. So some fast facts. We provide varied services over the five programs. The budget is about $50 million. This year, we've had about $10 million in grant funding and an additional $8 million in ARPA dollars that we encumbered before the end of last year for stormwater projects. We have 75 positions, and we enjoy a pretty low vacancy rate with six vacancies. Our employees are geologists, engineers, and environmental specialists that are absolutely dedicated to our mission. All of the program managers have been with the county more than 20 years. They are experts, and I'm honored to work with them every day and all our employees. We provide thousands of environmental reviews. We oversee environmental cleanup. We manage Brevard's beaches and waterways, and we build stormwater projects for flood mitigation and water quality. We also have a support services program that helps keep all of that moving forward. Very importantly, we partner with Public Works for ESF3 and serve our community before, during, and after storms. Virginia presented the overall budget at the last workshop that includes soil, but today I wanted to focus on the $50 million that comprises the programs previously mentioned. Almost 99% of that funding is restricted. Stormwater assessment grants, permitting fees, and contracted charges for services. We have a small amount of general fund that you see in green, $687,000 for environmental code enforcement and boating and waterways. I'll provide more detail on those sections and services in slides to come. We largely spend our dollars on capital improvement projects, compensation and benefits, and operating. There are restricted revenues for reserves for multi-year projects. You'll see this pattern in all of the program expense pie charts. The first program I'd like to highlight is environmental resources management. This program primarily provides permitting and policy implementation, environmental code enforcement, and resilience efforts. The budget is $2 million, mostly permitting revenue, but you'll see the largest portion of our general fund allocation here, $541,000. That general fund supports the environmental code enforcement section. For the last four decades, environmental specialists have implemented the board's policies and land development regulations. Typically, we review all permits that affect horizontal or vertical development for impact on the county's environmentally sensitive areas, like wetlands, coastal dunes, aquifer recharge areas, and surface water buffers. Our regulations are typically more stringent than the municipalities. For instance, we require tree and canopy preservation depending on lot size and use, and additional coastal setbacks from the DEP Coastal Construction Control Line. We also provide incentives that encourage the use of low-impact development principles. Natural Resources is one of the reviewing agencies coordinated by Planning and Development for Zoning and Land Use Changes and Commercial, Industrial, and Residential Development. We also capture environmental reviews where there is no vertical construction or planning and development trigger for permit. For projects like rock revetments, filling and excavation, also called land alteration, we issue natural resource-specific permits. We carefully monitor monthly permit numbers and revenue. What we're seeing is that although permit revenue numbers are down over the last couple years, those reviews are taking longer as development pushes into more and more marginal properties because there are more environmental issues that we need to review for compliance. Like planning and developments code enforcement, we are reactive when it comes to environmental violations. Our three natural resources officers, together with our environmental specialists, work to educate property owners, and formulate restoration plans. But these cases tend to be complicated, involve multiple departments and state agencies, and therefore can take a little longer to resolve than other code enforcement cases. This program is also forward-looking, always seeking to propose policy and ordinance improvement when necessary and appropriate. We have worked collaboratively with Planning and Development to formulate and implement the peril of flood policies, EIR, and the barrier island area of critical state concern that Billy detailed for you in his presentation. We also partner with other regional and state agencies on funding and initiatives. The remediation and compliance program focuses on safeguarding our drinking water. Starting with the fuel, storage tank, and hazardous waste sections, they provide our first line of defense compliance inspections to prevent pollution and leaks. Our geologists and engineers oversee cleanup sites as well under state contract. This is a $3.6 million program entirely funded through state contract or charges for services and business tax receipt fees for hazardous waste. There's a $50 surcharge per Florida statute on hazardous waste generators. The petroleum remediation or cleanup section is the largest section in this program and doubled in size last year when DEP asked us to expand our oversight to a sixth-county Volusia. That board-approved expansion means that we now oversee this program for the entirety of the Indian River Lagoon and Okeechobee. Local staff manages multi-year cleanup plans for more than 500 sites. We also provide fuel tank compliance inspections for 350 sites in Indian River and Brevard counties. And we inspect hazardous waste generators in Brevard. This is an unfunded state mandate, but we collect a hazardous waste assessment fee in conjunction with business tax receipt. Now turning to the small but mighty program, beaches, boating, and waterways. This program provides a variety of management and services, but is just three employees strong. You'll see that our other portion of general fund shows up here, $146,000 of this $771,000 budget. We also see a TDC transfer for the beach program here of $280,000 and grants of $227,000 for reef creation and derelict vessel removal. Our boating and waterways coordinator oversees derelict vessel removal. I'm going to spend a little time here as we field a lot of questions about derelict vessels. We all see them. They seem to take longer than they should to remove, and that's because we're waiting on them to be designated as derelict by law enforcement. The owners have to be afforded due process and have to be allowed the opportunity to remove the vessel for themselves. And real quick, we do get some state grant money toward that, too, right? There's a—yes, and I'm about to cover that. Okay. So we have the $150,000 TDC grant where the county is removing some of these derelict vessels, but FWC also has a storm-related derelict vessel removal effort right now. So once the vessels are designated as derelict by law enforcement, the county is given permission to then remove them. We can't touch them until then. Once we get that permission, it typically takes about one to two days to get a quote. And then if it's a smaller boat, one to three weeks to remove. If it's a larger boat, one to three months. So we've kind of looked at the pattern of the last vessels that we've been allowed to remove, and that's what we're seeing. But that's once we have permission to remove them. That—if I could just add, that's a large portion of the issue, right, that it takes such a long time to get that permission. Right, yes. And that's not something that we can control. Right. Right. So—but we have removed more than 300 in the last 17 years. Um, and we also—this program also works on waterway markers, navigational dredge priorities, and that donated, um, donation and grant-funded reef creation offshore. The Boating and Waterways Coordinator also manages the Griffiths Landing Site on 520 that Larry spoke of in his presentation. The site was acquired through the Stan Mayfield Working Waterfront Grant in 2009, and redevelopment has been grant-funded. Uh, this year we have an $890,000 grant to reconstruct Miss Apples that was heavily damaged during the last storms. We are fortunate in Brevard to have a federal beach renourishment project and are halfway into our 50-year, uh, cooperative agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers. The Army Corps manages the project, and Brevard is the local sponsor. The federal project is comprised of the North, Mid, and South Reach, and I'll be providing an update on the most recent renourishment efforts. We administer beach restoration projects to protect upland infrastructure and property and maintain healthy vegetative beaches to enjoy—by—to be enjoyed by residents, tourists, and wildlife. This chart shows the dollars spent on beach construction over the last 25 years, of which our cost share has ended up at 8 percent after reimbursements. We need to have about 25 percent of share available on hand before we get those reimbursements back. Sorry. The South Beaches are not part of the federal, um, project. The South Beaches represent world-class turtle nesting habitat. Because this area isn't part of the federal project, we're limited here to usually managing dunes only here after storms with BEMA and state dollars, supplementing our local share. Peter fielded some turtle nesting questions during his presentation, and we have therefore added a few slides to address the questions. Although Natural Resources doesn't oversee any protected species, we obtained data from our FWC contacts that show strong nesting over the last 25-plus years. These graphs are specific to leatherbacks on this particular slide, which are at the top end of their range here. So you'll see low numbers because of that, but there's an increasing trend line when you compare with other Florida core beaches. We have far greater numbers of green and loggerhead turtles. For both this slide and the next, you'll see that Brevard County nesting trends follow that of Peninsular Florida and represent about half of all nesting data. Again, here with loggerheads, about half of the measured nesting is in Brevard, and we follow the state and trends. Turning to tourism and recreational benefit, there's no more recognizable example in Brevard than the Cocoa Beach Pier. In the top image, you can see that there was practically no beach at high tide or opportunity for recreation pre-federal project. The middle image is after sand placement, and the bottom image is post-storm, still with a wide beach and plenty of tourism and recreational value. Here's another set of pre- and post-project images in Cocoa Beach. Again, there was no beach at high tide, as evidenced by the rack line by the seawall. In the bottom image, the seawall has been covered by sand and the beach revegetated. Moving south to the mid-reach, this is a more narrow area of managed beach to avoid the rock outcroppings in this area. You can see here that we have Oceana condo in the city of Satellite Beach on the left that's been undermined. The property owners in this condo were very nervous and placed some sand and vegetation at their own cost. So in this slide, you see that same edge of that same condo on the left. That's that beige wall there. And sand has been placed, and we're undergoing revegetation efforts. So sand placement is only part of the beach management equation here. We also replant the dunes to hold the sand in place and encourage residents to do the same with our annual sea oats sale. This is the rock reef habitat that we endeavor to avoid when placing sand in the mid-reach. We were permitted up to three acres of impact, or 10%, and have mitigated that impact with a 4.7-acre mitigation reef being utilized by green turtles and other marine life. The mitigation reef has been deemed successful by DAP. Here's an example of a pre- and post-project on the left and in the middle. In the south reach, the picture on the right shows you, again, a healthy, vegetated, managed beach and how that performs post-storm. And in the south beaches, we've seen some failure with armored shorelines and minor structures. This pool was removed, but the primary structure remains. We didn't lose any primary structures during the last storms. But this just shows you that armored beaches are not preferable. So regarding current project status, we've completed south beaches, sand, and vegetation. Mid-reach sand placement is complete, and we're finishing plantings. The north reach will be complete next month. The south reach was partially re-nourished this year and will be fully re-nourished next year. Detailed project status reports are available for the public on our website, as well as a lot of historical information on the federal project and the south beaches. Turning from our smallest program to our largest, stormwater management, is primarily responsible for projects that can control flooding and improve water quality. This is a high-dollar program because of the CIP. We collect about $6.3 million in stormwater assessments per year. This year, we had $10 million in grants to leverage our funds. And you'll see a lot of balance forward here for multi-year projects. This graphic represents various project types per district. So you'll see a mix of master planning, flood mitigation, water quality, and hybrid projects. The yellow dot near the Max Brewer represents an innovative wave attenuation device project that I'll highlight in a few slides. So here are some completed projects that I'll move through quickly. This slide and the next two represent completed projects that eliminated flooding for 800 homes, treated water quality, and worked collaboratively with eels on conservation, and incorporated low-impact development principles here to avoid wetlands and specimen trees and enhanced habitat and recreational opportunities. Here are a few of the current nutrient reduction retrofit projects in various districts. D1 is Flounder, D2 Pioneer, and D4 Arlington. And here are current culvert and channel upgrades in Mikko, and a Gabion system installation in Sand Dollar Canal in District 5. This is the Titusville Multitrophic Wave Attenuation Device, or WADS, project south of the Max Brewer that has gained statewide attention for its innovation. This project's just finishing up. The WADS structures will help dissipate wave energy and storm surge. The beach will be renovated and replanted to protect the causeway, and seagrass will be planted and clam seeded as well. The stormwater program is also completing a countywide grant-funded vulnerability analysis that looks at various rainfall and storm surge scenarios. This analysis is statutorily required and keeps the county eligible for resilience funding opportunities. We monitor our projects to make sure they're well-placed, designed, and working as they should, and we comply with state reporting requirements. Lastly, we're always seeking ways to reduce nutrients while eliminating herbicide usage and have drastically increased our mechanical aquatic vegetation harvesting program, adding grant-funded equipment and a second crew. This year to date, in 2025 to date, we've harvested 3 million pounds, so we're well on track to exceed last year's total of over 7.4 million pounds. Thank you for your attention. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. I have a quick question on the last thing there. When you harvest the vegetation from our waterways, where does that go? How's that? Raleigh. Landfill? Well, that goes to the landfill. Okay. Okay. Any other questions? I was wondering, we always talk about derelict vessels constantly. Right. So we know that the time consumption seems to be getting it called a derelict vessel. How long does that normally take, and why is it so time-consuming? Right. So it's due process. You know, the owners have to be afforded that opportunity to claim their boat and remove their boat. And it's usually months. You know, it's usually, what, three to six months? Wow. Yeah. Three to six months to get that designation. Thank you. I was wondering about, I didn't realize that we help out the other counties with the petroleum remediation. Right. And so I just have a couple of questions about that. One, do we have the resources for that? And two, is the payoff worth it? Because I'm assuming that they pay us for our services. They do. So they entirely cover the cost. There's no county funds are expended for those programs. You know, when you have a local program like that, there tends to be more care. The folks live here, and they care about our drinking water and our groundwater. So we've, and we, you know, you do a good job, you get more work. So we started in the 80s with one county, and they've continued to ask us to take on more and more counties. Volusia, we gained from, Alachua was providing those surfaces, and they asked us to provide them instead of Alachua. Oh, awesome. Well, good job to you guys for doing a great job on that. And then my other question, it's not really in the presentation, but I was just wondering, I've been getting a lot of questions about Parrish Park, and I was wondering, was natural resources involved in the engineering or planning of that park renovation? I don't, I mean, typically we review all park plans, so, but I don't know if we, I don't have specific information on that. The reason why I was wondering was because the, you know, you had so many things in here about, like, how hardening the shoreline and things like that, I mean, it just ends in disaster. Right. And so it's, like, almost exactly what Parrish Park looks like, and it didn't even get to open, and now it's just sitting there, you know, millions of dollars were spent on this thing, and it's, so I was just curious, you know, how that. Yeah, I can try and get you more information on that review. Okay, thank you. What's your biggest budget challenge in the next year or two? Well, for the projects, inflation, just like, you know, everyone else, all the other departments have. Construction? Yeah. Specific? Yes. Okay. Any other questions for Amanda? I did have one more, I'm sorry, thank you. What about vacancies or anything like that? Are you guys having issues in that regard as well? So over the last couple years, we were, and over the last couple years, we do not let the grass grow on the applications that we get. We call in applicants immediately or very quickly to interview, and we've been really successful at attracting folks and retaining folks, so we're lucky in that regard. But most of them come for our mission, and so we're lucky that they're willing to come and stay with us and make a home with us. Great. Awesome. That's great news. Thank you. We're in. Okay. Anyone else? Thank you, Amanda, very much. Appreciate it. Juanita. Hi. Good afternoon. All right. Good afternoon, commissioners. I'll be presenting this afternoon the Housing and Human Services 24-25 budget. You might wait one second. We have a whole change of class just let out here. I know. Okay. Look, I'm just like, let's get started. Wow. Dismissal. She brought a lot of reinforcements with her. Okay. She brought a lot of backup. Hi, Juanita. Good luck. Well, I brought a little bit of backup with me, too. Okay. All right. So I have with me. I see Linda over here. Okay. Because you can't know everything, right? So I have with me this afternoon our Assistant Department Director, Linda Graham, our Finance Officer, Dave Romero, and our Community Action Agency Program Manager, Stephanie Bryan. So I'm going to give you an overview of Housing and Human Services. And our budget is about $41.8 million, and we have about 48 positions, and our department is split up into three distinct programs, which I'm going to go over this afternoon. This is an overview of our entire department budget, $41.8 million, and I'll go into detail later in the slides. This is an overview of our expenses for our department, and again, I'm going to go over in detail in later slides in each program. This is a snapshot of our general fund dollars and wares spent within our department, and I'll go over that in more detail later in the presentation. Housing and Human Services has the privilege of serving the extremely low, low-and-moderate income individuals and families in Brevard County. How we serve them is tied to various revenue sources. The first program we're going to discuss is community resources, which is about $2 million. Of that, $2 million, $20 million. Of that is $2.4 million in general fund transfer. We have about $7.5 million in balance forward and $9.9 million in special revenues, which is our grants. And community resources is where our Community Development Block Grant sits, or CDBG, our Community Action Agency. With those grants, we have various mandatory advisory boards, reporting, and monitoring. CDBG is community-driven and is community-driven by our neighborhood strategy areas, which we have listed here. Through CDBG, we did impact about 8,160 Brevard County residents, and we impacted them through our various projects and our community-based organization public services program. We also, through CDBG, can provide demolition in the slum and blight areas. This is not income-driven. And if we do provide that service, a lien is placed on that property. Next couple of slides is a couple of pictures of projects that was completed with our CDBG dollars. This is West Cocoa Community Center, Schoolhouse Street, Merritt Island Infrastructure. Within Community Resources is our Community Action Agency. Our Community Action Agency serves directly the low-moderate income individuals, and we're able to serve them with their electric, water, rent, mortgage, and self-sufficiency assistance. The county is also mandated to provide burials and cremations for indigents, and HICRA, which is Health Care Reimbursement Account Assistance. Our Community Action Agency, they provide the eligibility for all of those services for Brevard County. And again, we impacted about 4,951 direct residents. Within Community Resources, we have our aid to private organizations, which is funded by our general fund dollars. 