Board of County Commissioners on 2024-07-22 9:00 AM - This Agenda includes the FY2024/2025 Budget Workshop - Jul 22, 2024

Welcome to our January 22nd, 2024, Board of County Commission meeting, budget workshop, and we do have one agenda item, but we're going to start off by invocation will be a moment of silence, followed by a Pledge of Allegiance that we have to lead ourselves. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, we have a 905 public comment, 505 public comment. We have no additional items, no consent items, no supplemental memos, and we will take a motion for Commissioner Smith. Mr. Chairman, good morning, and move approval of the agenda with no additional items, no consent polls, and that's it. I'll second. All right, we have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Okay, we are going to now move off to public comment. We have two things. Mr. Michael Serkis would be first up to bat, and then apparently the next one's been rejected. Mr. Serkis, will you wait one second? I'll happily wait. Thank you, sir. Since we are in an election season, politicking is prohibited, which is defined as advocating the election or defeat of a candidate for public office, either partisan or nonpartisan. This includes the use of words, dates, signs, props, and or wearing apparel that convey a message of support for a person or group. Thank you, sir. I didn't mean to exhale on the microphone like that. Good morning. Mike Serkis, Palm City. I've come going through the budget. I know we got the budget we're speaking about today. And the whole purpose of a budget is to lay out your anticipated expenditures for the next fiscal year. And when I went through it, something that I found that was noticeably missing was a grant for the Brightline Station. I know we talked about this at the CIP meeting, and it was said that it was likely going to be put in grants and aides on the budget side because it's not going to be a physical asset owned by the county. Yet that is $15 million of principal and somewhere between $7 and $12 million of interest that we didn't put into the grants and aides. And I understand that nothing's set in stone yet, but if it's an anticipated expenditure in FY25, you'd figure it'd be inside the FY25 budget. I also noticed when you take a look at our general reserves, we included $3 million into our general reserves as an anticipated repayment that has not yet been actuated. So if we're going to put into our savings account an anticipated repayment, it would make sense that we carry the same logic into our expenditures, an anticipated expenditure. So I was just hoping to get some resolution. Are we going to abandon the train station? And by all means, I really, really love that idea. We shouldn't be building a private train station. So I just wanted to see if we had some resolution as to where this money is coming from, if we're going to do it, if we're not going to do it, or what the story is. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. With that, apparently Taryn doesn't want to talk. So Commissioner, comments. Commissioner Smith? All set this morning, sir. I'm all set. I'm all set. Commissioner Campion? Ready to go. Okay. All right. With that, let's move on to public hearing, quasi-judicial public hearing number one. Public hearing to consider the adoption of amendment to the Martin County Zoning Atlas to change the zoning classification for Mr. Dennis Siaglio, C172-002, and if you would correct that name, since I've in, it's going to be Mr. John Sennett. Got it. It's all you. Oh, it's quasi-judicial. I'm so sorry. All right. All that's going to give testimony, please stand and be sworn in. Raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Has all the proper paperwork in your resume and notices been turned in? Yes. A copy of my work history in the agenda item is being turned in as Exhibit 1. Proof of public notice mailers was turned in at the LPA hearing this past Thursday. Do we have any intervenors? There are no intervenors. Do we have any ex parte? I don't know. All right. Commissioner? I do, and they're filed. I have none, and they've been filed. I don't believe I have any, but if I do, they've been filed. I have none, and they've been filed. I have none, and they've been filed. Okay. With that, it's all you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, members of the board. I'm John Sennett, Senior Planner with Growth Management. I'm presenting the rezoning application for property owned by Mr. Dennis Siaglo. Mr. Siaglo is requesting to rezone from the current A2 Agricultural District to the RE2A Rural Estate District. The property is located in Western Palm City on the south side of Southwest Citrus Boulevard, approximately 0.8 miles northeast of the Hemingway Estates residential subdivision. The property is currently vacant. The future land use designation of the property and the adjoining properties to the east and the west is rural density, and to the north of the property, across Southwest Citrus Boulevard, and to the south of the property, we see the agricultural future land use designation. The property is currently zoned A2. The properties to the north, west, and south are also zoned A2. The A2 zoning district is a Category C zoning district. The east adjoining property currently has the RE2A Rural Estate designation. Because the existing A2 zoning is a Category C district, this application is being processed as a mandatory rezoning to a Category A district, which implements the policies for the Rural Density Future Land Use designation. There's one standard zoning district which implements the policies for rural density, and that is the RE2A Rural Estate District. The new PUD zoning is also an additional option. However, Mr. Siaglo is requesting the RE2A district. These are the development standards for the RE2A district. Minimum lot size of two acres, maximum building height of 30 feet, minimum open space of 50 percent. The front, side, and rear setbacks are all 30 feet. These are the conditions supporting the requested RE2A district. The RE2A district is consistent with the existing future land use designation of rural density for both the property and the surrounding areas on the south side of Citrus Boulevard. The existing Hemingway Estate subdivision to the southwest of the property and the adjoining property to the east currently have the RE2A district. The RE2A zoning district provides development standards which are compatible with the rural character of the surrounding area. This matter was heard before the LPA this past Thursday, July 18th. The LPA voted to approve 4-0 with one absence. Development review staff have found the Siaglo rezoning application to comply with all applicable regulations and the comprehensive growth management plan as detailed in the staff report. We recommend to move that the board receive and file the agenda item and its attachments, including the staff report, as Exhibit 1. Move that the board adopt a resolution amending the Martin County Zoning Atlas to change the zoning district designation on the subject site from A2 Agricultural District to RE2A Rural Estate District. I'm here for any questions. Any questions for staff? Seeing none, does the applicant have a... Anything? Anything? Good morning, Commissioners. Audra Creech with Creech Land Use and Zoning PA. I'm here on behalf of Mr. Dennis Siaglo. I'm here to answer any questions, if there are any. Otherwise, we'd like to proceed, and we ask for approval of this change to the zoning atlas. Okay. Commissioner Smith. Just pending public comment. Okay. Any questions for the applicant's representative? Seeing none, any public comment? Okay. Commissioner Smith. Move staff's recommendation. Second. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All in favor? Aye. All right. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioners. Okay. Moving on to Work 1, Board of County Commissioners, Fiscal Year 2024-2025 Budget Workshop. Mr. Donaldson. Yes, Commissioners. Today, we'll be presenting our proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2025. Ms. Murley will be making the bulk of the presentation. I just wanted to speak to a few things that are not included in the budget that will be brought up as we move through. One of them is the transportation disadvantage bus service that was discussed a few weeks ago, and then the preparation of the budget was already done, so that will come up in public works during the MPO discussion is where that would occur, where the current funding is. In the public comments this morning regarding Brightline, there is an anticipated payment to the City of Stewart for that. That would come out of our general fund. We will have to borrow for the bulk of the property. That would come as a separate agreement in mid-year as a budget amendment. In that particular case, in terms of grant proposals, we have to wait for the legislative session to make our application. Since we do not have any guarantee of that process, it would not be brought forward or encumbered into the budget until we did actually receive the grant for that. So we do have some grants that are applied for and either already authorized or have been issued in a number of enough years that we can anticipate the revenue as maybe not a guarantee but more than a good chance that we'll get them. We will anticipate those revenues in those particular cases. There are some other things that are looming out there. There is a Department of Justice item that came about web accessibility and how we put things on the web for reading. That will probably be dealt with next year as we get more information. It, too, is not shown as a budgetary item. Mr. Stokas has been working on that, and while the anticipated costs for that are somewhere less than a half a million or less, we are not going to take action on that until we actually know what needs to be done. And so it may not even occur next year. So the other issue that has been happening over time, and you'll see in our budget, the discussion based upon the board's direction last year of moving inmate medical out of administration into a non-departmental item. But also just to let you know that that is an ongoing issue with the actual expenses, and we do anticipate inmate medical costs exceeding the existing contract for last year. So those are just some intangibles that we weren't able to accurately reflect at this time, but they are on our watch list, so to speak, and we do have a plan to deal with them. So with that, Ms. Murley, if you could take us through a presentation on where we are. This does, I will just highlight, this does reflect a reduction in your millage rates, a number of them. And what we're looking for today is any amendments or adjustments. And then finally, it would just simply be your job is to approve a budget and a millage, tentative millage that would then be advertised and presented to each property owner with a hearing in September. That would actually be the time where you vote for the various millage rates to be considered. With that, Ms. Murley, please. Good morning, Commissioner. Stephanie Murley, Director of OMB. I'm here to present to you the Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Workshop. So on today's agenda, I'll provide an overview of the Martin County budget in the process, the basis for the FY25 tentative budget development, the tentative budget as a reflection of total revenues and expenditures, a tax-based analysis, the budget impact from the July 1, 2024 valuation, the budget development summary, a review of the constitutional officers and county department budget, and then ultimately set Martin County's millage rates. So a little bit about the Martin County BOCC budget timeline. The budgeting process began shortly after the fiscal year began back in December with the development of the Capital Improvement Program, Concurrently, OMB and the departments analyzed, review, and refined the operating budgets and departmental needs through February, April, and May. Back on May 14th, the board tentatively approved the CIP, which was the first step of the development of the FY25 budget. The Property Appraiser's Office then provided preliminary taxable values to the county on June 1st to give us a good idea of where our tax base would be. And then on July 1st, the certified taxable values were provided by the property appraiser, and the county uses those values to calculate the proposed millage rate that we're working with today. So today is July 22nd, when the board has the opportunity to review the budget as a whole and set tentative millage rates based on discussion here today. So after the tentative millage rates are set, the county reports the rates to the property appraiser's office, who will then send out our truth and millage or trim notices to property owners, making them aware of their FY2025 proposed taxes. The board will then have two more opportunities to review the budget with public hearings in September to ultimately adopt the final millage rates for the fiscal year that begins in October. So why are we here? The law tells us we have to be here. The county administrator is required to prepare and submit the operating and capital budgets per Florida State statutes. The budget as submitted is considered a working document, and changes may be made throughout the workshop. And we have an allotted an additional day for the workshop if needed. So some characteristics for the FY2025 budget. The budget as presented is balanced, which means that the total of all revenues equals the total of all expenditures. This budget reasonably anticipates all estimated receipts, expenditures, reserves, and balances. And finally, this budget provides sufficient resources to conduct the business of the county. So how do we budget? I'm going to talk a little bit about our budgeting methodology, which we use an incremental budgeting method. So Martin County utilizes an incremental budgeting approach, which takes the previous year's adopted budget and uses it as a base for the new budget. Non-recurring budget requests, such as a one-time piece of equipment, are deducted from this base budget. Then OMB and departments carefully monitor the revenues and expenses of the base budget and make line-item adjustments or reallocations as necessary to maintain the current level of service, as well as identify efficiency opportunities. These adjustments include contractual and or mandated obligations of current county programs and services. Incremental budgeting provides stability and predictability of county services and prevents drastic fluctuations in service level and budgetary needs. So developing the FY25 budget. The FY25 tentative budget reflects the best efforts of county staff and the county's constitutional officers to maintain the levels of service as expected by county residents and to provide the financial approach to execute the county's strategic priorities. The vast majority of the counties budgeted is attributed to contractual or mandated obligation that the county is required to fulfill, such as retirement rates set by the state of Florida, responsible insurance coverage for county property, and contribution to the community redevelopment agencies of both the city of Stewart and the county. In this budget, county departments were directed to maintain current budget levels, with the exception of those items that could not be absorbed. Many departments maximize current line-item budgets by reallocating within the respective departments based on their most current needs and trends of each division. You can stop me at any time if you have any questions. So, Martin County's economic landscape. This is a new little slide that I wanted to mention, just looking at trends that we're seeing around us in the county and in the nation. So, for Martin County, this comes straight from the non-taxable valuations due to value limitations such to save our home, non-homestead, agricultural, and property tax exemptions impact the county significantly and account for 39% of the county's total property valuation. So, we all talk about inflation. And while inflation does seem to be stabilizing, it is still well above the federal targeted guidelines of 2%. South Florida has even seen higher inflationary pressures than the national averages. The cost of items remain elevated in comparison to pre-pandemic times. And then the housing market for Martin County is also indicative of the South Florida inflationary trends, with the median sale price of a single-family home coming in at $574,200. So, while the median sale price is that, the median assessed value of a single-family home in Martin County is significantly lower. So, our 2024 taxable values. As of July 1st, 2024, overall, the county saw approximately a 10% increase over the previous fiscal year. Delineated are each of the districts, and then are Fire, Hutchison Island, Roads, and Parks, Stormwater, MSTU. So, the FY25 tentative sources of revenue. The tentative budget accounts for total estimated revenues of $672,505,700. The county budget is comprised of various revenue sources. Ad valorem accounts for 45% of the total budgeted revenues, while other sources of revenues such as fees, state and local shared revenue, and fund balance account for 55% of the remaining budget. And that's $672 million. $672 million. I'm sorry. That'd be great, huh? And our tentative expenditures. So, if our budgeted revenues equal $672 million, the budgeted expenses also have to equal $672 million. So, the breakdown is as follows with transfers and reserve accounting for 19.6%, personal services, personnel, 19.9%, operating, 28.9%, capital, 9.3%, debt, 2.8%, and constitutional officers at 19.5%. So, what were our budget drivers for our ad valorem impact? Our total new ad valorem generated, if the millage remained constant, would have equated to just under $28 million. The county's actual ad valorem need, based on budgeted expenditures, amounted to $25.9 million, which resulted in the reduction of the total millage rate from the fiscal year. So, the ad valorem impacts are as follows. Cumulatively, the constitutional officers accounted for $11.2 million of these dollars. The E-911 at the Martin County Sheriff's Office was $944,000. The capital improvement plan that was tentatively approved in May was $517,000. Our county CRA was approximately $910,000. The city of Stewart was $422,000. Our IEFF contract year two is approximately $2.6 million. Florida Retirement System, or FRS, was approximately $2 million countywide. Property insurance, about $250,000. Technology needs, which we'll go into depth a little bit further, down in our presentation, $633,000. The inmate medical that Don mentioned was approximately $730,000. And then we, amongst all the funds, reserves equated to $5.6 million. So, where do the tax dollars go? Everybody asks that in every single care session that I do. So, we came up with this little dollar here. For the typical, unincorporated Martin County taxpayer, approximately 64% of each dollar goes towards public safety, which includes sheriff, fire, E-911, and emergency management. 26% goes towards general governmental expenditures, which include all other constitutional officers, county administration, county attorney, general services, public buildings, and information technology. 