We need to order, our pledge will be led by Commissioner Atkinson. The purpose of our workshop today is the budget overview and we'll begin with natural resources, the natural resources department. Sorry, Mr. Chair, we're gonna, we'll begin with a budget overview, our annual. Oh, we'll begin with the budget overview. Yes, yeah, from the budget department. And just real brief, we're checking, as far as we know, Commissioner Goodson has not called in yet, so just letting you know that. So the budget overview changed from the last few years. We're gonna have Keith Netterer, who is our interim budget director, is gonna lead you in on the presentation. And then at the end, I'll jump in for a slide or two. Good afternoon, Commissioners, I'm Keith Netterer, the interim director of the budget office. Today, I'll provide a brief presentation on general government funding in the 2026 adopted budget. Oh, you're good, you're good. Here's a list of topics we'll go over today, including CPI, millages, charter cap, and county comparisons. And then we'll get into the 2026 budget, including the color of money, sources, and uses of funds. And we'll close out with some data on homesteaded property taxes. And Jim will provide information on future budget considerations. This chart shows CPI over the last 11 years. Historically, we've had CPI below 3%. However, you can see the COVID years in 21, 22, and 23, where we experienced inflation significantly above that. For fiscal year 2027, we'll be using a CPI of 2.63%. And that's based on calendar year 2025. And as you're aware, that's important because it's tied to our charter cap and limits the amount of ad valorem revenue that we can collect to 3%, or CPI, which in this case will be 2.63%. In addition to tracking CPI, we also look at other metrics, including the construction cost index, that's the red line, the municipal cost index in green, and CPI in blue. As I mentioned, our ad valorem millages are tied to CPI. We also have departments with user fees and non-ad valorem assessments that are tied to that rate as well. However, many of the costs that we've experienced are much more in line with what you'll see in the construction cost index, particularly the large capital improvement projects like utilities, solid waste, and public works. During this 12-year period, CPI increased cumulatively by over 47%, the municipal cost index at over 52%, and the construction cost index at over 62%. As I mentioned, our ad valorem revenue collections are limited through the charter cap by CPI. For the current fiscal year, we have 208 million budgeted. If rates were to be set at the charter cap, we would be looking at an additional 5.4 million in ad valorem revenue in the general fund. In addition to that, we have new construction on the bottom of this slide that's separated because it's excluded from the charter cap, and thus is something that we have relied on in the last few years. You can see historically, we've experienced significant growth in that area. However, between 2025 and 2026, that growth rate has begun to stagnate, and that's something that we'll be watching this year. We'll get preliminary property values on June 1st, and we'll get certified values on July 1st. This chart shows the county's aggregate millage rate. You can see in 2019, we were above six mills, and in 2026, we're just above 4.5. Nobody actually pays the entire aggregate millage rate. What you pay is dependent on where you live geographically within the county, but that jump between 2025 and 2026 was the result of the board's investment in public safety through the fire control MSTU, as well as adjustments to parks and recreation millages. This chart is really a good visualization of how the charter cap works. You can see the red line is property values, and the blue line is the general fund millage rate, and through the charter cap, those two variables have really a perfect inverse relationship. You can see as property values increase from left to right, we've had to cut our general fund millage rate accordingly to stay compliant with the cap. In theory, if you had property values expand in perpetuity, at some point, you would have a general fund millage rate that approaches zero to stay in line with the charter cap. So how does Brevard County compare to nearby jurisdictions? This chart shows Brevard County, as well as Seminole, St. Lucie, Osceola, Indian River, Pasco, Martin, and Lake counties. You can see many of these jurisdictions will hold their millages flat or make slight adjustments, whereas Brevard County, as the only county with a charter cap, we've cut our general fund millage rate by over 27% between 2019 and the current fiscal year. According to a study or a report that the Florida Association of Counties put out for 2025, Brevard County had the second lowest general fund millage rate in the entire state of Florida out of 67 counties. This chart shows the general government revenues and expenses between 2025 and budget 2026. I just wanted to show this before we get into the current year budget, just to highlight a few key things here. Each year, we are required to submit a balanced budget, and you can see the majority of our revenues, almost all of our revenues are coming from ad valorem taxes, and with increases to charter officers that includes the sheriff, as well as investments in public safety. The county cut roads, infrastructure, and other county agencies by almost 14 million heading into 2026 to achieve a balanced budget for this fiscal year. Florida Statutes Chapter 129 requires the county and other municipalities to submit a balanced budget each year, meaning that our total estimated revenues must be equal to our total budgeted expenses. This pie chart looks at just the revenue side of our budget. However, our expenses are also at 2.5 billion. And the key takeaway I wanted to get across from this slide is, while 2.5 billion seems like a large number, it's because it is, only less than 50% of that is operating revenue or new revenue that we have flowing through the county each year. The other half of our budget is carry forward in departments like natural resources, utilities, and solid waste, where they have large multi-year capital projects. And so each year, those balances are brought forward as those projects progress. And then we collect 1.19 billion, at least in 2026, in operating revenue. You guys have heard the color of money concept before. I'm just going to provide a brief overview of it. The next few slides will follow the color scheme that you see here. We'll have general funds in green. These are our most flexible and discretionary funding sources that the county has. We have special revenue in pink. These are restricted to very specific purposes. We have debt service in yellow, capital project in orange, enterprise funds in blue. These are departments that operate like a business, where they'll charge residents or users a fee for services based on how those users use those services. Finally, we have internal service funds in gray. So of that 1.19 billion that you saw a couple slides ago in operating revenue, this chart breaks down how much of that operating revenue belongs to each fund group. Of that 1.19 billion, almost 50% of that is in special revenue funds. Again, those are going to include programs like Sorrel. We have enterprise funds at just under 20%. It's going to include departments like utilities and solid waste. We have internal service funds at 8%. This is mostly insurance premiums. And then in the top left, we get into the discretionary and flexible funding that we have through the general government program at 24%. The lighter green shade that you see there, these are revenues that are technically within the general fund. However, they are derived from very specific purposes that generated that revenue. And if we were to consider reallocating them, you would likely not have that revenue to begin with because it's generated from a service. These next few slides will break down what makes up each component of that operating revenue that you saw in the previous pie chart. For the general fund, obviously, ad valorem taxes are our primary revenue source. We also have communication service taxes, FPL franchise fees, state shared revenues, local half cent sales tax, and other operating revenues, which is going to include interest earnings and indirect cost allocation revenue. On the right-hand side, in the lighter green, again, these are revenues that are within the general fund. However, they come from very specific purposes that generated that funding. For example, with the sheriff at 18 million, those are contracted funds that they get from other municipalities in Brevard for performing law enforcement services in those areas. You also have places like planning and development. That's going to include planning and zoning fees, as well as code enforcement, fines and forfeits. The other general fund at the bottom, 1.5 million, is primarily the medical examiner and commissions to the tax collector and property appraiser. This slide continues the color of money through the rest of the fund groups that we have. Again, special revenue is our largest operating revenue fund group, and you have departments like natural resources in there, a lot of grant funds in there, sorrel tax revenues. Below that, you'll see fire rescue at 102 million. That's going to include the fire control, MSTU, non-advalorem assessment, and ambulance billings. On the left side, we get into the enterprise funds. Again, these are departments that operate like a business. We'll have utilities, solid waste, and transit as the largest groups in that fund type, and below that, we have internal service in gray. Employee benefits is insurance premiums, and risk management is also insurance premiums through auto and property insurances. For the rest of this PowerPoint, we're really going to focus on that general fund sliver of operating revenue that we have, because again, that's our discretionary and flexible funding that the board can allocate. You'll notice here the sources and uses at the bottom are balanced. That's, again, in compliance with Chapter 129 Florida statutes. This slide includes both operating and non-operating revenues. That's why it's slightly different than the numbers you saw just a minute ago. And I've covered the revenues that are within the general fund, so we're going to go through the uses, which you see on the right-hand slide. We're going to spend the rest of this PowerPoint going through how the general fund dollars are allocated in the current fiscal year. First, we have our charter officers. This includes the sheriff, tax collector, property appraiser, supervisor of elections, and clerk to the board. This total $177 million from the general fund in 2026. It's worth noting that these amounts don't represent these agencies' entire budgets. This is just the general fund support component that we provide. It's also worth noting that any unspent dollars at the end of each fiscal year must be returned to the county as excess fees. You've seen items for that in the past. Now we'll move into mandates. These are governed by various Florida statutes. Our mandates include Medicaid, court operations, Baker Act, pre-trial detention of juveniles, and other mandates, which is going to include the Value Adjustment Board, East Central Florida Regional Planning Council, indigent burials, and a few other miscellaneous mandates. Medicaid is our largest mandate, and that has increased significantly from recent years. We were at $8.7 million in the prior year, and before that we were at $7.5 million in 2024. All counties in the state of Florida are required to contribute to the state's Medicaid program, and the 9.5 represents Brevard County's contribution to the state. Next, we get into other obligations. At the top of this is reserves. We have reserves set at 10% of our operating revenues in general government in the current fiscal year. That equates to $30.3 million and aligns with board policy, BCC 21. We also have some general government debt in the general fund, and we have our general fund CRA payments at $8.1 million. You all have heard before that prior boards have instructed staff to renegotiate our agreements with CRAs to reduce their lifespan and focus their funding on infrastructure. Through those agreements, we have already seen CRAs like Satellite Beach and Palm Bay Sunset. It's worth noting we will make the final payment to the city of Rockledge in the current fiscal year, and that CRA will sunset at the end of this year. Next, we get into public safety and infrastructure. Our public safety allocation, excluding the sheriff and the general fund, is $33.5 million. The majority of that is going to be in EMS at $25.3 million. That's a sharp increase from last year where we were at $14 million and is the result of the recent labor contract that was ratified in July. We also have ocean rescue, public safety, which includes a medical examiner, and emergency management. Below that, we have projects that are funded directly within the general fund, which includes the Wickham Road fleet site, detention center infrastructure, the medical examiner chiller, and other infrastructure, which is primarily parks, hurricane repairs that are funded in the general fund. Those total $26.2 million. Then we get into our allocations to public works and facilities and parks and rec for 2026. Public works is scheduled to receive just over $33 million. This is a decrease from what they had in 2025, where they were budgeted to receive over $36.7 million. Parks and rec is just under $13 million for this year. That's also a significant decrease from 2025, where they were at $16.48 million and was the result of us balancing our budget with our investments in public safety. In addition to funding those programs, the general government program also funds many other agencies within the county. We also have some operating expenses of our own to include separations of services. These are leave and severance payouts. We have facility and IT charges. An annual grant to the economic development condition, or the economic development commission, and we have contracted and professional services at $1.7 million. This is going to be internal audits, external audits, financial consultants, disaster consultants, and things of that nature. The other general government expenses you see there of $1.1 million is primarily postage and notification expenses. And we also have solid waste assessments and various insurance and facility maintenance costs that are housed within general government. Below that, we'll start getting into the various programs that the general fund funds throughout the county. Some of these agencies use this as local match to draw down additional funding from state or federal agencies, such as housing at $3.1 million and transit at $2.3 million. They'll leverage additional millions from state and federal groups using that money as local match. This rounds out the remaining general fund allocations that we have. Again, some of these departments, this may be their only revenue source. Other departments, they may use this to supplement other grants or charges for services that they have, like natural resources at over $700,000. They will use that as local match, again, for additional grant funding. That's the brief overview on how general government funds are allocated in 2026. I did want to provide some data on homestead exemptions. Everybody's heard a lot about various legislation floating through the state of Florida to change how Florida handles property taxes. We worked with the property appraiser to develop this data using their online database. They have a really incredible access database, there's hundreds of thousands of rows out there on properties. And through that database, we estimate that almost 50% of Brevard County's parcels have a homestead exemption on them, and those properties total just over $30.6 billion in total taxable property value. Why is this important? This is important because a lot of the legislation we've seen looks at potentially increasing the homestead exemption. We've seen it through a phase-in approach where the homestead exemption will increase each year. We've also seen it, some drafts where the property will be fully exempt from taxes, and any homesteaded property would not pay any taxes. All the legislation we've seen at this point does include protections for law enforcement and public safety to ensure that if our tax funding is reduced, that those agencies are not reduced as a result of that. At the bottom of this slide, I have our charter cap millage calculation and our rollback rate millage calculation. The rollback is what the Department of Revenue uses to determine if we're going to advertise a tax increase. And what I wanted to bring your attention to here is that if you look at both of these calculations, the numerator in both of them looks at the prior year ad valorem revenue, and the denominator looks at the taxable property value in the current year. So in the event that homesteaded properties were removed from the tax roll, that would significantly decrease our taxable property value, thus would yield much larger charter cap millage rate maximums and much larger rollback rates as well. Obviously, all of that is dependent on how the board sets millage rates when we do that in July and September. That completes my presentation for today. I'm going to pass it over to Jim for future budget considerations. Thank you, Keith. And, Commissioners, I know if you've been here for a little bit, you've seen this presentation. I know for the new commissioners, you saw it last year. But, you know, the emphasis we want to show you, we just had a citizen come, what, last board meeting said your budget's $2.5 billion. Well, a lot of it is already multiyear projects. There's solar out there. So the real value that you have, that we all have to work with, is somewhere in the neighborhood of $370 million. And of that $370 million, a lot is already allocated. Medicaid takes a lot of functions. You had courts. So we want to show folks, you know, when we do the color money, you're going from $2.5 billion down to $371 million that we have to work with and move around. So, you know, that's the big takeaway from Keith's presentation, a nice job. When you look at the list, I'm going to talk about property tax legislation in just a second. But future budget considerations as we go through the budget, we'll be talking to you in March. But one thing I want to make sure everybody's listening online or watching this later on is, you know, we're an employer also. You know, we provide plenty of services. So our health insurance program, there's always the pressure on health insurance premiums, increases. Over the years, our balance in our health insurance funds have been going down. So there might be an adjustment to what we do with our health insurance. We'll be looking at that. FEMA reimbursements, Keith touched on it briefly. I can't recall which hurricane 2017 or 2018. We lost a bunch of boat ramps and a lot of damage in the north part of the county. The way to get those functions back up and repaired quickly, we borrowed money from the insurance pool and went out and fixed it. We still have not received all the FEMA reimbursements we've asked for from those projects. And that's been, what, seven, eight years now. So FEMA reimbursements, there's still plenty of millions of requests out there that we haven't received yet. I'm not sure what we're going to go in the process. And then the second point of the FEMA, you know, reading online and different stories and you hear different things. FEMA may not be the same FEMA, you know, next year or even this coming year as it's been in previous years. There's talk of reducing their staff or block granting it to states or, you know, or even not reimbursing as much. So, I mean, that could be a consideration. And so I point out that Parks and Rec, you know, we had millions of dollars of damage. We estimate, I think, $12 million. I think we ended up fixing everything for $5 or $6 million. We'll get back something like 90% of that. But in the future, you may have $5 or $6 million of damage that the federal government will not reimburse this for. So that affects your reserves, it affects what you want to do with your money, how you want to do with that. Population and service demands. I'm picking on Parks. I hope Ian's listening. But Parks is a great example. Roads is a great example. Keith talked about, you know, our charter cap and our revenue is all based on taxable value. Well, demand for Parks and Roads has nothing to do with taxable value. It has to do with your population. So we have this cap of, you know, 2.63% for how we can raise revenue. But if population goes up 10%, that's 10% more kids trying to get on a soccer field. 