211 Brevard is one of those organizations, and impacted 14,629 residents. Meals on Wheels impacted 671 residents. The Firewatch program is a brand-new program that we started this fiscal year, and they are estimated to impact about 600 Brevard residents. And also, funding for the health department is within our department. We oversee that contract, and over 1,713 services were provided. Will you describe the Firewatch for other folks, maybe who are at home, and just for our own education, what that program is? Certainly. Okay. The Firewatch program, again, like I said, that's a program that we just started this fiscal year. And that program, it basically is going to provide training for Brevard County for those veterans. Veterans have a high suicide rate. And so this agency, their plan is to come in, provide training so you can be aware of the signs of suicide in our veterans, and when you see those signs, how to act. It's like first aid, but this is first aid for our veterans. And so they're going to provide training through online and in person. We just contact him. They'll come out to various organizations and churches to provide that training. You get a certificate and everything to go along with it. HHS also develops and manages the following contracts for the county's unfunded state mandates. Guardian ad litem is one of those. And we are mandated to provide facility needs and communication services. Also, we oversee and manage the Baker Act through Circles of Care. They impacted 15,865 residents this past fiscal year. The Child Protection Team, or CPT, 155 Brevard youth was impacted. And Brevard County Legal Aid, that contract is managed by housing, and impacted 204 Brevard County residents. Also contained in our Community Resources Program are some various discretionary grants. The largest of those grants is a Behavioral Health Expansion Grant that is funded through SAMHSA. That is a $4 million grant. We are in year one, so the first million dollars of the $4 million. That's a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration grant that is going to be contracted out to Family Partnerships of Central Brevard. So we provide the oversight for that contract. Housing also has the oversight for the Board-approved Brevard County Opioid Program. There's a review committee and a recommendation subcommittee that we manage and staff. So far, we have contracted for marketing and education strategies, mobile medication assistant treatment programs, and we're working with purchasing to issue a RFA to support people in treatment and recovery, address the needs of criminal justice-involved persons, and evidence-based programs in schools and community education programs. Our next program is the housing program, which is a little over $20 million. Within there, we have $8.2 million in balance forward and $11.9 million in grants. The balance forward are those grant dollars that we've received up front. The details of the housing program, this is where our affordable housing areas sit. With each one of those, we have plans. We have to report on how we plan on spending the dollars, and after the dollars are spent, how did we actually spend it. All of those reports do come to the board for your approval. Within housing, our affordable housing programs, we have the first-time homebuyer program. Also in there, we have our rehab, repair, and replacement program. Our rehab, repair, and replacement program is done in-house, and we do it from the beginning to end. Eligibility, from eligibility to bidding out the individual projects with outside contractors. All oversight is provided by HHS inspectors. This program allows Brevard County homeowners to remain in their homes for longer periods, which then maintains that affordability for them. We have our home art program, which that is an exciting program that we've received, and now we're going to be able to build 11 single-family rental homes on Houston Lane on Merritt Island. With those rental homes, we are going to provide those wraparound services, and so we're looking forward to that. We have an art. We're working with purchasing to put that RFP out. We're also working to put out the RFP. On the other side, we're going to have three affordable homeowners. This would be homeownership and rental on the other side. Also within housing is our weatherization program. This is a federal pass-through state program where we're able to come in and weatherize homes in Brevard County to make them more affordable. The next couple of slides is a couple of our projects. When we go in and rehab the kitchens and the bathrooms, we're able to make those ADA compliant, which also means that the homeowners are able to stay in the homes for a longer period of time because they have now full access to their kitchens and, you know, all their resources inside their house, so they're able to stay there instead of having to go other places. Our last program is Veteran Services. Veteran Services is made up of general fund dollars and charges for services. Approximately $613,000 in general fund and $87,000 in charges for services. The charges for services is with the city of Palm Bay. We contract with them to provide an FSO in Palm Bay. Our VSOs are all accredited by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, the Florida Department of Veterans Affairs, the American Legion and the Disabled American Veterans and Veterans of Foreign Wars. Our VSOs here in the county have had over 14,609 contacts with Brevard County. We have offices in Vieira, Palm Bay and Merritt Island. We were able to bring in the third largest in pension benefits and compensation benefits for Brevard County veterans at $672 million. The paperwork for our veterans to have to go through is very difficult to navigate. Our VSOs are certified and trained in how to navigate that process. They help the veterans and their families so that they're able to get the benefits that they deserve and they even retro it back and that brings it forward, which is how we were able to do the $672 million. The trends and issues within our department is that, of course, we are seeing in Brevard County an increase in residents seeking assistance. Grants do drive our department and our staffing. As more funding becomes available, we are going to advance our efforts to build more affordable housing within Brevard County. Some of the issues that we are experiencing is with construction costs because as those costs go up, it is harder for us to build the affordable housing. And then with the federal funding, we're just not sure how that will impact our grants. Right now, we're not seeing any impact at all. That is my presentation, commissioners. I'm available for any questions you may have. Commissioner Delaney. Thank you. I have a question about the affordable housing. Who gets—how do we—what's the process of filling those homes? How do we choose who gets to live in those homes? Okay. For the ones that we are building for new home ownership or to rehab, repair, and replacement of homes? So I'm talking about the America Rescue Plan program, and it says 11 single-family home rentals, and then the three homeowners as well. How do we pick those people? Okay, so with our affordable housing dollars, we contract out with Community Housing Initiatives, our first-time homebuyer program. So we plan on partnering with them. They have a wait list of residents that have gone through the certifications, gone through the budget training, and it will help ensure that they're able to remain in their homes because they already know everything that it takes to be a homeowner. And so we're going to work with CHI for that. Okay. And then what about landlording? That's a pretty extensive thing. So what does that look like for the county? We're going to contract that out. That's part of the RFA. We don't do that within housing. We would just provide the monitoring and the oversight. So we'll go in every year. We'll look at the rent that they're charging to make sure that it's within those guidelines that we receive, and we do the check on each file. So we just provide the oversight, but we contract it out. And so, you know, God forbid some people move in and, I mean, things happen, you know, like holes get in walls, doors get torn up, you know, floors get destroyed, things like that, appliances go out. Um, does the person living in the home, are they liable for those things or how does that work for, for us? So if it's a rental, that's part of when we contract it out, they have to set aside dollars with the dollars that we provide, the rents that they're collecting, they have to set aside into reserves. And so when those things happen, they're able to come in and make those repairs. So it's not over and above their rent? No, it's not. Okay. And, um, okay. And then for veteran services, I'm curious as to why there are no grants, why it's all general funds. Um, are there grants out there that, like, we would qualify for? I don't know if we've ever tried to apply for grants within veteran services. Yeah, Commissioner, I'm not unaware of grants. Um, Juanita put in the Florida Statute 292, and I'm really lightly paranoid. I'm paraphrasing here that under Florida law that we're required to maintain a veteran services office and use our local funds. Oh, I'm not opposed to that by any means. Yeah, no. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure they could look for grants, but, um, that we're, at a minimum, we're required to provide the service. Right. So that's how it gets generated. Is that something we could do? Because I would love to see this expanded, because, you know, I mean, you guys do a great job of using... Absolutely. Dennis, our veteran services manager, we'll work together and do some research and bring you back some more information. Thank you. Yeah, and, uh, it's not technically a grant, but the City of Palm Bay, they're funding that position in the office based on the Palm Bay to help expand the service. So they have gone out a little bit to look for other funds. Yeah, that's great. Right. City of Palm Bay contacted us. They wanted to provide an FSO in the city. Now he does, whoever comes in is not limited just to Palm Bay. Right. But instead of trying to get someone and do all the training and certification, we assisted and partnered with that, and they totally fund that position. Awesome. Thank you. You're welcome. Commissioner Atkinson, any questions? Thank you, Juanita. Thank you. I appreciate your department. Every time I walk over there, they're always very helpful to me. So thank you, everybody. Thank you. And I see Linda out and about very regularly. So, okay, very good. All right, Terry. Good afternoon, commissioners. As I have the opportunity to present to you almost on a monthly basis, I'm going to focus on the budget here since you guys frequently see me at the TPO meetings. As you see on the screen, there are some fast facts about transit. I won't get into too many of them, but one thing I want to make sure that I do point out is that we operate our service with 122 operators, 30 support staff, and 18 contracted staff. Currently, we're providing about 64,000 passenger trips a month in our fixed route service. In addition to that, we do about 360 paratransit trips on a daily basis, and that's to our individuals that are unable to use the fixed route service. So for our budget, our 2025 budget is approximately $47 million, and a large part of that, as you can tell on the graph, is split into two areas, being the operating and the capital, of that which 56% is in the attributed operating of our overall budget, and the remaining 44% goes to capital. I'll get into some, I'll do like Juanita, I'll get into some specifics later. So our revenues, as you see here, are derived from multiple sources, however, with an overwhelming portion of that being from our federal transit administration budget, which says 82% of the funds, and then another 13% of those funds are derived from state funding, and as you see, the general fund portion is about 4% of our overall budget. This slide shows how revenues are utilized and the sources where they go to. Once again, you see the capital portion of our operations is primarily funded by federal revenue, and then also in our operations, another significant portion is federal revenue, which typically applies to our vehicles and our facilities. Operations is still comprised of a significant portion of federal dollars, along with a combination of general funds dollars, charges for services, and other revenues that you see on the graph here. Our operating expenses primarily go to our preventative maintenance, which is a 38% of our expenses, and this is used specifically to keep our vehicles in good operations and to make sure we're providing that service to our passengers. And then the next greatest portion is for our comp and benefits for our employees. Those capital expenses, as you see here, are also, once again, the primary area is for our vehicles to make sure we're operating optimal service, making sure the vehicles are in good operation for our passengers. Then we have our capital improvement projects, such as our parking lot repairs, our fuel tank replacement, and other items like our public restrooms, and the last part is the capital equipment, which a major portion of that is for technology in the vehicles, like the bus cameras and ITS software and radio equipment. This is probably the most significant slide in my presentation, and it shows that the general fund portion, which is the back of the bus where typically our engine is, is driving how we operate. So this general fund, you see that $200,000 is matched to our Intermodal grant, which is $100,000, which is half of that. Then the next portion is our block grant funds, which is 50% of our block grant. And then the last portion that you see is $226,000, which you don't see that there, but you see $2 million, so that's 10% of the FDOT funded. All of these items, then we can leverage an additional $2.3 million in federal funds to purchase vehicles and other things of that nature. So as you see, so if we have any issues with our general fund, all of these items in this area will be significantly reduced. Right now, the total required match is $2.4 million. We have a shortfall of $183,000, and that shortfall is made up of things like our sale of surplus vehicles, balance forward, advertising funds that we receive, and charges for services. In addition to that, we also are allowed to, using the funds that you saw in the previous slide, we're allowed to leverage additional funds with no local match requirement. So as you see here, we have $456,000 for our quarter and A1A and 520 quarter grants. In addition, we can also leverage $8.7 million in FTA capital grant funds that we use for preventative maintenance and capital equipment. Once again, with no local match to the county. This next slide talks about our capital improvement plan. You see various areas that we're looking to make improvements, our Cocoa Terminal Learning Center, our ramp and areas for our passenger restrooms, all once again approved in the existing budget. But in addition to that, we don't just focus on our employees, staff, and equipment. We also make sure we focus on our passengers. One of the current and continuous requests we get are for amenities at our transit stops. So right now, as you see in the slide, we have $1.6 million allocated toward amenities to be installed throughout the entire county over the next five years. And typically, we partner with FDOT on projects, roadway projects when they're doing any resurfacing projects. And we have the pads built. However, in some cases, we go through the process ourselves completely from beginning to end. We also have a need for transit vehicle replacements. Right now, we have 23 million allocated replacements of vehicles over the next five years. Currently, and this number is always subject to change, currently a bus of this style costs about $600,000. Right now, we have about 20 buses that date back as far as 2007, some with over 600,000 miles. We have vehicles that are nearing almost a million miles. So it goes to the statement of how we keep our vehicles in good repair and continue to utilize them way beyond their useful life. When you said, just real quick, $600,000 to replace a bus today, how much of an increase is that over, just say, even five years ago, just to give us an idea? So I'll give you just last year. Okay. Last year, we were at probably five and a half. Okay. So those numbers, I can't say fluctuate incrementally. They're just, I probably could get Jim to tell you when he bought a bus last, how much it cost. I'm sorry. I know a couple of things about buses. I haven't been there in eight years. Last time, I was spending about $330,000 a copy, and I'm jumping on Terry. I'm sorry. The drivetrain, the engine transmission, they're over $100,000 now. And almost one manufacturer, or are there two? Do you buy from? There are several manufacturers. However, we primarily purchase our vehicles from Gillick. One of the benefits of doing that is our mechanics are trained, and they're knowledgeable about this specific bus. So there are a couple others. New Flyer is another one. There are a couple of Neoplans. There are others. But there's many differences in, of course, the equipment, the components, the parts. So then we were trying to get parts from different people, different vendors. So we have primarily went with Gillick, who is also one of the vendors that's on the state contract. We're required to purchase off of Florida's state contract. And if the vendor is not on that contract, we can't purchase the, well, there's a lot of steps we have to go through, but we would not be purchasing buses from someone outside the state contract. Well, I appreciate the same when it comes to these things. I've had that conversation with over fire rescue vehicles and how they try to purchase those also. There's an advantage, and one of the major advantages of the state contract is because they do all the legwork to make sure we're getting the best price. So we're not just buying the bus because we like it. We're getting one of the best prices for the equipment that we do purchase. Thank