7% goes towards roads, stormwater, and environmental expenditures, which seem small, but those dollars leverage millions of grant funding opportunities through FDOT, FDEP, legislative appropriations, and more. And then, finally, 3% of each dollar goes to culture and recreation-type programs and includes the Martin County Public Library System and general park operations. The county's long-term debt continues to reduce as a result of principal payments budgeted within our debt service divisions, which represents 2.8% of the total county budget. Governmental bonds and capital leases have been reducing the last five years, while utility septic-to-sewer bonds and state-revolving loans has increased, which is in line with the board's strategic priority of the septic-to-sewer conversion program. Could you pause a minute? Mm-hmm. Commissioner Campy. Ms. Murley, can you go back a slide and explain more clearly the utilities debt there, please, on how that number is what it is? You said septic-to-sewer, but can you explain that a little more, how that exactly works? So through our septic-to-sewer programs, we have assessments that the people that benefit from those septic-to-sewer conversions pay into. The state-revolving fund loans are very, very small interest loans that we get from the state that are also repaid through utilities fees and assessments. So maybe I can clarify. So when we do a project that's, let's say, $20 million, and the residents are paying half of that or a third, $10 million of that, they don't pay it all at once. So it shows up on their tax bill. They can pay it up front if they want, or we have a program to allow them to borrow the funds, and our cheapest rate of getting the funds right now is through the state-revolving phone program, and then that goes on your tax bill as a non-advalorem assessment. But, of course, we have to pay our contractors all at once. So that's that loan piece of it, and it shows up in our debt service, but it's the obligation is actually to each individual property owner that chose to borrow the money with our assistance through the non-advalorem assessment. So that's just so that would, as you do more septic-to-sewer, that would go up. Those loans are typically 20 years, so you would have an accumulation over time as you add your infill for septic-to-sewer. So, in other words, thousands of people, we paid for the project up front, and thousands of people over the course of 10, 15, 20 years, depending on the project, are paying back against that debt number. So it's not like it's a county debt number. It's we prepaid for residents, and they're paying in, and it's not the resident. It's the address. It's the home. So if the resident moved, that remaining debt stays with the property and is paid by the next person, correct? I believe so. Thank you. Commissioner Smith. And I know you said this, but it just bears repeating, and the only people that are paying are the rate payers that are using the service. It's not everybody under the general fund. Correct. All right. So moving on, the Martin County BOCC personnel summary includes a total of 1,137 positions, and the only new position is a cybersecurity manager for the Information Technology Department, based on the increasing and prevalent needs of data security related to county operations. The FY25 budget also includes 780 FTEs for the constitutional officers, which reflects new positions for both Martin County Sheriff's Office and the Clerk's Office. And with that, that is the conclusion of my overview. So if you do not have any questions, we can move on to the constitutional officers. I just wanted to interject that in years past, at times we would have the departments submit all of the issues they felt that were necessary in order for them to accomplish the objectives. This particular year, I asked each department to come in with the absolute minimum to try to maintain a low tax base. So just to let you know that we did not include any of the department's asks in this budget. That's it. So the constitutional officers, we have the Martin County Sheriff's Office here today to discuss their budget, but I just wanted to quickly look over the other constitutionals who could not be here today. So the clerk is requesting an additional $469,000, which is attributed to mostly personnel-related expenditures in keeping up with the market. Same with the property appraiser. The sheriff non-departmental, as Don mentioned previously, was that the inmate medical transferred from our administration department after discussions from last year's budget workshop over into the sheriff non-departmental. So even though it's not a 289% increase, that looks terrifying. It is not. The state judicial and state agencies are showing a reduction because we removed the $450,000 one-time mental health court that was requested last year. The supervisor of elections, it's not an election year next year, so she had a slight reduction. And the tax collector, while it looks as though she's increasing 23%, that's not a real accurate number because we have to factor in our payments to the tax collector for collecting those, and then also there's a revenue offset for that as she collects. But with that, I will turn it over to the sheriff's office. Mr. Youngblood? Welcome, sheriff. Welcome, sheriff. We get to say that one time. Thank you very much, Commissioner. Chairman Jenkins, commissioners, Don Donaldson, our county administrator, Sarah Woods, and staff that work so hard, thank you for allowing me this opportunity to share with you what I think is our minimum needs for the sheriff's office. If I could, and I want to be very careful with our time, and I'm very aware of it, I'll be careful. But I think because this is, God willing, the last time I will appear before you as sheriff for a budget, I did reflect back as I prepared my thoughts on the last 12 years. And some of you have been here on and off through those 12 years. But I was thinking the first time I came up here, it was following the pre-sustained retraction in the American economy. You all remember those years. The sheriff's office, when I had the privilege to take the helm, was down 35 positions that our previous administration was compelled to reduce. So I started off 35 positions in the hole. Then our salaries, we had not funded, I say we, the county, all of us, had not funded our step plan for years. And I don't recall exactly, but if there were increases, they were very minimum. And so as a result of that, our personnel had fallen far behind the curve. And we had a Dickens of a time trying to keep personnel hired. Palm Beach is to our south, and I know there's a talking point out here. We're not Palm Beach, but I do hire people that can drive to Palm Beach. So it is a factor, and I wish I could just say, well, if you don't like it here, go to Palm Beach. I can't say that. And so salaries had fallen behind. Our fleet was in utter chaos, disrepair. It was dilapidated. Unfortunately, the rank and file were driving cars, all of them, over 100,000 miles. And for a first responder vehicle, that's not safe. These cars are driven hard. You all know what we do with our cars. When they turn them on, they run for 12 hours, and it's a hard stop, hard stop. Our helicopter fleet was in disrepair. We're still flying helicopters that flew over Vietnam in the late 60s and 70s. Our boats were in disrepair. Our technology was pathetic. It had collapsed. It was not keeping pace. It was not only not futuristic, it was in the past. We were keeping statistics literally, and I think we could still find you paperwork, and for our UCR statistics, they were keeping them with pencil strokes. One, two, three, four, five burglaries. One. Today we have so there was so much that was going on. In the last 12 years, you all have been more than generous, more than gracious, and more than understanding. I know we've had a couple of little, hardly discussions, but I feel like you all have been very attentive to my budget and held me accountable, and I've done my best to explain through the years exactly where I am with the budget. But the needs of the Sheriff's Office, because of your understanding, have been met. I go, some of you have heard me speak publicly. We are fully funded as a Sheriff's Office. We have a state-of-the-art, real-time crime center. People come from all over the state of Florida and tour our crime center. You all have been in the crime center. You can't get in or out of Martin County for the most part, and I never talk about sources and means, but we catch bad guys here. And our reputation is known wherever I go. So people know that criminals will hit Palm Beach County, run from the cops until they get to Martin County, and they turn around and go back. So we catch bad guys. We put bad guys in jail. And I'll say this as I bring this historical perspective in for landing. I have a clear conscience that we have been faithful with the taxpayer dollars. We don't go on junkets. My record's a public record. I've never been on a junket. I think I've been out of the state on training a handful of times, and those have been mandatory. We don't waste taxpayer dollars. We're very careful with it. Every dollar we spend, and this is not just rhetoric, I feel it in my chest when I come before you and ask for this money. I know how hard this is. You know I've been an appropriator and was for years, and so this is the hardest job you have. I have tried to be a faithful partner. I have tried to be careful with the money you've entrusted me with. I have tried to make Martin County, in the 12 years I've been honored to serve, as safe a county as exists in the state of Florida. We have an all-hands-on-deck crime briefing every Wednesday. And week after week, I have a slide of every one of your districts broken down, zero burglaries, zero thefts, zero robberies. Time after time, sometimes we get some. But our crime rate is low, and I think we've been faithful and effective with the taxpayer dollars. So I come today with a clear conscience and a clear heart, knowing that I've done my best not to let you down and to represent the sheriff's office to you and to the voters of this county faithfully. So this morning, I will be careful of time. I have some notes. I'll share with you the drivers of our increase. We have asked for a 7.9 percent, 9.6 percent increase. So our total requested budget, it must, is it on the screen above you? It's a $109 million, $694,732. That's a total increase of $8 million and $90. Here's the breakdown. Law enforcement is the bulk of it, $74 million. I'm going to just round, if that's okay. I see all the numbers, and so do you. Corrections is right close to $27 million. The judicial is right at $5 million. Our school resource officer program, there's so much I could talk about there. What I think is a disparity in what the public school system should be paying and what we're paying, but over and above, it's $2.5 million. Our crossing guards cost us $1 million. Animal control is half a million, and there you have the total. So here are the drivers. Why has our budget gone up? We have a previously negotiated COLA with our staff, which is $3.2 million. Our health care insurance premiums have gone up $575,000. It's a 5% increase. Our overtime, we've asked for an additional $638,000, and we spend every penny of it. I could go off on a side trail. I won't, but for the most part, our jail is understaffed but coming up. But the unexpected expenses there are mind-boggling. It just takes one person to say they want to kill themselves, and I have to have a corrections deputy staring at them for 24 hours a day because that's what state law says. They cannot be unattended. I can get two or three, four of them at a time saying they want to kill themselves. If one of them wakes up and has chest pains, I have to send two deputies to the hospital with them. Sometimes it could be 24 hours a day for weeks on end. You know, if we hurt somebody in an arrest, I have to send two deputies. We can't staff every day for those contingencies, or it would even be higher. So it's always on overtime. We're asking for eight new positions, of which four would be in corrections, three would be in law enforcement as detectives, and one would be a courthouse deputy. Our other expenses, I can give you the breakdowns if you want. Kevin has it right here. Our IT communications has increased. Jail operating costs has increased. We talk about inflation, and I know there's somebody out here pushing on you all to ask me some really hard questions, which I welcome, and trying to maintain that our budget is disproportionate to inflation. I will tell you right now, if all I want up is inflation, we would close tomorrow because my growth has to keep track with the crime rate. It has to keep track with growth in the county. So the idea that my increase is disproportionate to inflation is ludicrous. I would be embarrassed to run for office saying something that asinine. The other outlays that are expensive are new vehicles and vehicle purchases. How much, Kevin, have cars gone up? Average 35% of the last year. 35% – it cost me more than 35% now to buy a car than it did a year or two ago. Now, how in the world does that equate with an inflation rate, which is currently what? I know it's over the national – the hope for average. That's what we have. That's where we are. Those are the main drivers. That explains it holistically. But I think I would like to stop at this point and certainly answer any questions that you all have. Mr. Campy. Sheriff, thank you so much. In the next several months, I'm going to say that to you every time I see you. You didn't really mention, and if you could, I know last year it was much more of a theme about how you're combating mental health issues, not just in the streets and in the neighborhoods, but also in your jail. Can you share a little bit about how that's going? Sure. Thank you, Commissioner Campy. I actually have our jail administrator here today. Our Captain Perkins is here. She shared with me – I sent it to you, as a matter of fact. I think I sent you all an email – a very sobering statistic, and I think it was right at, on that particular day, 35% of our inmates were diagnosed with mental illness and were receiving psychotropic drugs throughout the day. That's only the diagnosed ones. Of the remaining 65%, there's no telling how much of that is mental illness. So a lot of the drivers of what we're seeing in society today, the drivers between not only my budget, but my fire rescue brothers and sisters, is the impacts on society of mental illness. It's very expensive. They drive our calls for service. They're suicidal. They're overdosing. They're threatening their neighbors. And so it does – it's a big driver. Thankfully, our state representative, John Snyder, got a $500,000, half a million grant from the state, which we're going to put to good use and begin a real holistic layout of what a new facility would look like. That's on your CIP. I'm going to stay around for that if that's helpful. So I think the answer, Commissioner Campion, in a nutshell, is we know that we have to change the way we're doing business. All of law enforcement has come to that. It's been a rolling epiphany. Putting mentally ill people in jail is a human rights issue, and we're doing the best we can. It is a big driver of our budget, though. Thank you. One follow-up. I know that even started last year with a microscope on our budget and yours being a large portion of the budget. I think what happens is – it sounds crazy, but you might be – you and all the men and women that work for you are victims of your – not necessarily success, but of your efficiency. And when there is not the level of crime and violence that we've seen on television and other communities, people, I think, start to get a little comfortable and complacent with that strategy. Like, why is his budget so big? But in my mind, having been to some of the communities where, through no fault of their local law enforcement, an explosion of violence in rioting or some other terrible set of circumstances, totally, you know, obliterates a community through no fault of their own. In an afternoon, in an incident, one little incident can blow everything up that you've worked so hard for. So, you know, look, I make it publicly. I have no apologies for us funding you and Fire Rescue because I think – and I've never had any resident come up to me and say otherwise – that's what they expect of us. They expect it of you and Fire Rescue being on the front lines. But if we didn't fund you properly and one thing happened, then all of a sudden everyone's pointing fingers to say, how did you let this happen on your watch? And so for your 12 years, you know, God's blessing, it hasn't. And then hopefully it won't in the future. But knowing that no matter how much you and your team prepare, something could happen. But it's our responsibility to make sure that when you come forward, and you're always very gracious and humble in your request. But, I mean, that's the first dollar that our residents expect us to pay. And I appreciate that you are definitely looking for all of the savings and keeping the numbers down as much as possible. I know that there will be some pushback from residents that don't completely understand or have sort of been lulled into a false sense of, you know, things are fine here, so we don't have to pay as much as we are. But things are fine here because we pay as much as we do. And I thank you. Commissioner, I would either stand before you and say my increase is generated by the fact that crime is up or my increase is generated by the fact that I'm keeping crime down. So to that extent, I can't extricate myself from that dilemma and that the budgets go up to accomplish either task. And you can ask commissioners around the country that have gone with this defund the police, which I do understand there's someone pushing on you to defund us, that it hasn't worked and that when law enforcement doesn't keep up with the problems of society, crime-generated problems, homelessness goes up, drug addiction goes up, burglary goes up, crime rates go up, vandalisms go up, people that own businesses leave town, property values go down. I'm an insurance policy that's expensive that you don't want to ever use. Thank you. Commissioner Smith. Morning, Sheriff. Morning, Commissioner. How are you this morning? Fantastic. You seem like you're in a good mood. I could go either way, Commissioner. All right. Well, I'm guessing, seeing as there is a potential horizon, not potential, there is a horizon for you, it's probably looking pretty good. Everything that Ed said, I wouldn't repeat anything because I don't need to because Ed said most of it. I would say this about your legacy, and not that any of us do this for a legacy, but Martin County and its legacy and your involvement in that legacy is enormous. You have come before us for all the years I've been doing this, and you have asked for what you thought it took to run a department that kept us safe. And you've done, and your staff have done, a remarkable, amazing job of doing that. And there's a reason. Stephanie had a chart up earlier that I think it was 574,000 was the average household value in Martin County. I would say, by and large, a large part of that is that it's a really safe county to live in. People would not come here, and you just said it. Businesses wouldn't stay. People wouldn't stay. People wouldn't invest their life savings in a community if it weren't safe. And we are the recipient of you and your staff's amazing work all these years, and we are grateful for that. As Ed said, and I have said this before, I will always vote to support your budget and your request and your sheriff to come. And I have the utmost confidence that we will have an amazing department moving forward with the next generation. But you have set us in a place that is really unmatched around the state. I mean, I defy any other sheriff's department to come even close to what you all do and what you pull off. That crime center, world class. And people shouldn't necessarily have to worry about it and understand it all. But putting that whole thing together just continues to move us forward and to be on the edge of making sure this is the safest place to be. And we really appreciate it. I very much appreciate it. I know our board appreciates it. And I certainly know our community appreciates all the energy and all the work you put into this all this year. We're going to miss you. Thank you, sir. Commissioner Smith, thank you. And what a great time for me to segue into saying I am so proud of my staff. First of all, Kevin Youngblood, my chief financial officer, his assistant is here, and the staff that sits behind me. I couldn't be more proud of them. They are really a great bunch. It always makes me uncomfortable, commissioners, to receive compliments. I've just not ever been good at receiving them because they really do the work. Yeah, I'm standing up here and representing them, but they do the work. And I'll say this and then I'm done. I really believe law enforcement should be a lot like government. We shouldn't wake up every day wondering what's going on. You take a look at Washington. You just ask yourself this question. What in the heck is going on up there? We don't know. It's jarring and it's part of our everyday life. I strive to make the sheriff's office a background home that you don't even realize is there so that when you go to work and you come out, your car is not broken into, when you drop your children off at school, the SROs take care of them. They get in there and they go home. It's my deputy sitting over here protecting you, willing to get up and move towards gunfire. God forbid if somebody walks in here. I don't want us to be in the people's face. I want us to be quiet in the background. I want a quiet and safe society for my children and my grandchildren. And that's because of their hard work and our civilian staff that work so hard. That's why we have what we have. It's not me. So I will say it for you. They are world class and they are fantastic. But so is their leadership. Well, we'll call it a draw, Commissioner. Thank you. Commissioner Hetherington. Most everything has been said, but I'll just say I was across the state last week and Martin County is known to be one of the safest and most responsible counties in the state. And I'm proud because and that's because of your leadership, your personnel, the technology that you have at the sheriff's office is absolutely amazing. And bar none, I think we have one of the best sheriff's departments and public safety in general across the state. And I was really proud to to talk to some of my colleagues around the state and be known for that. So I appreciate what you do. And never have I had a resident come up to me and not prioritize public safely. So I very gladly support what you have proposed and appreciate your leadership. And thank you for everything that all of your men and women in the department do. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Hurt. I will join the love train. Thank you. Can I just say this, Commissioner Hurt? I love you. And for 12 years, I've prepared this budget. For 12 years, I've said, does this go is this going to work for Sarah? I mean, Commissioner Hurt, of course. But so and you I'll say this real fast. You all have been very faithful. And OK, so we do have a great reputation. But if you all had not funded me, I would not have what I have. I wouldn't have a state of the art helicopter flying over this county as many hours as it does. I wouldn't have a crime center. You can't get in or out of this county without us figuring out who you are. We have a solve the solve rate. I could not have done it without you. I say it publicly all the time. And your support for me has come. I know where to cost you all last year. I know the criticism you've got. I felt your pain. And I never wanted you to feel that I wasn't standing by you. You all have fully funded our budget. And to you goes a lion's share of the credit because you took the political risk to support me. And I appreciate it. Commissioner Hetherington. I just wanted to mention the why we're all sitting here that when we come to establish our priorities, I think inmate medical, we know that that is a really drastic cost increase. So for this legislative session, I believe that addressing the inmate medical cost increases should probably be one of our highest priorities in our legislative priorities. And my comment is my lack of yammering about your budget, I hope, does not diminish my enthusiasm of supporting your budget. You know, we've sat down, and I understand it, and I am very supportive of it, obviously. Thank you. Commissioner Jenkins, being that this is both our last times facing each other over the budget, thank you very much for what you've done. And I'd like to publicly say I thank God for how well you've recovered. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you, sir. All right. Do we need a tentatively approval? Now what? I would move tentative approval of the sheriff's budget. Okay, we have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Campy. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you, sir. God bless you, Commissioners. Thank you all very much. Yes, you and your team. Thank you for the prayers. Stephanie. I'll let them vacate the room real quick. Follow that, George. To quote July 9th, I don't have that much flair. Anyway. Oh, you have flair, George. Yeah. No, I said I don't have flair. And pizzazz. Do we need to approve the rest of the Constitutional? Yes, that would work great. Move of tentative approval of the rest of the Constitutional's budgets. Second. Sarah, we're done. Motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. So now we'll go department by department in alphabetical order with the exception of non-departmental. Each department head will give a little overview of their budgetary request, and I'm here to assist when needed. Good morning, Mr. Chair. George Stoke, Assistant County Administrator. Before you is the fiscal year 25 tentative budget for administration. As you can see, overall, a 31.02% change for this department. We look to consider maintaining our current level of service through all of our divisions. The reduction of $5.2 million is attributable to the reallocation of the inmate medical services. I won't belabor that point, because we've discussed that. Our goals will be to continue to advance in legislative priorities for the county, provide critical services to eligible populations, and then keep pace with the growing public records requests that have been growing exponentially. With this, this is my only slide. I'm more than happy to answer any questions that you may have. You want tentative approval, correct? Yes, you may. Per department. Beth. If there are no further questions, I'd move tentative approval of the Administrative 2025 budget. Second. Motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Mr. Bean. McBean. Good morning, Commissioners. Airport Director, Andrew McBean. I have here before you today is the fiscal year 25 tentative budget. There's an 8.14% change overall in the budget, bringing the budget to $2,055,706. The budget considerations for fiscal year 25 is the cost of doing business that we have in a couple of our line items, as well as ensuring the ongoing maintenance and operation of Witham Field in a safe and serviceable condition as required by our federal and state grant assurances. Our fiscal year 25 goals include completing the Taxway Alpha Holdbait design, completing the Taxway Bravo Rehabilitation design, completing the Runway 1230 PAPI design and installation, various security enhancements, and continuous professional development for staff. Any questions on the fiscal year 25 budgets, Commissioner? Commissioner Campy would like to ask you a question. You fund this through money raised? Revenues, so land rent, leases, the Customs and Mortar Protection Facility, and things like that. Yes, sir. So an 8.14% increase you're absorbing within your own? Yes, Commissioner. On-site budget? Yes, Commissioner. Thank you very much. I'll move tentative approval. Second. All right. We have a motion by Commissioner Hetherington, seconded by Commissioner Campy. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Thank you, Commissioners. Motion carries unanimously. Good job. Thanks, Steve. Bill Newton. Yeah, I'm right. Good morning. My name is Jeff Daugherty. I'm the Director of the Building Department. We're here today to present our budget. The budget represents an 8.23% increase. It's really broken down into three areas. One is the salary increases from the prior year from the collective bargaining agreement, which is about $455,000. Second is increase of fleet. Earlier, the Sheriff talked about vehicles. Our standard pickup truck has gone from a budget of $27,000 to the current cost of $42,000, so it's been over 50%. We have to acknowledge that. Another issue is trying to get the trucks. We most recently received one ordered a long time ago. The replacement was pushing 150,000 miles, so we do have a challenge actually receiving them. And finally, the building department is not funded by any taxpayer money. It's 100% fee. In addition to that, the building department pays for overhead support of budget and legal and IT and that, and our contribution of overhead indirect is increased $115,000, one from $600,000 to $721,000, which goes back to support us. I'll be glad to answer any questions. If you look individually in our sheets within there, we have reallocated some. We've had retirements and just put it together. We've been working with budget hand-in-hand on that, which would be an old term, but since Stephanie's so young, we more finger-to-finger with the keyboard. So thank you for your help, Stephanie. You're welcome. Mr. Smith. Jeff, thanks very much. Just curious. The Regional Planning Council, Friday we had our budget discussions, and I thought this was an interesting, hard-to-imagine number, but it was a real number, and I know what our number is here for Martin County, but the region from Palm Beach County, St. Lucie, Martin, and Indian River, 2023 of this time last year was 1.6% in growth. And so we were by far, we in Indian River County were the smallest growth number in that allocation of the budget. So what are you seeing trend-wise for permits? What are you seeing now currently? I'm sorry, and the Bieber money, the Bieber number for 2024 will be out next month, and I'm not expecting it to be dramatically different, but I was just curious. As part of our community outreach, which we do for our rating for how well the building department functions and helps with our homeowners insurance, we put out a newsletter. Actually, we just put one out and had statistics for the first six months of this fiscal year. Residential-wise, single-family homes are down 3%. Multi-family homes are down 21%, and miscellaneous permits like changing the hot water heater fence are down about 3%. However, the actual values are up over $105 million. So it's probably a combination of the cost of construction going up and potentially larger units. So overall, it's about the same pace, a little bit less. 21% sounds like a lot, but we're only talking 93 versus 120. So there's not big numbers from that perspective. Very different on the commercial side. Our permits are down 90%. We had only 38, the first new buildings, but they're so varied because a building could be a 3,000, 4,000, 5,000, a little one for an accountant or a doctor. And it's comparing it to the South Florida Gateway that had a 600-some-thousand-square-foot building. So apples-to-apples number of permits in this appropriate, probably square footage is more. The other ones, the trade permits, are up 17% and others, 31%, but others are just small things we can't do. However, the values of commercial are down about $19 million. So even though the permits are up, which clearly says we don't typically get those large South Florida buildings, South Florida Gateway buildings, we get smaller ones. So overall, the revenue, excuse me, the value of the construction is up, but the number of permits on the residential side is down probably overall somewhere around 6%, 7%. Thank you. Just curious. And that information went out in our newsletter that went out last week. Right. Thank you, sir. Commissioner Campy. Mr. Daugherty, you have to hire and retain, excuse me, very specific technical employees. It's not someone that just can pop in and out the type of work, reviewing plans, and even code enforcement, which is when they were here for code enforcement appreciation week, I said it's one of the more, and I didn't mean it as a joke. I meant that seriously, it's one of the more difficult jobs to do because, you know, code enforcement, when people show up, when code enforcement shows up at people's houses, it can be a very dangerous situation, and that's not a joke. How has it been retaining your employees and filling positions that you need to fill? The only turnover we have had on the non-code enforcement has been retirement. We've had two people retire in 30-plus years service, which is amazing. On the code enforcement, we've actually had two turnovers in the last month. So that is, as you mentioned, not a glamorous job, and it's tough to maintain people. It is challenging. On the building side, we've leaned heavy and heavier each year on technology. A couple things we're doing is investing in the ability. Our inspectors don't come into the office, but once a week they get their stuff electronically. Everything's real time. We're investing in some new technology, too, a calendar system. You can go online and schedule an appointment 24 hours a day. Someone will call you back, try to find out what your need is. We'll make an appointment that we will call you at 210 on Tuesday. Not Tuesday, but we will tell you exactly when we're calling you. With some training and some use of it, we've been able to get staff to elicit the information out of the individual, and we typically cancel about 30 of those appointments because we're able to answer the question form prior to the actual meeting or the phone call. And it has freed up our plan reviewers. Typically, our plan review were mandated to 30 days by the state statute. We were at about 25 to 26 days. We're now down to 10 to 12. So we're using technology every way we can to do that and to make best use of the limited skill that we have. Limited skilled personnel numbers are hard to get. The skill is there. The numbers of the people are not. So when these soft grade upgrades, that's what you're talking about? Yes. We are, believe it or not, Acela has been around about seven years, which is a century. And technology, we're upgrading that. Also, we are not currently in a state that we can use electronic checks, and we're upgrading to do that. And to transfer credit card fees. We're the, I guess, lead agency to have user pay the credit card fee as opposed to just spread it out among everyone. But we're giving the people the option to use electronic checks so they don't have to pay it. You may have seen restaurants start charging credit card fees, and it's gone from covering the fee to actually a profit center. I was at a named restaurant the other day, and they want to charge 4%. So now they're doing that. So we are trying to watch all our money. And with this upgrade in technology, we'll be able to save a couple hundred thousand if it works well, roll it out to the rest of the county. And we're moving our current historic data, which is, I understand, around four terabytes, from ours to the cloud with Acela. So it'll decrease the maintenance burden on IT. So we're looking at all those types of things. Commissioner Smith. Jeff, I would say this much, and I'll say this about all of our departments. You know, the sheriff's presentation and what the sheriff does is super important for our county. Getting someone their permit out as quickly as possible so that they can do what they need to do is equally as important in many ways to everybody. And you guys are doing a great job. It is a tough job to manage all of the expectations of our community relative to a permit. And I know that personally sometimes. But you and your staff do an amazing job. And it should not go by the wayside that I think your involvement and your knowledge and your ability to manage the department has really been fantastic. And I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. It's the staff that's there that does a great job. And as we mentioned earlier, we're 100% fee funded. So we have to look at it as a business. These are our customers. And other than maybe your phone bill or paying for an airline ticket, it's one of the few things you pay for your service 100% in advance of us delivering it. So we have to be aware of that, that we have to get the best service, because we're competing not against St. Lucie County or City of Stewart. We're competing against private providers. So we have to provide the best service. And that's the way we go in every day. Can you give us a copy of the newsletter if you didn't send it to us? Sure. We'll send it out. It's an e-newsletter. So you should get it in your e-mail. Okay. Fantastic. Thank you. And with that. Move to an end of approval. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Campy. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Thank you very much. Commission MS to you. Thank you. So the next slide is just a capital improvement plan. We had already discussed this at length back on May 14th. This is just a little visual reminder that we added the St. Lucie Inlet, reinstated $500,000 into this capital improvement plan. But other than that, it's just maintaining status quo within our capital improvement plan. Well, that was easy. Yes. Move tentative approval of the capital improvement 2025 tentative budget. Second. Motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Now we'll do Commissioner Smith. Oh, I'm sorry. I just wanted to bring up this. This is just a quick piece of information, and I thought this would be an appropriate time. And it kind of goes to the sheriff, and I think Jeff already mentioned the same things, is basically continue to do things so projects and goals and objectives happen in the background and don't become a crisis. And one of those areas is your Inlet Management Plan, and our contractor, the Corps, just started dredging yesterday, and they were able to accomplish that, too. Also, in the background, we have some excellent consultants. One of the species, recently listed species, was Queen Conk. Our project was scheduled before that listing. We did a survey. They found a few of them, consultated with National Marine Fisheries and Fish and Wildlife, and reputation of our consultants and stuff. We were able to relocate them and get the project back and running. And I just wanted to illustrate, it's just one of those examples of a project that had been in crisis decades before. It seemingly happens without people knowing the amount of effort going into it. And I just wanted to thank our coastal staff and Corps and everybody working to get that project underway, because it was touch and go there for a little bit. But we had, I think, the reputation of our consultants, Cheryl Miller, going out there, who's done back-to-beach monitoring for decades as well, did an excellent job of working with the environmental agencies to get it done. So thank you. Commissioner Smith. You know, you mentioned the Queen Conk. I used to go a long time ago out to the sandbar, and I don't ever remember up until about 15 years ago there were being Queen Conk out there. And then one day they just appeared, and there were, like, thousands of them, and it was fantastic. And it's good to know that they're still there and still doing their thing. So great news. Back to you. It's me again. The next slide is going to be our commission district, MSTU. I had had communications with each of the commissioners prior to either maintain their millage rate or maintain their dollar amount, and these millage rates reflect those preferences. And if this is what you would like to go with, I would take a motion and incorporate that with our tentative millage rates. Commissioner Smith. I'm not seeing or hearing from anybody else pending that. I would move approval of the commission MSTU 2025 tentative budget. I second that. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Thank you for the picture. Say what district that's in. Good morning, Mr. Chair, Commissioner. Susan Corris, Office of Community Development. As you can see, we did have a positive change, 9.77%. That is due to increased health insurance costs, FRS, and salaries, which are all conditions that we really don't have a lot of control over. Our regular operating budget has remained the same other than that change. As far as FY25 goes, the Office of Community Development, as you all know, oversees the CRA, Martin County Art and Public Places, and Historic Preservation Programs. The CRA, for example, continues to redevelop public spaces, streetscapes, infrastructure all over the community, and thanks to the support and perseverance of this commission in FY25, we're going to see El Camino taking shape, which will be very exciting, and Golden Gate, and as well as some other large redevelopment projects in New Monrovia, Rio, and Hope Sound. Art and Public Places is going to be adding some sculptural book benches to the library in Hope Sound, as well as a mural, specifically for Commissioner Jenkins. It's going to be a surprise. It's going to be a surprise. In Port Salerno, we're going to be adding a mosaic relief, as well as some new wayfinding signage, and looking at a new temporary exhibit for the gazebo in downtown Stewart, so that should be exciting. We planned in FY24 to upgrade our communications, and that was between all three, CRA, AIPP, and HPB, and we did start the development of that in 2024, and for fiscal year 2025, we will start implementation of that. We've actually already started that in several ways. All three of our websites have undergone facelifts, so hopefully you'll get to take a look at that sometime soon. Our current planned and completed capital projects, all of our new programs and initiatives and events, are all going to be represented through a sustained communications package, if you will, and that's going to roll out digitally and in print as well. So we are going to be implementing our three-touch strategy for all 62 of our public meetings, and that's so that we can strengthen our communications with all of our volunteer boards and committees and our public outreach to the community. So we are excited about fiscal year 2025, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Commissioner Smith. It's just a general comment, and it's really not the time necessarily to go into a long conversation about it, but I assume you all received correspondence from Knight Kiplinger on the settlement architect issue going on, and I think that there is a crossover between that conversation and the CRA program, and so at some time in the future, I'd like to have an agenda item that would discuss the settlement architect concept and how it would apply to our CRA but also apply to a new field. That's it. And other than that, move tentative approval of the FY 2025 Community Development Department's tentative budget. Wrong. I'm going to go with Commissioner Smith. Motion by Commissioner Smith. Seconded by Commissioner Campy. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. County Attorney. Good morning, members of the board. Sarah Woods, County Attorney. I'm happy to show you that we have an 8.5% decrease. We are a small but mighty office, of which I'm extremely proud. We currently have five attorneys and one support personnel. So those of you who are familiar with the office in the past, we are significantly reduced, but I do not believe that that decreases the quality of our legal representation. It's always been my goal to provide you the highest quality legal service, much like any private law firm. So our decreases due to salary and positions, not our operating expenses, have remained flat. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Commissioner Smith. Quit pushing the button. I'm sorry? Quit pushing the button because I keep having to turn it off. Well, that way, though, you would. Yeah. Go ahead. No, I just, I agree with Ms. Woods. We are very fortunate to have the two individuals sitting over to my right, to everybody in the audience who's left. We have, we have, we are very fortunate, I think, to have the leadership that we have both in our legal department and in our administration department. So with that, I would have moved tentative approval for the county attorney's 2025 tentative budget. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Heddington. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries unanimously. Fire Rescue. Chief. Good morning. For the record, my name is Chad Chanchuli, Fire Chief, Martin County Fire Rescue. And to my right is the infamous Matt Resch, Fire Rescue Administrator, who just came back from vacation, and he is well, well refreshed. So I'd like to talk about our budget for FYI, tentative budget for FY25. First, I want to start with our FY24 adopted budget, which was $58,883,345. And our FY25 tentative budget is $66,350,658. And that's an increase of 12.68%. So let's break that down. First, I want to talk about some of the budget considerations. Our increased electrical costs have gone up 31% this past year. Our increased water and sewer costs, 56%. And then we have our increased, just our contract for services, treachery maintenance, alarm monitoring, AC contract, all those types of services has also substantially gone up over this past year. But let me talk about the lion's share of the 12.68%. That is the contract that we negotiated with the Firefighters Union. And I want to break that down a little bit. When we were in negotiations, we had two major problems in fire rescue. We had a recruitment issue, and we had a retention of experienced employees. And in there, it caused us to do a deep dive in negotiations of why those issues were like that. When we talk about a classification of the firefighter paramedic, what I want you all to understand is that is the most well-sought-out position in anywhere in the nation. That is a utility player for any organization. So when you find somebody that's experienced, Martin County was termed into a prime picking ground for experienced employees. And that's a huge cost that we can't afford. So as we deep dive into that contract and we were looking for the glaring issues, what we found was the compensation side of our firefighters here and departments south of us. And it was such a discrepancy in compensation that we had to address it. So in this contract, what we did is we closed the distance on those salaries. We do not pay what they pay down south. It's not the intent. It's not what we're looking to do. However, we have got to be competitive in the marketplace. So after we created some upper mobility in addition to that in the contract so a new employee can come here and then they can forecast themselves for the next 30 years to be a Martin County Fire Rescue employee, those made the difference. So we ratified that contract. You approved that contract. I'm here to tell you today we no longer have a recruitment issue. We have quality people coming now to work at Martin County Fire Rescue that are able to meet the standard that we provide to the community. And our retention issue, we do not have that mass exodus anymore. This is something that is truly manageable today. So I'm going to switch gears a little bit. I want to talk about overtime last year. Last year, our overtime, we were trending roughly $3 million in overtime. Why? Well, the reason was the increase of the demand from the community on the 911 system. To maintain the level of service that we have today, that we pride ourselves in, I had to put more trucks on the road to meet that demand. The problem is I didn't have the personnel to do it. So we had to staff them 100% with overtime. Problem was overtime was at an unsustainable rate, and the wear and tear on the labor force was also unsustainable. So we came before the board. We made a request for 20 additional full-time employees. We onboarded those employees. We trained them. They got them out in the street. They're in the operation. And as of today, we are trending now in overtime savings alone roughly $2 million. That's your return on investment with some of the decisions we made along the way. But in closing, what I want to kind of cap off with is our operating budget. Our operating budget has essentially stayed flat. We've only gone up 0.6%. And what that has demonstrated with our organization is the fiscal responsibility of the tax dollars that we are responsible for. So with that, I just wanted to cover the FY24, the issues that we had along the way, and what brought us into the FY25 tentative adoptive budget. So with that, I'll be more than happy to take any questions. Commissioner Campy. Thank you, Chief. When you say wear and tear on your personnel, can you explain what that actually means? Some folks might not know what that means. Well, we were at the point where we were running so much overtime that we had to what we call as mandate overtime. The workforce was tired of working. We work standard 24-hour shifts. When you take overtime, that 24 hours turns into 48 hours on the job, away from your family, working nonstop on these trucks because they are turning nonstop. If I cannot fill that seat when an employee goes home from their normal shift, I cannot shut that truck down. So essentially what I'm telling someone at that station is you can't go home. You have to work. The employees were no longer accepting voluntary overtime, and we were mandating on a regular basis, forcing them to stay at work for 48 hours. So beyond the concept of paying people what the market rate or our version of the market rate will be, wouldn't you say that that's another reason that beyond the paycheck someone that's – you know, you work 24 hours. In your mind, you're expecting to, like, hey, I'm going to go home. I've got something to do. And then all of a sudden administration says, yeah, sorry, you're going to work another 24 hours. That can't be good for morale. So you had to knock that down. In Western Palm City, Stuart West and Cobblestone, your team recently, your department recently combated a brush fire out there. Can you explain a little bit about how a – and obviously you can't prepare for whatever any day could potentially bring you. But those bigger issues, I know that I have spoken to residents that lived out there and said, you guys have done a remarkable job. Can you share with folks that might not be familiar with what that was like? It's recent. What level of manpower, equipment, how long were you out there? That's an overtime punch, right? It's an overtime punch. But really just think about the operation itself. It was an urban wildland interface where you had a brush fire that was near residential homes. That is something where when you get on scene, you have to make some quick, decisive decisions. And if you're wrong, you are losing structures and the potential of losing lives. That's where we talk about experience. And it's unfortunate. I can't take a day one firefighter, throw them on the street, have minimum training, put them on a truck, and expect them to make decisions like that. It's just not going to happen. You're going to have negative outcomes. That's where you have our experienced officers on scene. They understand about the evacuation. They understand the wind direction. They understand what additional resources to call. They understand how to operate with forestry. They understand how to operate with law enforcement. They know how to actually develop a unified command, get all of the important people to talk in one area, to make a collective decision, and make immediate action. That's the difference it makes with people that are experienced that are able to do something like that. But essentially, that's what had taken place out there on that day, and that's why we had no loss of structures. Yeah, and I appreciate that. I can just imagine when either the sheriff or your department, if you have a day that doesn't go to that, the outcry, rightfully so, from our residents that would say, what happened? Had you lost structures there? So I appreciate that very much, and that's why with what Ms. Murley had said about her dollar example there, when 61 percent, 64 percent of our budget is the sheriff's office and fire rescue and emergency management, there's no opportunity for failure because it's either loss of life or loss of people's property. So I appreciate it. Thanks. Commissioner Smith. Chad, as always, thank you. I think something else that bears maybe a little bit of conversation is the call load and how much that has increased. I think last time we had that conversation with you, you used maybe Salerno. Was Salerno the highest call load? That's correct. Salerno, we used the stretch going back to 2009. That's when we first applied for a state for grant to get an additional add to the workforce. And we've gone up well over 100 percent in just that area of Martin County. Back in 2009, Port Salerno was one of the busiest in the county. But the interesting part is in the nation, it was ranked in the top 20 of how busy that area was. So that gives you a little bit of perspective of 2009 versus where we sit today. But it is still the busiest zone. And I don't know if you know the number off your head, top of your head, but what is the call load for a station like that? They're running roughly top of my head. I'm going to look back at David. David, you got a number for me? Because I'm clipping about 4,500, I think, a year. Okay. Over 5,000 in just that area alone. And I think to Ed's point and to your point relative to having to staff up and having to be able to have enough capacity to be able to not go into mandatory overtime and not to get your staff to the stress level that they already operate under regular circumstances, it goes to that call load. And when you did the SAFER grant, you know, presentation, those numbers are amazing what you all do pull off. And for that, again, as with the sheriff's department, what you, your department, all do, Matt, welcome back, is nothing short of amazing with what we do give you. And, you know, this is one of those things where residents, unless they go maybe through CARES and they get to see really the inner workings of all the things that you all do behind the scenes, just like the sheriff's department. So much of what happens, residents will never have the faintest idea of what it takes to make all these things happen, whether it's a fire out in cobblestone and all of what you just went through in a very quick 30-second coordinated effort that has to happen and everything has to happen perfectly. It does. And we really appreciate it. And you guys do a fantastic job and really, really, really great stuff. Thank you. Motion to accept. Second. Okay, we have a motion by Commissioner Campy, seconded by Commissioner Smith. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. If I just may say one more thing, because the sheriff is departing as his last year here. We have been working, you know, it's about inside baseball with the sheriff's department and with fire rescue. We are a public safety chain, two links. We both have to be in the same page and in the same strength. I'm telling you now, public safety, people, I know they don't realize until they use us. It is one of the best agencies right here in Martin County, and I don't think people recognize it. Our law enforcement, they're top-notch. Our fire rescue people, they are top-notch. And public safety collectively, you come to Martin County, you are well taken care of. And I just wish the public could have a better understanding of that, but that comes from the heart. I've lived here for over 30 years now, and I've raised my children here, and we're safe to be here. But, Chad, the opposite of that, honestly, is if you weren't doing it, if we didn't have that coordinated effort, people would be off the chart over it. And, you know, it's the frustrating part because all that does happen behind the scenes that nobody really ever sees or ever knows, they never will. But there is a high level of expectation that it has to happen, and you guys pull it off all the time. It's great. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you, sir. And with that, it is – that's for Parks and Rec. You're on. Okay. Welcome back to our 2025 budget workshop. And now we will do general services. Good morning. Sean Donahue, general services director. Our budget is proposing a 6.28% increase to a total of $11,722,552. We tried to make adjustments internal to our budget, moving funds around to take care of small problems, but the bigger problems are hitting us pretty hard. Electric went up, as the chief said earlier. All utilities went up. We have cost increases pretty much across the board. Landscaping, as we just rebid last year, we went with the lowest bid by $150,000. Unfortunately, the landscape costs went up about $116,000 across the board. Custodial went up about $15,000. Property leases, another thing out of our control, went up about $54,000. We did – we are anticipating taking on three new projects, opening three new projects this coming year. That will generate about another $150,000 worth of expenses to take on those projects. That's the K9 facility, the boot camp gym, and the marine ops center. So those will all come on pretty soon. Utility costs, like I said, went up. Paper and cleaning supplies, we're anticipating cost increases just based on use, based on tracking our usage. So that went up about $43,000. So with all that, all of that's out of our control. What we have done – and this is just a bump to the department – we've processed about 10,500 work orders to date this year, comparatively about 7,500 last year. So the use, the requests that were satisfying for the county has been huge. And that's all dedicated to – that's all on Terry William and his crew behind me, as well as Christian Mechanic processing all the work orders. We double process them because we do the RFSs and work orders at the same time. So that's basically $21,000 work orders, or $21,000 work orders a year. Could you pause for a minute because Commissioner Smith's having a fit. Go ahead. Doesn't get it. But you know why that is, right? Why your work orders have gone up? Because you're good at what you do. Thank you. If you weren't good at it, people wouldn't call you. We're trying to keep the level of service high. I understand. That's been our goal. That was a compliment. Commissioner Hurd would like to – Yeah, Mr. Donahue, is our landscaping contractor in compliance with their contract? Never. It's abysmal. We have started a new process of checking on them, more than we have in the past. We've done a marginal job, but we're really striving this year to do the checklist after they complete so we can hold them to task, hold them to contract. We're instigating a couple of new techniques of how to keep track of them. It's been tough. Yeah. I agree. I agree. Do we – I'm going to – I know the answer to this, but I'm just going to say it because I helped put the program together. A lot of municipalities, counties require their landscape contractors to be FNGLA certified. That's Florida National – Florida Nursery American Groves Association certification. It is required by DOT throughout the state. And being in the landscape business, I can tell you of the challenges, and I'm sure the challenges of our contractors, which are trying to hire even adequate labor right now and equipment costs and availability and everything that we've heard from every department goes all the way down into the private sector also. So – but I just put a plug in for the certification program. It does elevate potentially the contractor into a little bit more of a professional. Then – anyway, I'll leave it at that. Thank you. You also accepted the lowest