10% of more people getting on Babcock Street or driving here on Stadium Parkway. So it doesn't always, well, actually, it never jives perfectly. So that's always something we're looking at and trying to figure out and balance for you guys. We're definitely going to have to talk facilities needs in March. There's lots of facility needs out there, a six-story. We're always working on the six-story. We're working on this building. And you saw on there we're fixing up, I still want to call it CEP, Central Fleet, where Parks and Public Works and Central Fleet is located. We're fixing that up. That would be a very nice project. But we have a lot of facility needs out there. A shout-out to our libraries. A lot of their buildings are getting to be 30 years old. They're going to need repair. Our parks and recreation buildings, you know, we taxed ourselves in 2000 and 2006 to build those. And though that millage you see there's only one left on debt, that's going away, well, to fix or replace those buildings, we'll have to take it out of operations. There isn't a separate ability to put debt out, different millage that won't affect operating. So that's going to be a future issue in the next few years. And then last but not least on this list before property taxes, we need to remain as a competitive employer. Being an old transit guy, we're always making sure we're trying to become competitive in the market for bus drivers. Parks and Rec, again, we have maintenance workers. Mark and Public Works, we have entry-level maintenance workers. But at the same time, we're also competing against keeping our engineers around, making sure we can stay competitive. Because the engineers, you can't, you're going to see with our drainage, you can't do projects unless you have enough engineers to design them getting going. We have a building examiner, a friend of mine, his uncle works for us. I'm sure he's listening, 80 years old. He's a wonderful building examiner, but it's tough to be competitive in that market if that person ever retires to get them back. So we're struggling on how to remain competitive. I won't go into the details, but I'm going to let you know we've developed career ladders. We're doing different job audits and descriptions. We're trying to work to stay competitive. But so with everything else, we're just out there with, you know, competing against the private sector for employees and with some other cities. The good news, I have to say, in our staff meeting today, I found out we're actually a little competitive with the city of Melbourne and another city for some type of workers, but we're working hard on that. The last thing I just want to focus on, and I admit it's a little incomplete. I bumped into a business owner yesterday and talking to him about our cap and the reduction, and then I saw a newspaper article this morning. But the one bill that seems to be moving is House Resolution 203, thank you, and that's a phase-out elimination of non-school properties for homestead. And that's the first year, I forget the exact number, but every year after the next nine years, a limit, your homestead exemption goes up by $100,000 a year over the next nine years. At the end of 10 years, if you're homesteaded, you don't pay property taxes outside of non-school and public safety. And so, driving in this morning, I honestly thought to myself, holy cow, we have a lot more ad valorem out there that just isn't general fun. You have libraries out there. I'm going to list out what we have. We have libraries out there, mosquito control, fire control. We have five or six rec districts that are in there. We have a law enforcement ad valorem. We have seven MSTUs for road and bridge, and then you have EEL. And so, what Keith had pointed out, whatever that number was, 40 or 45 percent of properties are homesteaded. So, you're looking at two different things. You're looking at a reduction if this bill would pass and then the voters vote for it. Over the years, you're looking at a reduction of half the revenue. Or you're looking at basically, and the math doesn't work perfectly, but off the top of my head, the math, you're doubling the millage rates. And that's assuming what the legislature allows you to raise the rates by each year. So, when we look, honestly, the last couple of days, I've been thinking, well, this is really going to hurt our general fund. But when you look at it, it's going to hurt a lot of other services out there. And the bill is, it will hold law enforcement, public safety harmless. And so, this morning I went through and I added up, if you look at the two millages along with what we do general fund, that's $220 million between the millages and general fund that we put into the sheriff's department and the fire rescue department. That doesn't leave, if we don't raise revenue or if we don't raise millage, that doesn't leave a whole other room for other services. And you see the list. There's a number of departments that get a few million dollars. And, you know, and my thing is, I hate to get into the details, and I don't know the answers you asked me, but holding public safety harmless, well, somebody has to buy the fire trucks. You know, that's your purchasing department. Your HR department manages the insurance program. You have the clerk's office. You know, they're the clerks of the board. They provide all our documentation. I don't see in there supervisor of elections. You know, how do we run elections if we start, you know, we have less and less general funds. So, over the next month, we'll get a little bit better. We'll know what, or two months, we'll know what's going on with the legislature. But, honestly, this is, Jim, 35 years in the business. I don't see how this bill does not reduce services unless you raise taxes, double on the non-homesteaded. Folks, and the non-homesteaded folks, those are people that live in an apartment building and you're business owners. That's a pretty big pill for them all to swallow. It doesn't seem realistic to me. So, I'm just asking for you guys to keep an eye on it as you see it. I don't know what the final bill is going to be, but if it's something like this, that is big impacts. And that would show up in our fiscal year 27-28 budget. So, you won't see it this year, but you'll see it the coming year. So, we'll be talking to you about that in March because we'll have a little bit better idea of what's going, hopefully, what's going on in the legislature. And then give you some of the impacts that we could see down the road. So, if you have any questions for me and Keith. Okay. Any other questions? Yes. I was wondering if anybody knew about the ambulance money recoup, if anyone had an update about that. I don't have that one. We could, you're talking about how much we bill and how much we cover and then how much is in the collection. Because we were collecting funds and I was just wondering, because we were owed funds, and so I was just wondering if anyone knew where we were at with that and if we're still on track to get everything back. And you can just email me if that's no problem. We'll get you that information to the board, yeah. And then I was wondering about how much is the City of Rockledge allocation that you mentioned they're sun setting this year, this is their last payment? It's $1.2 million in the current year, but it's not exactly an apples-to-apples like, hey, you know, we're going to have $1.2 million less in CRA payments because as property values increase and depending on what happens with millage rates, our CRA payments to the other CRAs will grow. And so, you won't realize the full $1.2, but a portion of that will be, you know, obviously a part of the 2027 budget. Awesome. Thank you. Okay. I'll just say real quick, I looked up HJR 203. There isn't a Senate companion yet. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean anything at this point. They can certainly do that. But refresh my memory, is it 60% in each chamber is what they need for the joint resolutions? To weigh the rules, yeah. To put something before the voters, the 60% in each chamber? Oh, yes. Constitutional amendment, yes. Yes. Just about what Commissioner Delaney said, I've had personal experience with the billing. Yeah. For our ambulance, and it happened again recently. So, just since I've been a commissioner three times, and my person wouldn't have paid her bill all three of those times if I hadn't been a commissioner. Because there would have been, so I think we do have some work to do there. I don't know what that looks like or how much, but just my two cents. Well, and I will tell you, I got the text. We will get you the information with my text that I received. So, they're listening for us. I think we should have our lobbies work hard to include mosquito control as a part of the public safety. Mosquitoes kill more people than murders, humans murder. I mean, that's a public safety hazard, and they should at least include that, especially here in Florida. If the board's good with that, we'll let them know. Okay. And I should say, I've also had a couple conversations with our federal lobbyists to keep on the FEMA reimbursement of what's happening on the FEMA side, too. So, to make sure. Okay. Thank you. That's a very good overview. Then, now, we'll go to C2, Natural Resources Department, and then Public Works Department, Stormwater Drainage. All right. And, Commissioners, what you're going to have is you're going to have six different folks here from three different departments. And we just, you remember I kept telling you a title. We couldn't come with the title, so it's Brevard's Water. But what you have in front of you for the presentations, you have Mark Bernath as our Public Works Director. Rachel Garena is our Deputy Director for Public Works. Virginia Barker, Natural Resources Director. Amanda Ellsmore, who is our Deputy Director for Natural Resources. Billy Prasad from Planning and Development Director. And, last but not least, but Bach McClure, who's our Stormwater Program Administrator. And they're going to jump in between, you know, all there's some 30, 40 slides in there. Okay. Good afternoon. As Jim just said, I'm Virginia Barker. I'm the Director of Natural Resources, and I get to kick off this presentation on Brevard's Water with a focus on stormwater and drainage. I'll be providing a sort of a 10,000-foot view of the role of water in Brevard and the various departmental roles related to water management. Next, Rachel and Bach will provide an engineering perspective for Public Works and the Natural Resources Stormwater Utility, respectively. Then, Billy Prasad will quickly summarize the history of planning and development review related to water, followed by Amanda and Mark, who will provide the budget perspectives for Natural Resources and Public Works. Emergency Operations also works with water for emergency response and mitigation planning. John Scott, their director, is not speaking today, but did provide data and input for this PowerPoint. So, it's a big topic with many players, and we'll get rolling here. So, the map on the left shows water to the left of me, water to the right of me, and water down the middle, too. Water is one of the most defining features of Brevard County. Let's take a moment to recognize the incredible ways that water shapes our community, our culture, our heritage, our economy, and contributes to our extraordinary quality of life. Whether it's our beaches, our marshes, the lagoon during the day, the lagoon at night, our wetlands, or the St. John's River, most of the time, we love our water. We take pride in its quantity and quality that provides surf and sandy beaches and boating and fishing and swimming and countless other activities. Natural Resources, in partnership with the TDC, state, and federal partners, invest millions maintaining beaches and dunes for coastal protection, recreation, and tourism. The Save Our Indian River Lagoon program, in partnership with the state, the Water Management District, and National Estuary Program, invest millions maintaining the Indian River Lagoon for our economy, public health, and happiness. Multiple departments, state, and federal rules work together to manage growth adjacent to our prized water assets to safeguard our wet-feathered golden goose, minimize flood risk, and protect natural water storage features. However, local regulatory actions must keep in mind that at the edges of the county's jurisdiction, if we are significantly more restrictive than cities, landowners may simply annex to the adjacent city. Despite all the benefits of water, during extreme conditions, the abundance of water can become too much of a good thing. Whether storm surges, king tides, extreme rainfall, or rising groundwater, excess water in our streets, our yards, and our homes can become a threat. In 2008, during Tropical Storm Fay, Brevard County received 27.65 inches of rainfall. That's basically the height of this tabletop, which I measured before this meeting. That much water fell throughout the county, on land, on water, on streets, on driveways, on yards, and what ran off of our rooftops just added to that 27 inches. New to stormwater at the time, while quickly assessing problem areas and arranging emergency triage, I was amazed at how well our network of over 1,000 miles of ditches and canals kept most homes dry inside. That is the drainage system we will be discussing today. Of course, flooding becomes intolerable when it threatens health, safety, and our economy. Management decisions must carefully balance and optimize the quality of life benefits on most days, when water is welcomed and prized, against public safety threats posed during extreme events. People who choose to live up north expect snow and ice. People who choose to live in the subtropics expect hurricanes. People who choose to live in this water wonderland must expect puddles and acknowledge we have a risk of flooding. The question is, what is Brevard County's tolerance for extra standing water? What are the county's drainage level of service goals? And how do we fund achieving and maintaining those level of service goals? We've been asked how the Save Our Indian River Lagoon Program can help with stormwater funding. It certainly can within existing guidelines. The Save Our Indian River Lagoon Program has funding to reduce the amount of stormwater pollution reaching the lagoon. Not all stormwater flows to the lagoon. Some goes west to the St. Johns River. So if you look at the map in the middle of the slide, there's a little arrow at the top that's about to run down the topographic divide. Oops. Go back. Let me try that again. Okay. The St. Johns River and Indian River Lagoon drainage divide roughly follows the yellow-orange topographic high points along the old dune ridge that was left by prior sea level. I was told I should run this arrow a few times. In South Brevard, the Indian River Lagoon watershed extends west of this ridge where large tributaries, Crane Creek, Turkey Creek, and the Sebastian River, cut through the old dune ridge. Rediversion projects like the C-54, the C-1, and the recent M-1 rediversion projects seek to restore the natural drainage divide. The Save Our Indian River Lagoon Program has completed 58 projects and has 35 underway. Of about 2,000 catchment basins in Brevard that drain to the Indian River Lagoon, 167 more have been identified as top priority basins for stormwater treatment. These are where stormwater projects could stop the most pollution. The Save Our Lagoon Program is flexible, allowing these funds, which are currently $61 million remaining, for these priority basins to be spent in other basins that drain to the Indian River Lagoon. But the funding amount is reduced according to the new actual pollution reduction benefit. The Save Our Indian River Lagoon Program funds any best management practice. That's the list on the right-hand side of the slide that says project types. But funding is based on using the most cost-effective tool for pollution load reduction. So