It's a pretty exciting day for us here around the American Victory. Just last week, our governor signed the bill designated the Victory ship as a state flagship, and we're really excited about that and proud to be a part of that. The county has been an incredible asset to the ship. They've really supported us, you know, both financially with some grants that we've been able to use to preserve the ship. We're actually standing on newly refurbished decks right now that the county allowed us to perform this task. You see a lot of folks come here. You'll see the smiles of the grandkids walking with their grandfathers, and you'll see some tears in some eyes sometimes, and they just embrace the chance to appreciate what they've been through and what they did for the country. In Hillsborough County, your tap water is more than just convenient. It's safe, trusted, and affordable. Every drop is monitored 24 hours a day and tested regularly to meet strict state and federal standards so you can trust what's coming out of your tap. Skip the plastic water bottles and go with tap. That way, you're choosing sustainability and savings. Hillsborough County Water Resources is proud to deliver quality on tap. For helpful tips and for more information, visit hcfl.gov slash quality on tap. Getting where you need to go shouldn't be a struggle. That's why Hillsborough County offers Sunshine Line, a transportation service for residents who need a little extra help. If you have no mode of transportation, you may qualify for Sunshine Line's door-to-door service based on age, disability, or income. For those who live in the Hart Service area, you may be eligible for an income-based bus pass program. Sunshine Line's trained drivers provide safe, shared rides, helping you to and from the vehicle and making sure you're secured every step of the way. Scheduling is simple. Just call 813-272-7272 to see if you qualify and start your application process today. Sunshine Line is here to keep you moving safely, affordably, and with a smile. Visit hcfl.gov slash sunshine line to learn more and get started today. Sunshine Line, Hillsborough's ride on the bright side. Good afternoon and welcome to the April 22nd, 2026 Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners Budget Workshop. I am not Chair Hagan. He has an excused absence today to help his daughter get moved in. And Commissioner Wustle is joining us via Zoom. Before introducing our County Administrator for opening remarks, I would like to remind everyone that this is a budget workshop and as such there will be no public comment today. The public will be able to comment during our July and September budget public hearings. Also, as this is a workshop, we will not be taking any votes today. With that, I will turn it over to Ms. Bonnie Wise, our County Administrator, for opening remarks. Thank you and I will keep my comments brief today because Kevin does have an extensive presentation for you all. We're going to talk about the delivery of the fiscal year 2027 recommended budget. That budget will be presented to you at your July 15th regular board meeting. And you also may schedule other workshops if you'd like and if you could provide some topics if you would like anything in particular discussed. During this workshop, Kevin's going to provide an overview of the budget, including how funding is allocated amongst the uses in the budget as a whole, as well as our two general funds, the countywide general fund and the unincorporated area general fund because those are the two where the board has the most discretion in your spending. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Kevin to go through the overview. Good afternoon, Commissioners. Kevin Bricky, Management and Budget. Today we'll do an overview of the budget and look forward. Our budget and our budget process continues to be monitored and reviewed by a number of different entities and agencies, including the Government Finance Officers Association of America, where we've received the Distinguished Budget Award since 1986, as well as the three credit rating agencies, where we have had a AAA rating from all three agencies for a number of years now. We also have oversight and transparency requirements from various local, state, and federal agencies. And as a matter of fact, the state legislature passed legislation to increase some of our oversight and transparency requirements. That will be effective January 1 and mainly impacting our FY28 budget process. Among some of the things that this new legislation does, it increases the amount of time that we'll need to have our final, our two public hearings in September advertised to the public to give them more notice, increases the time from two to five days before that period, increases the amount of time we need to keep budgets posted on our website, which we already do, increases the number of schedules or information on the budget that we need to post, which we do. We just may need to highlight it some more. One thing that is different that this legislation will require is that the county must hold a budget workshop at least 14 days prior to the final adoption of the budget to perform a budget reduction exercise to identify a potential 10% reduction in the upcoming budget. That would begin again for FY28 and we would need to comply with that and determine how to move