bidder, so it's not necessarily – Yeah, that's – but if they were certified, at least, you would have some – They would have charged you more. Yeah. Anyway. But – How long is that contract? Three years with two one-year options. Commissioner Smith. Tentative approval of the General Services 2025 tentative budget. Motion by Commissioner Smith. Seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Growth Management. Mr. Schilling. Good morning, Commissioners. Paul Schilling, Growth Management Director. I'm pleased to be here this morning presenting the FY25 tentative budget. You'll notice, and the focus of this year, and we'll continue our efforts, we've launched the evaluation and appraisal report, so our efforts are focused on getting that mission accomplished. We've scheduled a variety of the chapters upcoming. In fact, we had an item on the 18th of the local planning agency, and from this point further, up until October 22nd, we will – that's our – our focus will be those complaint amendments to be in compliance with state statute. So, just the focus of the budget, there's a 12% increase here. The majority of that's due to salary increases and being competitive in recruitment and retention in the market. We've had vacancies over the past. We're trying to maintain our level of service and trying to go out into the market, and that presents problems with retention and recruitment. So, we're – as Mr. Doherty said, we have a very technical staff, which I'm pleased to represent here today and ongoing. We struggle at times to fill those positions. They're very, very difficult to fill, such as a senior planner or a zoning compliance technician. Those are positions which involve frequent interaction with not only the public, consultants, owners, as well as other departments in this – in the county. So, it takes a certain individual to achieve success in that position and maintain our level of service. So, that's been the focus of that, as well as training and so forth. We put many, many hours into bringing someone into the department and actually training them on our 90 different zoning districts, our six CRA form-based codes. Our new field is new field development, a form-based code. We have many, many applications, and we are the spear – or point of the spear, rather, with respect to all things development. So, we also achieve several thousand customer inquiries from everything that you can think of. So, I would just appreciate your indulgence today. Thank you. Commissioner Smith. I would also suggest that it takes a special person to be able to have their back to the audience when they make presentations to us. Yes. Because you can't see the expressions on people's faces. You guys do a great job, Paul. Thank you. And I can't but also add that your leadership with the department, as well, has been fantastic, and we all appreciate that. Thank you. I don't know if you heard earlier the conversation, but hopefully you can get together with Susan and staff, and we'll have a conversation and an agenda item about a settlement architect at some point. Yes, sir. With that, I would move a growth management's 2025 tentative budget approval. Commissioner Hurd. Yeah. I'm sure that recruitment is difficult. How many vacancies do you have currently? Currently, two. A senior planner within the comprehensive planning division and a senior zoning compliance reviewer. And how are applications to fill those positions? I'm sorry? How are the applications to fill those positions? They have been unsuccessful thus far, so we've had to re-advertise them. Thanks. You're welcome. Okay. We have a motion. I will move approval. Do you move to any closer? May I just one more thing? We are going to be presenting an update to the board on August 6th, which we will be looking forward to with respect to current volumes of applications, our current efforts, and so forth and so on. Good. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. And on behalf of my team, my wonderful team, thank you. Thank you. IT. Hi. Good morning. Good morning. So here we go. My first six weeks in the position, and I'm here asking for something from all of you. There you go. Aren't you glad you accepted? There's a reason for that. So to begin with, I actually have two of our managers with me that are part of some of the requests that we have, fielding any questions. I might not be the expert in that you have for us. So we have the tentative budget with an increase of 2.39%. With that, we are asking for a new vehicle and cyber security position. Do you have questions ahead of me sharing anything about this role or why I'm asking for it? I can share with you vehicle, for example. We have three desktop staff members, and those staff members share the workload of over 75-plus buildings where technology are that we support. They also handle the desktop replacement program. So as we have over 1,500 desktops, and I might be lower than where we actually are, plus iPads, we actually have to configure them and then go in the vehicles and go to the site to replace them. They have one vehicle now, and when they're at that site, whether it's a call to deliver hardware that comes here or go there, they get called for an emergency. And with the amount of technology we have, it's frequent, two to three tickets a day, they might have to leave that site. So when they do that, everybody goes. So that person can't stay, come back, because they don't always know what they're going to go and encounter when they go to the sites and they get a call, a priority call. I mean, you may have experienced it yourself when your computer or your technology is not working. That's what that staff does. They are deployed in the field. You see them more than anyone else in IT, probably. So we're asking for the vehicle to help be more efficient with the request. And we normally have three staff, and that's been hard to fill. And we are back down to two as of last week with a staff member leaving. So, again, we're in some sense doing more with less, meaning staff are going out into the field with separate vehicles and getting more done versus planning their days and possibly not being able to be in more place than once at a time. As you know, our county buildings are all over the place. Technology is everywhere in every business. We also do, on the weekend, we provide support, too, if there's connectivity issues. And there's times when they have to get deployed. So that's with the vehicle. Do you have any questions about the vehicle request? Okay. So onward with the cybersecurity request for a new position. I have to say, with my new position in the past six weeks, plus when I was in the acting role, I was alarmed to learn how much work the staff are doing out of their field of expertise. Many of them are jumping in from these two managers behind me. Their staff are doing exactly what Heather and Tim a couple weeks ago now shared about staffing. They're getting burned out. They're working sometimes on weekends. Whenever we get alerts, we have great tools. We had an assessment done. We have great tools. And thank you so much for allowing us to invest in those tools for cybersecurity, for alerts, for logs. What we're missing is the people to watch those logs all day, to follow up on the alerts, to work with other staff to be able to go and defend and stop and prevent. And that's what the goal is. We need eyes on this information. We need somebody that's going to coordinate the efforts of other staff so everybody has focused attention when there is an alert, when there is something that requires us to basically investigate further. Just in the past nine months, there have been three incidents that luckily I haven't had to bring to your attention or we've been able, I've actually brought to George and we've gotten permission to do things. You may recall when you all had to change your password and it was sudden at the end of the day for Citrix login. And that was because of what they call vulnerability, a threat actor, that we did identify and have to resolve. And there's been some other ones that are technical in nature, so I won't go into those. But we've been very lucky. And that's pretty much the trend. We were at a conference last week called Florida. It's FLAGISA. It's full of government, information technology departments, CIOs. Everybody there agrees they've been lucky. And those that were not lucky became lucky after because then there was the investment in the cybersecurity due to the cost of having to recover and the downtime. Now, although we're not able to say we're saving lives with focused attention, it's not a solve everything, just as adding more police officers with crime isn't a solve everything. But it does allow us to maybe get ahead and prevent and not have to respond and recover, which is extremely costly in so many areas. It's because the services that everybody in this county government provides are not able to be, you know, you heard it this morning. Everybody's more technology. It's in the hands of everyone. Okay, I'm going to stop rambling. Mr. Hurd. Yeah, after listening to the sheriff this morning talk about when he took office 12 years ago, the department that he inherited was antiquated and needed an awful lot of investment. I suspect that Ms. Sinclair is inheriting a department that's underfunded. Our technology needs have increased so much over the last five years, and I think that we're going to be facing an enormous investment. So I'm happy to approve an additional person and a vehicle. You know, whatever you need, I think that we're going to have to be very quick. As you say, you don't want to react. You don't want to recover. You want to prevent is exactly right. I happened to be traveling on Friday, and it was miserable, just miserable, because of a software update that sent the globe into a tizzy. And it took me 22 hours to get here from St. Louis, and I consider myself very lucky, because there are still people trying to get here from St. Louis. I flew in from L.A. It took 25 hours to get home, wide awake for the 25, because it's not like you're sleeping somewhere. And in LAX, it was cash only in the terminal. So, so much for giving up cash. So we need to make whatever investment is necessary in IT, we need to make sure that we do it. I was at Hope Sound, and it took me 10 minutes to get home. No rental cars in Atlanta, no hotels, and I've just heard Delta is still canceling flights today. Yeah, my daughter got stuck. I wasn't feeling bad, because she was on a lovely vacation somewhere. Mr. Smith. I think you touched on it, and I think everybody just touched on it in their own way. But at the end of the day, none of our systems function without you. It just, every aspect of what this county does, from fire rescue to the sheriff's department, to legal, to growth management, every single aspect of everything we do in here functions as a result of the IT department that's been built over the last 25 years, 30 years. And the idea of the challenges that you have coming at you, 24 hours a day, is enormous. And so whatever it takes to keep Martin County safe and operating, I think this board will support it. And you're doing a great job. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Hurd, seconded by Commissioner Campy. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. PetSmart was down, too. Library. Well, I was super delayed. A friend said, yeah, well, Starbucks, I couldn't get my coffee. I'm like, not the same thing. Not the same. Good morning, Commissioners. Jen Sallis, Library Director. For our FY25 tentative budget, we were asking for a 3.48% increase to maintain current level of service. I did include a picture on my slide. This was a recent story time at the Blake Library, where 155 young children and their parents attended. Our typical story times in previous years have averaged around 30 to 40 children and their parents. So this is our new level of service. And while I'm thrilled that people are using the library, it has been a struggle on our current level of staffing. But looking forward to FY25, we are going to be supporting the Centennial Celebration with our Martin Digital History Project. To date, we have digitized over 5,000 photographs and other documents, which are now all publicly accessible. And it was a huge collaboration with our nonprofits in the historical industry. We are going to continue creating services for our neurodivergent population. That's part of our long-range services plan. And we are also going to be exploring artificial intelligence, different potential uses. We did do a soft launch on our libraries portion of the county website for an AI chatbot. So if you go on to any of the library pages, you'll see in the bottom right-hand corner a little bubble that pops up that says chat with us. This is kind of a pilot project to see if it could be expanded out to other county departments. It's in a way to use technology to help answer the easier questions and then have our staff be able to work on the more intricate programs and services. Happy to answer any questions you might have. Mr. Hurd. Yes, Ms. Salas, is this reading program, is this the new normal? Is 150 kids instead of 30? Yes. We, at the Robert Moorgate Library, we're about 80 to 90 participants. Well, you know, literacy is extremely important. Do you need to add new programs? We need more staffing to be able to add more programs because we're at capacity right now. Thanks. Move tentative library 2025 tentative budget. Second. Motion by Commissioner Smith. Seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Parks and Recreation. No, I'm in a park. Maybe not. Good choice of a picture. Yeah. Good morning. I'm Kevin Abate, Parks and Recreation Director. Our budget is mainly comprised of increases in revenue. A few months ago, we did add the budget for the hitting bays and restaurant to the golf course. And the hitting bays, which are doing quite well today financially, I mean, collectively together, those two facilities are up net revenue at $728,000. I thought it would slide down, but they're doing quite well. So mainly, actually, all of our amenities are doing quite well. But the revenue, the increases in expenditures and revenues show the majority of the increases in our cost and revenue. And also, we have some revenues that are, some expenditures are increasing, like FP&L, repairs and maintenance, similar to every department that you've heard. So generally speaking, things are going very well for the department. It's our budgets. I would call it a flat budget, but it's not exactly flat. But in terms of our service levels, they are the same, and things are going quite well. So if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Thank you. You have a public on parks, don't you? Yeah. Does anybody have any questions? I will on that side. Okay, we do have a public speaker, Sharon McGinnis. Thank you for taking the time to take my comments. My comments are specifically geared towards the fact that we are running, you know, private enterprises at our beach and our golf course. Now, the golf course itself I think should maintain on the county, but in relation to the conversation, we just have an information technology. We understand that point of sales is a large part of information technology and a large drain on our IT department to maintain those things. And the turnover within the service industry, the restaurant supplies, obviously hiring and firing and getting people on board. I really think that the parks and recreation should not be running restaurants. They should turn that over to the private sector. If someone gets hurt in one of those restaurants, an employee, the liability that comes to Martin County is something I don't think we can absorb. And I also think that we do not need to spend millions of dollars to create a better wedding venue. I don't know how many people come to Martin County to get married, but you can see by our demographics, we're mostly people who are already retired or some families. And I just don't see that's a waste of our money. But the amount of strains is put on our public departments with IT and personnel and food service. We are not restaurant people, and we don't need to be running restaurants. And so I would hope that you guys would take that into consideration and turn it over to the private sector. Thank you. Thank you. And with that, Commissioner Smith. Kevin, you want to explain a little bit about how we run our restaurants? Oh, absolutely. Well, I think it would be appropriate. I have a little one-page presentation. I could just show you how well we're doing relative to, Don, if you could pull it up, just our assets and just kind of more of how we're doing. As you can see here, relative to the cafes. So we have two beachside cafes. And as of today, or we ran the numbers this morning, those cafes are performing quite well. They're at $379,000 in net revenue. We opened up the Seaside Cafe a few years ago. It was run by the private sector previously to that. And the facility was running to the ground, similar to the Jensen Beach facility, which we're doing some planning now. So since we took over the cafe and reimagined it, that cafe is now approaching, as of today, $1.4 million in net revenue. And that's all in expenses. All of our point-to-sale systems and software are all part of that puzzle. They're all expensed out. So there are no tax dollars at all in any of these facilities, any subsidies being taken. Because we are focused on the overall mission of profitability and trying to run like a business. So relative to the cafes, and it's actually every facility that you see on there, our model is that if we can eliminate subsidies and over time, which is what we're doing, be able to build up a reserve fund. These are allocations that are set aside for repair and maintenance. We believe the sustainability of all of these assets, unlike how they were historically, including the campground, including the golf course and the cafes, will have a great funding source for the future. And our focus is that we build up these funds over time, not burden the taxpayer. Repair and maintenance goes back into it. And the way that we're trending now, you know, we're trending now at $1.5 million in net revenue. I don't think it's going to slide too much. We're going to see an increase that in many, many years from now, and when the hard times hit, you know, if we build these models, we are 49% of our total budget of that $19 million, 49% of our budget is revenue. The rest of the country with a similar size county, they're at 22%. So we're trying to cover all these expenses, every one of them, every single position that we have is funded through all these different sources. So we're funding the procurement side and the management side so that we are ultimately very, very successful. So it's going to take many, many years to get the model right, and the economy of scale amongst all of these business operations that you see are part of that, the way we're able to keep them looking good all the time. We have one person who works 40 hours a week. He's outsourced and contracted. And that person, for example, pressure washes these facilities every single day. Of all these facilities, there are only a handful of full-time accounting employees. Every single position is outsourced. So when you look at this model here, I could argue with anyone and say we are really privatized, but what we're really focused on is keeping our eyes on the overall look and feel, the customer service, and the finances of these facilities and how we spend money. And Stephanie knows me for 14 years here as a director. I'm very stingy when it comes to spending, and my team is very frugal when it comes to spending. I get in trouble a lot for asking questions about how we could save money and buy things certain ways. And so we're very smart about how we do things. So I think to kind of, you know, the