there's no extra funding for choosing a more expensive project type or for adding flood control to these pollution reduction projects. However, the Lagoon Program funds for water quality can be used as a local match for grants that can help with the additional costs to address water quantity or flooding. And over the course of the last nine years, with plan updates, the Save Our Lagoon funding for stormwater infrastructure has increased from $10.4 million to $86.7 million. Beyond the Indian River Lagoon Program, who does what? So the first row, I know this is hard to read, says the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System Permit, NPDES permits. Many water decisions are driven by state and federal requirements as itemized in this NPDES permit. An NPDES permit is required for us to be able to drain water to state water bodies, including the Indian River Lagoon and St. John's River. This pollution elimination permit requires many of the lower rows on this table. And the legislature continues to raise the bar on stormwater treatment and mandatory level of service for drainage maintenance, including Senate Bill 558 that's on the move currently. Planning and Development reviews permit applications for finished floor elevations and lot drainage. As shown in the center column, Public Works focuses on drainage within the right-of-way, plus stormwater treatment required for road projects and permits that expand impervious area. Natural Resources Stormwater Utility focuses on meeting the water quality mandates that are set in state basin management action plans and providing broader flood relief efforts covering large areas beyond the right-of-way. Natural Resources funds Public Works to review stormwater calcs for new subdivisions and commercial development. Natural Resources and Planning and Development both do code enforcement, with Natural Resources focusing on environmental violations and planning and development on the non-environmental violations. The Emergency Operations Program collects crisis data from departments and residents during emergencies and manages the county's local mitigation strategy. Drainage is about water quantity, both rates and volumes, rather than water quality. Factors that influence risk include the topography of the land, the storm event severity and frequency, development that happened prior to comprehensive plan and stormwater rules, and code and environmental violations. Tools to reduce those risks include regulatory code modifications, additional proactive code enforcement, green stormwater infrastructure, also commonly referred to as low-impact development, buyouts for repetitive loss properties, routine maintenance, which also requires sufficient staffing and equipment, and large and small retrofit projects. For green stormwater infrastructure, that's often referred to as low-impact development, that can provide both quality and quantity benefits, but it often costs more to install, and it definitely costs more to maintain. It won't work and shouldn't be used if there aren't sufficient funds and commitment to keep it maintained. It will make things worse, so it requires a long-term commitment to go that route. Slide six shows sort of three flavors of water management, flood control, water quality, and resilience. So public works mostly focuses on the flood control via drainage maintenance. The Saviour and New River Lagoon program focuses on water quality. The stormwater utility does both but has a relatively small budget. Resilience grants were added by Governor DeSantis to adapt and mitigate flooding and sea level rise. Our best example of a resilience project is along the Max Brewer Causeway, the wave attenuation devices. But the county has no dedicated funding for resilience projects. The only way we were able to get these projects funded was through grants and by using water quality and water quantity funds as local match to secure those grants. Future state funding is uncertain for resilience projects under the next governor. Good afternoon. So when we were talking about drainage, we kind of wanted to start with a picture. A picture creates, it's better than a thousand words. It really gives us a good idea of where we've been, where we're going, and what areas do have concerns. So I won't go over this map because we're going to go over it in detail on the next few slides. So since 2012, we've documented quite a bit of flooding and drainage concerns throughout the county. We went ahead and overlaid that over the incorporated areas just to give everybody an idea of the areas that we have documented are the unincorporated areas. When you're seeing big blank spots on this map, it's because they're generally in unincorporated areas. Or in incorporated areas, excuse me. But generally speaking, we have drainage and flooding concerns across the county. It's because it's flat, like to be oversimplistic. This data was collected from various sources, crisis track, documented flooding, drainage complaints since 2012. So what have we been doing since then? The lighter polygons on this map are historical drainage studies that we've done throughout the years. The darker ones are studies that are currently in the hopper. As you can see, generally speaking, everywhere that has a drainage concern has been touched in some manner or another. We have to study what we don't know the cause is. We are not going to go spend bad money after a project that we don't know if it'll fix it. So kind of the first step in any process is to study it. You'll also notice that some areas overlap. That's because general drainage studies are giving you more of a holistic view. Once we get into specific areas, we may have to study at a more detailed level to really drill down into what projects need to be done. So from those studies come projects, both in public works as well as in natural resources, the two various pink polygons. And those are currently in the CIP-funded lists for public works and natural resources. So what have we been doing since 2012? We've been doing a lot. We have on the green dots, the light green dots are structural pipe linings. The dark green dots are public works or in bridge culvert replacements. These are not representative of each and every pipe, but representative of the areas of pipes. So each dot may represent multiple pipes that went in in one location. And where do we go? So the red dots are representative not of maintenance-level pipe replacements. These red dots really are those projects that have come out of drainage studies throughout the years that unfortunately, for one reason or another, didn't have funding available to complete them. And they get put on an unfunded list. You guys have seen this unfunded list throughout the years talked about in various budget presentations. Currently, just drainage-related, unfunded, is at almost half a billion dollars. Just drainage. So each of these red dots, again, is not a specific location. It is a centralized location for the project. So think of each project would be more of a polygon, but for clarity on the map, because it was getting really full, they're represented as a specific location. And then, last but not least, the county received a grant for a county-wide vulnerability study. And Bach will drill down into that a little bit more. Sorry. You hit it, and I hit it. I don't know. Okay. There we go. All right. So as you saw from the maps, we've got hundreds of funded and unfunded projects, both large and small, spread out across the county and in every district. We've identified many of our key assets in areas of risk, and we continue to receive valuable feedback from property owners and residents, whether they own property or not. Now, that often leads to the question, and Rachel touched on this, why do we keep modeling and studying the county? Quick answer is we've got a requirement from the state to perform a vulnerability analysis, and we have grant funding that allows us to study the entire county, including eight of the municipalities that were lacking in staffing and wherewithal to move forward, and we got 100% funding from the state to include those municipalities. When we apply for permits and try to leverage county dollars with grant funding, we need to be able to show that each of the projects we're doing is the right solution in the right location that won't create unintended impacts for neighboring areas. The pie chart on the right shows how a stormwater project costs typically break down. About 20% goes into planning and designing, which helps us avoid costly mistakes in land acquisition and construction, because a typical stormwater project takes about seven years from planning through construction, being thoughtful about which projects we launch and win is critical to avoid wasting time and resources. And while the vulnerability assessment will be countywide and a great tool for helping us prioritize projects and pursue grant funding, it won't replace the need for more detailed, project-specific studies and modeling that will be required by the permitting agencies. Next one. This is an example of a large area flood mitigation project. This completed project was part of the multi-phase Crane Creek Hickory Ditch Master Plan, and it's a great example of how things can move when we already have modeling and preliminary design work in hand. For years, the permitting agencies told us that jacking and boring under I-95 wasn't feasible and we wouldn't be able to get a permit for it. Then we had Tropical Storm Fay hit in 2008. About 800 homes in the Lamplighter Village were flooded along with hundreds more in the surrounding area, and the project quickly became a priority. We installed three 48-inch culverts under I-95 beginning in July of 2009, with the remaining improvements rolling out through fiscal year 2009 and 10. We had additional water quality treatment components, which were required and were completed in 2015. From a performance standpoint, the conveyance improvements reduced the peak flood elevations by about 18 inches for the design 100-year event. The project also included upstream and downstream improvements, along with the creation of a 20-acre stormwater treatment pond, east of I-95. That pond now treats roughly 2,300 acres of older development in the John Rhodes Boulevard, Sauna Road, and Ellis Road areas before it discharges to the St. Johns River. In terms of funding, we were able to increase a FEMA hazard mitigation program grant to cover 75% of the total project cost, and the local match was made possible by delaying other stormwater improvements projects in District 5, and we had to come up with the money for match for some place, and that was done by delaying construction of other projects. These are some pictures of the conditions near Lamplighter Village after Fay, and while construction was underway. As high as the water appears in the photo by the John Rhodes entrance to Lamplighter Village, the water on the west side of Lamplighter Village near I-95 was even deeper due to the slope of the property. It was essentially turned into a lake, and the bottom of the lake was lower near I-95. Okay, good afternoon. So now we're going to walk through the stormwater projects in each district, starting in the north end of the county in District 1. I'll highlight some of the larger or more notable projects on each slide. So as was mentioned earlier, most of the stormwater assessment funds are both collected and invested in District 1. We have a number of major projects underway with about $30 million in total construction costs. These are board-approved capital improvement projects that often span many years, sometimes even decades, and they typically pull from multiple funding sources as we work to leverage our county dollars. Across the board, they're designed to deliver overlapping benefits where possible, improving water quality to meet state requirements, and reducing flood risks to make our communities more resilient. If we just take the largest project in this district as an example, West Cocoa, the District 1 portion of this project—there's also a portion in District 2 that you'll see on the next slide—focuses on improving the drainage channel and upsizing culverts in key areas like Adamson Road, Lake Drive, State Road 520, Plucky Bomb, and Burnett Roads. This is part of a larger, multi-phase regional stormwater plan. Between fiscal years 18 and 26, we've been acquiring land and easements, completing design and permitting, and starting construction, which is scheduled to wrap up in fiscal year 27. A project of this size is a lot like a major roadway project. It takes more than a decade and a significant investment. In District 1 alone, that's about $13 million. On the next slide, you'll see an additional $2.5 million in District 2 for the West Cocoa portion there, and another $3.1 million for the Mud Lake project, which supports the overall West Cocoa improvements. Each piece we complete increases the level of flood protection across this area and reduces risks to people, homes, businesses, infrastructure, and natural habitat. Even with that level of investment, we still have about a $4.1 million unfunded gap after fiscal year 27, which means we can't move forward with every recommendation from the study right now for this area. So we focused on prioritizing the projects that deliver the biggest benefit for the most amount of homes and structures and have funding available. Pivoting to a smaller retrofit-style project, Breezeway is in an older neighborhood between US 1 and the railroad just north of 528. The area has an outdated drainage system that can't adequately prevent flooding of roads and private property. So the solution here is an upgraded system that includes an exfiltration component. So survey work was completed there in 1819. Redesign and permitting are scheduled for throughout the end of this year and started in 2024, and construction is planned for fiscal year 27. So moving on to District 2, we have about a dozen projects here with a total value of roughly 19 million, and I'll touch on a couple of the larger ones. You heard about Mud Lake on the last slide. This project focuses on improving control structures and creating a regional flood impoundment in West Cocoa. We've been working through design and permitting over several years, from fiscal years 20 through 26. Land acquisition has been ongoing during that same period, and our goal is to begin construction in 27. Another major effort is the NASA Drainage Improvements Project. This area of North Merritt Island, just north of State Road 528, has experienced significant flooding multiple times and was the focus of the study. An analysis showed that the most cost-effective solution was installing a permanent electro hydraulic pump, electric hydraulic pump with a diesel backup along Hall Road to reduce how long floodwaters remain after storm events. Planning and initial design started back in fiscal year 17, followed by land acquisition, design, and permitting through 20. Construction took place from 21 through 24, and this year we finished project closeout. A note about the pumps, and this is just a bit of a PSA. They are significantly more quiet than you would expect, and so we often hear complaints that they aren't running during storm events when they should be. They are on. So we installed, this was Bach's idea, a light on the outside of the pump building to alert people that they are running even though you can't hear them. So, alrighty. On the next slide, we've combined Districts 3, 4, and 5. In District 3, the Myco Central Project addresses long-standing drainage and flooding issues around Central Avenue. It adds a stormwater pond with nutrient reduction features. We've been working on this one for several years. Land acquisition began in 18, with survey design and permitting continuing through 25. Construction is planned for this year. In District 4, the Kings Mill Project installs a stormwater pond at the upper end of the O'Galley system to capture sediment and reduce nutrients before water reaches the Indian River Lagoon. Construction is planned for 25 through 26 and directly supports state-mandated nutrient reductions. Although this project has had dozens of other elements over many years that reduced flooding, now we're moving into the water quality portion of this hybrid project. Also in District 4, West Arlington and Flamingo in South Patrick Shores added a denitrification bioreactor at a county cul-de-sac and in-county right-of-way, respectively. Arlington is recently completed and is already helping to treat groundwater and stormwater before it discharges to the lagoon. Flamingo is finishing up now. These projects are nutrient reduction projects and not flood control projects. We often get questioned about these areas because we hear, well, there's no flooding in these areas, and you're absolutely right, and there's not a lot to see after the projects are done, but they are working invisibly to help reduce nutrients to the lagoon. Finally, in District 5, the natural resources portion of the Sand Dollar Project includes a denitrification bioreactor and sediment removal system on county property near the lagoon. Design is complete with construction plan for this year, and it will reduce stormwater pollution entering the IRL. This is part of a multi-phase improvements to the Riverside Drive area in conjunction with Public Works. I believe there are seven total phases right now. This is just a snapshot of the budget for our stormwater program. So this is stormwater assessment revenue only. Keith already walked you through the colors of money, and as a reminder, you'll see that pink are restricted revenues. So all the stormwater assessment revenues by ordinance and Florida statute can only be used to support stormwater projects and the ongoing maintenance of those projects. So we fund and maintain our stormwater program by collecting about $6.7 million a year. So all of those projects that you saw listed in the tables earlier, so 34 projects, 13 of which are primarily flood control projects, are funded with that $6.7 million a year. That amount collected is pretty consistent year to year. You'll notice a large balance forward on the left, and that's because of the multi-year nature of the projects. This year, we're also leveraging those assessment dollars. So we have about $8 million in grants that have to be managed and about $3.75 million in ARPA funds that have to be expended