you, sir. You're welcome, sir. So that actually does conclude my presentation. Knowing that there are about eight others behind me, I want to make it as quickly as possible. So I wanted to continue to give my thanks to the ACM, the county manager, and the board for the dedication and the support that you provide to transit services all the time. What does it cost a typical rider for if they use transit services almost exclusively? Do they get a pass for a month? And what does that cost? Does it work that way? Yes, it does. A passenger currently for one ride fare is $1.50 each way. They can buy a 30-day pass that's just about $46, and they can use that pass from the time it's initiated to 30 days later, as many times as they want to, no restrictions. And there's also a 10-ride pass, which gets punched each time you use that pass. But primarily our passengers pay for the single ride, or they buy a monthly pass. And I think I saw a QR code the other day. So you have a way to pay with a mobile device these days, right? Yes, sir. So one of the things we've implemented recently has been a myriad of technology, and one of those is the opportunity for passengers to purchase a pass on their phone. And once they get on the bus, they're going to show that pass to the operator. We're looking at ways to even increase the technology, and then where it will be a scanned pass on a device on the bus and minimize the amount of cash we take in, which will also allow us to recoup costs because of the cost in counting the money, the armored truck services, and those things. So we're looking to implement even more technology to allow us to save more. Now, when they get on the bus, how does, so somehow their mobile device interacts with the bus when they get on? They say, okay, that's your ninth ride or whatever? Is that how that works? So currently, what it is, it's called a flash pass. So the passenger purchases the pass in advance, and when they get on the bus, they activate it. And there's three mechanisms that show that it's actually an active and real pass. It pulses. It shows the time and date of the current time. It also has a color that the operator himself or herself knows to differentiate. Once they see the pulse, they look for the current time. So a person couldn't use a video, unless they're using a video and taking the exact time that they're riding the bus tomorrow, they wouldn't be able to duplicate it and use it without it being an actual pass that is being applied. Typically, those are going to be monthly passes anyway, so just as long as it's within the 30-day range, they can use it as much as possible. There are a couple of individuals that we do see use a single ride, but that's good for just one trip, and they can get a transfer to continue a trip if they're going to another route. So there is an ability for me to give a gift card to somebody for them to ride the bus for a day. We don't have something like that currently. I'd be better off just to hand them three bucks for a round trip. So not a gift card, but you can purchase the pass for anyone you want to, just as long as you have their telephone number. You can purchase the pass and then send it to that individual, and it will show up on their phone just as long as they have the app activated. Okay, so they have to have the app to do that. They have to have the app on their phone, and they have to activate it. Yes, sir. All right. Other questions for Terry? Those are all the same questions you had? Yes. Okay. All right. Very good. Well, thank you all. Mr. Atkinson, did you have any questions? Okay. Thank you, Terry, very much. Thank you. I have an app for that. Assume you have many. Good afternoon. I'm Jeff McKnight. I have been honored to be part of the best team in Brevard County for about 13 years, and I could go on and on about the IT department because I'm very proud of them, and I'm a geek, but I'm going to breeze through this at about 150 kilobits a second to be respectful of your time. Okay. Here's our last year's budget. We're sitting at about $11 million. This is a little bit higher than our normal budget. It increased this year significantly because of the SAP upgrade. Most of you are probably aware of that. We just finished that last week. So we're very excited about that, and that was about a six-year project with it ramping up in the last three years. We're very proud to get that done. Our funding, we're about 27% general fund. That has been pretty flat over the last few years. We have had some changes in the charges for services. We had a true up, and that helped out our department quite a bit, but the general fund has stayed pretty flat. These are our five groups that we have. Our biggest two groups are systems and software, and I'll move on to administration. Administration, this is basically what we do in administration. The one thing that we did change in administration this past year was, first of all, and you can see this bump here, is in our comp and benefits, we added an accountant to our payroll for succession planning, and also we assumed a mail clerk to take over for a vendor, an outside vendor that was handling the courier on campus. And we presented a cost savings for that in order to just hire a person and have them do that on campus. And it's worked out very, very well. The person we hired is... Is that Gabe? Huh? That's Gabe. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Our systems group is based out of, I mean, comprised of network systems and cybersecurity. Cybersecurity is also a relatively new position for us. We have nine staff in that, as listed there. You can see the top line is operating, and for the operating, that dip that we had there was the result of an RFP we did for our communications, our circuits and internet. We had a significant cost savings there by moving to the current vendor. And the bump that we have there in the comp and benefits is just, like I said, we added the cybersecurity officer, and also, for succession planning, we promoted an internal to assistant department director. Software is basically software. We have 12 staff there. You can see pretty significant jumps in both operating and capital expenditures. That is all SAP. That was a huge undertaking for us, and, like I said, we're very proud to have that done. We have payroll tomorrow. We're crossing our fingers, but our day after tomorrow. But that's another milestone that we're reaching. Service desk is our face of the customers, which our customers are county staff. They're very, very important to us, and we have seven staff. The top line, which is the most predominant and most expensive line, is almost all Microsoft licensing. That is for all the computers and servers in the county, and also one of our concerns, which I'll get into in a little bit. The bottom line, where there's a jump in our capital, last year we started taking over seven departments in their computer management. They were buying their own computers and not necessarily consistent about the models and the types, so we took that over at their request, and they just moved money from their department to ours, and we take care of that for them. Our GIS department is the smallest department. It's three staff, and the line there is very inconsistent on the top on comp and benefits because we've had a very hard time keeping a couple of those positions filled. That is by far the most difficult one we've had. It's the smallest one, but it's also the smallest group, but it's also the most difficult to keep someone in those positions. Who do you compete with when it comes to GIS folks? Just curious. I mean, almost everyone uses GIS to some form. I mean, marketing agencies use GIS. IT companies use GIS. Everybody uses GIS. So it's not just other municipal governments? No, no, no, not at all. No. Okay. I mean, from a marketing standpoint, GIS is very important. I mean, I don't know. It's not really my wheelhouse, you know, as far as what other companies use GIS for. I know that it's, you know, like geo... What do you got? Caching or whatever. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of stuff like that. You know, the tourism uses a lot of GIS. Or geo-targeting. Yeah, there's just a lot of different... It's not just maps, you know. It's not just planning and development. I'm sure utilities are using a lot of this. Yes, absolutely. These days, too. Several other departments have their own GIS super users that they use in their own departments. But, and E911 also has some dedicated people that are GIS. Yeah. I was just curious. I'm not going to go through all the recent accomplishments. We've been quite busy and we stay busy. I think I went through most of these financial impacts. Yeah, I missed kind of all those. Okay, threats. All of these are valid threats. We have highly trained and highly skilled staff, and they are constantly getting headhunted. And, you know, we try to create an environment here that they want to stay. And we've been pretty successful, especially in the last year or so. So, we're crossing our fingers and just hope they stay. But, you know, we make sure that our staff is trained up. And when you train staff, you know, to keep up with technology, you also make them more marketable to other corporations and other opportunities out there. So, it's a catch-22 in that situation. Security concerns is a major threat to us because we can never stay ahead of the game. It's impossible. You know, we're always playing catch-up with that. We get annual audits now for PCI compliance. We have several departments that take credit cards. And we have to make sure that the framework behind that meets all the requirements, and we get audited every year. And we have a difficult time implementing all the findings before we get the next audit. And that's a moving target. Every year, the requirements get more stringent. I already mentioned kind of the advancing technologies. We have to stay trained. If you don't stay ahead of that, you know you're going to get left behind. Software subscription trend. I already showed you the Microsoft trend, how that's going up. Everybody is going to the subscription trend. And it's really out of our control once we get on that subscription train because they are in charge of the pricing. Very few of them will give you, you know, multiple-year contracts. It's like a year-by-year basis. Another thing that goes for all those companies listed there and more, even our hardware are now going to subscription-type services. They'll get to a certain point where they'll say, well, we'll give you these, keep giving you these updates until the device is no longer compatible with the updates, and you have to replace them. Another thing that's a difficult and complex thing is the way that they do some of the licensing on these things. Sometimes it's about users, end users. Sometimes it's about the amount of data you use, the amount of cores in your processors and computers. So it gets really complicated. And it's hard to keep track of all that, you know, on a global basis with thousands of computers. So, and that's it. Any questions? Questions for Jeff? Mr. Arkansas. Thank you. Thank you. So IT is, like, the bane of my existence, and I'm glad that there are people like you who are doing it for us. Thank you. Before you go, for anybody who's watching at home, give a quick description of SAP, just for laymen. It's our financial system, and basically, without it, you don't get a paycheck. It handles, you know, all of our invoicing, purchase requests, receivables, asset management, HR components, recruiting, onboarding. There's a lot of layer to it. There's different modules for public works, different modules for the procurement office. There's a lot of layers to it, but basically, to sum it up, it's a financial system. It is our core financial system. It is a huge system that we have looked at replacing in the past, and it's just too big to replace. It just does too much, and it involves also the clerk's office and finance, so it's not just us. And it's fair to say that every county employee has interaction with SAP? I would say, well, yeah, if they get a paycheck, yes. They have some type of interaction, yes. Okay. All right. Anything else for Jeff? Thank you, sir. Thank you. How about you guys amenable to a five-minute break? Yes. Okay. All right. Let's do that. Jimmy, sir, you're up. All right. Beth Shepard sends two apologies. Her first apology, she's not here because she's at the Association for International Agricultural and Extension Education's annual meeting. And her second apology is you got me. So, okay. So there's the humor for today. So I'm just going to do a quick review of the University of Florida IFAS, which stands for Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences, Extension Services, and Brevard. Their main mission is education. You can see the number of different things they do. They do provide basically two events a year. They have multi-thousand people coming in and out of the building every year. They go out and do field visits. That would be agricultural. And then their class participation, they have over 16,000 people participating in their classes throughout the year. The Extension Services, it's a little bit of – well, it is a unique structure for Brevard County as they have two funders and two managers of the services. As you look at the charts, if you look at the – I'm going to call it dark pink, magenta, and the dark blue colors. That's the federal and state funding they receive. Neither one of those you'll see in the county budget. That is the U.S. budget. They fund it. They provide their own services and different requirements, and, for example, best representing UF today. Then on the left-hand side, the green and the pink, that is the budget that you see in Brevard County where we have our general funds. UF – we have a number of Extension agents. UF pays anywhere from 33% to 60% of our agent salaries. And the interesting thing with – since it's UF and they're with their agents, they have to follow a tenure track. So if you're familiar with tenure for professors and doctoral ships, they have to provide their standards every year. They have to move their way up. And, you know, if you don't get the proper tenure, then you have to basically go find another position. So they're also county employees, and they're also UF employees at the same time. There are three different areas that the Extension provides. This is the first one, the agriculture, horticulture, and sea grants. We have four agents that provide the services. You can see everything in there, stuff that you'd be familiar with, you know, with the livestock. There's sod management, pasture management. But they're also – and with flooding, adaption, mitigation. They've done a lot of studies over the last couple years on how to help reduce watering in the different farms. They use drones to try to, you know, try to make us a little bit more efficient. They also spend a lot of time with the Coastal and Marina Environmental Education. And then the one we probably all know is our Master Gardeners or Citizen Sciences that go on and volunteer to help in the community. Family and Consumer Sciences, that's actually where Beth specializes in. And it's pretty self-descriptive. And there you see about a little over half of it comes from general fund and user funds. That's financial management, nutrition, canning, a bunch of our classes. Beth actually herself teaches classes along with two other agents. You have your food and nutrition. And then underneath the county, because I know a bunch of you have been through it, that's where we run our Citizens Academy through. So you see Extension is the one in charge of that. I told you I'm going to go fast here. Last but not least is the 4-8th Use Development, the Life Skills, STEM, Healthy Living, all your 4-H volunteers. This entire program is run through one agent. I can tell you last weekend was the big, how do we want to call it, 4-H Fair and Market, or as my family calls it, the chicken auction. So we go. And I've got to tell you, it's amazing stuff. You see the kids that are anywhere from 4 to 5 years old up to 15, 16. And watching those little 5-year-old kids bringing their chickens inside to the auction. I mean, the chickens are half the size of the kid, but they've got them well maintained. But above and beyond that, they're teaching the kids on how to manage, how to budget, what they need to do properly to grow their animals and maintain them. But they also maintain goats. There's turkeys. You'll see if you go down to the Wickham Park at the old horse stalls, you'll see the different farm animals there, the ducks. That's the 4-H program out there. So it's your traditional 4-H program that you'll find throughout the country. And then finally, there's tons of volunteers. If you go into the Extension building, you're going to find probably more volunteers in the building almost at any time than you'll find total employees. They have that many volunteers. The one that I'm sure we're all familiar with is the Master Gardeners. And I would tell you, again, personal experience with the Master Gardeners. They had their plant sale the last couple weekends. And I had a nice lady who led me around, Sandy. I had three requirements. Give me something green, something that's difficult to kill and that's not a weed. So she set me up so my back porch is looking pretty green. We were able to redo our flower garden in the backyard. But you see there's a number of different things. You've got the interns. They work with the food and nutrition. And then, you know, we have the parents out there for the 4-H program. So you can see basically that – oh, I'm sorry, the last part. Capital and building, I almost forgot that. It's just like every other department. We've been doing a lot of investing and paying attention to a lot of our facilities. So you see the number of repairs that they put through all their different facilities out there in West Cocoa. Last but not least, you see there's a roof replacement scheduled. That building, when I was fairly new, it was a new building. It was built in 1988. So it's getting to the end of some of its life cycles. So we're going to be paying attention. We have a big roof. We made the front doors accessible. We worked on the parking lot. We worked on the irrigation. So we've been investing a lot in that. We will – as long as the board allows us, we'll continue to invest in the facilities for extension. So last but not least, it's, you know, they focus on education. They're out there in the community. I do wanted to let you know that they do have to – you know, they're UF employees and they're county employees, which leads to some interesting situations. Beth – she'll probably kill me, but Beth gave her presentation this morning probably about seven hours ago because she's in Scotland right now. So she worked all weekend on the 4-H fair and had to fly out Sunday morning, sleep yesterday, and gave her presentation about four in the morning our time. So – but they do a lot of different things, and they're out there helping agriculture, helping the locos. They're also helping our 4-H and helping with our kids. Hope I was shorter than Terry. Any questions I could try to answer? Any questions for Jim on IFAS? Thank you, sir. Thanks. Good afternoon. All right, so let's talk about mosquito control. Um, so, uh, we operate countywide. Uh, we have three offices. Our headquarters in Titusville, um, and another office down in Valkyria, both near, uh, adjacent to airports. Uh, we have aircraft operations, uh, laboratories, uh, ground operations, shop and vehicle maintenance. In the center of the county, we have a small office near the Ag Center, um, uh, where we have watercraft and also do some maintenance there. Um, so we were established as a mosquito-controlled district in 1937. Uh, we're state-approved, so we, uh, we work to maintain that, uh, certification under Florida law. And, uh, in order to protect public health, our, we have, uh, we're completely funded by special revenue funding, um, via, um, ad valorem