forward with that. We need to have our budget calendar on the web. We do have a budget calendar. We'll be highlighting that more. And some other changes, as I said, as to the information, the budget information that would be on the website, as well as some changes that were in that statute regarding planning and impact fees. Looking at our current budget, we continue to focus on a number of budget guiding principles. Of course, the board must adopt a budget, a balanced budget, but we strive to adopt a structurally balanced budget where our ongoing expenditures are funded by ongoing revenues, not by one-time revenues. We look to use restricted funds before general funds when possible. Maintaining general fund reserves at the board policy of 20 to 25%, which also supports the AAA ratings from our credit rating agencies. Prioritizing public safety, maintaining assets and current service levels, investing in our employees and identifying efficiencies in the budget process. In FY26, the total adopted budget is just over $12 billion. 3.3 of that is in the capital program and 2.6 of that is reserves. We see transfers, which are accounting mechanisms. Our general funds, $1.6 billion. Our total operating is about $4.1 billion, or 34% of the budget. And this slide looks at that operating, that $4.14 billion. In this, one can see that Sheriff Enterprise funds, which is our water and solid waste operations, our healthcare services, fire rescue, that's 51% of the total $4.1 billion operating fund. Sheriff and fire rescue, so broadly speaking, public safety, safety is 24% for public safety. Turning to those areas where Bonnie mentioned, where the board has the most discretion, our two general funds, our countywide general fund and our unincorporated area general fund. I'll remind you that our countywide general fund fund services that are provided by you to all citizens and businesses in the county, whether they're in the unincorporated area or within the city. The operating millage for FY26 is 5.4608 mills, which is about $1,638 on an assessed home value of $350,000. Some of the services that are provided in the countywide general fund, sheriff, which is primarily jail operations, other constitutional officers, the clerk, the supervisor of elections, tax collector, property appraiser, are court operations. Human services are included. Economic development, medical examiner, pet resources. Those services are provided across the county, including within the cities. And when one looks at the countywide general fund at $1.6 billion, reserves are about $324 million. When looks at the operating functions, about 56% of the countywide general fund is to constitutional officers and outside agencies. The sheriff is about 41.5%. And with other agencies, it's 56% of that operating budget within the countywide general fund. Turning to the unincorporated area general fund. This is where you fund services in the unincorporated area only. Similar services to what a city would provide within its own borders to its own residents. The operating millage in the unincorporated area is 4.6163 mills, which is about 1385, $1,385 on a home assessed at 350,000. That millage continues to be less than the three cities, which ranges from 5.7 to 6.45 mills. The types of services, again, these are the types of services a city provides at its own boundaries. Fire rescue services, sheriff, which means primarily patrol law enforcement type of operations, public works, parks, and recreation. And when we look at that unincorporated area general fund, it's about $900 million. And about 66% of that fund funds fire rescue and sheriff, public safety, again. Turning towards our capital improvement program in FY26, again, it's about $3.3 billion. Half of that is in the water enterprise. As you know, the One Water project and projects, I should say, are coming on line and very important and very large. Transportation is second at about 22%. Speaking of transportation, the board has increased its investment from the general funds in CIT and transportation in recent years. In FY24, it was $50 million. In FY25, $119. And in FY26, increased to $137 million from the general funds in the CIT. Within the CIT that was approved, the renewal, the extension, that future CIT has identified about $1.3 billion in transportation projects as well over that 15-year lifespan. Another area that's not included in that table is the $208 million in road resurfacing projects associated with the dollars from the invalidated transportation surtax. In FY26, that $137 million was in a number of places, resurfacing, intersection improvements, sidewalks, bridges, and guardrails, looking at those assets, preserving those assets, as well as Lithia, Pinecrest, and Van Dyke improvements. Looking at County Administrator positions, in FY07, there were about 6,600 County Administrator positions in FY26. That number is 6,277. Still down about 5% or down 370. down 326 positions at a time when the population over that period grew about 32%. And the fire rescue is the area where in recent years there has been increases in County Administrator positions. We have had 393 positions added since FY07, a 42% increase. That's indicative of the Board's investment investment in new fire stations and public safety. So netting out fire rescue positions, the County Administrator positions are still down about 