this year. But that allows us to stretch our local dollars. And this is a breakdown district by district. So each district operates as its own stormwater utility, which means that the funds collected in each district are spent in that district on flood control, resilience, and water quality improvements. You'll see the largest revenues are collected in districts 1, 2, and 4, and those are in order. That's largely because those districts contain the greatest number of unincorporated properties, which is where those stormwater assessments are generated. Because these projects are long-term and often have multiple phases, and because many are currently in active construction or being leveraged with grant funding, the spending doesn't always line up evenly year to year. But with the current slate of projects, through the life of construction for those projects, about 44 percent of the funds are going to be expended in district 1. And district 2 also has a significant number of projects moving into construction, accounting for about 28 percent of total expenditures. And that's where we hear the concerns for flooding most in district 1 and district 2. And so those funds are greatest there, and they are returning there. We also leverage every dollar that we can to put as much money back into each district that we can. District 4 shows a higher share right now as well. That's driven by the Kings Mill Aurora phase 2 improvements, which are soon commencing, or the second water quality phase is soon commencing. And those benefits extend into district 5. Okay. Well, in regards to public works' budget in Rodenbridge, Rodenbridge is primarily budgeted from maintenance operations and MSTU. We do not have a dedicated funding source specific to drainage. It funds all of our operations. Maintenance operations covers all of the salary and benefits for Rodenbridge, as well as major projects, materials at approximately $33 million. The largest project is our road program that comes out of that budget. And approximately about 29 percent of it funds the staff associated with drainage. As far as MSTUs, across the board, we're looking at about $6 million cumulatively throughout all the MSTUs. That pays for all the maintenance of the roads and the drainage and the trees and guardrails and everything. So not a lot of funding for that. And I'm going to throw in a plug that we believe health and safety, and that we also fall into the health and safety category. I ask anybody that's flooding or, you know, in an accident on the side of the road. So that's my plug. But something to notice, and I want to pull you back to, that those little red dots that talk about our unfunded list. You know, you don't get a lot done with $6 million when you have a $500 million backlog. So we need to find, you know, another opportunity to address those. But as far as MSTU funding, it's pretty much stayed the same. Varies very little over the years, over the last 10 years. And the maintenance operation budget is actually trending down. So lots of concerns. So earlier, Rachel showed you an image that was worth 1,000 words. If you look at this image of a topographic neighborhood, it kind of, in my opinion, tells the story of a lack of words in the form of a strong code. Brevard County did not even have a comprehensive plan until the late 80s, let alone the modern subdivision code that we have today. In 1986, after the state adopted new rules regarding stormwater management, the county followed through in implementing some standards in its initial comp plan. However, as you can see with the numbers on the left, by that time, there were already approximately 108,000 residential structures in the county. The county then adopted stormwater management codes in 93, and our subdivision code was adopted in 1995, which for the first time instituted modern subdivision code that we work under today that includes requirements that communities be planned out and long-term shared infrastructure is accounted for. However, so that kind of gives, like, the macro view for subdivision requirements. But the specific lot drainage part of that code, Section 62-2891, looked like this in 1995. It's just the highlighted yellow portion. I know you can't read the words, but you can see it's pretty small. It consisted of two sentences. Now, you might say, well, you can say a lot in two sentences, so maybe that's not fair. But those two sentences, the first sentence had to do with, if you were in a flood zone, you needed to be consistent with federal emergency management practices. Okay. The second sentence is where it said if protected trees exist on subdivision lots, you can only bring the minimum amount of fill. So basically, if you didn't happen to be building in a floodplain, in which case you needed to follow already existing regulations, or number two, if you didn't happen to have protected trees, as far as lot drainage requirements and subdivision code, it didn't even apply to you at that time. So in 1995, by that time, there's 130,000 residential structures we had instituted with this code in place. Meanwhile, the Florida Building Code was passed by the state, was instituted statewide in 98, and was adopted by the county under that mandate in 02. But it wasn't until 2015 that the board ultimately amended that lot drainage code I talked about before to look like it does today. It's far more robust, and more importantly is what's in it. And I think the very first section really tells the purpose, and it's pretty straightforward. Subdivision lot design shall ensure that the drainage of surface water from lots is diverted to a stormwater conveyance or other drainage improvement designed to receive surface water so as not to create a hazard. Block grading and elevation of building pads shall also be designed to drain surface away from buildings. So finally, we have a piece of code in the subdivision area that says, keep the water away from structures, and ultimately get it to a drainage system. Again, that's in 2015, and you can see by then, 175,000 residential structures were built in Brevard County. I do want to note with these numbers, that is countywide, because the data from the 80s until now, the only common metric I could find was a countywide metric, so that includes cities. But still, assuming, you know, development trends are pretty consistent, there's a lot of structures by that time this code existed, specifically 90% of the structures that existed today, approximately, were built prior to 2015. Today, there's somewhere in the neighborhood of 194,000 residential structures, large and small, multi-unit, single-unit condos, and so forth. So I'm not saying the current situation, our code couldn't be improved. Subdivisions today are subject to a comprehensive review by experts in the field with a code to back that review up. But what about our existing neighborhoods that you see here? This is a neighborhood that was probably built outside of the subdivision code, and that has resulted in vacant lots progressively being used as part of the stormwater system. Eventually, those vacant lots get developed, and there's nowhere for that water left to go but in people's yards at best. Now, with that said, we have made some improvements in that area, too. For example, in May of 2024, so just before SB 180 has been retroactively applied to us, thankfully it was before that, we created a new policy to review new single-family residences that have no discharge or available connection to a county ditch or drainage feature, and we now require them to have a site drainage plan designed by a PE to provide stormwater calcs for the 25-year, 24-hour storm event, or to provide two inches of on-site retention and ensure that proposed fill does not create ponding or flooding on adjacent properties. Again, pretty straightforward basic requirements. With that said, though, we do not expect new infill construction like that vacant lot you see there to essentially fulfill the role of a subdivision-style drainage system for the entire community that they're in. There's a balance of interest at stake, and in order to go further than what our code and policies dictate, we would require board action, which, of course, I tell you that with full knowledge that the authority has been limited by SB 180. So before we leave this slide, we just wanted to point out a few things on this picture. This picture is from our county. It is purposely generic, but very representative of what we see. The lowest areas are the blues and greens, with white being the highest, followed by the browns. So just in case. So as you see, historically, whether the property owners that live here now or the property owners that live there before them have impeded the rear lot drainage that, you know, was there originally. You know, the gentleman, I'm going to call him a gentleman. I have no idea. But the gentleman on the left bottom obviously built a pool and filled in their entire backyard. The one above that also filled, and now that water can't even get out to the road. There's sheds in the way. There's fences in the way. So even if that lot were to develop responsibly and not attribute more water to the rear of those lots, those lots are probably going to see more water because now their water's not going to that lot. So this is what we're seeing systematically across the county. Can I ask a technical question? Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Chair. If that's an HOA, the HOA has some responsibility for the drainage. I mean, they have their own rules to keep things away from the lot line and some of those other impediments. I mean, they typically have their own... Some HOAs are better than others. Well, but they have their own stormwater retention, especially if they're built after a certain... You couldn't build that neighborhood today without stormwater retention plan. Correct. Okay, so there's... Today, there would be stormwater retention. There'd be rear lot easements. It's kind of up to the HOA how active they are in making people maintain those. But the HOA is responsible for their own stormwater retention system. Yes. Yeah, so they have the incentive to make sure that that works well versus this neighborhood that predated any kind of stormwater retention plan. Correct. Yes. Okay. Most modern HOAs, they're going to be subject to St. John's River Water Management District permitting requirements and things like that that they have to adhere to, and their covenants, conditions, and restrictions are going to reflect that. So I've had a little experience with an HOA calling about their retention pond and what they need to do. And, you know, hey, you've got to call St. John's, right, because they're the agency that you have to deal with in the first place, right, on that whole plan. But those, for the modern neighborhoods. But, again, they have the incentive to make sure that it works well. A modern neighborhood is going to have that incentive. Correct. But for us right now with SB 180, anything that we tried to do that could be construed as more restrictive or burdensome gets in the way of us. That's correct. If you were to try to strengthen existing policies to do more for, for example, require them to convey the water in a certain way that doesn't exist today, I think that that could be an issue to it. Thank you. Yeah, and you'll see that as a reoccurring challenge throughout these slides. But things do take time to get changed. So if there was something that the board felt strongly should be looked at, you know, for the future, I mean, we couldn't implement anything, but we could certainly head down a path. So continuing with our concerns with historic subdivisions, kind of see three bubbles of causation. They kind of fall into three categories. So legacy conditions where they were built before permitting, we've already talked about that, inadequate and aging stormwater, and even floodplain development. I mean, you heard Billy talk about the regulation as it related to the floodplain, and it was just like, whatever the feds say. So we see areas that were built just below the flood zone entirely. We have development pressures from the infill lots. We have higher rainfall intensities that we're seeing in shorter periods of time and increased water tables and tailwater levels. We have private impacts. I talked a little bit about that and fences and other improvements, but just also unmaintained historic systems. You know, we have some historic subdivisions that actually have ponds, but the HOAs were dissolved years ago, and nobody maintains anything. We have unpermitted modifications, and then we have our agricultural areas, which are a thing in and of themselves where that's not even regulated by the county. That's regulated by the state, and primarily they're looking at water quality in terms of their regulations, not necessarily water quantity. All those add together for shared impacts, increased flooding risk, increased infrastructure strain. We see downstream impacts. We see higher maintenance costs and retrofit costs as far as what we can do to mitigate it, code modifications, funding more retrofit projects, doing modifications to enforcement or just buying out areas that are not able to be retrofitted. All those come with challenges. Obviously, SB 180 is the theme of a lot of discussions. But we've got staffing and funding challenges. We've got eminent domain challenges. When we approach projects, a lot of times it's with the understanding that we are going in there, and if the property owners are willing to help with the easements needed and that kind of thing, we can do the project. But if we get into having to buy property and that kind of thing, it's going to be cost-infeasible, a lot of times that will make one property owner can kill an entire project or cause costly redesign for retrofit projects. So if we really were committed to doing it and doing it right, we have to be committed all the way through. And then as far as the agricultural areas, we may not have the jurisdiction to do and regulate what we want. But if I could, to be fair with that, a lot of the issues that are coming in the agriculture areas is because of re-zones. It's not necessarily the agricultural land. You're getting ahead of me. Thank you. So that was the historical stuff. Let's talk about the new stuff. We do have new subdivisions and development. We do have opportunities with new development that allows us to regulate under our code. It's a group effort. As you saw in Virginia's early slide, this is also a group effort in the fact that everybody's got a piece of the pie on what we review for. Public works reviews for retention, discharge, and road and right-of-way drainage. Building reviews for finished floor elevations in regard to impacts within the flood zone. They review for lot drainage. Natural resources gets involved with flood zone impacts and compensatory storage. Wetland impacts, as well as tree preservation and buffers. So we do have a lot better code now than we did. Our code requirements do address a lot of issues currently. We require development design to take into consideration the current water tables. We require discharge rates pre-post to be equal to or less than the precondition. We require, but that's for the 25-year, 24-hour storm event. We require no increased staging when a project is impacting within a flood zone. This is the ones inside the zone, not outside the zone. As well as if there is historic drainage going through an area, the preservation of that historic drainage within a drainage easement or some other way. And the existing conditions are required to be surveyed for that review to determine those types of items. But there's still room for improvement. We still have physical challenges out there. We are seeing increased water tables in areas because as, you know, new codes, sometimes you have to build higher and then the ponds get higher and everything gets higher. So there's a cumulative impact that isn't readily noticeable. We have increased rainfall intensities that aren't captured in our code. And those are changing things. Inadequate downstream rates and volume capacity. So a lot of our code is it's that 25-year, 24-hour, but it's a rate. It's not a volume. So when you're talking about, okay, you're not sending it at me faster, but you may be still sending more at me cumulatively. So if I'm not able to get rid of it faster, then more water's coming at me. And inadequate historic and natural systems. So, okay, you can preserve a system, but if it's undersized to begin with, we're losing the opportunity to negotiate, you know, an improvement in that system ahead of time. As well as, you know, there's always unforeseen impacts that are identified during construction. Maybe you didn't get the one low spot between the survey shots that were taken or something like that. So there are possible code changes that could be done should we ever be allowed to change our code. We could require groundwater modeling. We could do a system-wide model, similar to what we did on Merritt Island, where developers have to plug into our model and show no adverse impact. We could adopt the NOAA rainfall intensities to stay up to date with what we're seeing weather-wise in requirements. As well as require people to use all the great new technology that we have available, LIDAR, et cetera, to supplement surveys to identify better the historic drainage and that kind of thing. And we could require, if we had a model that demonstrated we needed a historic system to get improved, we could require that improvement and dedication. But that would also require us to be willing to pay for that impact. So some of those challenges, like I said, SB 180, increased development costs, land acquisition and property rights. So we would have to address that cost. We would have to have the money to do a system-wide model to that level of detail. And as we've seen with a lot of our codes that have gotten stricter over the years, when they don't like it, they annex. And then we lose all of our leverage on making sure that they're not going to cause an issue. So this slide shows our current design requirements for various situations and the rainfall amounts. These are based on a 24-hour idealized storm, which is like taking an average of what you would see of rainfall rate and intensity over a 24-hour period. So the assumption is that the storm starts off slowly, gradually peaks near the middle of