taxes. So, this is just a quick look at our, uh, revenue, um, obviously, ad valorem taxes, $8.8 million out of our nearly $14 million budget. Um, and then next to that, the balance forward, $4.7 million approximately. Um, this is very much our, our laboratory that we're, we're looking to construct in this next fiscal year. Uh, we have money saved for that, that we've shifted forward over $3 million, um, as well as some operating funds that we carry over to help us with the transition. Um, so everything else beyond that, miscellaneous, uh, interest, um, services for, uh, a few services that we provide, um, to other agencies, uh, grants and, uh, just, uh, regular transfers. Uh, as far as expenses go, uh, obviously comp and benefits, uh, 4.3, almost $4.4 million. About the same for operating, uh, expenses. Now, this operating category is, uh, everything from, um, um, repair and maintenance to pesticides, fuel, uh, just everything to really keep us going. Uh, insurance, that captures a lot of different things. Uh, capital improvement projects, uh, that $3 million, that, that, again, is the laboratory that we've been saving up. We've actually just, in the recent balance forward, added some more to that. Um, capital outlay, um, that's our, uh, $765,000. That's our equipment, so if, obviously, there's a lot of equipment involved in mosquito control, um, some of that, a couple of hundred thousand of that is grants, um, um, excavators, uh, vehicles, uh, things like that, so computers, um, so, uh, reserves, this is, uh, this is in case, of course, we have a real outbreak, a real public health emergency, since that's what we're there for, we have that ready to go, um, and then, uh, just transfers, um, to, for, um, the tax collector to property appraiser and, um, annual payments. So, this is what our team looks like, 51 positions, nine of which are, uh, administrative, customer service, support staff, um, four biology, environmental technician types, um, and, um, heavy, uh, six heavy equipment operator impoundment technicians, and I'll talk about impoundments here in a minute. Um, now, this, our largest kind of section is our ground operations section. This is where we are on the ground doing the inspections, the treatments, the spraying, 22 people that are involved in that. It's a big county, so we're kind of widespread there. Um, and then, uh, four people involved in our manned and unmanned, uh, aircraft operations, uh, includes drones, um, shop maintenance, calibration, safety staff, uh, six people there. So, the reason why we have such diverse staff, I know usually people think of mosquito control, pretty much just think about spraying. We have lots of, uh, habitats, lots of challenges, uh, nooks and crannies, everything from the, uh, salt marsh, um, associated with the Indian River Lagoon to the, um, fresh waters of the St. Johns River, um, and all the lakes, ponds, and wetlands in between. So, that gives us over 40 species of mosquitoes to deal with in Brevard County. Um, so not only do we have to deal with all the different species, decide what, uh, what we're seeing if there, uh, how much they, they may impact humans. We have to figure out what habitat they prefer, what diseases they may transfer, but we also have to deal with them in their different life cycle stages. Um, there could be in the aquatic stages as eggs, larvae, pupae, and then, or they can be adults where they're biting, flying mosquitoes, which, again, is what, what you would think of. Some of them are a small size of a gnat, and some of them are pretty big, maybe not this big quite, but, um, but pretty big, some, like a, like a wasp, for instance. Um, on the left side here, you see, this is the list of diseases that are, there are 11 there, and these are the ones that we have to pay attention to. We see these, um, regularly, and, um, you know, this is why we historically were part of Mosquito County, I would say, between the mosquitoes and the diseases. But the ones in these boxes are the ones that I would say we expect to see every year. Um, outside the box, it just depends. We're seeing more and more of the tropical viruses, uh, like dengue. Um, we're also seeing malaria cases. What happens there is, well, people will travel out of the area, often out of the country. They'll come back, feel ill, go to the medical center, and then they pick up, uh, on key words. The health department contacts us, and we address that. And we basically keep that from spreading to others, because we have the mosquitoes to transmit the diseases. We just try to keep them away from the diseases. So, um, so we, we follow an integrated approach to mosquito environmental management. Um, and I, I thought it would be a good way to kind of go through what we do as a service, because it's really, uh, very much, uh, uh, an ecological approach. Um, so the first thing we do is, you know, we'll get phone calls, come out, you know, they, people would like us to come spray. Um, we don't necessarily just spray without justification. Uh, we'll go out and look for a source. We might go out to a house and see, uh, birdbath, buckets, um, you know, swimming, abandoned swimming pools, tires. Obviously, we've talked about tires recently. Um, full of mosquitoes. Um, we get rid of the source. The job's done. We may not have to even spray, uh, beyond that. Um, we, we move about 60 tons of tires every year, just picking up waste piles. And now with this new program, we're hoping to get some more. So that's a habitat. Tires are a mosquito habitat and other containers. Well, think about habitat on a larger scale. Um, salt marshes are known to produce up to 2 billion mosquitoes per acre. So, I mean, and that's not just once per year. That's every time the tide comes in, the wind blows, uh, the tide in. Um, um, so we, we address that in, in, in a unique way. Then these mosquitoes, these salt marsh mosquitoes can fly 25 miles, pretty much go across the county. So, um, other species, uh, except 40 plus species, they may not go beyond a mile or a few hundred feet. So, it really varies. But this is what we call our mosquito impoundments, which, uh, a lot of people have heard of. Um, so back in the 1950s and 60s, these were built on, with the understanding that these salt marsh mosquitoes, unlike a lot of the other mosquitoes, uh, will only lay their eggs in the sediment, not in the exposed sediment, not in the water. So, every time the water goes out, the tide, the wind blows it out, they'll lay these billions of eggs. The water comes back in. Within a week, they're producing all these flying, biting mosquitoes. And then it keeps happening, keeps happening. So, what they realized was if they, uh, build these earthen dikes around this, these acres, this, and it turns out that we're managing 28,000 acres, we're able to capture that water the first time in the beginning of the mosquito season and hold that. And we, we, we go through a lot of trouble to keep that water, uh, up to a level. And it, it reduces, um, the mosquitoes' opportunity, uh, to lay eggs. Um, we, it's enhanced by 110, uh, culverts, 15 pumps countywide, plus several more culverts in the Merritt Island, uh, Wildlife Refuge. We partner with them on management there. Um, so this allows us to, when, when, you know, when the mosquito season isn't as active, we can open everything up, let the water and the fish exchange between the outside lagoon, uh, and inside the impoundments. So, that gives us all kinds of opportunities to not only manage for mosquitoes and public health, but do some environmental projects, um, get involved in the Indian River Lagoon, uh, restoration. We have seagrass projects going where we're trying to help use the impoundments as a nursery. Um, when we do shoreline work, um, instead of, like, uh, a hardened shoreline, we're, we're putting native plants, um, oysters, and we're getting grants for that. So, it all works out, win-win, um, every, everything work. And we, we also get lots of opportunities to partner with people, with different agencies, not only in the county, uh, other county departments like Natural Resources, but outside the county. Um, we, oh, we have a water quality program as well. So, we're looking at water quality inside and outside the impoundments. We're trying to make sure we don't, uh, impact the environment any more than we need. Um, so, our native mosquito fish hatcheries. So, one adult, one mosquito fish is known to consume up to about 100 mosquito larvae per day. So, we built, we've, we've, uh, we, we built and expanded our hatcheries in 2020. We have one, uh, north and one in our south office. Um, and we're able to use those fish not only for ditches and small ponds, but we're able to do some large-scale stocking, because don't forget we have this impoundment program, which is very unique. Well, we have the ability to, we're pumping that water in, um, well, why not go ahead and stock some fish? Because even though they're native mosquito fish or gambusia that you would find in the area, they're not necessarily there yet. So, mosquitoes are producing a new brood, new generation, uh, within a week, sometimes less than a week, five days. The fish take a while to get in there. We're already going to have to, you know, start spraying if we don't figure out a different way. So, we've really been perfecting that system of utilizing the fish stocking program, um, especially like in this timeframe, uh, in the beginning of the season. Um, and we also have been doing mosquito fish giveaways, uh, for residents at outreach events. Um, so if you ever have any residents inquiring, send us, send them our way and we can either go and stock the fish or they can pick some up. So, um, so the vast majority of our operational staff are out there checking all the nooks and crannies we were talking about. They're inspecting, seeing if there are opportunities to stock fish. Sometimes you have, uh, an inch of water, uh, you're not going to be able to throw those fish in there right now. So, but still it's enough for mosquitoes to breed. So, we have to consider, um, what pesticides we might use. So, our goal is to, uh, save the actual nighttime spraying as the very last resort. Um, so we have options. We have EPA tested and improved materials, um, most of which are derived from, uh, natural materials such as, uh, soil bacteria. You might have heard of BTI, bacillus bacteria, that kind of stuff. And not only are they more environmentally friendly products, but we also can target just where we find those mosquitoes. So, instead of treating just mass, treating broad scale, we can actually just treat where the mosquitoes are before they start hatching out and going through and flying away. Once they're flying, it's really hard to, it takes a lot more pesticide to catch up with them. Uh, and all of our applicators are, um, are licensed in public health by the state of Florida, Florida Department of Agriculture. So, uh, in getting this material out there and including the fish, we've developed many retrofits, uh, innovations. We've taken our eight, we have amphibious eight wheelers, uh, four wheelers. We have airboats and other boats side by sides. Anyway, we take all these vehicles and, and make sure that we can take out their dry granules to, for these kinds of products, liquids, and also fish and take them right out where we need them. Um, so that's where drones come in. So, we were really working on all of these, uh, different ground vehicles, but we have different habitats out there. Some are so thick with mangroves. You can't really get these ground vehicles out there. So, we started off, uh, thinking, you know, drones are going to be this small niche. We're, we're just going to hit these small areas where we don't need larger aircraft just buzzing these homes like you see in this clip here. Um, and some of these areas, we just couldn't keep up with the treatment. Um, even having people out on foot would be rough on, on the environment. So, we, we have two licensed drone pilots who are, uh, who are licensed by the FAA and Department of Agriculture. Um, and we're, we're at a point where now the drones are, uh, capable of treating, doing all the daytime treating, uh, basically. Um, so, we have, uh, a fleet of drones. Lots of it has to do with our grant funding that we've, we've gotten, um, and accessories to, to, you know, lifts and things to get us to where we can get a line of sight. Um, and, um, where, um, we have, our largest drone is, uh, 13 feet across and diameter can handle over 200 pounds just as an example. Uh, and this is what a typical drone mobilization looks like, uh, when we're set up battery charging station and we have to, you know, kind of mobilize and then we can do hundreds of acres, uh, if needed. Um, so here we're at a point where we've talked about the habitat, the source reduction, the larval control, biological control, um, um, larval, um, treatments and we're at a point where, okay, now some mosquitoes are going to get away. They're going to be flying around. Now we have to do something with them because these are the ones that can transmit diseases. Um, so we have a trapping, a surveillance program with 50 traps per week. We're checked around the county. Most of them are, uh, CDC, um, traps. Uh, we have others that are standard equipment in the industry. Um, so we check these. Our biologists go through and look at everything in those for the species, the number of species, the number of, um, individuals in there, uh, because we may get a couple of hundred of this, uh, mosquito that is known to bite earthworms and frogs. They're not even interested in humans. Or we may get some that are not known to transmit diseases. So we know that hundreds of mosquitoes, yeah, we technically met the threshold, but we're not going to spray. We're going to leave them alone because it's just part of nature at this point. Um, but of course, if we find, uh, disease threats, that's another story, just like in the case of our, um, sentinel chicken program. So this is a program where, and I should first say that chickens are immune to these arboviruses. So it's a, it's kind of a good situation. They, they get spoiled. They get taken care of. We have 12 coops around the county. Um, we, we get, we withdraw their blood, send it to the, uh, to the health department every week. Um, and we get those results. Um, and we look at our results as well as the neighboring counties and all together, we can make decisions. If we see a cluster of, uh, certain like RSA West Nile virus kind of heading our way, um, from out of the county, even we'll start looking in those areas more closely, um, and prioritizing it. Maybe even we're prioritizing over the phone calls we're getting for, you know, some species that are maybe not transmitting viruses. So that's the kind of decisions we have to make between the mosquito trapping and then disease monitoring. So again, this is where we're finally doing the thing. I think that most people think of we're spraying. So we then would choose our equipment accordingly. We have, we have, we can spray by ground or air. Um, again, EPA approved pesticides is, is all we would use. Um, we actually wait until after sunset. Normally the vast majority of time, 30 minutes after sunset, we want those pollinators to get in their shelter and go in sleep for the night. Uh, also people walking their dogs and people, kids coming from home from school. We want to delay a little bit, but that is actually the most critical timeframe as well for mosquito. So it's really tricky because we kind of have to balance that. They're most active at dawn and dusk. And, um, so we're trying to get out there and not interfere with people and pollinators, but at the same time we want it to be effective. But luckily with the, all the, the latest technology that we have, uh, we have atomizers, the, we have mist droplets that are a size of mist that we measure under the microscope and we make sure they're in specification with the, uh, product labels. Um, the droplets are actually, uh, in the range of one to two tablespoons for an acre of treatment. So it's very little goes a long way. It's not like the old days where you picture this big cloud of smoke. And so we get a lot of calls saying it's not working and we're saying, oh, it's working. We can see it in the traps, but it just doesn't look like it's working. So, um, so think about, you know, emergencies like hurricanes, all of these things come together at this point. We're, when a hurricane's approaching, we're looking, we're, we're coordinating closely with the EOC, watching those updates. And then when we say, okay, this is the real thing, we save ourselves a couple of days to go out there, protect our resources, make sure the chickens are safe and tied down, make sure our traps are pulled in because we don't want them to become flying objects or get to, uh, they're attached to down trees that we can't get to. Um, um, and, uh, just, uh, heavy equipment. We want to make sure everything is safe. And then as soon as that storm passes, we're out there as soon as we can get out there. We're making sure our facility is ready for us to work out of, um, making sure, uh, and checking around the, the different habitats. So now we do our thing. Basically everything we've been talking about, we're checking the new, for the new water for mosquitoes. Um, normally you don't see it kicking in for a couple of weeks. So it's, um, it's not instant unless we happen to have an influx just before the storm. Um, but, um, so we're doing our thing where then we're conducting larval treatments, fish stocking, nighttime spraying as needed. Um, and then, uh, if we're in a declared emergency, we may get the opportunity, um, to utilize FEMA funding. So again, we work with the EOC on that procedure there. Um, we, that's where all our, our data collection comes in really handy. We have, we have to submit three to four years of trap data, show that it's a significant increase. Um, we have to get support letters, county management and, um, the health department, and then design some spray maps. And then once we release it, we have to do our internal spraying in different areas. And we try to prioritize it to stay out of those areas while they process it. And they're dealing with all the different counties. And so as an example, Hurricane Milton, we had quite an influx. We thought that last season was never going to end. Um, and then they came out and did, uh, it was 140,000 acres, um, on, you know, in the critical areas where we were seeing, um, you know, um, lots of mosquitoes and, and the viral rates rising. Um, and sure enough, it yielded a 98% reduction in the mosquitoes. And we were good. Um, and same thing happened with Ian before that. So when we're not dealing with emergencies, we're also, we're always trying to do some testing and development of our, our processes, improving everything along the way. We came across some methodology that we wanted to try enhancing our pumping in these impoundments and stocking fish together. Um, and normally we expect over the years, over the decades, everybody who's been there a long time expects that first breed of brood of mosquitoes to come and just really hit us hard. We have a spike and we're just going to have to do some treatment. Then after that we hold. But what we found was watching what happens sometimes when these storms come in, you get this influx, the fish spread around naturally, and then you don't have to treat in certain areas, especially around the salt marsh. Um, so we tried that. We started, we started with a small impoundment about 50 acres, uh, cause you know, and then we, um, we, we let it go as long as we could. And sure enough, we saw the fish, we saw the larvae and they weren't connecting and we were just hoping they would just go to them. And we're about to the point where we need to maybe treat. Uh, and then they started a feeding frenzy. So we said, this might work if we can do this, um, on a larger scale. So the next year, 2024, we did this on 1,000 acre impoundments and we're, we had some success there. Um, and sometimes we had to treat certain