719 or nearly 13% since FY07. Looking at general fund reserves. Again, this is the area where the Board has a policy that the combined general fund reserves will be between 20 and 25%. That certainly helps us with being able to respond to unexpected items, but also to support that AAA bond rating where our credit rating agencies do look at or look for reserves in that area. In the past couple of years, we have our percentage ratio peaked at about 24%. In FY26, we're at about 23.5%. Countywide does shoulder a little more of the burden, 25.3%, unincorporated 20.6%. Revenues. Revenues in FY26, adopted revenues are $4.5 billion. Ad valorem property taxes are nearly $1.6 billion, or 35% of that total. So property taxes are a very important and large revenue. The others are relatively small, which brings us into looking a little bit at taxable values, which taxable values combined with your millage rate sets property taxes. We did have some relatively rapid growth a few years ago, about 23 and 24, where we had 11 to 15% growth. It has been declining in recent years. We've been at about 6.8, 6.9 for the past two years. As interest rates, mortgage rates had been high, the economy slowed. Prices were a little bit high on houses, and that reflects in that slower growth in our taxable values, which translates into slower growth in property tax revenue. We expect that downward trend to continue, perhaps in around the 4.5% range, and I'll talk a little more about that in a few moments. In FY26, looking at our general funds, property tax revenue is about $1.47 billion. When we look at the general funds and look at public safety and other elected officials, that budget is about $1.1 billion, or about 75% of the total property tax revenue for those two funds. In the past few years, the board has adopted and enacted a millage slot between the countywide fund and the unincorporated fund. You'll recall that our unincorporated fund is where we were having more difficulty and challenges with the budget, balancing the budget, and looking at rapid growth in that area and the rapid increase in service demands. Last year, the recommended budget included a 0.1 millage swap. The board actually did a 0.1418 millage swap, and that has shored up the financial confidence within the unincorporated fund. Those millage swaps result in a decrease in revenue in the countywide fund and an increase in revenue in the unincorporated fund. For about a dollar decrease in the countywide fund, it's about 60 cents increase in the unincorporated fund. So it is essentially a reduction in millage within the cities and a net zero change within the unincorporated area. Because of the unincorporated area, the countywide millage goes down by, say, 0.1 and the unincorporated millage goes up. That's about a $30 difference for a city homestead assessed at $350,000. So looking ahead at FY27, that is the second year of the biennial budget. You'll recall last September, you adopted the FY26 budget and a planned FY27 budget, our two-year process. The second year of our two-year process is essentially an update of that planned budget, that second-year budget, where we update with more current information. And so the intensity of the process is a little bit less in the second year, as you already have a planned budget, and we build upon that. As we look towards FY27, realizing that there are challenges out there, there's the possibility of property tax reform still out there. We are looking at limiting new positions funded by the general funds, strengthening the general fund reserves, investing our additional revenue and one-time uses, as opposed to ongoing uses, which could perhaps be impacted by some form of property tax reform. Implementing a third millage swap, we do believe that the countywide general fund could absorb another millage swap. We'll continue to reduce nonprofit funding as per the board's policy. We look at capital improvement projects to see where there's potentially no longer fit with board priorities. We're looking at developing a plan for the CIT renewal projects and, of course, continued efforts within CDBG disaster recovery funds. And you've been seeing agenda items come fairly regularly on that topic. So let's take a look at the FY26-31 pro forma. The pro forma is built in such a way that it doesn't assume too many changes. It looks at where we are now, what our practices are now, what policies are now. It doesn't presume too many new decisions. Again, we are looking at property tax values continuing to grow at a slower rate, perhaps 4.5%. That could prove to be a little optimistic this year. We'll see. We would look at slightly higher rates of growth in the later years, looking at fairly flat sales tax-based revenues. And again, keeping in mind the possibility of property tax reform. If the legislature were to pass a joint resolution at a special session now, the referendum would occur at the November 2026 general election. It would need 60% to pass. It would be effective January 1, which means that it would impact our FY28 budget. But as we look at that, we know that we need to be prepared for that even as we look at the FY27 budget. Expenditures in the pro forma are modeled to generally rise at the 20-year long-run average annual rate of combined population growth and inflation. We're modeling personnel costs similar to recent years. And