the time period, and then slowly slacks off again, making a bell curve. Obviously, that does not reflect a lot of the storms we have. So I'm going to be talking about that a little bit. But also, the second portion of the slide, the bottom portion, is an estimate that we worked up of what it would cost to go from the current 10-year, 24-hour storm to a higher level of protection. Well, in this case, we had to make some broad-brush assumptions. There are not a lot of, there's not a lot of information and literature to support how to do this. So we made some reasonable assumptions, had our engineers work some of this stuff up. So to go from the 10-year to the 25-year would double the cost of just buying the materials and installing the pipes. To go to the 100-year, you're tripling the costs. So to go to the 500-year, it's five times. So I'm going to go, I wanted to introduce the slides. So the city of Titusville, part of the reason we made that effort is the city of Titusville recently, discussed requiring designing to the 100-year storm event for all the retrofit CIP projects, which sounds like a great idea and it solves a lot of problems, but it comes with a cost. So we went through the adjustments and estimates. And there are, of course, I mean, obstacles to requiring this, including, especially for non-public projects, which might see substantial increase in cost for the stormwater system and impediments such as SB 180. Current retention ponds are required to be designed to the 25-year, 24-hour, unless they don't have a legal positive outfall, which means they don't have an easement or an adjacent existing drainage system that they can tie into, in which case they have to hold the 96-hour storm, which is more rainfall, so more volume over that period of time. There's a lot of misunderstanding and misuse of the terminology. For the 10-year storm, that's a 10% likelihood that the storm will occur in any given year, or a 1-in-10 chance, any given location. It doesn't mean that the storm happens once exactly every 10 years. It can occur multiple times in one decade or not at all. And it can occur in multiple locations within the county. For example, and there weren't 10-year storms, but let's take the October storms, for example, that we got hit with. Those impacted multiple areas in the northern portion of the county, but southern portion of the county had minimal impacts. We could get a storm this spring or this summer that flip-flopped those. We get major impacts in the southern portion and not much in the northern. And people say, well, that was, let's say they were the 1,000-year event. Well, we got 1,000-year events. Well, you got them in different locations. So we didn't really, I mean, if you count the county as a whole as one location, then yes, we did. But if you count the particular location that received that rainfall, it's a different matter. So it depends on how you're analyzing your statistics and what areas you're looking at. The 10-year storms, which we use for design, are relatively frequent, smaller-scale storms, relatively speaking, but they can still cause significant runoff and they can overwhelm local drainage systems, especially if they're aging or have had other problems. For design, we use this, I mean, the 10-year storm typically for urban systems, small dams, culverts, to ensure they can ensure the specific relatively high intensity and shorter duration of rainfall events. Designing stormwater systems attempts, I mean, Rachel brought this up, is it attempts to balance the cost versus the capacity, and it's usually determined by governmental agencies based on recommendations from researchers, statisticians, professional organizations, and other stakeholders, and then implemented into rule and law by the governmental organizations. For, I mean, Brevard County, as you can see on the table, we're using the 10-year, 24-hour is 7.9 inches, but if you look at the NOAA charts over in Tampa, it's 6.3 inches. So there's variation throughout the state and even across the county, depending on which events we're talking about based on the statistics. The rainfall pattern also assumes, sorry, I already talked about that, 25-year storms and more tents, we've got, I mean, the 25-year is 9 inches in Brevard County. That's a 25-year, 24-hour. But if that same 9 inches fell in 6 hours, that would equate to a 200-year event. So you wouldn't expect those to happen very often, but if you're getting dumped on by 9 inches of rain in 6 hours, it doesn't matter where you're sitting, you're going to get wet. Also, just as a point of information, NOAA is currently in the process of rolling out new statistics supposedly next year that will not only potentially affect the return on projected rainfall amounts, but they'll also allow for projecting future rainfall rates and frequencies under future conditions. And that's on to the next part. So even if we were to receive board direction to design to more intense storms and triple or quadruple our public project construction budget, we need help from property owners. So I just want to highlight what our natural resources enforcement officers have been seeing in the field. So obviously the residents are experiencing these more frequent, more intense storm events, and naturally many are, they're seeing ponding and standing water on their properties, and they're trying to engineer their own solutions. And it's important to remember that more than half of the homes in Brevard County were built before those modern stormwater systems, as Billy pointed out, and again, 90% before our more robust county drainage regulations. So what we're seeing more often now is tree removal, wetland filling or excavation, and even diking within floodplains. And while these actions are usually well-intentioned, they often make flooding worse, both for the property owner and for neighboring properties. We currently have three environmental code enforcement officers managing hundreds of cases throughout the county. And on the next slide, you'll see a sharp increase in environmental destruction cases, particularly in the northern part of the county. These cases are complex and can take months or even years to resolve and often require a costly restoration. That's when there's a permitted system or a regulated environmental resource that we have language to enforce. In older historical drainage areas where no permitted system exists and no regulated resource is impacted, we don't have enforceable code language. And those situations typically become civil disputes between neighbors. Addressing historical drainage would require legislative direction from the board for a code change after Senate Bill 180 is resolved. And likely additional enforcement resources. We would probably need another code enforcement team of three if we were to enforce historical drainage. So starting with the middle photo here is in District 3. This is an active case where the property owner excavated a trench on the left there and constructed a dike in wetlands which redirected historical drainage onto neighboring properties. You can see all that ponding on the left there in that middle photo. There's some ponding below too that's a little bit more difficult to see. There was also a private culvert that was partially blocked restricting flow. That culvert's been restored. So the case is now waiting on confirmation of enforcement closure through FDEP. That's another thing to note. When we have environmental cases, usually we are working with St. John's and DEP. And so it takes a while to get through those resolutions to work hand-in-hand with them. On the right, this is in District 1. In this case, wetlands were cleared and filled. And the owner attempted to make a dike or a road. You can kind of see the roadway running back towards the house in that picture. That work has since been removed. You can see the wetland vegetation, the ferns on the front left of that picture. The wetlands have been restored. The case is now closed. But it took almost two years from the initial report to final compliance. In the top left, this is also in District 1. This is still an active case. It involves a pond being altered in what is believed to be a wetland area. We're still trying to confirm that. This is in the Parkland neighborhood, which recently experienced flooding. It's also an example of a neighborhood built before stormwater system requirements with no design drainage system in place. In situations like this, each property owner tends to try to solve their own flooding issues. And that can disrupt the drainage patterns. Unfortunately, we don't have a simple fix here. If a wetland is ultimately delineated, restoration would be required. But even that would provide limited drainage relief for this particular property. Finally, on the bottom left, this is in District 2. This is in your case, reported in October 2025. It's for permitted subdivisions. So we're not only seeing homeowners trying to solve individual problems. We're seeing even where all the permitting agencies, the 12 or 13 permitting agencies, have gone through months of review and sent out the very best permit that we can. These were impacts, wetland impacts, that occurred beyond what was permitted and waters being discharged improperly onto neighboring properties. The case is ongoing. We're coordinating with St. John's to try and reach a resolution there. Can I? Amanda, I just want to make a comment about something that you said that struck me. So even if we gave you money to do all these projects, we still have to hire people to do them. We have to hire people to enforce the codes. We have to hire people to, yeah, help with design and build out of those projects. We have to hire administrative staff to help move pay invoices. We have prompt payment deadlines that we have to comply with and move projects forward. So we can't, we can't, we have to remember that it's not just the job. It's all the stuff that supports it. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. This just shows, this slide shows the increase in cases that we've seen kind of in the northern part of the county of the past few years. Case reporting is now exceeding even pandemic levels where folks were at home and more likely to notice and report issues. We also saw that in 2009 when the economy had that downturn. Folks were home and we had a lot more cases. We really need the public's help here. Our preference is that before anyone starts excavating, clearing land, or placing fill, they reach out to our staff and request a property review. That way, property owners can understand the environmentally sensitive areas that may be present on their site, areas that could be providing important flood protection, storage, or water quality benefits they may not even be aware of. Once we've had that conversation, we can help guide residents towards more effective and environmentally sound solutions like bioswales or rain gardens. These approaches use plants and natural storage to manage water more effectively and can often solve drainage problems without creating new ones. And rain gardens are just one example of green stormwater infrastructure, which many of you heard about during the last citizen efficiency and effectiveness discussions. Our environmental codes are written to support, encourage, and even incentivize green stormwater infrastructure and low-impact development. There's nothing that prevents residents from using these strategies on their own property as long as they're installed in the right locations and don't impact environmentally sensitive areas. All right, we're now going to turn to maintenance responsibilities. In this slide, we see a theoretical drainage system. Properties and developments may discharge into our system or a city, town, or even FDOT, but frequently the water travels through multiple property owners and or maintaining authorities before eventually flowing out. Generated by AI, this image shows a tongue-in-cheek view of the county's ditch being perfect in the foreground. It's meant to highlight how interconnected drainage is, though. We recognize we are far from perfect and resourced to only be reactive, but you can quickly see that this ditch has a strong likelihood of backing up into our drainage system and rights-of-way due to downed trees, overgrowth, and general lack of maintenance in the background. Our public works road and bridge teams maintain swales, ditches, and canals, public structures and bridges, as well as pumps associated with our rights-of-way. They also perform clearing and mowing, swell rehabilitation, inspection and vac cleaning, failed culvert replacement, and curb and gutter rehabilitation projects, as well as oversee contracts for many other related tasks. All five district maintenance teams have approximately 15 to 20 personnel each to do this, plus all of the road work, sidewalk, bridge maintenance, repairs, on top of it. While we will get into our challenges and limitations in a moment, many cities and towns, as well as other organizations, have similar responsibilities, as well as challenges. Design requirements and maintenance levels would need to be holistically applied to fully realize the improvements, as was noted earlier. Just because we make a code change or we add staff or equipment doesn't mean that the other cities or FDOT or private landowners are going to do that. NIRM performs some similar maintenance functions to public works, but their efforts are focused on a broader, non-right-of-way specific area flooding concerns, with heavy emphasis on water quality and resilience. They oversee maintenance on treatment ponds and baffle boxes, perform nutrient removal, and oversee contract street sweeping to minimize fines getting into our storm system. They also perform stormwater inspections and illicit discharge investigations throughout unincorporated Brevard. I'm now going to touch on private drainage in the next slide. So many private property owners perform little to no maintenance. Under code, they are responsible to perform maintenance for their subdivision treatment ponds, for rear-end and side-lot drainage, as well as on private driveway culverts and private bridges. We are often asked why we, as the county, don't clean this or fix private pipes. Many, many years ago, we did as a county. It was changed in code due to the enormous costs, and as well as these pipes are solely for the private owner's benefit to access their property. Additionally, in cleaning those private drainage pipes, it previously opened us up to many allegations that we caused private structures to fail, possibly held together by the rust or dirt itself, but it cost the county lots of money once those systems were broken or alleged to be broken. Private owners are also responsible for their own lot grading and to maintain historic drainage. However, the latter is often blocked by sheds, trees, fences, or filled in, and the code provides no recourse to enforce. Similar challenges exist for agricultural drainage, which pertains to a large amount of our systems in the county. They are regulated through FDEP and the St. Johns River Water Management District, not the county, and are exempt from many of the permitting requirements. It is not regulated to the same level of design review that we would otherwise enforce for new family single homes and subdivisions. They are generally based on previously approved best management practices focusing on water quality. Artesian wells was something we recently addressed during a prior board meeting, which is overseen by the St. Johns River Water Management District or the Department of Health, not public works or natural resources. And lastly, on this slide, many complaints are related to private drainage concerns for which the county has no authority to enforce, no authority to go on to private property, and even if we had the permission of the property owner, we lack the resources to address what we already have assigned to us to maintain. So we have a handout. Rachel's going to hand that while I start talking. This slide attempts to provide an overall summary for our most critical needs, as it's very easy to get lost in the details, and even what I'm about to say is going to be quite lengthy. We took an unconstrained view of what could improve drainage level of service within the county. Every single thing asked for is needed, but it's not an all-or-nothing proposition. In fact, the board could support some categories, only part of a couple categories, and every bit would help. Think of this like ordering off that long white menu at a Chinese fast food restaurant, and literally we passed out a long white menu of things that the board could decide to choose from. Sometimes you buy a combo, and other times you order appetizers, a single dish, or a side dish separately. Each thought has so many possibilities and solutions, and while we spent a lot of time coming up with them, much more work is needed if we were to implement it. We would need board direction, such as spend up to X amount of dollars, or only consider Y and Z categories, and then we can come back with an executable plan. It's important to note that the status quo funding means less level of service every single year. We have addressed in the past, and to some extent earlier in this brief, but road and bridge maintenance MSTU funding has been relatively flat for 10 years. Our equipment fleet is aging, we lack sufficient resources, and inflation continues to outpace our charter cap, severely eroding our purchasing power to buy materials and equipment, as well as fund projects and personnel. The average contractor or consultant also costs us two to four times what we spend in-house to do the same service. Let's briefly start out with a quick overview and brief specific history to road and bridge maintenance and drainage. First and foremost, we are first responders. Our actions are driven by resourcing, which directly affects the public's health and safety, and as we discussed during the last budget workshop, we're the first there and typically the last to leave. We have 421 total ditch miles and 527 swell miles that we have documented. Each year, our inventory grows as we run across new information and gather greater fidelity. As I briefed last year, in the not-so-recent past, we had some ditches that hadn't been maintained for 20 to 30 years. Prior to COVID, receiving prison labor each weekend for ditch cleaning, mowing, and