areas, but it was just little spot treatments. Um, so ultimately we've reduced the need for as much, much, uh, pesticide applications. We had no significant emergence of mosquitoes. We had traps all around here. So this is a full blown test. We had people working seven days a week and making sure it didn't get away from us. And now in 2025, we've implemented it, um, even further. So this is what our trap accounts look like over the last 10 years. You can see it's a downward trend overall. And so we've had a lot of historical sites that are in approximately the same place all those years. Um, we're running about half the amount of, uh, mosquitoes in our traps. So we're, we're definitely, these new improved methods are working. Um, and, um, and then this here is a similar looking trend, but it's, it's actually acreage of larva side. I mean, of, of, um, pesticides. So you're, uh, again, we're, we're getting those results, fewer mosquitoes and using the new and improved technology, the drones, the, the impoundment methods and everything else. And we're actually, um, still getting lower trap counts. So, um, and as far as testing goes, uh, that's, that's why we're really pushing. We're, we're, we're, we're planning on building a lab this next fiscal year. We've been really expanding our in-house resistant efficacy disease testing. Um, uh, we were awarded $300,000 in ARPA funds for lab equipment. Um, and now we're ready. We've been, we're trying to wrap up the design and build the lab so we can, we can spread out instead of just shoving equipment here and there in these buildings. Um, and then we can really do some, uh, more testing and improve our processes further. So just a quick review of some of the grant funding, um, uh, DEP. We typically are able to get wetland restoration grants, um, each year, uh, with culverts, uh, with living shorelines. Uh, we have two of them awarded, a couple of them that are pending. Um, and then, uh, U S fish and wildlife. And with Ducks Unlimited, we're actually looking at a partnership with natural resources and we're waiting on to buy it for some acquisition. A lot of the impoundments are privately owned or at least portions are. So it limits how much we can improve those areas. So when somebody is wanting to, uh, consider selling that, that we have incentives like this. And then last thing there on that page is, um, the, uh, the, the tire amnesty events, which we recently approved. We already ran, uh, one, uh, big event, uh, at the health department. We, we took in six tons of tires, um, to the landfill and we have more planned, um, coming up here. Um, a, a really important source of funding was CDC funding that was administered through the state department of agriculture, $861,500. Um, all of this is a surveillance equipment, treatment equipment. Uh, this really got our drone program up and going. Um, and we're, we're just wrapping up. We just made the, the, the remaining purchases on this grant, um, and getting close to closeout. This all was, uh, originated from, uh, Hurricane Ian incentives. Uh, basically, um, trying to make sure we address any, um, shortfalls or anything we saw that, you know, could have helped us get through the hurricane. Um, and then I won't go through all of this, but essentially this is our partnerships. A lot of this are, a lot of these are tied to grants. Um, we're talking, um, and a lot of these are environmental agencies, again, outside of, um, our, you know, other departments that we work with, um, FEMA, um, National Fish Hatchery. Um, we, we coordinate with Merritt Island, uh, the Refuge, uh, Brevard Zoo, just various projects, um, to help make our processes better and, uh, improve things like we had just talked about. Um, and finally, our really most important resource are, um, our employees. So, um, we are always looking for opportunities, uh, for employees, um, to, uh, develop and we, um, we work closely with human resources. Just in the last few years, we developed, um, three new career ladders and multiple updates on, on job positions. We've had some people retire. So it's an opportunity to say, let's, let's look at this and look at the latest technology and what we really need right now. So, um, incorporated in those ladders, we have incentives for people to, um, to participate in the, uh, Employee Development Program, the Executive, uh, Leadership Institute, ELI. And these, these same employees, it's really important because these same employees represent the county. So, um, they're out doing local outreach events, talking to the community. We're out, um, and even at state events, we're definitely at a point where one of the larger mosquito districts in the state. So we have a lot of resources, a lot of things to share. And if we can help another district, you know, do the same kind of thing with some of the, say, environmentally, uh, um, friendly measures that we take to control mosquitoes, they're taking notes, they're contacting us. So, um, this is just a quick snapshot, um, last few slides here, uh, career days, we're at parks and rec events, libraries. Um, we have open houses from time to time with different groups coming in. Um, and then here, like I was just saying, uh, professional, um, participation. We're going to these events, like these are mostly from Gainesville and not only just attending for CEUs, but we're teaching classes, you know, and that's the best way for employees to learn, um, is if we're getting ready to teach. And, um, so, um, I think that's all I have. So if you have any questions, Commissioner Dillane. Thank you. I just wanted to say thank you so much for everything that you and your team does. When I, um, after I got elected, I came and did a tour with you guys and it was a really cool day. Um, I got to see all these things that you're talking about and it's just, it blew my mind on how expansive, um, your department is and all the different things that you guys are doing, not only for health and safety, but, um, how conscious you all are about the environment and that it, it really just blew me away. So I just wanted to say thank you so much for what you guys do. Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah. We, we have, uh, that's one of the things that, uh, had me really interested in coming over to the Brevard County came in and natural resources actually, and then went over the mosquito control after a year. Um, but, but just the environmental focus is very unique. And, and so we keep up with that tradition as much as we can. So I was just wondering how many impoundment areas do we have in the County? Technically we have for a hundred. All right. But there are lots of impoundments that were built in the fifties and sixties that aren't safe functioning. And most of those are in the, um, they're up in the refuge. Um, but we also have, uh, I would say, uh, about 25 that we, um, actively manage out of that. And that's from, um, where we share the management in, uh, the refuge. Um, also in central, central Merritt Island, there's a, there's a cluster there that we manage. And then south Melbourne beach area, there's another cluster there. And then there are a couple in the, up in the Scottsmore area. Um, so about 25 that we really actively manage. And then some of them we, we monitor, but it's just such a vast Indian river lagoon. So, um, you did a great presentation. Thank you. It's very thorough. Um, I had a, I had a few questions that I'm very interested in the amnesty event that you did. I think, you know, I joked with you once before about we need couch amnesty in this County. Um, so, uh, you've, you've shown that that's successful six tons of tires is 12,000 pounds. Did people bring you 12,000 pounds of tires or did you have to go pick them up or were there dumpsters out there that they dropped them in? How did, how did that happen? It was a combination. So we were right here at the health department parking lot. It was kind of a trickle. It was a Saturday. People were kind of trickling in. We had, we didn't know really how to judge, uh, and plan for it. So it seemed like we had enough people to say, Hey, we know of a close by tire pile. So we sent half the people out to go pick up those tires at the same time. And then, you know, we never had so much of an influx that we couldn't handle it. So we pretty much doubled the count by going out. And I had checked with DEP ahead of time to see if we can do that. And they were fine with that. So, um, so yeah, it was about half and half and they found there was a, I think it was a 528 on the ramp going on. Um, uh, lots of, uh, truck tires, tractor tires. Um, and there was a really heavy. So, um, so we, we got a lot of weight just from those tires. Yeah. I, I mean, I think that's, I mean, tell me if I'm wrong, it was 12,000 pounds of tires. No, that's right. And then, um, just this past weekend, there was another event that, um, uh, basically, uh, natural resources, Virginia put us in touch with this, uh, Pineda, um, waterway warrior group and they were cleaning up a wonderful group, by the way, they were cleaning up tire Island. So we did the trucking, um, and, uh, we, we just turned it. It's about, it was probably around the same amount of tonnage. We have to look at the, at the numbers. We just did that. So. Yeah. Um, that's very impressive. Um, are, are rain barrels, uh, uh, uh, a hatchery for, uh, mosquitoes? I mean, they're becoming more popular and I think that's great. Um, trying to keep, you know, water out the lagoon, et cetera. But I'm, I'm wondering, does it have a long-term consequence when it comes to mosquitoes? They could, but, uh, basically just people need to keep a screen. A screen keeps them from getting out. You could take, uh, the BTI dunks. It's same materials we use, but, and break off little pieces if for some reason it's not secure, it's not kind of sealed up, but at least keep up with the screen. Um, that's the main thing. Keep up with the maintenance of it. Then it's not a problem. Do, uh, you know, when I think of, um, the many retention ponds in Brevard County, um, there's, you know, typically, uh, those are in HOAs. Do HOAs contact you for mosquito fish? You talked about, um, that people could contact you. Is that something? A lot of times the open ponds are really not generating mosquitoes. So if, unless they're just clogged wall to wall with vegetation, that's, then people often think that's the part, the problem. We'll go out and figure out where they're, where it's coming from. But that's where you have more of an issue with like non-biting midges, um, and they're attracted to lights and attracted to the homes. They're called blind mosquitoes. So people get mixed up and, uh, they, they think maybe that might be what's biting them. Um, so we do go out and do, uh, education and we work with them on that, but often don't require the fish stocking. But we do sometimes we'll find some areas that are pretty heavily vegetated and we'll stock fish. Are, are bat boxes something that you promote? Is that, uh, that used to be a thing, uh, a while ago. I haven't heard, I haven't heard that in a number of years. Not, not bat boxes. Yeah. So, uh, at some point there was some research in the laboratory where, um, uh, given only, uh, mosquitoes, uh, bats will eat mosquitoes like crazy in that lab. Um, but out in the wild, um, there have been, um, studies since then, including a real recent one from University of Florida where they were finding that, you know, they would prefer moths or larger insects and mosquitoes. They're pretty hard to catch, you know, where the moth will just fly right in your face. So, um, and they can get more out of it. Now there are different species of bats, you know, so, um, they found that the smaller bats, I think, uh, seminal bat was one of the key species there. They don't prefer the structures like bat boxes. They actually prefer Spanish moss and hanging palm fronds. So all the, the conservation that, uh, like the eel program and, you know, natural resources and the, you know, all the impoundments that we, um, manage, that's the best really way to, uh, have bats do their thing, um, because the bats that are eating, consuming the most mosquitoes are those bats and not so much the ones that are, uh, attracted to the bat houses for it. So that's, and there's a recent study, University of Florida, um, that, um, really got into that comparison and everything. Every once in a while we get a lizard in our house and I can hear it making noise in the middle of the night. And I think, uh, I hope he gets that mosquito that I saw earlier. Yeah. Is that realistic? Probably not, but, uh, they can get hold of it, but hard to catch, hard to catch mosquitoes. Okay. So, uh, any other questions? Commissioner? What would be the best situation for, um, those, those fish? Where, where are they most useful? Um, they're most useful in new ponds that don't already have established native population, um, in, uh, the, like flood water areas that at the beginning of the flooding season. And that's why we're able to, when we're artificially flooding in an area, then we can add fish cause we know we're pumping. But if not that, then when the rainy season picks up and you have ditches that are, uh, full of water only from that point on, that's a good time to stock fish. So it just depends. But anything that's normally pretty established, uh, they, we'll go out and actually see that they already have the mosquito fish, um, and everything under control. The exception is if it's just clogged with vegetation and, um, maybe that needs a little more help. So. Anything else for Joe? All right, sir. Well done. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, one quick second. It's been cut down. You already know. Wow. Ouch, ouch, ouch. So, um, I'm Wendy Bost. I'm proud to be your director of the Brevard County Library System. Um, what you see on this very first screen is the nature and variety of our libraries. They are all very different. Um, and I guess the one thing I want to say is libraries are great buildings, but they need to have the right staff in order to be most successful. So I want to start with some key performance indicators of libraries. Um, I don't know if you realize, but 1.6 million people visit the libraries each year. Um, our circulation is over 4.3 million items. Um, we see our certain things going up, our volunteer hours. We love our volunteers. Also, lots of people coming to us for programs. I always say the library is like a hidden jewel. You come because you have a specific need and someone said, hey, have you tried the library? They get to the library and then they're amazed by all the things that we offer. I also wanted to point out we are required by law when someone registers for a library card to update their voter registration or register to vote. So, um, we have a total of 19 locations. Well, I'm stretching one because it's a mobile library, but we stem from, um, Mim Scotsmore all the way down to South Mainland. Um, we manage the four of the buildings that we don't own. That's Merritt Island, Mim Scotsmore, O'Galley and Cape Canaveral. Well, and Mim Scotsmore, it's on the school property is what it is. We have a mobile library and our newest addition is the River House. The River House was built in 1924 and this year it's been renovated on the first floor so that it's ADA compliant and we're holding all kinds of interesting programs there. So it's about 338,000 square feet of library. Um, no two are the same. All of them are aging. And in addition, we give about $300,000 to the law library here for the, them to maintain their collections. Our revenue is pretty simple and pretty straightforward. We are a dependent taxing district. In 1972, um, the taxpayers approved a referendum and we became an independent taxing district. So we received that revenue. We do get, um, state aid to libraries. We have fines and fees. Um, those are the main things and balance forward. For our expenses, library media, we have various transfers we give. Um, we also have capital projects, a lot of capital projects. And I have to give a shout out to facilities. Skip Bell and his team are incredible. We work with them regularly. They help manage our projects and get them done. Um, operating expenses, about 7 million, 14 million in salaries. Um, we have endowment money where people have donated money to the library, which is very lovely. Um, I'd like to have a process where we can let the community know that it's a great resource and for them to think about. Um, and we do have the 2 million reserves and that's kind of to get us through the beginning of the next fiscal year as, um, as the tax collector is collecting the funds. So library revenue, and I have to, again, shout out to Mark Bernath and Skip Bell. You can see there was a steady kind of increase there. And then if you look at our next projection, we're going to be a little bit down and that's because we've gotten some of our projects done. So some of that balance forward has gone down. So like I said, staffing, staffing, we couldn't do what we do without our staff. Um, in 2001, we had 307 library staff, but as you can see, the majority of them is our, our, we're part-time and then we had some full-time. Now we're moving up towards adding full-time staff, um, slowly, but surely we call it creating snowmen. So when someone leaves here and someone leaves here, we piece things together, um, so that we can have some additional positions that are full-time and dedicated to service. Um, and then also we've had a hundred staff get promotions since 2021. And sometimes that promotion is full-time to part-time. Sometimes it's from an entry-level position to more senior position. So it's all within the system. We try to promote from within and we've had staff that go out and get their master's degree in library science. We will help them with that. And again, they get promoted and move up. So I'm really excited about that. When I talk about CIP projects, just some ideas of what we're actually spending. Um, we had budgeted this year, I think close to $5 million and we're working our way through it. There are some challenges. Pipes break. And I'll show you that in a minute. I'm going to show you some examples of some of our projects. Um, and then this is kind of some history. If you have 18 locations, someone's going to need a roof every year. Someone's going to need, we haven't had new flooring in the Kathy Schoensberg Rood library for quite some time. So we're looking at ways to, um, get these things done and make them fresh, make them look good, but being mindful. Again, we focus our funds on the envelope of the building, plumbing, air conditioning. Those are all the things that our dollars are focused on. Here we go right into this budget priorities, staffing, security, which I'll talk about, um, maintaining the buildings. And then, I mean, even windows we have to replace all the windows on the north side of the Melbourne library. And we were looking at doing it in sections, but we learned the windows won't be the same. So we're going to start saving now. So over time we replace them all at once. So they all have that same look. And then finally, just some of these pictures here. Um, the pictures on either side are in the mobile library. It's not just a book mobile. We do technology in there. We do all kinds of different things. Kids are coding ozo bots. They're playing with makey makeys. They're making instruments. There's all kinds of things that we do that would surprise you. So this is one of my favorites. So we do a lot of renovations. We have a lot of facilities that we want to make sure are welcoming to the public. And so we're working on a more central theme going forward where we'll have a similar feel and experience when you enter each library. Right now, when you enter them, they're all different. And so we're trying to make them look and feel the same, same colors painted, not identical, but give them that same feeling. So you got to love this. That was, um, this year with, I'm very proud of this project. We got a new roof, we painted, and we refreshed the Cocoa Beach library. So