operations of, for example, like the water park is midseason, is the most complicated facility that we operate. It is the most complicated because of the intensity of 130 lifeguards and staff and complex filtration systems. And, you know, we've hosted state championships swimming and diving for over 10 years. And that's generated, you know, over $20 million to the economy with all these swim meets. And we use this great model where the water park pays for these great recreational swimmers. So these all, some have difficulties in operations, some don't, but in terms of its administration and operations, we do a really nice job. And I think that's kind of, to our credit, why we are accredited amongst all parks divisions in the country. And there's over 13,000 publicly funded agencies, and less than 1% are accredited. And we do because I'll be in parks 40 years this August. And I've never seen such a vibrant department how well we run based on what we have. I mean, our cost per acre and what we spend money on is about 4,500 an acre. The rest of the country is spending almost 8,000 an acre, median level, just to operate their parks. But we're doing more with less, and this is a great efficiency. And so these facilities, cafes, beaches, water parks, these are what people want, and they're recreating, and they're having a great time. And, you know, we've got great reviews, and I'm really, really proud of what we've accomplished and all the things that we've done and bring to this community. Can I keep going? You're done. Mr. Dawson. I was just going to reiterate when Kevin spoke about the employees and our contract. It is a public-private partnership in that, and we work with an entity that contracts with all the employees, that they cover the workers' compensation for them along with some other benefits, insurance, and other things that offer to them. Most of them are part-time workers or hourly rate workers, and so our staff aren't burdened with the recruiting and all of that for them. So it is really contract. We specialize in the management of the oversight of the operation and the planning, and the private sector employment agency provides us with the staff and deals with them if they're not performing. And we – and just like – so that – so it's really a hybrid. I wouldn't say that, you know, we're not – these aren't all county-run facilities. They're county-managed and operated with private sector employees. Commissioner Smith. So I'll elaborate a little bit about our beach facilities. Over the last 30 years, a long, long time ago when I used to work at the Elliott, the contract that we had out there that ran the old cafe was horrible. Nobody went out there and ate lunch. Nobody enjoyed it. We used to have a contract a long, long time ago with our beach chair concession where they were really running a drug business out of the beach chair. And I don't know how many beach chairs they actually rented out, but they ran a lot of drugs out of it. Our family goes out almost every weekend. We were out there this past weekend. We rented some beach chairs and some of the clamshells. There's a young gentleman out there, could not be nicer, more professional, working his tail off in the heat. Our staff out there, whether they're a contract or whether they're our staff, they are great. And at the end of the day, it's a safe, clean experience and good food that people enjoy. And there are all sorts of Stewart, Jensen Beach, Palm City people that come and enjoy those facilities that never, ever came to the beach before and never came out to enjoy them. And I would argue on this issue at all costs that these are our public park facilities. And our public has an expectation that they should be clean, they should be safe, run well, and that the product that they're enjoying is as good as it can be. And I think that's what we give them. And by virtue of how many people go to Stewart Beach and how many people go to Jensen Beach and use those facilities, and the revenue side of this thing absolutely verifies how successful it's been. And it's not costing our taxpayers anything to do it. You know, Kevin, you have built a great model. The campground is remarkable, what has transpired thus far out there. All of what we went through for years with the golf course and its ups and downs and what you've been able to achieve out there and produce out there is fantastic. And so, like our other departments, I am incredibly proud of our parks department and what you deliver to our community and our public. It's really a great thing. And if anybody were to have gone back 30 years ago and seen what was going on sometimes at our public beaches versus what it is today, it's night and day in terms of what we deliver in service. So thank you very much. Okay. With that. Move down to approval. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Hurd. Seconded by Commissioner Smith. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Hey, Kevin, can you wait one minute? Kevin, can I bring up Pandarvis Cove now, or do you want to do that, like, at the end of the day? I mean, now that Parks is sitting here? Do it now. Well, now that you've started, you might as well keep going. So I don't know if you all got communicated to, but I've had a handful of communications from some residents over the last couple weeks about Pandarvis Cove and the somewhat out-of-control nature of the non-mooring field that is going on over there and also what's going on in the upland. And, you know, I was talking to Don this morning about it. I guess I didn't know this, that the Water Management District owns it, and we lease it from them, or we have an agreement with them to manage it. But at some point, again, in the future, it would be good to have a conversation, I think, as to what should happen with Pandarvis Park and Pandarvis Cove and a mooring field and whatever else is happening over there. And, Ed, I don't mean to be jumping in in your district, but I just thought it was an opportunity I would throw it out there. Sure. So we can talk to the district about it, and we can schedule an update for you all, and we can talk about possible future actions. Commissioner Campy. That's all due respect to my colleagues. First, I'm hearing, obviously, we don't speak to each other. We're not allowed about things we could potentially vote on. I've been working with a couple of very concerned Martin County residents on, I guess, cats out of the, a cat is interesting, cats out of the bag for a dog park. Some folks had brought me over there to take a look at Pandarvis Park as a potential dog park. It's something that I think the county is lacking, and the Palm City residents have wanted for a long time. We've had a couple of starts and stops. Mr. Abate and I worked on it in 2011, so 13 years ago. And, you know, to have the space that could be appropriate for a dog park, that wouldn't adversely affect surrounding neighbors, that had amenities that would not have to be purchased or constructed, someone brought me there to take a look at Pandarvis Park, and it actually would be an excellent location for a dog park. There's a public-private partnership involved. There's a group of people called Barkin' for a Park that have been having fundraisers and golf tournaments and raising money for years and have accumulated a decent sum of money. They've also been able to network with contractors and suppliers for the necessary equipment and materials to build a dog park that would have nearly a zero deficit to taxpayers to build it. Donation of turf, donation of fencing, donation of the equipment and the, you know, the exercise and the recreational equipment. Yes, Commissioner Smith's correct. We've been in a long-term lease with the South Florida Water Management District for that property. It used to be a very long-term lease, and then it was set to expire several years ago. And I think Jeff Daugherty was in real property at the time, and we were – he saved us from having the South Florida Water Management District take the property back. But we went to a basically – correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Abate – an annual lease, a one-year lease at a time. I don't recall the term. Something similar to that, if I remember correctly. We did have some of our staff engage the South Florida Water Management just in a preliminary conversation on what did they think about a dog park there. Now, if you've been there, there are plenty of people that are walking their dogs because it's a quiet little park in Palm City that is not nearly utilized to the level that it could be. I guess some people are utilizing it outside of the scope of what we would want them to out in the water. I'm speaking specifically on land. Apparently, though, they're sharing it. Yeah. Well, and that being said, part of the reason that that situation is able to take place is that it was an underutilized and undervisited site. Had it been more active, had it been more engaged where people are coming and going, kind of nefarious and, you know, illegal or whatever the type of activities that are taking place there, it would be a lot harder to accomplish if it was an active, highly utilized location. So South Florida Water Management District was concerned that since they were operating on an annual lease basis, they didn't want to get involved necessarily with a park, a dog park. Being friends with Drew Bartlett, having known him in his previous positions, I had an opportunity to speak to him sort of very briefly about the concept of it, and he was not opposed. It would require additional conversation, so I didn't know that there were other outside conversations happening. So that is what has been my focus with a group of residents to utilize a perfect, in my opinion and others, a perfect location that would require very little community or not community, taxpayer expense to create a not like a bandaged solution to, hey, we need a dog park, an excellent solution to we need a dog park. And now that we've had the conversation, I normally would have brought it forward with a more formalized vision. We would have met. We would have met. But that being said, I want to make sure that that is absolutely in the foreground. Maybe it can be a hybrid of some other issues that have to take place there. The concept, and for people that have the ability to drive through there, you pull into this winding entranceway. It's tucked in the back, obviously on the river. And then there's a very well-maintained restroom facility. It looks almost brand new. It's either new or it's highly maintained. We just remodeled it. Beautiful. And then it goes around in a big, long kind of parking, like a parking driving loop with all parking around it. I'm speaking of the center of the parking loop, of the drive loop, is large enough to literally be a very effective dog park. And so there you go. Surprise. Sounds like an agenda item to me, but that's all I was going to say. That's all I was asking for is that we get an agenda item. And I don't think anything of what you said is in conflict of the other issue at all. No, I don't know what your issue is. No, the mooring field or the lack of is out of control from what I'm being told. And what they're transferring up to the upland is out of control. Okay. And so the question is, can we do something about it and didn't really understand the relationship of the water management district? And so maybe we can bring back an agenda item. Parks was here and done. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Goodbye. Did we? We already did it. Yeah. On the parks. Yeah, that was like a half hour ago. Okay. Public works. Mr. Gordon. Good morning. Jim Gordon, public works director. Um, for our fiscal year 25 budget, we have an increase of 4.14%. Um, some key considerations are we've merged two of our programs, two of our very, very high performing programs, which was the ecosystems restoration program and the coastal, um, program. And the reason we put those two together is because we have, um, very skilled scientists and water quality professionals. And a lot of the problems that they face in their programs, for example, coral, um, a lot of those problems are water quality based. So we thought by combining those two groups together, we'd have that skill set to better tackle a lot of the challenges that we, that we face. Um, we also are doing some reorganization internally on our administrative side and just moving some of our admins underneath the administration division to better serve the public and to increase customer service. Um, and then the last thing is, um, we have some minor adjustments for increased maintenance. So as we have new sites that are added, an example is the Ryo bioswale project that we teamed up with the Office of Community Development on. Um, as we add those sites, we have to then pay a contractor to, to maintain them. So, uh, so you'll see those increases in the, in the budget as well. The last increase is, um, significant increase is for our engineering services. Uh, we have brought on a third party reviewer for times when we have a lot of, uh, applications to review. Um, it, it really helped us catch up. We had over a six month backlog and I'm happy to say, you know, eight, nine months later, we are now caught up and, and having that resource. We don't need the extra bodies in house, but we can use that resource instead of upstaffing. We'll just bring them in, catch back up and then move forward. So those are the big increases that, that you'd see. And with that, um, do you have any questions? Mr. Smith. Uh, no questions. Just a standard comment. Jim, you, you and your department do an amazing job. Whenever we call and ask, it gets done and it's almost always seamless. And again, the public, generally speaking, doesn't know because they shouldn't have to know, but things get done and they get maintained and you, you all do a remarkable job. Um, so with that, I would move tentative approval of the public works 20, 25 and I would echo those. And maybe it's because what you do is similar to what I've done my whole career. Um, but, um, you do an, um, you and your staff do an amazing job and, um, and the public recognizes it because I hear it all the time. Um, for the projects that you and I are, or George or somebody does, uh, the interaction of your staff and the professionalism, um, I get quite a bit of accolades for that. So, with that, we have a motion by Commissioner Smith, seconded by Commissioner Hetherington. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Technology investment plan. I don't know why that wasn't back when we had you here before, but here we are. Okay. Well, the first one was practice. Oh, okay. Thank you. Oh, she's no longer new now. She's already done. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Experienced budget person. Okay. Yes. Um, hello again, and, um, we're, we're, we're presenting our budget plan for the next year with an increase of 8.63%. Um, with that, our budget considerations include establishing a long-term replacement program to plan for the existing county technology infrastructure investments. Um, some of those include investing in cybersecurity systems. Um, and then it includes the contractual changes due to technology purchases throughout the county with, um, you know, to keep business going and the maintenance renewals that do increase from year to year. Um, do you have questions ahead of this? I can tell you, um, I can tell you, you know, we have nine programs. Um, you know, there's many within here. Some of them are for cybersecurity, um, monitoring and management of our radio system, which is critical for the sheriff's office, fire rescue, steward, fire and, um, police. um alerting improving alerting systems data backup and multiple programs for replacement planning wherever we see systems that are going to be need to be replaced we're establishing smaller amounts of money for these programs so that we don't have to come and ask you for a huge sum of money to replace it this does includes like the ups um that we you just funded that was a large amount of money and so um the team has developed a replacement program so we're planning ahead for the time when we will replace some of these songs we know that i think your strategy is the appropriate one even from our perspective it's much easier for us to approve small increases over the course of a period of time versus you um thinking you're doing your department and us and the taxpayers a favor by not asking for these numbers and then eventually one day have to come in and ask for a number that's astronomical i'm sure budgeting and management like it that way better in terms of cyber security um obviously i wasn't here last week did we have any adverse effect from that no luckily we did not um and the team here informed me because they're over that um there is a cyber grant program that we have applied for but those that applied for it last year um steve had just informed me we may have been with crowd strike if we applied and got that grant it's a very well known um it's a it's a very good company yeah um these things we we do upgrades all the time with our systems um this just of course is a huge global impact so we're very lucky um again real the real time example or lesson would be um either fail safes or redundancy that's what we kept hearing because it wasn't just an airline industry there were governments it was global there were governments but uh i read that the hospitals in boston had to cancel all sorts of not just selective surgeries but i was listening on the radio yesterday that uh systems in place to give imagine you just had a baby and it had to have a medicine on a special treatment the system was down so now they're going old school for nurses deciding how they give medicine or anybody that was on life support monitoring had to then be physically monitored by a person because the system was down so and then that's part one which is much more sort of current the other issue that i'm finding even at my regular uh job is getting emails phishing emails that look so legitimate and i'll give you an example i have um global entry it's a customs you know immigration and customs card that you can get and mine it's five years and mine said it was getting ready to expire so click on this link now i'm very careful to not click on links i clicked on the link because i was getting ready to expire so how would i know click on it it looks perfect it had my name it had my actual global entry number on there and it said you know 149 for the next five years i enter in my credit card information i it says you know here's your cell phone number i said accurate it sent me a text message with the numbers that you get for that second level of security i typed it in and then my it said payment denied so i switched cards and put another one in thinking how could it be payment denied so i put the debit card in and it came back payment denied thankfully my bank and and my credit card caught that but look i'm pretty savvy and i hear from you what does the regular person do to potentially stop that so then i call and then i call wells fargo and they said please give us your thing and the last four of your social and then it says and your pin something and how deep into the rabbit hole am i going now maybe this is part of the fake so i refuse to do it and then i get a guy on the phone he's like no no i'm really from wells fargo i said yeah but how do i know you're really from wells fargo so what are we doing on our side to because you have thousands of employees at 1100 everyone can access the system now they were coming and luckily none of it happened i had to cancel all my cards and start over but that's not that big of a deal but for us if someone gets into our system and cripples even just the county or takes us what is it hostage or they hijacked the system didn't city of stewart several years ago get