other related tasks across the county at all of our road and bridge shops was routine. However, due to BCSO's own challenges, we now only receive that on rare occasions. From 2018 to 24, and likely in years prior, we also receive free supplemental help from the Brevard Career Source. They received state and federal training grants in response to prior hurricane damage. The grants came with heavy equipment, and they paid the trainees. They taught, literally taught, across the county's many ditches and canals by cleaning them for us. We no longer have those resources. When trainees graduated the program, we often benefited by gaining new employees. Currently, there are no Brevard Career Source grants for these types of programs. Our normal district maintenance teams play an enormous role in drainage maintenance, namely, routine maintenance such as mowing and debris removal, as well as culvert replacements and structure reconstruction. They also supplement ditch maintenance and swell maintenance as the schedule allows. Throughout other parts of the year, they are focused on other things, such as roads and sidewalks and bridge maintenance. During the growing season, it's very hard to see in September that we did or accomplished anything if we mowed it in May, because it is typically regrown based on our current size and our staffing levels, and that's even if we mowed it in that particular year. We'll get into it in a moment, but we have ditch cycles, and depending on whether it's a primary or secondary tertiary, we may not get to it for five years. We also have less field staff than we did in years past. In addition to our normal district maintenance teams, prior to 2017, we only had one dedicated county-wide drainage crew and no formal swell rehabilitation program. Each crew, four, focuses exclusively on cleaning ditches and swell rehab to ensure flow, not the routine maintenance that I just talked about from our maintenance team. And for areas with no access, we have Kaisers that are utilized. In 2018 and 20, the board provided us funding for two more crews and equipment, respectively, so we have three crews across the entire county of four people, so 12 people dedicated to full-time ditch cleaning. So now, getting to the chart before you as well as the handout, in the leftmost column, we are proposing the addition of two additional county-wide drainage crews going from three to five. That would be $2.1 million in capital equipment needed today, plus $930,000 in recurring labor, fuel, maintenance, and other related costs. In making this investment, each crew can do approximately another 27 miles annually of the roughly 1,000 miles I mentioned, and we will cut primary and secondary ditch maintenance cycles virtually in half as depicted on the slide. However, tertiary ditches would not be improved under this recommendation. Primary ditches, just to be clear, are usually the large arterial canals conveying lots of water. Secondary ditches collect from the tertiary or the local neighborhood ditches, which make up the largest quantity of our ditches. In the next column, we are proposing doubling our road and bridge and support-related staff. We would need $10 million in capital equipment, plus $11 million in recurring labor, fuel, maintenance, and other related costs. This would add 116 positions consisting of field staff, mechanics, data control specialists, additional supervisors, all the things that we would need to help support the field efforts at the pointy end of that spear, the ones that are doing the work. It will further increase level of service by further focusing on primary and secondary ditches, as well as cutting tertiary ditch maintenance cycles and accelerating maintenance and culvert replacements, as well as providing increased level of service for emergency response. This is not intended to replace the two additional drainage crews I just mentioned, but rather it is in addition, as well as to the one that I will talk about in a moment. But obviously, I recognize that this is likely not going to go too far because of its high cost. So, any bit of this, again, would help. In the next, or in the middle column, we are proposing four additional VAC truck and camera crew trucks for a total of five trucks, meaning we have one truck today. That would be $2.7 million in capital equipment, plus $600,000 in recurring labor, fuel, and maintenance. This would help address a prior unfunded state mandate known as SB 180, which mandates us to conduct proactive drainage inspections on the county's roughly 20,000 culverts and pipes. We do not do this today. Currently, with only one vehicle, we reactively respond when there is a known flooding issue. We do not inspect any of our drainage ditches, which SB 180 is being, which has required us to now inspect. And in the two potential bills that are being moved within both the Senate and the legislature, neither one addresses this issue. So, it would help us establish a proactive seven-year inspection cycle by having five trucks with crews dispersed around the county. And over that seven-year period, we would get through 20,000 culverts and pipes. And then, by then, we'd have to repeat that. In the next column, we are proposing increasing new and replacement capital equipment funding. We're asking for $2 million annually in capital equipment funding. Currently, we have $15 million in equipment backlog with $10 million related to drainage alone. Only, but we only have approximately $1 million a year over the last several years, all coming out of the very little MSTU budget that Rachel referred to earlier in the slide. What has this done? Well, it's decreased our level of service further due to delays in downed equipment, and it has increased our repair costs by over 30% by keeping equipment that is beyond its useful service life over the last five years, and it continues to rise. In the handout, we also propose a variety of other equipment I'm not going to specifically get into in this presentation, but it goes back to my a la carte comment earlier. In the last column in the top, we are proposing an additional one engineer per every $10 million of added unfunded projects. This isn't a hard and fast rule, but rather a rule of thumb. Approximately one engineer for $10 million is easier to manage than if we had 10 projects that are $1 million and are complex projects, so that would be a sliding scale, but just to try to give you a perspective, because as we previously stated, we have $500 million in unfunded projects, so the board couldn't, if it were so inclined to find that money, couldn't just expect us to do it with existing staff. We would need a lot more staff. And not depicted here are additional a la carte positions on that white handout, such as additional contract coordinators, accountants, and the like, as Amanda had mentioned earlier. And it really depends on how much project funding we are given. In the last column, bottom, we are proposing five additional field inspectors. That would be $300,000 in capital equipment, plus $550,000 in recurring labor, fuel, and maintenance. As alluded to on the last slide, a single private homeowner's failed driveway culvert can singularly flood an entire neighborhood. We are very reactive in addressing these. Either it's because we receive a neighborhood complaint, code might receive, code enforcement may receive that complaint, or it's because we are going into a neighborhood over the next one to two years to perform the swell rehab that I talked about under the countywide drainage crew. And at that point, we are looking at that specific neighborhood to see if we see any issues, and then we issue failed culvert notices. But at the pace that we are going, there are neighborhoods that flood that we will never get to, or it will be, you know, many, many years. So we have the ability to send out a letter and then engage code enforcement if needed, because this is our right-of-way. In our code, it's specific that our homeowners are required to maintain their drainage culverts, their driveway culverts, for their unimpeded access, but it is over our right-of-way and often is failing and or failed, and that is a problem for us. This whole process is time-consuming, especially if we go through code enforcement to get them to address it. All the while, water is backing up, and houses or certainly properties, I should say, are potentially flooding. So again, these are— I think—let's have a five-minute break here. Okay. We've got some requests. Thanks. Thank you, Commissioner. Only another five hours, I promise. That's okay. Throw money at you. I was talking about the last column on this slide and the bottom and private drainage and then the need for inspectors, and I was saying how we're able to engage on this because it's actually the public's right-of-way. We don't have a staff that does this now, which is why we're asking for five. That would be, you know, one basically for each of our road and bridge maintenance districts. Right now, as I mentioned, it's only when we go in to do a neighborhood do we do it at that time. Otherwise—so it's very reactive. And this is different than side and rear lot line because that is on private property. Even where there's easements, there's no historic drainage code, as Amanda had mentioned earlier, to enforce that. So just wanted to point that out. And then, as I mentioned a few times, you know, there's additional equipment and staffing on the handout that we gave. You know, I recognize what I just went through is a lot, and there's even more on there, and that's why we really tried to focus on some of the bigger stuff, realizing that, you know, the money is not there, but if it were, we can scale all this. And that goes back to my comment about, you know, really needing some board direction on where you'd like us to focus. There's also, you know, one other big one that I wanted to hit, and that is on your list, which is increasing our current telemetry. So we're putting that around the county right now with—in cooperation with Natural Resources. That is going to give us better real-time flood data as storms are happening. We're looking to continue to expand that, as well as add automation for our pumping and our weir gates, so that we have real-time monitoring and response during flooding. Right now what happens is if we have a hurricane, if our pumps are running at 40 miles per hour, we're in, you know, punk or down, just like everyone else is, until the storm dies down, having, you know, automatic monitor—or having monitoring and then automatic gates would help us control them even during the storm. So that would be an additional $3.5 million in capital equipment and $150,000 in recurring maintenance and fuel and monitoring costs. And, you know, I'd be remiss if I didn't add that you cannot look at doing any of these things, you know, without staff and in order to solve these drainage problems. And the board really needs to recognize that we are currently unable to—we have unmet staffing challenges now, significant unmet challenges, which I understand will be talked about at a later date. But, you know, even if the board decided to give us 20 positions or five positions, we have a significant vacancy rate today. I'm going to kick it over to Amanda, and then I'll be back for the final slide. Okay, so you've heard about a lot of issues and potential solutions, and so let's talk about potential additional funding. So this is specific to the stormwater utility assessment. It's a non-advalorum funding, and it's not part of the CAP. So the stormwater utilities were established in 1990—thank you, Commissioner Altman—in District 3 and 5, and District 1 and 2 and 4 followed in 1991. The board can direct staff to prepare changes to the current rate, which is $64 per ERU, or equivalent residential unit. That's defined as a 2,500 square feet of impervious area, so kind of your typical home or what was typical. Homes are obviously getting larger, and so there's more impact now. That rate has not increased in about a decade, and there's no automatic CPI adjustment built in. So as a result, we're losing buying power every year. If the rate had simply kept pace with inflation, it would be about $85 per ERU today. We're also well below the state average, about 40 percent lower, and behind most of the larger stormwater utilities in Brevard, as well as Volusia County. So comparatively, our rate is on the low end. When the board last adjusted the rate structure in 2014, they phased that rate increase in over the next couple years. They also changed how the stormwater dollars were allocated. So we shifted from a 50 percent between flood control and water quality projects to 70 percent for water quality and 30 percent for flood control. That change was driven largely by impaired water bodies and the need to meet nutrient reduction requirements. That allocation, however, can be adjusted by the board through ordinance. It does not require a referendum. Looking ahead, the board has the option to adjust the rate, add a CPI escalator, or both. For example, simply moving to the state average would generate about $2.7 million of recurring revenue a year. Any rate change, like I said, would require ordinance, not referendum. And if the board wanted that to take effect next fiscal year, we would need direction sometime next month to be able to do the mailers. The mailers cost about $100,000. Each resident would get a mailer. Oh, sorry. There was one more thing. So there's only one major utility nearby, lower than our rate, and that's Melbourne, and they do not do flood control projects like we do. Okay. This is the money slide, or the big money slide. You've seen this before. I presented it at the last couple budget workshops. We also put together a revenue generating report. As discussed earlier, we have approximately $500 million in already identified unfunded drainage projects in our backlog. As will possibly be shown with the board's support in our next budget workshop, drainage is only part of our overall revised Public Works unfunded backlog. And so if the board wants to hear more about that in March, we'd like to talk about it. But when you look at facilities and transportation, traffic, and road and bridge, which all fall under me, our revised unfunded backlog is now $3.6 billion. Went up from $2.2 billion. And that primary increase is due to new roads that are nearing or overcapacity, as well as inflation. Keith had shown you that the construction cost index outpaced what CPI is significantly. And so between the two, our backlog has gone up tremendously from last time I presented to you. And we'd be prepared to present that if the board wants to get into that. So the revenue generating report shows that we could potentially garner up to $179.6 million more in revenue every single year if all of the revenues on this chart were adopted, similar to a lot of other counties. And I went into detail which counties do which one of these last budget workshop. I don't have all those details with me today, but a lot of the other counties do some or many of these. So the report we provided to the board in 2025 provides a lot more detail than we have time for here, as well as lots of pros and cons for the five potential revenue sources. The biggest urgency in putting this as part of the drainage slide today and not waiting for the Public Works brief in March is urgency of schedule. So based on what we are already seeing, there may be more cuts needed this year. If the board plans to act for drainage and or transportation facility shortfalls, we would need to brief at, before we brief at the March budget workshop, we would need legislative intent and permission to advertise an ordinance in February for at least the two surtaxes. That's because the notional schedule is that we would, we would do that in February, in March and April, we'd need to have public hearings and we need to enter into interlocal agreements with the two major cities. In May, we would need a final ordinance or resolution due to the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability. In June, we'd file with the supervisor of elections, and then it would be on the ballot for November. And so that is the big reason to bring it up again today, whether it's for drainage or any and all of the potential, excuse me, public works shortfalls. So just as a quick recap, the charter county and regional transportation system discretionary sales tax is on goods and services purchased in the county. It has the largest potential to generate funds depending on the rate implemented. At one percent, the county share could be $100 million per year. It requires a simple majority to be placed on the referendum. It can be used for broad transportation needs, including roadside drainage, and can last for 30 years. However, as I mentioned, as a surtax, it requires public hearings, negotiations with cities, and approval by the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government, as well as a certified public audit. The local government infrastructure discretionary sales tax, or surtax, is also on goods and services purchased in the county. It has the second largest potential to generate funding, but would compete with Sorrel. And combining, they ask, could drag Sorrel down. Implementation and limitations are the same as the charter county and regional transportation systems discretionary sales surtax I just went over. The public service tax has the potential to generate roughly $33.4 million. This is based on FPL rates or funding franchise fees that we already collect. But by increasing the amount taxed on other utilities, such as natural gas and water, et cetera, it is considered a general fund revenue once it's received and can be used on any legitimate purpose. As an example, the county already generates $19 million from the FPL franchise fee, but only $4.4 million goes to fund our traffic operations. Referendum is required per county charter, but has no requirement to share. The final two on this list are the $0.9 fuel tax, the unleaded motor fuel at $2.7 million, which isn't that much money, relatively speaking, compared to the needs, but every little bit would help. And certainly when combining it with the LOG fifth cent, it could make up approximately the $9 million that was cut out of public works budget this year. Further, it requires no requirement to share with the cities, and a board by supermajority vote could implement