it's looking much cleaner, much nicer, much better. Um, bathrooms. Bathrooms are a big deal in public libraries. Um, anyone is welcome in a public library, and they will talk to a person. Um, but we have to maintain those facilities as well. So this is an older bathroom that we renovated. This is my favorite project. At the Kathy's Winesburg Rood Library, we have a very old drain system on the roof, and we had pipes crack. We know we have other pipes we need to replace. Well, when the pipes crack, water flows down. We had water on the third floor, second floor, and first floor. In our IT room on the third floor was kind of, I've got a video of puddles of water. Um, so we spent this money to the $87,000 to fix the cracked pipe that you see on the far left. Um, we have more pipes that need to be fixed. But then when you're done, all you see are ceiling tiles. So it's pretty uneventful. But we know it's fixed. Some more examples, these are Cape Canaveral bathrooms that were just updated and renovated. We did the adult and the youth bathrooms. Again, we're going with the same bathroom and same look and feel as we renovate other bathrooms. So everything has a similar feel. This is the River House. Um, I don't know if you saw, but it was recently featured in Florida Today via our voice in some other locations. We are doing all kinds of creative activities in this house for community. Um, someone very wise said to me that during their campaign, they were knocking on doors and people were lonely. And so one of the things we focused on here is a place where people can come together and serve community. We have things like knitting with a purpose so that you'll knit and maybe baby caps for kids in hospitals or scarves for veterans. Um, what you're seeing in the two bottom right pictures. I will admit I did not take them. Um, Tim Short did, but we have a book club Thursday morning. It's just quiet reading on the river. You come in with your book of choice at the end. Some people choose to talk about it. Some don't. It's a nice place to be. And we also bring in, um, Brevard service dogs, service animals, the last Thursday of every month. So if people are lonely or they're looking for companionship, maybe they can't have a dog where they live, they get the opportunity if they want to meet with one of the Space Coast dogs. So I did want to mention safety. We do have a code of conduct. We have all kinds of training for our staff from de-escalation seminars to actually on-site seminars. We do crowd control webinars. We have monitors. We have alert, all different types of things. But we had over 360 events at the library that required some more significant intervention. Um, and that's important because as we move forward, we want to make sure our buildings are safe. If you look at the little chart on your page, you'll notice that we do have off-duty officers at a few locations. One of them is the Melbourne Library on Fee Avenue, where you would be, um, aware we have the Daily Bread and some other things. So hopefully things might, we might see a turnaround in that community. But more importantly, we have security cards at other locations, Titusville, and we have a few locations that need some security guards. O'Gallia and West Melbourne are coming up. So it's just technology. You know, we talk about visits to the library. We had 511,000 people visit our website. Um, the last year, the first quarter was not available because Google made some changes, but using our online resources are critical to the community. So we always say that the library is available 24 seven. And so you can check out books, you can stream video. There's a lot that you can do in the library and you don't have to come in and see us every time. Technology over 450 public access computers. So just some fun here again, some kids on the mobile library, but the bottom right hand corner, I want to point out that's our cyber patriot team. So when I hear people speaking, when I heard Jeff speaking, when I heard Joe speaking, um, this is hacking for good. And it's part of a national program. Four of our students this semester, they will end in April are in the top 10% of the 10,000 students participating across country. And this is a grant and we're doing this with Northrop Grumman and code craft works. They've been a tremendous partner for us. Our app, you can carry your library in your pocket. If you didn't know, you have a bookmark for that. And what I was going to mention is that you can download this app. You can check items out. You can even go to a bookstore and see a book you like and scan the ISBN to see if the library has it. So a lot of exciting things. We have a lot of exciting resources that way. And for example, it will take you to things like Libby and Hoopla, if you've never done those before. Um, those are online ebook resources. And of course we have LinkedIn Learning. I don't know if you're familiar with that. A lot of the veterans that I've talked to when you're in the military, you get LinkedIn Learning. You can get, um, certificates and all kinds of things to help yourself, but also learning in small increments. So LinkedIn Learning is a product of LinkedIn and you can access it at the library for free. Here are more of our online resources. Do you have a child that needs test prep? It's a good thing. Do you need to go see an attorney, Morris? Um, I always recommend going to the legal forums just because what it will do is you can look at what a lease should look like or look at what it will look like. So when you go in to see an attorney, you can have some preconceived notion of what you might be looking for. So it's a great resource. Wall Street journals are usually a big hit for people too. That's available to you for free. Along with other newspapers. That's just not all we have. Um, we are in trend to beat the numbers next year. If you look at this, um, 846 electronic, um, eBooks checked out online with just Libby and OverDrive. They're the same. The app is called Libby. The website is OverDrive, but that's books that you want. You can, you can renew them if they're available. You can reserve them and you can even go online and say what's available now. We do a lot of small grants in the community. I just was, um, awarded this week a grant from the O'Galley Rotary for summer reading. Our theme this summer is space, a summer on the space coast. And we will be, um, I'm using the word, um, we will be, um, having a lot of fun with that. And the kids that win the award at the end of the summer will be getting space, um, telescopes, telescopes. So it's kind of going to be fun. And informational telescopes. And finally, um, Young Storytellers. That's a grant that we had with the Florida Humanities Council. It's a wonderful thing. These kids wrote all summer long with authors that we brought in. We did it all online in a contained environment. And they published this book at the end of the summer. They just recently spoke at LibraryCon and they asked if their fans would be there. Would they be signing things? Because they wanted to know that their fans would all be there. But we're doing this again next year and we have some other tricks up our sleeve. So there's a celebrity on this page that someone may know, but I just wanted to mention that this is summer reading. If you look at this, we had a 30% increase in attendance in summer reading. It's our busiest time of year where everyone else is busy during retail or busy during the summer. Um, and we had over 1 million minutes of reading in two months last summer. And that's tracked on an app we call Beanstack. Our friends of the library are very important. We have many locations that have friends groups. They are separate 501c3 organizations, all volunteer, and they all support us and raise funds to help us do more. We are always evolving to serve. And I don't know if you, uh, recall, but we have added on January 1st, we added at least one hour to every library almost every day because we're open now till 6 p.m. instead of 5 p.m. So unless it's a day a library is open until, um, 8 because some of our, we rotate evenings. Um, they will be, we are open later and we did answer over 1 million reference questions. So this is my closing. I think I have this slide and one more, but I think it's really important to recognize that 1.6 million people visited our, our locations last year. We provide a lot of things like tech help, programs, classes, community spaces, eBooks. But there was a survey done recently and it was about 2,000 people were evaluated about the library. And I think they feel more peaceful after being at the library. It positively affects their ability to cope with the world. They've used it for personal growth. And I think that they are feeling more of the community if they use their library. And so we do have something for everyone. And so this just gives you an idea of some of the things that we have. I could go on and on and on. Questions for Wendy? Commissioner DeWine. I just wanted to say thank you for all you do for the community. Thank you. Okay. Good job. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Let's take another quick five minute break and then we'll have, uh, Adam, right? Thanks. Very eager. Good afternoon, commissioners. I'm Adam Hyde. I'm thrilled to be your airport manager at Valkyrie airport. Um, it is my favorite subject. So, uh, let's get into it. Um, Valkyrie airport, it was built back during the war effort, World War II as a naval air station. It was used as a training base. And then over the years, it was deeded to Brevard County to be used as a general aviation airport. In the last 20 years or so, it's really been polished into the gem that it is today. Today, it covers 670 total acres, about 190 acres of that is golf course. And the rest is used as airfield or other operational uses. This past year, we've done just a smidge over 110,000 aircraft operations, which is huge. It's, it's up from what our estimates used to be. Now, now we actually have a system in place to accurately count that. And that's on two 4,000 foot runways. And then we recently just had a GPS approach that increases safety for instrument traffic. We have 95 hangars. 94 of them are available for at least the other one we actually keep for ourselves to use. And we have a fixed wing and ultralight flight school. Um, in airports, a lot like an on-ramp, any, any time you have something like that, other things get built up nearby. So services things like that. So we have airframe and power plant course fuel and builders assist. All of this is actually managed by three people, three full-time people and one part-time person. So I think that's pretty impressive and a great feather in the cap for the staff. Our operating revenues, $1.5 million. Um, it is all the color of pink and most of that revenue, it comes from charges for services. So fuel sales, land leases, hangar rent thing, things like that. And then some of the rest is just intergovernmental rent revenue. And that's from our grants that we get from FDOT or, or the FAA. Our two largest leases. The first one is the Habitat Golf Course. Our current annual rate right there, that's 150,000. This lease was reevaluated back in 2022 and brought to 7.9% of fair market value from when it was originally, um, concepted in 1992. Mosquito Control is our, is our other large lease that we have out at the airport. Um, Joe talked briefly about that, but they use that as an unmanned aerial system base and a variety of other uses. And we just had an increase there by CPI to the $53,000. The final largest, um, revenue producer at the airport is actually our hangars. The majority of the hangars that we have are T, T hangars. And this column has a lot of information on it, but I'll draw your attention to, to the CPI column. Um, we've generally just gone up with CPI over the years. So right now we've gone from 251 in fiscal year 18 to 33509 for this year. The nearby airports that are comparable to, to us do charge a little bit more to a lot more. The ones that charge a little bit more are also run by governmental entities. So Arthur Dunn and Merritt Island are run by airport authorities. Sebastian Airport is run by a city, but their hangars are run by a private entity. So I think that's the largest difference right there. Our operating expenses, the vast majority of that is maintenance and fuel purchasing and followed up by comp, comp and benefits, CIP. Again, that's our total for one of the projects we have going this year and then debt service that's going to be retired in 2030. Our largest major CIP project right now is the development of a large hangar facility. It'll house approximately 75 hangars total. Right now we're in the environmental assessment phase and FDOT is, is funding that. And of course the rest of it as well, um, at 160,000. And then we're just responsible for the match there at 20%. Looking a little bit more towards the future, this is the part that I'm most excited about. Um, of course I said the new hangar construction, but we did purchase some property back, uh, I believe it was 2018, 2019. And that's a piece of property that we're hoping to use for private hangar development. So people want to build their own personal hangar or a business wants to build a hangar for, um, their own business use as they can. This, uh, photo that we have on here is actually a conceptual drawing that was provided to me by our flight school. They're hoping to actually be able to build that in the next couple of years at our airport. So that's kind of a big deal for us. That's a big shift from what we've normally done. And of course we'll need taxiways to do that. And our airport master plan is coming up to its midlife point. The airport master plan is a 20 year document. So, um, usually around the midpoint of that, we see how much things have changed over the years and, and go out and, um, start doing a new one. And then finally we'll need some additional staff to meet that growing aviation demand that we've seen over the last few years. An airport budget presentation really isn't complete without talking a little bit about the federal regulations that govern airport revenues. There are quite a few, few of them, but the, the real essence of it comes down to grant grant assurance 24 and 25. Grant assurance 24 basically says the airport needs to have a fee and rental structure that helps the airport be as sustainable as possible. And then finally grant assurance 25 basically just says any revenue generated at the airport has to be spent at the airport. I know this was quick and I just want it to be conscious of everyone's time. So did anybody have any questions? That's great questions for Adam, commissioner. You're welcome. How's, um, how's the relationship with, with grant Valkyria today? I, you know, in the, in years past, um, you know, there was some, some friction, but I haven't heard that for many years, um, probably to your credit. So I'm, I'm just curious. So it's changed, it's changed quite a bit, especially over the last couple of years, I'd say I meet fairly frequently and just randomly will stop in and talk to the town and some of the members of town council. And in fact, one of the tenants is actually on town council now. So it's changed a lot. We rarely get noise complaints. And when we do, the majority of them are so far from the airport. There's nothing that the airport could even consider doing. They're 10 miles away often. Yeah. So it's been really good. Okay. Very good. Anything else for Adam? No. Okay. Good job, sir. Afi. Hey. Good afternoon. How's everybody doing today? Um, I brought, uh, some staff with me today. Um, Meryl Vinson, she's our asset manager and, uh, Mary Bowers is our purchasing manager and Carl Kottner is our fleet manager. Thank you for having me today. Central services department is responsible for the procurement of goods and services, providing for the accountability of county assets, the maintenance and repair of county vehicles and equipment, maintenance of county fuel sites in the county, and also provides the clerk to the special magistrate for code enforcement and others. The central services strives to provide excellent support to the county departments, charter officers, and at times local agencies through its core functions as purchasing, fleet services and asset management. The additional services that we provide are clerk to the special magistrate and we also manage the advisory board database man maintenance. The county's funding sources, um, the majority of the funding sources are 4.9 million and those are for fleet services for fleet parts, fuel cells, and vehicle repairs. General fund support is 1.4 million dollars. We have miscellaneous revenue of $90,000, which is a sale of surplus assets, and then we have a small balance forward of $79,000 for asset and fleet. We have a total of 28 positions, 9 in purchasing, 9 in fleet services, and 8 in asset management. We have two administration positions, my position as well as administrative assistant, who also is the clerk to the special magistrate. Purchasing services, we accomplished 116 million.9 in solicitation of the American Rescue Plan Act, which were required to be, and we did encumber of those by December 31st, 2024. They are required to be spent by December 31st, 2026. Significant changes that we made, we made significant changes to board policy BCC 25, BCC 26, BCC 27, BCC 28, and ordinance 9837. We also consolidated the bid, uh, the bidding platform. We used to have two bidding platforms. One was demand star and one was vendor link. We found demand star, the contractors or vendors had to pay for for that. Vendor link, the county paid for. So to encourage more people to go on vendor link, we stopped, uh, demand star and we only use vendor link now. Asset management is, um, responsible for annual physical inventory, supporting charter officers and judicial functions with regard to assets. They also collect and redistribute, um, assets that are turned in as well as auctioning the assets. They were found in full compliance with the 2023, um, annual comprehensive financial report. Part of the work that asset management does actually is recorded on the county's financial reports as assets. And they're working right now with the external auditors on the 2024 ACFER. They conduct inventories of board agencies, charter agencies, state attorney's office, public defender, court administration, law library and guardian ad litem. They had a total inventory of over 29,000 items and they collected over a million dollars in surplus sales of which 894,000 went back to departments. So we reuse our equipment or sell it. Fleet services is responsible for vehicles, heavy equipment generators, acquisition, replacement and disposition, monitoring fuel usage, billing, operating efficiencies, maintenance, and we're also working, we're helping to work on a new heavy equipment building that will be at the Wickham site. Uh, they manage nine fuel sites. They distributed over 377,000 gallons of diesel and 484,000 of unleaded fuel. They've serviced 577 vehicles, 220 heavy equipment, 255 generators and 53 replacement purchases. The clerk to the special magistrate, we are required to provide services to the county special magistrate for code enforcement, dangerous animals and contractor licensing. We coordinate and schedule the meetings. We take the minutes, we order and file at the clerk's office and we provide informational support. And the advisory boards, we maintain the database. We have 44 advisory boards and appointments maintained online through the county's website. We're a mighty support agency. Are there any questions? Questions? Questions for Kathy? Thank you. Questions? We appreciate your support. Thank you so much. Well done. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. Don. All right. Sir. Good afternoon, commissioners. I'm Don Walker. I'm director of communications and Space Coast government television. Uh, if this comes as any relief, I have the smallest budget in the county, uh, department wise. So, uh, with that said, I just wanted to talk a little bit briefly about staffing and funding. Uh, I have Rachel Horst, who's my public information officer and 50% of her salary is funded through a grant, uh, from emergency management and 25% is funded through fire rescue. So she handles a lot of public information for those two departments. Uh, I also have Logan Hemingway, my, uh, production manager and on to scan breaks who does programming and 5% of their salaries is funded through planning and development. I have Vonti Osborne. He is my legal ads, uh, uh, specialist and 50% of his salary is funded through information technology, uh, because when he's not doing legal ads, he's helping, uh, keep our web pages up to date and, uh, make sure everything's where it needs to be. And then we have Michael Asnardi, uh, who is funded a hundred percent through utility services because he is funded through a grant, uh, through their office for outreach. So he will be, he does like wetlands information, uh, public information, uh, schools, things like that. So as far as our budget, uh, we're just around $500,000. The majority of that is for salary and benefits, uh, 47,000 of that we brought in last year through, uh, legal ads. And I'll talk a little bit more about that. Um, $25,000 we spend for a contract through column software, which is a Miami based company that helped us formulate our legal ads page. One of the, our main things that we do in my office is public outreach and it's all about transparency. And so I wanted to give you an idea of the types of things that my office produces. We do a quarterly newsletter that we post on our webpage, uh, that pretty much highlights, uh, that, uh, achievements that county departments have made over the course of the quarter. We do a monthly employee newsletter, and that's also available not only to employees, but to the public as well. Uh, we did 217 press releases in 2024. So far this year, we've done 70. Uh, we're also big on social media, uh, especially during hurricanes. So last year during the hurricane season, we posted 1014 social media messages, uh, just letting people know information of where they can get sandbags, things they need to do to protect themselves, things like that. Uh, we did 33 prescribed burn notifications last year on social media. We've done 19 of those so far this year. Uh, we also post road closures, 44 last year, 32 so far this year. Uh, anytime there's an extreme weather event, uh, potential tornadoes, uh, severe thunderstorms, uh, we work with emergency management to also send information shut out on those. Uh, we activate for every rocket launch. There were 112 launches last year, 34 so so far this year. And when we activate for a launch, that includes launches that have been scrubbed. So there may be 114 launches, but we may have activated 150 times. Uh, and the reason we activate for those is that if there's any type of an anomaly with a rocket, the public's going to want to know what do they need to do, uh, for safety reasons, whether it's just to stay indoors, whether the rocket was off the beach and therefore there's no threat at all. But we're there just in case we're needed to send information out to the public. Uh, and then also last year we did 28 cold weather shelters. We did 24 this year, as you know, is a very cool season this year. I mentioned legal ads. So Brevard County gets to tout itself as being the first county in the state that started posting legal ads on its webpage. Uh, last year or two years ago, actually, uh, Florida House Bill 7040, 7049 went into effect and that allows counties to post legal ads on their webpage instead of in a newspaper publication. Uh, and not only are we able to post our legal ads on our webpage, but we're also, uh, allowed to post municipal legal ads on our webpage if they desire to do so. And also the charter offices. Now we can't force them to post their ads on our page, but we have put out the welcome mat. We've met with all the clerks of these cities. Uh, we've sent out letters to them, letting them know we're open for business. Uh, Commissioner Feltner joined us on many of those, uh, meetings that we had with the clerks of the cities. Uh, right now out of the 16 municipalities, we've got five that are doing legal ads with us. And we also have one charter office, which is the sheriff's office that has posted some ads. So last year we did 442 ads, uh, on the Brevard County webpage, uh, legal ads. And, uh, again, six of those were from, uh, municipalities and from a charter office. I wanted to mention that our goal, uh, with SCGTV is that we try to reach people where they're at. So one of many ways that we do that, uh, when we have a meeting like today, this is being broadcast right now on SCGTV. It's being live streamed on Florida today's, uh, website. It's live streamed on Space Coast daily. It's also on YouTube, uh, and it's also closed caption on our webpage and also on YouTube. And, um, we started, uh, during COVID putting our meetings on YouTube and we've been able to, uh, backlog previous meetings before 2020 on YouTube as well. So right now on YouTube, uh, you can look back to meetings dating back to 2017. Uh, you can share those with people if you want to, or you have access to them if you just want to use them for research. But there are 309 meetings currently listed on YouTube from Brevard County. Those are zoning meetings, uh, budget workshops, commission meetings, things like that. Uh, and then finally, just to give you an idea of, uh, SCGTV's programming, we are 24 hour a day, seven day a week, uh, TV station. So we do live broadcast like this one, and then we'll roll this into our programming. So over the course of a week, you'll be able to watch this, uh, budget workshop today. Uh, you know, as many as five, 10 times during the week, uh, we do board of county commission meetings, zoning meetings, workshops. We do transportation planning organization meetings and the sorrel. Uh, when they meet, we do their meetings. Uh, that's, that amounts to, uh, 49% of our content on SCGTV. We also do recorded broadcast. So municipalities like Barefoot Bay, the city of Cocoa, Cocoa Beach, Melbourne, Palm Bay, and Titusville, uh, and Brevard public schools, they record their own meetings, but then they provide them to us and we factor them into our programming. And then we also, when we're not showing our meetings and other municipal meetings, we show the Florida channel, especially during the legislative session. And we do public service announcements, things that we produce in house, uh, that people that we think that are interesting things that we're doing with the lagoon and things like that. We put those on our website as well. Um, if people want to know where to find us, uh, we're on spectrum channel 499. Uh, if you live in North Brevard, you can find us on Comcast channel 51. If you're in South Brevard, we're on Comcast channel 13. We're also on AT&T U-verse channel 99. Uh, you can watch our meetings live on our website, uh, BrevardFL.gov. Uh, we're also on YouTube and that address is at SCGTV499. And we're also on Facebook, uh, at the address of at Brevard GOVT government. So, and that's my presentation. Questions for Dawn? Commissioner Delaney. Thank you. Thank you so much for this. Um, one of the things that I really appreciate that you guys do is, um, how, how much content is available online. And that is extremely helpful. I know so many people who watch these meetings online from the comfort of their own home. And later on, I'll get, you know, messages from people, you know, what, you know, what happened here and ask me questions. And so I know that the community really, really appreciates that. Um, one of the things that I know we've talked about a lot is, um, I was at a, uh, chamber meeting. Um, it was the government affairs one and some of the feedback that I got back, and this is really for the commissioners, uh, the other commissioners. Um, some of the feedback that I got back was that there's, when looking at our Facebook page, um, the Brevard County government page, there's not really a whole lot of like storytelling. So when they're on, um, like when businesses or, um, executives or whoever are looking at our, our Facebook page, they were hoping to see like what's going on in Brevard County, what's our community like, all that kind of stuff. And since, you know, we've talked, there's been some more sharing between departments and that kind of stuff. So I really appreciate that. And I, um, I'm excited to see how that's going to grow in the future. Sure. Well, we have a good story to tell in Brevard County. And so anytime, you know, we, we try to get with, uh, make it very clear to our directors that if there's information that's positive, like that they want to put out there, that, that we're a good avenue to get that out there for them. Uh, I wanted to mention too, about our meetings, the, the great thing about our meetings being on YouTube and on our website. So if you, if you call up this meeting tomorrow and you want to see, well, I don't want to, you know, no offense. I don't want to hear the Valkyrie airport, uh, budget presentation. I want to hear the SCG presentation. You can go directly to that on the webpage and listen to me all over again. So anyway, there you go. Yeah. Adam, he didn't mean that in a bad way. I, I, I, I promise you. Uh, well, um, Commissioner Atkinson, do you have any questions? Um, I'll, I'll just, uh, a comment for you. I really appreciate, you know, the SGTV office is next door to mine. So, uh, we, we talk to the staff, uh, a lot and, uh, you know, from time to time, I'll remind you to, you know, speak in the microphone and all that. That's because they're over there trying to adjust as people are too far away or, uh, they don't turn it on and all those kinds of things. So, uh, so think of that when you're, when you're sitting in a, in a meeting like this, uh, the, the people who are trying to sort of, uh, keep up with us in real time. So, well, I would have, I would have loved to have my staff here to introduce, but they are here. Yes, they, they are. Thank you. So, uh, thank you, sir, very much. All right, Morris. All right. Commissioners, most of you know a lot about some of the work we do. So, we act as the legal advisor to the Board of County Commissioners. Um, we're also Brevard County's records management liaison officer, um, we handle public records requests through my office. And much like, uh, Jeff and, and Don and, uh, Kathy presented before, we support all of the good work that the departments who have gone previously do here. So, we provide legal support for all of our departments. Yesterday afternoon, I spent in court on a hearing to help an important drainage project, uh, that Public Works is doing go forward. And we're back in court on that Thursday. Just an example of, of some of the things we do to support departments in addition to contract work, um, and things of that nature. So, again, ordinances, statutes, Board policies, we assist in reviewing those, applying them, helping the Board, um, draft and create and move ordinances through the process, as well as staff. Um, we assist in updates to Board policies. Last, this year, or in last, last calendar year, we, uh, assisted in drafting, drafted entirely, and or reviewed 610 agreements or contracts. We responded to 1,988 public records requests in calendar year 2024. Again, we support all meetings of the Board of County Commissioners. We staff meetings in the Planning and Zoning Board, um, MIRA, North Brevard Economic Development Zone, uh, and various other boards. We provide staffing for each of those meetings, uh, also do the review and legal work for, for all of those boards. Um, records management at the, uh, at the Cocoa, at the Central Library, uh, the entire third floor where you saw the pictures of the leak before. We have tons of records there that my office maintains. Uh, Jackie in my office goes and pulls records from there when needed. Uh, she manages record retention and destruction policies. Uh, and again, we do that public records function. We help coordinate among all of the department's various records coordinators when there are requests that cover multiple departments. I reference litigation. We oversee, um, all of the litigation handled by outside counsel on behalf of the county. So, things like tort litigation, slip and fall, we don't do that in-house. That's covered by our insurance and outside counsel, but we oversee the work of those attorneys. And more and more, I am keeping litigation in-house and we're doing a larger share of that than we had done previously. When I see that it will be, uh, both a better outcome for the county, that's always important, but also to be cost sensitive and where it makes fiscal sense and to try to save money and use our in-house services. So, whenever we have those opportunities, we're doing more of that litigation here than was done previously. Um, we have 15 positions in my office, uh, two vacancies currently. Uh, my office is in, you know, basically all of our funds go into the direct service of the attorneys and our support team with, uh, a very small amount of the budget for things like necessary continuing legal education, uh, and licensure and things of that nature. And that's pretty much it. Um, What are the vacancies that you have? Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. Attorney one and a legal secretary one. So, we need a, we need an admin and, um, looking at bringing on an attorney. Okay. Legal, legal secretary is not necessarily paralegal. Not necessarily. Okay. Could be. You would like that. Potentially. Okay. If it's a good fit or someone, certainly someone who can learn and train in that capacity, right? If they don't bring that already. Okay. Um, questions for Morris. Yes, please. Okay. Commissioner Delaney. I was just wondering, do you know, um, roundabout how much money you guys take in for, um, public record requests each year? I do not. Um, that, I don't see that as part of our budget. Okay. Um, so, uh, I, I don't have a number for that. Okay. But we can get it certainly. Right. And those revenues go to those individual departments that are fulfilling those public records requests. So, that would be something that, um, we could work with the county attorney's office to track down what that revenue is. And I think we did compile, not that long ago, a request that sought all of the, um, the charges for records, uh, for some past period. So, we should have that readily able to provide. But we don't, that's not incorporated in our budget. Thank you. Other questions for Morris? All right, sir. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right, Frank. This should be the shortest one. I think I'm going to make it shorter than Morris's. You know, county manager's office, our role is to provide leadership to implement, uh, board policies and, uh, directives to the whole organization and to strategically plan for the future to ensure, uh, a high quality of life for residents, visitors, and the businesses in our community. Um, so in the county manager's office, I can tell you that our focus, I was just talking to commissioners about it today, different commissioners, uh, it's to, uh, deliver responsive services and be responsive. That's to the board of county commissioners, to individual commissioners. I can tell you that we focus on that every meeting, uh, with staff. That goes beyond that. It's about staff and how they interact with other staff and being responsive to members of the community. Being responsive to the members of the community means to respond in a timely manner. It doesn't mean they're going to hear necessarily what they want to hear, but it's showing respect by being responsive. And so we try to focus on that as much as we can. Um, I can tell you that the outside of that, um, county infrastructure improvements has been a key focus and it continues to be in a variety of areas. We've tried to incrementally improve in the areas of public works, specifically roads, and you've heard that in the presentations, um, in county buildings. Um, you've heard a lot of criticism over time, but I can tell you that we've been incrementally, uh, increasing maintenance and efforts to upgrade, uh, different facilities for a, uh, for the last eight years. Um, and the same goes for public, uh, for parks and recreation. We're doing that at a variety of parks and a variety of, you know, you've seen libraries talk about what they're doing at, at, at their bathrooms, the restrooms, upgrading. And I can tell you that, uh, there hasn't been a lot of attention focused in parks, uh, and, but we've been doing that the last couple of years and we're now starting to try to do it in county buildings as well. Uh, and that's based on some board input that we've gotten as well to try to focus in the, on those kind of things. We'll continue to do that. There's other areas though that, that's happening too. Utilities, you know, it's a very aging infrastructure. You heard that. Um, there's different revenue streams that are doing it for there. And then the big issue is this, you know, solid waste and a variety of different facilities. Up in North Brevard, the transfer station, the new one, 192. These are all very big, significant, uh, projects that we've pushed very hard for, uh, and doing that. So, uh, those are among the things that we are focused as a leadership team trying to support staff with. Uh, another key area for us is, um, um, dealing with, uh, agendas for the, for the board, preparing them, uh, making sure that agendas, um, give the board and the public the information that, uh, the board, uh, needs to move things forward, um, and give us the direction that help us, you know, develop the upcoming budget. And that's really what it's really about for us. Uh, um, following the board's policies and the directors that you've given to us and then, and then developing the budget based on the parameters that you establish. Um, the last two areas that you see in that first page is the enhancement of public safety services. And I can tell you that, um, you know, uh, we've done that over the last several years trying to do, you know, we did a seven year plan as it dealt with public safety. We're in the process of looking to get that upgraded. We're obviously looking for some, uh, board direction. And I think we'll hopefully we're going to be getting that next Tuesday when we talk about updating a seven year plan as to where the board wants to see the future. That's a roadmap for what could potentially happen in terms of how we address, you know, public safety issues that are out there. And the last one that you see there is the investing in employee or employees. And that basically, you know, and I hope that's what you've gotten out of what you've heard these last four sessions. The board has a lot of employees in a lot of different areas that provide a lot of critical services. And you've heard when HR, that's why we focused on it, organization wide challenges, both in re recruiting and retaining. And that's why we shared the vacancy rates. It's organization wide. You've had those issues. The leadership team tries to provide the best support that it can within the parameters that the board establishes, because you established for us what our resources are going to be and where you want those resources allocated. We don't do that. So we provide executive leadership, but it's to fund board directed priorities. And that's what we will do. And so in the county manager's office, that's done with a budget of $1.5 million and eight full-time employees. The county manager, two assistants, three support staff for those assistants. One person who is an assistant to the county manager, that position has been vacant since January. One reason is knowing that I was going to be transitioning. And we know whoever the new county manager is, that's an important position. That's a right-hand person for that person. So I left it open for that person to be able to make the selection to move things forward. And then an agenda coordinator who's, you know, responsible for making sure that all the