hijacked and they had to pay i don't know if they ended up paying i'm not sure what the final outcome was but what are we doing for that um well i can tell you what we we are doing and it comes down to education um we do have a phishing campaign it's going to be running quarterly we just completed one so you all were part of that um with that said we try to stay under the threshold of five percent when our when staff don't pass um which it's like you said it's getting they're getting better and better um then they take another course and another course and then we have um a staff member that will meet with them and kind of go over to help them it's constant education is the only solution we know for that and we ask staff to always if they have anything questioned to forward to the help desk um which i think everyone's familiar with and and please let us know so that we can be sure it's safe um we do have of course and within our organization we have technology which is included in the replacement program also planning to kind of it's it's called proof point but it it actually is our defense for those links so it's it's blocking constantly it's stopping it's putting things so that we can our staff can look into things and protect you um but it's through education is the best best thing that we can offer and it's ongoing we also have um the new employees take and annually we take we all are it's one of the tests that we take one of our annual smile program tests that's a little more intense this year may i make a request maybe for mr donelson that that training if it's more generalized training is that something that could be a link on the home page that we can offer to our residents to run through that same training i know they're not going to get certified or get any kind of you know um i'd have to look into it if we can right now it's a license oh okay so that well something because i don't know if if it's just a set of parents or some individual that lives in our community that doesn't have the ability to do that maybe that's an opportunity and a service that the county can offer its residents and there's a possibility i'm not maybe through the library even the library they offer so many great programs i know my mom attends right but i'm just saying if it was a website based because some people don't go to the library or whatever if we could have that as a thing now i would tell you i get the training and i get the diligence and the being careful but then if any business is trying to conduct legitimate business via the internet which is basically how everyone's doing it now there was no way i could have been more diligent because it was something that was genuinely something that i would be using so short of not sending anything in never responding to an actual email and letting everything you know going back to writing checks and mailing them i don't know how we're going to do it so i'm obviously happy giving you your increase for cyber security and phishing mr donald sounds like a motion yeah no i was just going to say that there's a couple of really important things that eric and her team are working on and and one of them has to do with our um fixed asset replacement far as we've talked about it that um we've had some major you know projects in the past we had the battery backup system and uh and that was uh actually the it staff did a really great job of pulling that one off um brian mass if you remember got us help just get a grant for it um they were all chewing on their fingernails thinking that are we going to get this in time before it collapses so anyway they pulled it off and that was just an example their staff are continuing to look at at that so you may see in the next couple years us trying to get our fixed asset replacement program for all of the really technical hardware which also links to cyber security that you have to have modern hardware and systems to be able to combat the modern things so those are some of the things going on in the background along with their uh consultants that are helping in examining and what we're doing and by the way they're there we have a great team um they too like uh parks and others rely on a lot of consultants as part of their team makeup um uh because as you know getting really smart staff that we have um that you know uh replacing them is difficult so we have it we have a great team and part of that team and success is also having a good consultant team behind them and they and they do a great job so thanks erica and thanks for all your your efforts second zero motion yet motion by commissioner campy seconded by commissioner heard all in favor all right all opposed motion carries unanimously thank you thanks sir utilities yes she has one three agenda items later you back for something yeah where is mr hammers so sam is not uh feeling well so we figure that why in bringing someone who is uh um uh you know not doing well uh that we have our uh micah here and uh team uh are going to present the budget good morning micah gurnowitz utilities financial manager i have with me britney bassett utilities treatment administrator and britney's one of our rising stars in the uh so you'll get a chance to to see one of our you our utilities your name out loud just use your first name uh-huh yes utilities and solid waste tentative budget will be increasing by six percent from sixty one point five million dollars to sixty five point three million dollars the change in the budget is aligned with inflationary pressures on our prices of chemicals operating supplies as well as contractual services we are not asking for any new positions solid waste increased due to garbage collection and disposal rates tonnages and growth um for departmental goals we have we are uh planning to complete the design and permitting of tropical farms water treatment plant expansion as well as continue seeking grants for our septic to sewer conversion program if you have any questions i will be able to answer the financial questions and britney operational any questions for staff you did an excellent job she didn't know she was doing this today on a monday can we have a question please oh great can you without giving us your last name can you come up just for a sec i'm just curious why what's well when don calls you a rising star so how how are we doing on our conversion of septic to sewer where do you know where we are relative to the 10 000 tanks that we hope to get rid of um as far as the 10 000 tanks that we hope to get rid of i do not have the knowledge of that right now um but i would be happy to answer your question no if you did that was great i just want to know what progress we're making and we're about a third i think about i think we've gotten about you know of the system about 3 000 um or 3 500 somewhere in that range that we've had uh yeah that's it thank you welcome by the way just to that point um because srf uh loans are getting harder and harder so if there's anything this board needs to do to help us be more competitive then whether it be letters or enacting engaging our lobbyists because we would still like to be at the top of that um receivership of those srf loans yes and so micah of course is the expert on i'm working with srf as well but in fact uh one of the conversations with uh the village ms chrisda was explaining that their difficulty in getting srf loans is also one of their concerns but um so yes uh to your point we had a conversation with our lobbyists just recently uh and plan to engage uh tallahassee to see what it is we can do both from the agency side and then working with our local delegation to ensure that um um that there's sufficient funds for srf loans i think this last year that the the state appropriated about i think 280 million more for srf loans but if you figure the typical loan is on that order of 10 to 15 million dollars you can see that around the state they're only giving out you know tens and you know maybe 30 loans a year and that may not be enough if you've got you know dade county alone decided they just announced they had over 30 000 tanks along you know the the estuary and things that they need to clean up so i think i think this is one of those areas that um um a longer term strategy from the state and our plan b in the event that srf is not our loan um uh is not a reliable loan source for us to keep up with our our goal we may have to we're going to need to look at a plan b so that's a one of those future issues that's a uh commissioner heathering very important on seeing how getting our fair share as a part of that and uh we've started engaging our lobbies i think to add on to that don and i've had this conversation for years um and at some point i think we need to have a conversation about are we are we doing enough with our lobby program and are we could we be more aggressive with that could we be doing more to be more effective and i'll leave it at that for now but i i my sense is my sense is that there is more that we could be doing um that might put us in a better position or or just expand the capacity of what we're doing so anyway i'll leave it at that but maybe we can have that conversation sometime soon too i'll make a motion for staffs second okay we have a motion by commissioner heatherington seconded by commissioner smith all in favor aye all opposed um our next item is non-departmental 226 million dollar um budget item that's not going to happen in the next seven minutes so i think that would be okay no it will no i there was a item uh within public works that we did not uh um specifically address um and that was under the mpo we did receive a letter from um the uh community transportation coordinator our senior uh for uh senior resource association operates martin community coach uh for the transportation disadvantaged and they had uh requested a three hundred and forty thousand dollar um uh increase in the county's contribution to cover the lack of the match the board had discussed this in a previous meeting um it's not included in the budget it was not included in your tentative budget for for um you do not have to take action at it right now but before the end of this um um uh meeting uh uh it's just you can either take no action and leave it as is or include it thank you they're here so can we do it so that they can go back in your county if that's where they shut my light off i think we should hear from uh i agree with commissioner smith the representatives that handle that program for us are here the folks that might not have heard their presentation a couple of weeks ago this is separate from the marty bus system that people see and have differences i would request that they come forward and give us a brief recap of the situation that we're in and what the our martin county residents this is their their only opportunity for transportation uh to uh potentially life saving treatments that they receive and without this service they won't get it we were very fortunate and we'll hear from our friends in a moment we were very fortunate in the last couple of years to get some large grants that won't be here anymore so imagine telling someone yes you could use the system in the past but next year you can't anymore and but their their ailments and their illnesses weren't magically cured so the need is still there but the opportunity for a ride is gone welcome thank you thank you i'm karen diegel i'm the i'm ceo of senior resource association and we are the ctc for martin county providing the paratransit service and this past year the funding that we had been receiving it was called an innovative service development grant if you recall um we applied for it and um uh we had actually run out our four years we did um apply for a new innovative service development grant and we did not get the full funding like we had other years um we only received um 300 and what was it 370 000 out of the 750 that we had originally so there was significant um decrease and um with that in mind we would like to be able to bring that back up to whole um we're providing about 28 000 trips a year and so with that type of decrease there would be a number of individuals that probably would um only get either uh only get maybe one two trips um a month um we'd have to make decisions it would be up to the local coordinating board who gives us direction but they would have to uh guide us as to who we which trips we would eliminate um and so we're asking for that additional um 340 000 i believe it is to be able to bring it up to whole mr and uh i just want to point out that um uh the county did increase our budget a few years ago to provide the 166 000 that's still there that um uh so it is an increase in service that we've had um prior to this service being in there however obviously with the lack of the grant the the two uh um the the last year service would be reduced um to uh accommodate the change in the budget i think in the future when we get grants like this um um we need to plan for the eventuality of them not being received and um uh and uh and and budget ahead of time to know if we're going to continue the service but um if i might interrupt so anyway thank you um the last few years we've really we've really put a push i think you all know that we've really put a push on the transportation and the need that's in and and i think that's where the um not the issue but the the outcome um we've we've proven martin county needs transportation these individuals um are are in need of being able to have um getting out um eliminate ice eliminate isolation um you know get their groceries just the essential the essential services that they need that anybody needs any of us need and if you were not able to um walk out your door in the morning and go to your garage or your driveway and get in your car and be able to you know come to work or if you were found yourself sick one day and needed to go to the drugstore the pharmacy to pick up some medication because you've got a horrific cold and you know so these these funds that we're asking for i really need it for for your residents commissioner smith so karen i think when we talked about this one i think was was that the mpo that's where we were last time i think it was here it was here at the commission meeting we were giving a report um if we figure out a way to fund this this year what happens next year do you know so the nice part about what we did is this innovative service development grant that we asked for again we do have four years so we got back into the into the process this year at a lower level we can go back again for three more years and i'm hopeful that we'll get a higher amount the next few years so we're back in it again for four years because i think what don is saying is right we need to figure out okay now that we're successful or you're successful um how do we end up dealing with this as we move forward in the future because if if everything goes better we'll be doing more rides and so how do we fund that and what is available to us through federal funds or through mpo funds or whatever whatever resource we can get so um do you have any recommendations on where we would fund this from the only source is general fund out of alarm is where it comes from that's what you're really paying for the 166 so it would be a direct increase to your um general fund or if we took it out of reserve which would come out of general fund right for one time yes yes i'm just you know yes i don't know that i want to tack this into the budget per se um and that's why i'm saying if we do it one time what does that do for us moving into the future and how do we do that commissioner camp can you when you said about uh getting out of the house and things like that how many rides even with the last year's funding this is not like a limousine service for folks how many actual rides and when you say a trip leaving the house to go somewhere is a trip going from that place back home is the second trip how many opportunities to people with the existing funding how many do they get in a month with the existing funding we're at now there it is unlimited for them so they're and it depends on the person so we're not having to we're not having to limit the ridership um whereas if we were if we didn't get the funding we would then have to say okay everyone that is that needs dialysis can because of course we do medical first so the dialysis they could each go there three times a week but then that would limit i think it's two round trip um for the eight with the 880 people that we have currently and we're always adding of course if we limited it would be probably two round trips per month for everyone else that's not dialysis so you're saying you have 880 martin county residents using your services to go to dialysis no go ahead hi i'm chris stevenson i'm the director of transportation we currently have 880 unduplicated clients using martin community coach um so that's everything right for everything that's the they have to go through an eligibility process it's martin county's most vulnerable residents we add about 55 people a month to that because of people applying to to use the service of that number we have about 400 that we trip to dialysis and so what we're saying is in the event we don't get the the funding then we are gonna have to get direction from the local coordinating board about how do we determine how we limit this could we we we did some preliminary uh looking at and we said okay we can still take those 400 people to dialysis three times a week everyone else would be limited to two trips a month so they have to decide okay am i gonna go to the grocery store you know the first and third week of the month and then that really limits their mobility as well as the fact that the 400 that are going to dialysis that's all right they can't they can't take trips to the grocery store correct yes so for 880 people what was the number 348 000 340 my recommendation would be and when you mentioned this last time and don said we would have to mention it today um i think we could get creative on our side and not necessarily take it from reserves or add it to the number that makes our ultimate bottom line goal let's find 340 000 somewhere else in our budget and swap it you give me a list of five six things i'll tell you we could all do it you know we can stop something else that doesn't put our residents at that level i'd rather hold off on a project or scale something back than just add it on to the top that would be my goal i'll help you find it i'm not saying do it magically i'll help we'll help 340 is a very reasonable number i would trade 340 from something else to put it there and i appreciate you coming all the way down to share that with us my position is obviously this is a need but to accept a grant and not have a means of sustaining that once that grant ends i got a problem with two is our last conversation we had at least 30 minutes of trying to think outside the box with micro transportation which i haven't heard at all um this is just nothing aggravates and has nothing to do with you a martin county citizen more than watching these damn marty buses running around with nobody in them this is different i i realize that but it's not the bus marty that whole conversation of of working on marty to be more efficient with micro it we've been talking about that a long time and we've gotten nowhere so i just but i don't want to punish this service for that i'm ready to have that conversation but this service also no this service we had a very long conversation of how this service could be much more efficient that it costs 40 some dollars a ride if i remember correctly or whatever it was and you could do it for you know and we've so anyway i but here's the difference and we're not going to belabor it but here's the difference so people before they go to lunch understand some of these folks are oxygen wheelchairs handicapped you can't call an uber