we're modeling transfers to capital and disaster funds at slightly more modest paces as we expected in the last couple of years. So when we look at these numbers, we're looking at a cumulative surplus or deficit over five years. In this case, the baseline, the countywide fund over five years is in surplus. The unincorporated fund is in deficit. I think the actual numbers are not necessarily the most important thing. It's the direction. It's the indication. It gives us some sense of where we are. And the sense here is that, yes, the unincorporated fund still is our more challenged fund. If we were to, and as we planned in the recommended budget, to have an additional 0.1 millage swap, we see here that that does indeed, again, shore up the unincorporated fund while showing that the countywide fund can absorb that over that time period. As far as property tax reform, if it comes this year or perhaps in a future year, this slide looks at the possible impact. During the regular session, House Bill 209 attracted quite a bit of attention where it would be an additional, where it started out as an additional $200,000 exemption. That would have a large impact in beginning in FY28. Countywide, it'd be a loss of $217 million and unincorporated would be a loss of about $143 million. So of course, over that five years without some changes, it would be a deficit. So that certainly indicates that we would have to make adjustments, some rather significant adjustments under that scenario. But looking at another scenario, that's perhaps a smaller impact. If there were a property tax reform that were to increase the homestead exemption another $50,000, that would be a more moderate type of impact, about $79 million impact on the general fund, $49 million impact on the unincorporated fund. And you see that, yes, while those two are in deficit, the deficits are much smaller, indicating we would still need to deal with it, but it would be not as severe of an impact. And then finally, the budget calendar, which many of you, all of you, are pretty well familiar with the flow. We have our budget workshops on April 28th. I mean, April 22nd today, of course, our budget overview, and looking at the various aspects of the budget, including capital. And as Bonnie mentioned, the board can certainly have additional workshops if desired. As we move into June and July, we'll look for the property appraisers ad valorem estimates, taxable value estimates. The early estimates come at June 1. The preliminary certification comes at July 1. Those are the ones that actually go into the adopted budget. We'll have a better idea of where we stand with taxable values. Budget delivery will be July 15th at the regular board meeting, followed on July 29th by the budget reconciliation public hearing, where we'll look at the truth and millage, those initial actions with the millage rate, the flagging process. And our final public hearings are in September. September 10th will be the tentative budget and millages. And on September 24th, two weeks later, you will adopt the final budget and final millages. And with that, I thank you for your attention. Thank you very much for that presentation. We will go into board discussion at this time, and I see Commissioner Bulls, you're recognized. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. A couple of questions for you, Kevin. We'll stick with the last part because we just finished that. When we're looking at the pro forma for the expected losses, let's call it because it looks like there's a lot of blue below the zero line. Do those anticipate the swap as well in that? Or do they stand alone? Very good question. Those stand alone. Okay. So within those two examples of possible scenarios of property tax reform, that does not include that initial millage swap. Okay, so there could be a gain of sorts. Yes, sir. Yeah, the blue could get smaller below. Yes, sir. I'm not sure if you're using that. And when these as well, I know that some of the bills have carved out, and I'll just call it public safety, police, fire, EMS, that kind of stuff. Do any of these, is that carve out kind of off the top? And does the numbers affect that millage that changes it? You don't talk about it? Yes, I do. Okay. I mean, some of the proposed tax reform bills did include the expectation that a local government would need to reduce their budget, and that public safety items would be excluded from that reduction. Within the pro forma here, the pro forma doesn't directly address that, but we know that if that were to be included, that any reductions that might be necessary would have to fall disproportionately on other types of operations. Yeah, okay. So speaking kind of generally, there still would be some type of millage more or less associated just with the public safety factor? Because you've got to collect the tax somehow. Right. Not directly. I suppose one could back into that, but it's not a direct correlation. Okay. But those bills often do include that exemption. Yeah, yeah. And I was just curious if any of the numbers here reflected, you know, the zero line, if those were reflected in there. Not directly. And this is just a semantic thing. I was just curious. At what point did we stop looking at 2003 or 2007? When we're looking at our timelines, why not go back to 1974? I don't know. I'm just picking up a random thing. Why are we using those? Is it because of the Great Recession that we're using it as a benchmark for this huge dip? Yes. But when did we stop using that? You know, because it looks like, I don't want to say excuse it, but it certainly looks like, oh, my, it's an oh, my, gee, you know, moment. And then, but we are growing. So when you go past that, we certainly are growing. Right. Regardless. I would imagine that when we had 30 years on there, we might want to be moving posts a little bit. But yes, I think what it is, is it makes sure that we recall that there was that dip. It can happen. It's rare. Right. Okay. All right. Thank you. I appreciate it. Commissioner Myers. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. Kim, just a couple of questions. And it's an if, okay. If property taxes were to pass, what services would we look at to be cut? Do we have any idea? I mean, Bonnie, you can maybe help us with that. Sure. Generally, it would have to be things from the general fund. And going to Commissioner Bowles' question, if public safety is protected from that, but yet we have to cut a certain amount, it has to come from the other areas that are not public safety. So whether that's parks or transportation or other areas, human services, they would be cut disproportionately if that should happen. Now, we, you know, from what we're hearing, we are hopeful that it won't be quite a $200,000 additional homestead exemption, maybe something more moderate. But we would have to analyze that accordingly. And I appreciate you answering that question just for the viewers or the people that always ask me what is going to happen. So I know they're listening to the workshop today. And then we have a couple of more. Regarding our CIT, which we know takes effect on December 1, do we have any idea of the dollar amount we're projecting and the new projects that we are hoping to be able to provide to our constituents? Since in 2024, we ran on that and we told them we were going to do improvements in our infrastructure, roads and all of that good stuff. Do we have any idea of a dollar amount that would come into effect next year for funds raised to CIT? The tax in that year will likely garner somewhere upwards towards $200 million. That would be shared out. The school board gets 5%. Then it's shared with the cities. The county gets approximately 72% of that. It would be for 10 months. And then the board has approved an eligible list and some decisions would need to be made at an appropriate time. Okay, so in other words, we'll come back to this board to make those decisions on the revenue that would be projected and that we will receive. Okay, and then my final question is from page 7. When we say invest in county employees, what do we mean? How are we going to invest in the county employees? I think investing in county employees is recognizing that there are other opportunities and that we do want to retain our county employees who we have trained to serve the public and that we recognize that wages are rising and that we would continue to pay attention to such issues so that we can retain force. Do we have a raise in the budget going the next year for our employees to receive a raise, a salary increase? Right, so that would be part of it too. Coincidentally, we were just over at the sheriff's office this week and we were speaking about this too, especially in the sheriff's office, because where they're seeing some losses of employees at the early stages because they want to have, you know, good wages for their sheriff's deputies because what they were finding is that people were staying for just a few years, we were training them, and they were leaving, and that's very expensive. And it would be the same thing for our own county employees. We want to make sure that if we're investing in them that they stay with us so it would be their wages, their other benefits as well. Okay, thank you. Commissioner Wistel, you're recognized. Thank you. I just wanted to thank you guys for highlighting that our growth is staying relatively flat, not only in the property taxes but also in the sales taxes, sales taxes perhaps not even meeting previous years, and I think that's an important variable as the word excess continues to get thrown around about that sales tax. I also wanted to, I saw a bullet point in there about how you guys are focused on spending growth, quote-unquote, on one-time dollars rather than prematurely, permanently increasing our bottom line. And I think that that's very astute for the potential future that we're going to be facing, in my opinion, about a potential, some type of depression. So I would also like to see what Commissioner Myers brought up, particularly with Lithia Pinecrest. I would like to know when we're going to start talking about the necessary bonding for that very large project that was advertised to everybody. I think the sooner that we get on top of that, the better. I believe I heard of another delay in that project that I'm still researching as to why. So I think that it was a good presentation, though, and I think that everybody needs to be cognizant of the fact that growth is flat and potentially declining and that we are facing the looming constitutional referendum in November about property taxes. So thank you. Anyone else? Seeing no one else in the queue, we're adjourned. Thank you.