agendas, all the attachments, everything are done, everything that the board wants to see, and that we get that out on a timely basis on Thursdays. And then we have support staff, and obviously in planning and development, that does the same thing for the planning and zoning meetings. So very simply, that's the county manager's office that's funded through the general fund. And we look forward to, you know, the continued direction that the board wants to give relative to how to fund the priorities that you determine are the most important, that we should focus the resources that are available for. And with that, I think we're going to turn it over to Jill, right? And I know Frank mentioned he was going to do his very quickly. I bet I can go quicker than Frank. This is an overview of the budget for the commission district offices. So these are your offices that you manage and operate within your individual districts. And so in 2021, the board adopted board policy BCC 43, and that established a cap for each district office. So each, there's a separate cost center for each office, and that initial capped amount was $380,000 per office. And that includes the compensation benefits for the employees within your offices, as well as any travel expenses, memberships, operating supplies, and things of that nature. So that's your copy machines, you know, if you have certain office supplies that you want to buy. And we adjust that cap every year for organizational-wide increases. So if there's a cost of living adjustment, or if the FRS rates change, which they do every year, if there's changes in the other employee benefits, like the health insurance rates, that cap gets adjusted every year. And so you can see for the current fiscal year, that capped amount is $443,525 per district office. And as commissioners, you each have discretion over that budget within your office. So as long as you stay within that amount, you have the flexibility to use those dollars as you see fit. And I just want to point out that these office budgets don't include facilities costs, such as any rental expenses or your electricity, water, things of that nature. Those are all paid out of the facilities management program. And this just shows what that total is just over $2.2 million for all five offices. And primarily, that goes to compensation and benefits for commissioners and your staff within those offices. That's about 93%. And then about 7% is for those other operating expenses. And so that's the commission office budgets. If you have any questions. I think there's only one office currently that even has a rental, right? Rental fee for their building? I believe so, yes. That's correct. Better than it had been in the past. Okay. Questions for Chill? Questions? No? Okay. Okay. Very good. All right. So I'm going to, I'll pull the audience. Do we want to take one more short break before Chief Voltaire gets in there? Or I'm going to power through it? All right, Chief. I voted for a break, but it's whatever you guys want. Well, you didn't, you know, I didn't see a hand or anything. So that's Tom's job. Okay. All right. Very good. All right. So thank you guys so much for hearing us today. Thank you for the meetings that we've had in the past few weeks. And thank you for what you are about to hear in the coming week. As the county manager referenced, the fire assessment, as long as nothing changes, you will see that next week at the board meeting. So this being the last budget presentation, I feel it's kind of going to, we'll have part one and part two. This is going to roll into what you will see next week. So this is a very small snapshot of fire rescue because part one and part two. So let's get started. Uh, a few things we'll talk over just a general real broad brush financial overview of the fire assessment, the MST revenues, our personnel, the infrastructure, the equipment that we purchase on an annual basis, uh, our lifeguard services, the resource divide. That's the 55 45 split that, uh, we learned that I know you guys that we've talked about plenty. You learned about last week, and, uh, we'll continue to talk about that into the upcoming weeks, uh, fire assessment impacts. I don't want to spoil too much of the surprise on that, but we will definitely look at that chart as an overview. So fire assessment and MST, the revenues of our fire department, uh, around 54 million between the two streams. Um, you'll see the green line is our reserves. If that chart went back to around 2007, 2008, you would actually see those reserves up close to the revenues. They were around 20 million. So that's the history of fire rescue going back about that far. Um, we basically lived off reserves for quite some time and that allowed us to, uh, work through, you know, the, the increases in equipment and not go for those fire assessment increases. But you'll see in 2020, our reserves got down to 1.16 million. So, uh, staff knew something had to be done. Our savings account had run dry. And that's when that was actually the second fire assessment increase, but that was the first really big one of 29% plus the ARPA and cares infusion. So that was the inception of our seven year plan that we currently sit in that you'll see some more details about that as we move forward. Um, in the last couple of years, we have brought those reserves back up, certainly not to the level that we hoped. Of course, that's why when we went into that seven year plan, nobody predicted COVID and nobody predicted the increase of goods and services and just the absolute increase of price of fire trucks and all equipment that we saw. Nobody could have predicted that. And that's what those 2021 numbers from that seven year plan are built off and around our personnel, a lot of charts on this page. And I'll, I'll summarize it real, real big picture for everyone here, uh, recruiting efforts and our sponsorships. We have done excellent on, and there's no more, uh, exciting and fun part of my job is when we get to give the opportunity to the young folks in our community. It's very fulfilling and it'll turn a bad day into a good day when you get to see that smile on their face. Uh, but in with this chart, you'll see some of those negative numbers. So not to talk about what we've lost, but I will tell you our total, uh, open PCN count in the field is 91. So that's just the, the, the, the raw truth of the data. That's where we sit today. Um, with one more retirement this week of a fire prevention personnel, which the inspectors has also become another trade that we're, we're losing those senior people and has also become, uh, hard to replace. And I think that's a common theme being the last one. I think the trades and the experience leaving the fields is a common theme amongst all, uh, the one difference. And I know you all know this, uh, our fire prevention folks, if, if they're not in the seat, we get behind on inspections, which is definitely detrimental to public safety. But when the firefighters, the paramedics, the lieutenants aren't at work, when we have those empty seats, we still have to fill them. So that creates the overtime that we all hear so much about that we're trying to combat when we come see you next Tuesday, the infrastructure. So prior to that seven year plan, uh, that's the first year I referenced before that plan got put into place. Our total budget for this was around $600,000. So into that new plan, the board directed us go build those fire stations, make them better. Again, who planned for COVID, who planned for the price increases? You'll see at the bottom of the, the, uh, chart there at that time when we were building out the financial plan, the price per square foot was anywhere from 200 to $400 a square foot. Currently our most recent station that we built station 49 was $600 a square foot to build. So we're still doing the best we can and pushing that and meeting, you know, meeting all the, uh, requirements and the things that we have to do to keep that infrastructure going, but it's getting tough. And that's another reason why you're going to hear from us next Tuesday. Uh, just for your reference. So, you know, the, uh, stations on this chart, the green ones are in the 55 45 split. So they're funded by both, uh, the fire side and the general fund side. The red ones are fire only, and the blue ones are EMS or general fund only capital. I'll, uh, go ahead and skip right down to the bottom again, keep harping on the increases, but that's really what's made it tough. Uh, overall of all the projects, about a 39% increase in the prices of the, uh, equipment, uh, 39% may not sound like a lot, but it's a lot when you're talking $600,000. So our fire trucks have gone from about 500 to $900,000 along with the lead times of two to four years to build a fire truck. Uh, as, as you guys may remember a few meetings ago, um, those lead times made me buy a fire truck from somebody else. We found a great price on them and it allowed us to buy four. So that's one of the ways that we've survived through all this inflation is truly looking for the best value for not only getting the equipment for the guys and girls, but the value for Brevard County as a whole. So buying that extra fire truck and getting it in County right now, uh, it'll be going in service within the next couple of weeks is huge because one of those trucks is replacing a fire truck. That's actually older than a lot of the new hires that we have coming on to the field. So it's a very good thing to be replacing those fire trucks and getting them in something new life guard program. Uh, two key points on this slide that I'd like to bring your attention to. Um, the cocoa beach, that hundred and almost $170,000. That's a double payment from them because we allowed them to forego their payment and pay, uh, two years as a one-time payment. So that's why you see that number there that's so off base of everyone else's as well as the tourism fund, the tourism, uh, funds, the 1.5 million there at the bottom. Um, that's what allows us to run the staff you see there of the seven full-time and 11 seasonal towers. Uh, so if the tour, you know, if the tourism, uh, isn't available coming the next year, we'll have to look to general fund or, uh, changing around how we operate in the life guard system. I don't think it'll be there chief. Okay. That's why two things I wanted to mention. And that was, that was one of just going to own that one. So, so the divide of BCFR, uh, how we collect, how we fund things is the 55 45 split is what we refer to it as. And what that is, is 55% of the personnel are riding on fire trucks. 45% of the personnel are riding on ambulances. That's how, as a general term to try to glaze over it. That's how we've derived from that number in funding the fire department to keep it, um, fund well. Um, so the fire side is obviously the, uh, the fire trucks are hazmat, uh, anything, uh, wild land intervention and those trucks and equipment that would go along with that. The blue side or the EMS side would be just those, the ambulances, the rescues, uh, all the EMS equipment that would go along with that to help them do their job. And that, and that is important because when we go to this slide and when we go into next Tuesday, uh, uh, for every fire assessment impact you have, there's a general fund impact that goes along with it. Um, I know the board we've, we've gone over this pretty well. And I think, uh, between our meetings the last couple of week and executive sessions, I think we all understand that pretty well, but I won't go into this chart in too much detail because there's more to come as well as, um, for, for options. Here's just a chart for you all to look at, uh, as you go up and down the per 1%. Those are the increases from the fire, uh, the fire assessment MSTU side, as well as the general fund and how those are proportionate. Any questions? It was a lot faster than I thought you were going to be commissioner Delaney and questions. Sure. Um, so I was wondering about station 49, the $600 dollars per square foot. Um, what is the hurricane rating on that building? Like, can it, can it survive a cat? Yes. Okay. So is that with it being an inland, um, uh, fire station, is that, is that totally necessary? We don't want, so those, we don't want those fire stations to have an issue when, when crews are having to, to live in there during the hurricanes. Right. Um, you know, we want to build them as strong as possible. Um, same thing, our plan for, you'll see station 64 in there has a big price tag on it, uh, because that is one that's truly sits on A1A and our plan and hope for that one is to build everything above grade, uh, lessons we learned from our west coast folks. Um, the fire stations, you lift the bays, you don't build any electrical on the first floor, your computers, your server rooms, uh, everything is on the second floor and the ocean goes over to the river and we, in theory, hopefully squeegee it out and start running calls again. And I know that I've brought this up before, but station 23, it just, I mean, that being a mobile home just totally kills me on spending $1.3 million, um, on that. I, I just really, um, yeah, I don't, I'm going to get a lot of questions about that. I know that. Um, and so I just, uh, I don't know how to defend that. I don't, uh, I don't like it either. So I'm wondering like how that, how that came about. How did, how did we, um, so the, the one, this is what I can say. The 1.3 is not all the station itself. Uh, there's site work, site prep, and honestly, the price of that stuff will surprise you. It surprised me. Um, so the, the price of the trailer itself isn't certainly, that's not a $1.3 million, uh, modular home, modular prebuilt prefab. Um, but the site prep site work and set up is honestly the majority of that cost. Yeah. That's still going to be really hard to sell to my constituents. Um, and then, so you said that we have 91 vacancies. Yes. And so what does that look like right now for the day to day for, for your people, um, for filling, um, mandatory overtime, filling those slots, um, to keep stations open? Are we at risk of having to close stations? Is like, what's the point? Um, what is the tipping point of that? I don't, I don't have an exact number to say my tipping point is here. Um, do I, do I certainly look at it that, uh, um, if things don't turn around, could, you know, could we be close to a tipping point? I'll say yes. Um, you know, the, the, the mandatories are definitely dependent on the day of the week and things like that. Um, but we do have 18 spots a day that are floaters that are built in, but those are far and gone eaten up in that 90. Um, there are certainly a lot of overtime filling those spots. I mean, I think the math is pretty simple. And then, um, I just wanted to put this out there because it, it's just for the dire situation that we're in with our fire department. Um, and I'm not gonna say which fire department this is, but there's fire departments out there in the state of Florida that are doing some major things with, with their contracts. Um, there are multiple places now that are on a 24 72 schedule. Um, this one in particular pays $30 an hour with, you know, medical benefits paid for, um, for not only themselves, but their family members. And I just, to be able to fill this need of the 91 slots, we're going to have to, we're going to have to be able to recruit and doing a, um, just from the presentation that we were briefed on, um, when, uh, you and some of the other staff came to our offices, I assume we all got the same presentation. Um, but I don't, uh, I don't foresee us being able to fill that gap with what I was presented. And, um, um, because if we don't deal with not only the wage gap that we have, but the work-life balance issues, we're not going to be able to recruit the people to come to Brevard County. And so I just say all that, you know, um, but I don't want to ruin too much of the surprise on the, uh, on the agenda cause it doesn't come out until later in the week, but I'll, I'll ruin this much of the surprise that there's going to be an option three and that's board direction. So. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. It's all right. Commissioner Atkinson, did you have questions? Uh, I don't, I don't have, uh, questions. I'll make a comment to you. I spent yesterday, as you know, uh, up there with fleet, gentlemen and lady. And, um, I really appreciate that. Um, good folks that you have up there. Um, it's interesting. You were talking about an older vehicle and I have one car that's 20 years old. I have one that's 48 years old and I have an old Honda Cub that is 63 years old. And so when you're trying to work on, um, older vehicles, you gotta, you gotta be resourceful. And I, I, you got some resourceful folks up there who are, are making it happen. So, um, I, I want to just give kudos to them. So, so our fire trucks that are still in service, the American La France's, they went out of business in 2006. So you talk about those guys being resourceful. Um, they, they find junkyards and, and they do a lot of special things to keep us in service. There's, there's no doubt. Thank you for saying that. But, uh, you know, almost 20 years, uh, America La France has been out of business, not making any more parts and, uh, and they keep us going. I had, I had really good, uh, conversation with Don around your, um, facility up there. And, um, I think, uh, I might bring a couple items to, to try to make it easier for him to, uh, we, we just talked about some of the bureaucratic, uh, things that, uh, that he deals with. So I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to try my best to try to make it a bit better for him. So it was, it was productive for me and I, I appreciate it very much. Okay. Uh, sir. Thank you very much. Okay. I don't think we ended up with cards. Is that, is that right, Kathy? No. Okay. So done with that. Is there any other discussion from commissioners? No. Okay. Um, do board reports. So, Mr. County Manager, anything else, sir? No report. Okay. Uh, Mr. County Attorney. No report. Anything else, sir? Okay. Commissioner Delaney. No report. Okay. Uh, we don't have Commissioner Goodson. We don't have Commissioner Altman. Commissioner Atkinson. No. Very good. Now, just real quick for, uh, the public sake and everybody else, this concludes our budget workshops. So this was the fourth and final one. We don't have any other department. Nobody we missed, right? Go, go ahead, Commissioner. Um, I was wondering at our first budget hearing or budget, uh, workshop, we talked about, you know, that we would as a group kind of go over, um, some of the different revenue options that were presented to us and, and whatnot. When do you foresee us being able to have that conversation? Um, I'm, I'm open. I think that's the, at the pleasure of the board, um, open to suggestions. Um, Jill, what do you, what do you think would be the, the practical way forward for us, um, to do that, have all the right information, et cetera, before, before June? So in May? Is that? Uh, yeah. So we're working with departments right now to develop their budgets and then when the, uh, board takes a break in June, we'll be meeting with them and preparing all that so we can bring a proposed budget to you in July, set the tentative millage rates and, and move forward from there. So, as much direction as we can get, the sooner the better, um, as we move into budget development. We could certainly discuss that the next, um, meeting and, um, what, uh, whatever the pleasure of the board is. I, I think May makes sense, right? Before, before the June break, right? Right? Okay. We all agree on that. Okay. Is there anything else that we missed? Thank you, everybody, very much. Everyone did a, did a great job. Frank, uh, your staff, uh, I think did a wonderful job in their budget presentations, all four workshops. So much so that, uh, two commissioners thought they had it all, uh, and didn't even need to come to this one. I'm kidding. All right. Thank you. You didn't say that. I'm kidding. I'm teasing. All right. Thank you, everyone, very much. Everybody.