it even without a referendum. Or by simple majority, it could add it to a referendum. It could be used for any legitimate operations and maintenance purpose, public transportation need, which, again, would include roadside drainage. And then, finally, the LOGT fifth cent is not an enormous amount either at $6.4 million. I already mentioned how that could help offset this year's cuts. It has certain restrictions on operations, on maintenance, and repair projects, but it could be used for capital transportation projects, including roadside drainage. It can be approved as well by supermajority vote by the board and or added by simple majority. But this one requires an ILA with the cities with a majority of the municipal population, which, at least out of the five, makes it a little bit less attractive as far as dollars for the effort, but, again, could help offset our costs. So with that, does the board have any questions for any of us? The tough ones go to these guys, though. Okay. Do we have any questions? I have questions. Yes. So if I could just go back to one of those first, let's see, the third slide. One of the things that I just wanted to point out about this map is that all the water that is west of that black line goes out west to the St. Johns River, and then it goes north, and then it gets bottlenecked north of North Brevard in Lake Harney, and then we get a second flood in Mims in North Brevard. So I just wanted to point that out, that while all the water is getting pumped out of the rest of the county, a lot of times we experience the first initial flood that everybody experiences, but then we get a second whammy because of that bottleneck. And then one of the questions I had about the monitoring is that, am I under the correct understanding that a lot of times when we do the monitoring up in North Brevard, it's on the lake, or I'm sorry, it's the Highway 50 monitoring well? Are you talking about water quality or the lake levels? The lake levels. So there are, there have historically been two water level gauges up there in the north end of the county. With ARPA money, Public Works has recently added several more, so that will help with the monitoring that we're, monitoring the levels that we're going to be doing. The other thing is, as we move forward with both the vulnerability assessment and the other studies that we're trying to implement towards a real-time flood forecasting, those will give us a starting point for the model of the forecast of, well, this is the existing, current existing condition, now we run the model forward based on the forecasted rainfall and the other things. So we're trying to get there to a robust system. A lot of times, the reason why I bring that up is a lot of times the secondary flooding that we get in North Brevard doesn't necessarily reach 50, and so I'm hoping that we can start looking more north while we're monitoring these things. Yes, we will be, and it will, it'll also help. I know, I think we've talked about this with you, Commissioner, before, but for the rest of the group, the Water Management District has a model constructed now for the main St. John's River from 520 south to the bottom of the air contributing area. They are working on a model from 520 up through Orlando and Orange County into Volusia that is supposed to be done in about a year and a half, I think it was. It's hopefully sooner, but as soon as we can get our hands on that, we'll be using that to improve our modeling efforts as well. Cool. And then if we could go forward five slides. Oh, one back. There you go. I was just wondering, when is this through? So it says since 2012, but is it through a certain amount of time? Is it current to today or? It's current to a few weeks ago. Okay, cool. And then we could move forward to the D1 stormwater project slide. So I see that, you know, obviously there's a lot of projects going on here, but I just wanted to point out that a lot of these have to do with nutrient levels and not necessarily flooding. Correct. And so the majority of money that's being spent is, other than that mud lake, which is pretty much a done deal. It might have a few, you know, things left in it, but that's pretty much a done project. But the rest of them, the majority of the money is going towards nutrients, not flooding. Correct. I think it's about two-thirds is going towards flooding because the West Cocoa is a flooding project. That's $13 million. Right. But I'm saying if we take out the West Cocoa one, because that project, at least when I first got elected, we had talked about that, that it's pretty much. We're pretty far forward. There's still a budget shortfall to fully implement, but you're correct. That's the majority of the... Because, like, they didn't get any flooding, or hardly any flooding in the last storm and that kind of stuff. So it's obviously a successful project that, you know, is doing well. But the point that I was trying to make was that we are experiencing now a lot of issues in the Mims-Scotsmoor area. Right. As well as the Parkland area that the Public Works is trying to address. Right. If I can, you know, quickly add, Commissioner. So ours is mostly, you know, the dots on the map. We didn't print something out, but as I shared during a previous board meeting, we have, we're in design on both a Tixie Village as well as a Westwood project. And both, we're thinking about $7 or $8 million combined. And as we shared, you know, we would look for hopefully state help in the future. But even that, with state help, normally you've got to come up with 50%. So they're, you know, those are worst case scenarios. If we can get some easements, we may, you know, those costs may go down. But we are working on it. The other thing is we're working right now, it will come to the board at the next meeting, permission to get a HMGP grant, which would look specifically at the Parkland area and that watershed. So it's requesting, it will request board permission to have authority to go do that. And that project you said also is, it'll help a little bit, but it's, there's still going to be ongoing issues in that area, right? Yeah, I would say that, you know, one, if, if the St. John's rises, there's nowhere for it to go. Unless we're looking at seriously buying property to, you know, store water, ditches, et cetera. So we're, we're still going to have challenges, but we may be able to mitigate it. The other thing, as we've shared with you, we're meeting with the city of Titusville staff on Monday to discuss what happened in October and see if we can get them on board with something like the study that we're talking about. Right. And do you happen to have an idea for us? Oh, never mind. You said it before, this, the 3.6 billion for unfunded projects. I guess one of the, one of the biggest things I'm hoping to chat with the board about today is looking forward, you know, I know a lot of us focused a lot of our campaigns on infrastructure and public safety. And I'm, you know, we've done a really good job getting our, our fire department into a better place. I still think that we have a little bit more work to do, especially in the work-life balance piece. But the infrastructure piece, I think, is, we're desperate, especially in, in D1, for some major changes. And I, I'm worried that if we continue prolonging this, that we're going to be getting into a pretty massive situation like Volusia had and the massive buyouts and things like that, that go on. I know that when, um, I was walking, you know, some of the neighborhoods, uh, after October, there were so many homes that were not, um, that did not fill out that paperwork that we had asked them to fill out. Um, and people are still dealing with the effects of the October. The storm, even today, um, still, their houses are still torn apart and whatnot. Um, and there's even still water issues, uh, that we're still dealing with. Um, so I don't know what everybody feels about these numbers that, that Mark brought to us. And also the stormwater numbers that were brought. Um, I personally feel like one of the ways that we could handle this is, uh, expanding the scope of our infrastructure sales tax. And not that we want to take away what Sorrell is doing, because I think that work needs to continue. But I think that we need to just expand the scope of where those monies can go to. And even possibly consider the, um, idea of bumping it up to a one cent. Um, because especially with the property tax thing looming over our heads, I would hate to move forward with the half cent sales tax as it is today. Um, and that pigeonholes us into a situation where we don't have the monies needed to deal with our current issues, but future issues, um, when our, our funding could be taken. Um, so I don't know if anybody has any thoughts about that. Why don't we, um, before we get into general policy discussions, um, we still have a presentation with utility services in front of us. Let's get that wrapped up. So we need to look at the total picture. Um, and, and I know we'll have a lot of, a lot of time and opportunity to talk about these. These are really good points, things that we do need to talk about. I know I have questions, um, and, um, and, and one of my questions was the timeframe that we have of all these decisions. Where do we, where are we in terms of when we need to make time? But I want us to get the utility services out of the way. I would, hopefully. They've mentioned February. I saw that in the one slide. Yeah. Um, February. Close. Like, yeah, a few days. Um, okay, let's move, if we're finished with that, let's, let's, uh, go to county. Can I clarify something on that? Uh, February for fees and such, um, and, and notices and what have you, but as far as whether something's going to be put before the voters, I mean, ultimately the supervisor of elections needs to have that in August. Am I, are we clear on that? August 15, 17, something like that, yes. Okay, okay, just, just to make that distinction. Sorry, uh, April, I mean, I have to do a little research. Uh, the big thing, if you're looking at a penny sales tax, that we would need to work with the cities because they would get half of, well, approximately, I don't know what that percentage is, but it's the same like we do for Indian River Lagoon, where we have to come up with interlocals with the cities on it, too. So there, there's a lot of legwork to get it on the ballot. So, so half would potentially go to the municipal governments, correct? Yeah. I, I'm assuming it works the same as the Sorrel money, because it's the same type of, uh, tax structure. Right. Yeah, um, and, and, and so, Mr. Chair, what you have from utilities, you guys want to create some space there, uh, you have Eddie Fontenant, who's our utilities director, and, uh, uh, Lucas Siegfried, who is our engineering manager for the utilities department. All right, hit escape and get us out of here, guys, yeah. Thank you. I thought that was not right. Was it? Oh, yeah, you're the green one. Yeah. Sorry about that. No, no, no, it's all good. You're good to go? Excellent. Hello, everyone. If you're all ready, we'll, uh, give you an overview of utility services, and, like I said, I'll try to do this in a timely way. Um, just to give you a little overview, we're broken up, um, by operations, we're broken up in what we're doing. What we call the north, central, and south area. Um, what we have here is just a geographical of our utility service boundary. Um, I will say this boundary is based on the, um, amendments or changes that we made in the comp plan pending approval. But as you can see, um, you know, Merritt Island is obviously covered, um, the Port St. John area, and also, um, the NIMS area. And we've extended it to the, uh, Volusia border. Um, we provide a quick overview of our assets in each of these. Um, central, um, this is what we know is basically the Vieira, Sun Tree, Palm Shores area. Um, we do have area in West Coco, um, and we also provide service to the landfill for that. And south area, as you can see, is everything south of Panita on the beaches, um, just to the Melbourne Beach area, but not its entirety. Um, and then the, uh, unincorporated Barefoot Bay and the remainder of the unincorporated area down to the Sebastian River. Um, east of that, or west of that is the service area of Palm Bay. So just a quick overview. We are an enterprise fund. Um, there are times when discussions are made about utility services. Um, and we're associated with general fund or ad valerum. That's actually incorrect. We're not allowed to receive any of those funds. And such, we generate our own. Um, this is an overview. Um, as we dive into this, um, presentation, we're going to be talking about not only what state and federal mandates are, but also about growth. Um, so as we discussed that, um, growth is also associated with capacity. So this gives you an overview of what our capacity are on our existing wastewater and water treatment plants. Please note that the percentages shown are based on the current permitted capacity, and that's where the calculation is from. Um, to give an overview, um, you know, we, uh, from a utility account, these accounts can vary. Um, we have multiple categories from single family home to commercial to light industrial, but in its summation by a quantitative number, um, you know, we have 67,000, and that's growing. That's a snapshot from November of 2025. Um, water, um, you can see we have 3,400 plus in MIMS and 5,800 in Barefoot Bay. Um, and then we also do reuse also. Just an introduction to the financials. Um, this is our, um, these are our sources, as you'll see. Um, our balance forward, that is getting smaller and smaller. A lot of that was generated when we were receiving FDEP grants and ARPA funds. Um, we were using, those were priorities based on deadline, which caused a backlog with our utility-funded projects, but those are now in the mix of being implemented. Um, the majority of our, uh, revenue, uh, with regard are our user rates. Our expenditures are shown as such, um, our operations, which include operations and salary and benefits, you know, I, I always say we're a $50 million a year operation to keep the lights on and the staff going. Um, and then obviously as we expand that circle, it talks about the, um, not only our obligations of debt service, but also our, um, expenditures with CIP and operation projects. So we currently do have debt service. This is a bar graph. Um, the yellow gold depicts the countywide system. The red depicts the Barefoot Bay. I know that's one of the questions that gets brought up on when is Barefoot Bay's debt service complete, and the answer to that is the end of 2029. This gives you an overview of the grants, bonds, and loans. Um, we do actively try to capture, um, opportunities for funding that can, uh, stretch our dollar further with regard to the fees that we currently collect. Um, FDEP once or twice a year will open up opportunities for grants, um, this gives you an overview, all except the bottom one under grants or FDEP grants. So we feel good about that summation that we've received. We do have existing bonds, um, countywide and Barefoot Bay. And we also have three existing state revolving funds, uh, for current projects that have been completed or near completed. So just an overview of revenue, um, our number one source are the user rates. Um, we do permitting and inspector fees, connection fees, fats, oils, grease. That's where Brevard County is the only hall or the depot, um, at least public depot, uh, associated for fats, oils, grease, and septage. Um, and so we have a fee structure for that. And as mentioned before, the grants that we do receive, we recognize. So how can we use these fees? There are some rules associated, associated to this and give me an overview. User rates can be used for anything, whether it's personnel, operations, uh, CIP, um, as long as it's used within the department for department purpose, it can be used. Uh, same goes with regard to the fees we collect from permitting and inspection fees. Connection fees, that's where you start to get into rules and what we have to recognize. And that's really where we're dealing with, um, capacity expansion. And I know so much of the attention is brought to the treatment plans, but main lines, um, 12-inch bigger, are viewed as a regional line. So there's a, um, uh, because it has a regional benefit, connection fees can be used for that. Uh, and then we, uh, as I explained earlier about the fats, oils, and grease, and we associate that with regard to the operation and upkeep and improvements of those facilities. Uh, just to give you an overview, um, we have, um, we've looked at opportunities on upgrading, um, getting current, our rate structure. Our user fees are, uh, were updated in February of 2022, um, and I'll touch a little bit about the dynamic of that, uh, developer fees was in October of 2024. We're now current with the remainder of other departments, uh, within the county on how we charge our developer fees. Prior to that, they weren't updated. It was 1972. Um, connection fees, um, so we have gone back and found a rate resolution from August of 93 that shows the connection fees to be the same as what's being applied today. Um, years ago, I had staff that have been around a while and claimed that even goes back to the 80s, but I couldn't find the resolution. So for factual purpose, I'm using 93 as the year mark. Um, and fats, oils, grease, we incorporated in indexing as we did with, um, our other fees during the February 2022, uh, rate resolution. So, um, I'll say any utilities, whether, wherever you are in Florida, and I don't want to speak outside, um, we're bound by regulations. The EPA, the EPA, the FDEP, and, uh, we, uh, let's not lose track about Brevard County. Um, the EPA, the Title 40 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations is where all the legislature is related to the, um, to the EPA. In particular, as we've had conversations about PFAS and whatnot, that's where you'll find it located. FDEP, we're in Chapter 403 of the Florida Statute, and also in the Code, um, Chapter 62 of the Florida Administrative Code. Um, those are, um, when we go through projects or we're working with our consultants, we're making sure those projects meet the compliance of what the FDEP and 403 and Chapter 62 state. Um, we also have the, um, Brevard County, uh, ordinances. So, under Chapter 110 is the utility ordinances, and within that ordinance, we talk about the, um, utility service design criteria, which is in, um, um, the design manual and criteria, which, when we do updates, we bring back to the board for their approval for those. So, breaking down a little bit, um, you know, when we talk about the specific laws, rules, and agencies, how does it impact, and how does it impact the, um, utility and the investment they need to make? Um, and, and, you know, to emphasize must, not should. Um, EPA, as I mentioned, under, um, Chapter 40, um, Part 41, 141, 142 is specific about the PFAS reduction by 2029. Um, um, FDEP 403.064 is the zero discharge by 2032. 