and they're going to show up in a sedan and you're in a wheelchair this is very technical drivers that take these people that are now just coming off of dialysis or chemo it requires a trained driver to understand who your passenger is you can't call an uber for this kind of stuff the marty buses i completely get that is definitely a conversation that can switch over that's just a regular person looking for transportation this is most likely medically necessary i asked for the percentage of amic amicupatory ambulatory ambulatory patients versus and you said you were going to have that number for me yes so we um we sent that uh mr gordon um so are we do about 60 percent of our trips are ambulatory and 40 percent have some type of mobility aid like a wheelchair or a scooter but the ambulatory people that includes people like in walkers who who can't take very large steps and so most of our vendors are in small low floor vans so that they don't have to take very large steps to get into the van uh because they have not 100 so anyway commissioner hetherington i i agree that i think we're in this is the only demand is going to increase in the next couple years because as the economy gets tough on individuals and those that are income um restricted and retired and on social security first things they start to do is give up their vehicles and the price of insurance is increasing but i think just throwing things at it each year is probably not solving the the problem we have other agencies i think in martin county too that are trying to work together so i think if we could do something whether it be a workshop or to look at the issue holistically and see what other agencies are providing what you're providing and how do we address some of the needs of our resident in a more long-term sustainable way i just fear that slapping this in this year is not going to um have the desired impact we want in the future and certainly it's a need but i think we have to think harder at how we're going to solve the problem in the future rather than just try to put a band-aid on it this year agree commissioner hurt yeah well first of all i don't want to take any funding out of reserves um but also i think that we need to at least partially fund this and if it has to come out of general revenues so so be it i'm not i'm not uh convinced that we need to provide three hundred and forty thousand dollars but we need to provide a substantial amount so that these people do have transportation so and i think that that uh sure we need to look long term we need to provide a permanent solution you know in years you know two through four of the grant but right now we have a problem that needs to be solved today and if we if we add another 250 000 to the budget we still have a a millage reduction correct correct is that a motion i'd still prefer to find it somewhere else so we kept the millage reduction is minor i'd not like to shave it off and just take it from somewhere else somewhere else is where 670 million dollar budget i could find you 340 we'll find it i will how about at lunch i'll look i'll get back to you okay you want to postpone that still after lunch well they can go we've gotten the point yeah they live far away wait if we need to i think we'll we'll figure it out one way or the other i think you've made your point so we'll take it from here let's put a pin in it and we'll take it up when we uh come back when are we coming back from lunch let's go back from lunch at uh 1 30 is that okay that's beautiful all right thank you for your consideration very much appreciate that for your turn for now unfortunately um budget workshop whatever we got going on here mr donaldson i understand you have um are ready to let us know well i have a proposal but during the break uh this we had discussions about the transportation disadvantaged program um and uh their their reductions and how to help uh fulfill their the the continuing the service that they provide um commissioner campi i know came when we talked a bit about it and also with stephanie about where in the budget are our areas that we can find and and we do have a lean budget and it's it is hard to find anything that's even 250 000 so um recommendation is is that we um increase the td budget by 150 000 from general fund um and that when we do our fund balance in the mid-year that we have an opportunity to look at perhaps funding the rest of it um in the meantime i know we'll also have some discussions about just transportation and marty and other things between now and and february to kind of have a better chance to have a bigger picture of discussion so that is the recommendation is a 150 000 increase it would go into the mpo's budget for transportation disadvantage and public works um and uh we would take it from uh we just increase our general fund uh contribution by 150 000 and look at uh fund balance when we look at that first of the year yeah so moved second okay any other discussion so we have a motion by commissioner heard seconded by commissioner smith all in favor all opposed motion yes sir are we gonna let are we are we gonna let them know yes okay great thank you absolutely motion passed unanimously okay moving on to non-departmental tentative budget so last but not least is the non-departmental um fy25 tentative budget and what is non-departmental it's it's exactly what it sounds like um it's includes all revenues and expenditures that are either intrinsically county-wide and or not assigned to any specific county department you'll see things such as um our annual audits for the county-wide our other post-employment benefits actuarials um indirect costs grant writing investments and so on um it's broken up into a few different programs you have the general non-departmental risk management economic development the grants and aids and service contracts debt service budgeted transfers and reserves so just looking at non-departmental as a whole it can be a little overwhelming because it contains so much um components of the county that can't really be specified but this is the breakdown um of non-departmental non-departmental where the majority of it resides in the reserves so in the particular non-departmental program um you're gonna see things such as the payments to the county and city cra's your fpl tangible personal property grant our wellness clinic and indirect costs um our parks msu indirect cost and then pto and leave payout lesser programs include the economic development debt service risk management and budgeted transfers economic development there is a slight increase this year of fifteen thousand dollars based on the board approved bdb contract just the past few meetings ago our debt service it's decreased based on the principal and interest that's due each year for the board approved bonds loans and capital leases risk management is an increase due to both our health insurance and property insurance premiums which are the health insurance are expected to go just under five percent increase and then budgeted transfers which are a little confusing because they're just a government accounting procedure um they just vary annually depending on the necessity to move dollars in and out between funds just for accounting purposes so with the fy25 tentative budget for grants and aids everything is exactly the same dollars as the previous year um we have contracted services that are the organizations that provide direct services to us grants to governmental agencies grants to private organizations and other aid to organizations and i'll break them down a little bit so for contracted services no changes from the fy24 adopted budget um the humane society for the service they provide via contract our treasure coast wildlife and historical society i think it's um management agreement that we have with historical society and then the life builders of the treasure coast that is a grant agreement with um diamond liddy's office to provide um i don't remember the exact specifics of it but she provides a ten thousand dollar grant for i don't know exactly i'm sorry it helps with the transition of those that qualified who are have um get it right uh um in the court system to help people transition uh back into society it's a good program that she's been doing for a number of years ago and yeah thank you she also said we can call her on her cell phone if she was going to say so our continuing the program grants and aids we have our a lot of our state statute mandated and local ordinance um mandated items such as the county indigent hospitalizations medicaid hospitals and then the health department new horizons as well as the immunization program at the health department the health care responsibility act children's home society and then indigent medicine could you say again that a majority of those we don't that are not discretionary they're paid for by law almost every single one of those we have an unfunded mandate or state statute to provide those services or local ordinances that mandate those thank you the grants and aids grants to private organizations um we've seen this list um year over year and this represents no changes from last year's ten uh adopted budget was special olympics supposed to be a recurring item yeah but i believe i wasn't told otherwise so i believe so no anybody else think that it was um other aid organizations on the dory slasberg which is a fee funded um item in the court system to provide a driving school through the martin county school district as well as the porcelain fishing dock authority um lease no changes with that and then finally the biggest part of the non-departmental budget is our reserves um these reserves represent fully funding our restricted reserve requirement in the general fund as well as other various reserves in the county funds for future capital outlay um contingencies and long-term care can you go back i've heard some folks talking about the fact that our reserves wouldn't really take us that far can you give us sort of a little quick tutorial on how the reserves work and you don't traditionally calculate them by how many days we would be able to run the government can you share a little of that right so we have a restricted reserve policy that is one of the best practices for the government finance officers associate association to to require a 10 restricted reserve in just the general fund operations but those aren't the only reserves we have each funding type has its own type of reserve in order to meet any kind of catastrophic needs as well as we have a disaster fund reserve that is not reflected in this because well it's it's hurricane season and i can't really estimate what i might need or not need in the middle of hurricane season but that's an additional about nine million dollars um it is best practice to to keep ten percent you don't want to have too much reserves and then it looks like you're amassing large fortunes of money um but you want a responsible reserve in order to take care of if everything stops for 30 to 60 days you have that you'll see those types of reserves even from the building department fund um as well as even down to a small fund such as the tourism fund in the event of an economic downturn um but realistically speaking if all else fails and we collect nothing and in society is i guess in a nuclear event um we would be okay well financially financially financially speaking it's it's it's important to note that um your capital program you know they're very congrats we would there's a lot of things you put those on hold so there's gas tax uh assigned to various projects that we would shift to be able to use on road repairs um utilities has funds that we could do debris management before fema funds kick in things like that so our our funds are able to get us bridges until those other state or federal funds kick in to to be able to help you deal with the problem so there's the general fund reserve and then then um and i think a big part of your action is is to you reprioritize what you're working on when something catastrophic happens and all the money you assign let's say till next year saving up for a project you spend this year on your disaster cleanup that's a big part of how you strategically manage for um unintended uh events and i will say to add to that our recoupment of all of those disaster funds has been actually very good on recoupment so we're floating it for not a very long time anymore it seems it seems to be quicker than it used to because we're good at what we do because we're good at what we do i was going to say part of that is there i remember after one of the hurricanes even how you picked up vegetative waste and what trucks and technique you used you did it incorrectly you got zero reimbursement and if you went through the more difficult way of understanding how things had to happen like you're in panic mode because it's a hurricane and people rush out to do stuff we don't do that we did it the proper way so that when it came time to get fema reimbursement i think we were almost 100 percent when other counties we heard from commissioners that didn't do it the right way got nothing back so we do it right the uh disaster response has become its own business type i think if you go back in the beginning of my career which was a while ago um the government was very generous in how you could get reimbursed today it's uh it's it's as much about your accounting and finance and documentation um because quite frankly the federal government everybody is tighter on funds and they want you to account for it and and that it's become its own business that's all i have for non-departmentals unless there's any questions move tentative approval okay we have a motion by commissioner heard second by commissioner hetherington all in favor aye all opposed motion carries unanimously so now we've reached the end where we'll do the tentative um set the tentative millage rate um so now with the change that we have discussed for the 150 000 to be added to our general fund that is requiring a county-wide millage rate of 6.5776 and then your separate fire parks stormwater road mstus to be set at 2.6677 parks and rec at 0.1596 stormwater at 0.2771 road maintenance at 0.3077 for our total mstus at 3.4121 um so our total millage county-wide and mstu would be set at 9.9896 representing a negative 0.625 percent increase yeah decrease sorry sorry and then we have discussed our commission district mstus previously and last but not least our little special district hutchinson island it's maintaining the same dollars as the previous year which is also showing a reduction of 8.80 percent with a millage rate of 0.1805 it's a lot of numbers so i could entertain a motion for county-wide and separate mstus and that would be most helpful do you have so what do you uh what do you want to read what set the tentative millage rate says presented decrease that's it as a decrease i mean i don't have to read off anything specific no not not this time okay i would move that we set the tentative millage rate um as presented throughout the morning and with the correction to the transportation disadvantaged funding that was added um to the budget which gets us to a uh which one you want which which two numbers five seven great okay six point five seven seven six with an overall reduction of point three six six percent that's for the general fund county-wide yes do you want to do you want them separate or do you want to yeah we could do it separate that's fine so i'll make that motion motion by commissioner smith second by commissioner hetherington all in favor aye motion passes unanimously i would move the uh municipal uh the municipal service taxing units mstus um for a total millage rate of 3.4121 right correct with a reduction of 1.117 correct second okay we have a motion by commissioner smith seconded by commissioner hurd all in favor aye all opposed motion carries unanimously the commission district mstus i already got an approval with the discussing the commission mstu so we've come to our our close um we've currently set our tentative millage rate so omb will then transmit these rates to the property appraiser's office by august 4th um the next steps are the trim notices are going to be mailed um from the property appraiser's office to the property owners and i believe that the property appraiser will be speaking to the trim process on august 6th we'll have our first public hearing on these millage rates on september 10th 2024 at 5.05 pm and then we'll have our final adoption of these millage rates if nothing changes on september 24th 2024 at 5.05 pm and with that i am complete and i want to thank my little staff of 11 for working so hard these months um the department heads for dealing with me this year my first go around as the director and then for county administration the county commission for giving me such nice clear direction great job you did a wonderful job and i tell you for some reason i understood the presentation um wonderfully that whole way you laid it out it warms my heart to hear that my icy cold heart commissioner hurt yeah i also want to thank um miss murley and her staff you did a terrific job this is great understandable lean budget and also want to thank our department heads for also um responding to their direction which is a flat budget and it's i think it's remarkable that with all the inflation that we're having that of the board's 1 137 positions we added one and it was in it that that shows remarkable conservative restraint so i want to thank everybody for they're doing their part thank you appreciate it that's all i have all you got budget workshop done lost my cheat sheet so um i guess we're down to uh 505 public comment let's do that anybody want to do 505 public comment well there's nothing there oh signal comment do we have any commission comment yes sir something i was going to bring up this morning and i and i had a note and i glassed over the note um two weeks ago uh we had an individual in martin county that was um hit and killed bicycling across one of our causeways um i happened to go and that happened i went to the service for mr drummond um there were probably 300 people there um his best friend growing up did a remarkable job um his daughters did a remarkable job and actually told more about him than i certainly ever knew about him um and it sort of occurred to me with with that kind of outpouring of the community for an individual that was a part of our community that somewhat was um maybe under the radar screen uh was something amazing to see and so i don't know if you're all interested but i thought maybe and i have not talked to the family at all about what i'm going to ask you all but maybe we could uh correspond or send a correspondence to fdot to see if there wasn't some way that maybe we could name that portion of the bike lane or something going across the bridge as maybe the drummond bike lane or something like that that would recognize him but also kind of put it in perspective for our community that um he played a much more involved role in our community than i think i ever knew um but certainly learned a lot at his service so i just throw that out there if i thought that i think that's a great idea he's a you know i try to be careful not to i know be the guy who's giving obituaries up here but certain people in our community deserve that recognition from all of us and martin drummond was absolutely one of them so if it's okay if the chair could maybe staff could put a letter together to fdot to inquire as to the the desire and maybe we could put a sign up on the bridge or something for that section of that bike lane because he biked it from what i understand like every day one of the most beautiful celebration of life i've ever seen it was really something okay that's all i have thank you i'm good you're good done good everybody else is good all is good we are adjourned thank you thank you all for that