403.067 is the nutrient reduction within a B-MAP, which all of our areas are now within a B-MAP. Um, 403.086 is AWT for reclaim if you're in a B-MAP. Um, and 62.604 is, um, you know, it ties back in with 403.064 about, um, discharges. I also point in there that the Water Management District, although they're not a regulatory in regard, in their Central Springs East Coast Regional Water Supply Plan, which is what we fall under, is their, um, uh, recommendation and urging to use the Upper Floridan Aquifer as a water source, which is where RO would be applied reverse osmosis in lieu of continuing use of the surficial well system just for reliability purposes, because there's a concern one day when those wells go dry, um, we're not, you know, utilities will not be in a position to just remedy that quickly. So, um, in addition to that, we are also looking, so we talk about regulatory, but let's also talk about the other component, which is growth. Um, Brevard County is growing. We don't say it. We look at data. Um, Beaver is one component that looks at a countywide growth analysis. And in addition to that, we, um, we hired a consultant to do an evaluation of the, um, growth with, specifically within our utility service boundary. Um, so when we did that, we took a different approach. We took the future land use map by its density and used that as a calculation to come up with an estimation of growth per service area. This provides you a brief overview. Um, as you can see, the top line is the high end of Beaver. The second from the top is the middle line. And then by service area, we show, um, estimated. Now, these aren't people. These are ERCs. So equivalent, um, equivalent residential units. And this is basically the equivalent of single family homes, to give you an idea. As we go through this, we also talk about treatment capacity. Using those projections that we just showed in the previous slide, based on the, um, on the effort by the consultant, it gives us an estimate when we do these future projects for treatment plants, specifically in pipes, on what are we sizing this around. And it's not necessarily it's got to all get built at once, but it gives us an idea on how we want to, um, plan for these facilities to know what that ultimate number, um, estimated to be is. So currently, right now, this is our 10-year CIP. There's a lot of, um, evolving what, what's going on with our, um, budget. And let me say, because as it shows here that in 2027, there's a $450 million expenditure. Um, two board meetings ago, we, um, you, you, you all approved about the CMAR approach. So now that we're actively looking at that, we are looking at an approach similar to what Solid Waste did, knowing you have an investment of $130 million, but you're not going to spend $130 million immediately. So with, uh, with the, uh, cooperation or the team of our consultant and the future, uh, contractor, we can look at phased approaches. So by doing that, we can do the, we can spread that out over more years to get that number down further. The summation will be there. It'll just be spread out a little further. Currently, this, based on our expenditures, this shows an overview of our projection of revenue versus our, um, uh, projection of expenditure. There's a few things that we want to look at that. As I shared how we're evolving our budget and trying to find ways, as I talked about with the CMAR approach, that should drive our expenditures down further, but further out. So it'll drop it down slightly, but further, more years out. But nonetheless, it's a question of how do we build, bridge that gap? And so, um, yes, brace yourself. I'm going to be talking about we need more money, huh? And it's connection fees right now. Um, we're taking an approach of this. Um, so when you talk about connection fees, is because, um, in 2022, we did user rates, and we understand that. But also recognizing that connection fees are to pay for growth. So this would be an opportunity to take that 1993 connection fee rate and to get it current, understanding it's not going to fully bridge it. But at least at a future year, if I need to update the user rates, the question can be said or the answer can be said. And yes, the developers are paying their full share. Right now, um, you know, they're low. And we'll talk about that. Um, so, you know, just an overview of connection fees. We talk about that it's related to, uh, capacity increase. Um, you know, connection fees haven't been updated since 93. Um, you know, I like to use statistics. Um, if you take the construction cost index, you know, swag, it's, you know, it's 167% compounded. So obviously it's showing plus or minus that there is a separation from what construction costs were in 63. And here's the benefit. We are, um, our fees are not called the impact fees. They're connection fees. And the benefit of that is, is that, um, the impact fee law of 163.31801, okay, if I said that correctly, and Morris can correct me on that, is, um, it's the impact fee. So if you were to do a Google search Florida statute impact fee, that would show up. As you're aware of impact fees that were adopted, what was it two, three years ago of all the parameters associated with impact fees, provision number 12 under that says it does not apply toward water or sewer connection fees. So when we get into, um, updating connection fees, uh, we don't have to, um, worry about exceeding a percentage increase over so much as a, as an impact fee would. If I, if I'm going to allow Lucas to give a overview of just on how connection fees are calculated. Hi, guys. So when we look at connection fees, we're looking at what the capital investment is per gallon. So how much does it cost to get a gallon of treatment or a gallon of capacity in a pipe, in addition to what we already have? And we multiply that by what's the level of service. In this case, it's gallons per year you to get the overall connection fee, which then comes to dollars per year you. So it's really looking at what's that cost for the capacity you're gaining versus the level of service, say how many gallons per residential unit we want to serve, multiplying those together to get that fee. And, and to give you a little background, there are, there is methodology to do connection fees, just like an impact fee. Uh, we hired a rate consultant, and we've worked with them for months in order to come up with the, um, how we got there, and I'll share this with you. Um, and I apologize because today I feel like I need glasses here. Um, got it? So, by overview, our existing water impact fees are 9303, wastewater is 2257. Um, by calculation, we're looking at, uh, you know, increasing them to the 8500, 8500, 4500 number. The reason, and let me just explain on the association on why the water is higher. It's because we only have two water plants. So by remaining capacity, we don't have as much as per se by math of remaining capacity of sewer. So again, that's the methodology. Um, and this isn't necessarily, um, I'm seeking approval right now. I'm giving you an overview of what I hope will be a future agenda item. Um, but also looking at it, we're talking with our consultant. We also shared ideas of how this could be phased if the board felt that a one-time, um, a one-time change to the connection fee was not an option. So, um, you'll see some, you'll see the same slide as the report will follow in the agenda report to give you options just to let you know we considered that. So, you know, everything's based on a projection. Um, if we connect 200 homes, uh, a year, uh, I believe that's what the calculation we, um, we increase our revenue, I believe by 4.8 million. And again, it's not, the intent of the 4.8 is not to pay as we go. It's to use that for debt service. These, the dollar amounts associated with these projects exceed what we can pay as we go. So, we're more looking, how can we stretch this out over a 20, 30 year period, but still be able to make those payments? You know, there's, this just highlights some of the, um, components, the source of water. We're talking about ROs, so that there's a component to that, um, proximity of the, where the wells are, type of treatment, because today, as we showed with the Florida statute, everything has to be AWT, um, availability, um, level of service and whatnot. So, this gives an overview of what the summation of the, dollars are, the projects that would be eligible to receive, um, portions of connection fee. So, connection fees aren't necessarily a hundred percent, but anything, again, going back, if we're going from one million gallon per day treatment plan to two, the one, the additional one million gallon can be paid for by connection fees, and that's engineering land and whatnot to support that component. But these are the total dollar amounts, um, just to kind of give you an idea of the big picture of, of what, of basically part of the, the big part of the reason what concerns me in order on how to fund this. So, with that being said, I wanted to give you a sneak preview, um, optimistic, hopeful, we can get this on a board agenda and have, and the first, you know, for, for those that have been, haven't been through it is, uh, step one is to have an agenda item for permission to advertise. We would put that out for 20 days and then come back at a subsequent board meeting for a public hearing. And then at that point you all decide. And Mr. Chair, I want to add, hopefully I'm helping Eddie here. I got to tell this story because, you know, Eddie brought in the rate consultants to me, you know, a couple of nice guys in a suit, you know, when you see people in suits, that's when I zip up my wallet. um, but you know, so they're explaining the connection fees. I mean, and the short thing, why we're especially bringing this forward to is, you know, Eddie's got all this amongst replacement. He's got all this capacity that he has to put together. And you know, there are large numbers on the connection fees, not large enough to cover the whole capacity, but one of the, one of the consultants said, well, if you don't raise the connection fees, it comes out of the rate payers. So that's, that's why I see that was the message. I got that completely. I got that quickly. That's why you're seeing it here. Cause there is a bunch of this has to do with capacity. And it's, and Eddie is looking wherever he can to find the funding, wherever we can do less, if we can do less debt, but if we can generate through the connection fee, that helps us, but everything we can do to do the water. And you know, so we had the discussion a couple of weeks ago, we have to do a lot of these projects. So we're looking for ways not to hurt the existing rate payers to get this job. And this is the right time to do this. We've done the, on, on, I, we can go through any of those major projects. We are, we are already moving forward with this. What's what's what you're not seeing is the time we're spending with the consultants in order to generate the, the plans and whatnot. And, and let me just say, you know, the, for the, not only the water plant in MIMS, but the one in South Brevard, we've already submitted the consumptive use permit, but I will tell you that's an 18 month process alone. So, sometimes two years depending. So, we have been proactive. We're at the spot where this is the right time because we're ready to get engaged with contractors by that agenda that I referred to about CMAR. And then as that progresses, we are going to continue to be active on seeking. We've received 35 million. We're not done. We just received two in the last appropriation. I know it's two out of something, but everything counts. So, yeah. Okay. Yes. I just had a couple of questions. so this slide, the first slide where you had existing treatment plant capacity used, you said the percentage capacity based on the FDEP permitted capacity per treatment plant. I was wondering opposed to what? So, for example, Commissioner MIMS right now, it's rated at two point, the, the permitted capacity of the MIMS water plant is 2.4, which is why I don't have it in front of me, but I think it's 37%, I believe. 47. 47. Oh, MIMS. Yeah. Sorry. 37. 37. So, currently, because one of the trains is down, the question got into the dialogue, where are we at? So, you know, just to keep everything at an apples to apples, we're basing that. So, once, once that gets back online, we'll be at that 37. Which, at, how many years out are we on that? I think we're looking at first quarter of 2027, so a year or so from now. Okay. And work is already progressing. Right. And the only reason why I bring that up is because we have, I get complaints all the time at my office about fire flow and water pressure in the MIMS area. But the one that I was really wondering about was the wastewater treatment plants because that, those numbers tend to fluctuate quite a lot. They do. Yeah. They do. And so that's what I'm wondering about, like, is how did, how do we get this snapshot of time? And are we planning for worst case scenario? Because I feel like these numbers aren't worst case. So we, we'll get into some peak flow. A treatment plant, there's, there's, so when you do the calculation, it's based on an average daily flow. A treatment plant does have the capacity to go above that number. It's called peak hour, peak flow. And it's a calculation you have to do as part of that. So, a lot of times we associate projects where it's like, oh, it's only a six million gallon plant and seven million gallons went to it. By calculation, it can sustain that. It can sustain it for long durations, but when we get into the rainy season and whatnot. So, we always tend to look at it from an average flow in presentations like this. And so the connection fees for the, that the consultants are working through, those numbers are based on our worst or best days or an average. Please. Yeah. So the connection fees, when we're looking at the new ones, the proposed, we're looking at what, what the new capacity is to your point of like worst case, best case, right? We evaluate what the average capacity is. So say we do 2 million gallon per day plant. It's average daily flows rated for two, but it might have a peaking factor of say six, which is, I believe your question of what's that overall flow. So the plant would be able to peak at six MGD for short duration, but it'll only be a two MGD plant. So when we look at the population projections and what that capacity need is, which I don't recall what slide it is, but it shows it on there. It's based on the cost to build whatever planet was based on the, based on these numbers that are in here. Yeah, based on those. Okay. Thank you. Those are phenomenal presentations. I'm really happy in this budget workshop. We got through it all. I didn't think of that. Yes. There we go. New year. Yeah. I would encourage commission members to, I know we probably have a lot of questions and probably want to follow up individually. I want to mull through some of this information and they've given us some really good, they've done stuff and some phenomenal work and given us good information and we'll definitely follow up. I have a question. Yes. Are we going to have a board discussion on this? Cause I, I really value all the information that staff that you guys put forward today, but I feel like I, I'm worried. I don't want a repeat of last year. And I feel like the staff felt like there wasn't a whole lot of clear. We're going this way. And so I, I just really feel passionate about us as a board talking about this and obviously, you know, in public so that we can, so that people can be involved in that. It's, I just want to make sure that we're working together as a group and going towards a direction. That's all. I think we should. I think, what do we have as far as workshops? We have. Mark, I just lost the date. March 19th, 18th, something like that is the next scheduled budget workshop. Is that going to cover everything though? We'll probably need. What we would have is we'll bring you back public works and a couple items they had at the last slide on Keith's presentation. I mean, nothing like we had before. It wouldn't be anything at death, just some heads up on what, what we see coming. So maybe we need to schedule a workshop or a date where we can just talk about strategy, what items we might, might want to consider putting before the voters or hearing in our budget, budget process. That probably would be a discussion in a meeting in and of itself. I, I would concur with that. Thank you. The wish of the board. But I think we probably need to have significant discussion with the staff individually review a lot of these items and then we can come back and do that. That's what I think. I think that the idea of talking to staff individually. Right. All right. Let's do that. We'll plan on that. Very good. Okay. We also just have to ask the public comment. I don't think we have any. I think Don, sir, we don't have any cards. We don't have any? No cards. Okay. Thank you. And Mr. Chair, I want to apologize and let you guys know deep commissioner. Sorry. D two commissioner Goodson. He's not on the line, but he's been listening to the meeting. He said he would call in if it was necessary. So he has been involved in this. So I'll let you know. All right. Okay. Let's go to board reports. County manager. I have no report. Thank you. Morris. New report, Mr. Chair. Katie Delaney. I just want to remind everybody that's listening. The FDEP meeting is tomorrow from four to seven at the ag extension on Lake Drive. So I hope you all can make it there. And thank you staff for this presentation. Kim Eccleston. No report for me, sir. Rob. No, sir. And I have no report. So I think that concludes this excellent workshop and look forward to the next one. Thanks. The opinions expressed by any member of the public.