Good morning. I'm calling this July 21st, 2025 Board of County Commission meeting to order. Please join us with our invocation by Pastor Jim Harp this morning, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for this day that you've given us, this beautiful day, and Lord, I'm just sitting here and wanting to thank you for our beautiful community. Lord God, we thank you for this wonderful place to live and raise families and work and Lord, just see your hand of faithfulness upon us. And Lord, I've just led this morning to pray for protection. Lord, that you would guard us, guard our community, Lord, and that you would be glorified in it. Lord, your word tells us to pray for all peoples, but especially pray for those who are in authority over us. Lord, those who have been placed in a leadership position. And so, Lord, I pray that. The Apostle Paul says, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior. So, Lord, that's my heart this morning. I pray for our leadership. I pray for the decisions that are made. Lord, I pray for this agenda today and all that's going to transpire, that, God, you would just guide and direct and give wisdom and discernment. And, Lord, we just thank you once again for all your goodness to us, God. This is the day the Lord has made. The word says, let us rejoice and be glad in it. I pray these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice. Thank you, Pastor. First, we will take up public comment. The first speaker I have is Tom Pine, followed by Ms. Paris with helping people succeed. Good morning, Commissioners. My name is Tom Pine. I've been a resident of Martin County for over 50 years. According to Google, we have entered the New Gilded Age. It is a proposed time period of United States history that is said to have begun between the 1980s and the 2010s and has continued to the present. Over the next two days during this time of public speaking, I will highlight several areas where I feel our local government is doing everything in their power to push us into the New Gilded Age. It was around 2000 and 2003 that our Martin County government started using the consent agenda in a questionable manner in the name of efficiency. It has been suggested to me county commission meetings were held once a week and often lasted from 9 a.m. until well after 5 p.m. Martin County commissioners are full-time employees of the county who earn full-time salaries but only attend two meetings a month. At the July 8, 2025 county commission meeting, the Hobe Sound Commissioner asked Assistant County Administrator George Stokas if local residents can use the ship program for assistance in hooking up water and sewers. Yes, they can was the answer, of course, they have to meet certain financial requirement. On the flip side, our Martin County Redevelopment Agency has been getting out 20,000 grants to local businesses to spruce up their properties. There's one big difference. There is no financial requirements. That's because most, if not all, would never be able to show the financial need for help. So I want everybody to understand this. Sewers are positive for the entire community, but to get financial help, you have to show a need. Sprucing up your business property, all you have to do is live in a community development area, put out your hand, meet some basic requirements, and you get $20,000 on the taxpayers back. This scheme has been going on for some time now, and you can look around the county and see some of the buildings. Downtown Jensen Beach on the north side of the road, $40,000 to help paint them, maybe put a window in here, fix a door. Hobe Sound, the corner of Bridge Road and Dixie Highway, where all the antique cars are parked. $20,000 to spruce up the property. It never ends. Just sucking the life out of the working class in Martin County to help the more affluent around here. It's a shame, but life goes on. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Ms. Paris is next, followed by Maria Sperando. Good morning. Good morning. I just wanted to share with you that your contribution to helping people succeed directly supports our Employment Options Program. This program helps adults with intellectual disabilities find and keep jobs, and I would like to cite two real-life examples. You've helped James keep his job at the Martin County Clerk of the Court for 15 years. You've helped Rebecca keep her job at Florida Linen for an astounding 30 years. Not only are you making an impact on the individuals we serve, you're giving them a reason to wake up each and every day, and for that, we thank you. Thank you. Maria Sperando is next, followed by Terry Kogel. Good morning. My name is Maria Sperando. For some years now, I have been alarmed at the tax increases imposed by the Martin County Board of Commissioners, but I have never taken the time or the effort to complain until today. When I learned yesterday that the new proposed budget includes $90 million in increased spending, a 13.44 percent increase year over year, even though inflation year to year was only 2.5 percent, I was both disgusted and outraged. At that rate of increase, the budget will double in five and a half years. Insanity. I am comfortable in my retirement, but that does not mean that I want my money thrown away. Moreover, many in Martin County are living paycheck to paycheck, paycheck to paycheck, social security check to social security check, and cannot afford an increase in taxes. When you ran for county commissioner, each of you promised that you would be careful stewards of our hard-earned money. Baloney. Our taxes have increased exorbitantly year after year after year. I shall not be voting for any of you again, and I shall actively campaign against each of you. Three years ago, my 18-year-old refrigerator started to spill water onto my kitchen floor when it defrosted. But did I buy a new refrigerator? I did not. Since the refrigerator was otherwise working properly, I simply put an old towel in front of it to sap up the water. I did that for three years until it no longer worked, at which point I thanked it for its loyal service and bought a new one. Would I have liked a new refrigerator when mine started to leak? Yes, I would have. But did I need a new refrigerator? No, I did not. Several years ago, my microwaves light, exhaust, and certain settings no longer worked. But did I get a new microwave? I did not. Since it still works on certain settings, I have made do. Like the... I can tell you other things that I've done that I didn't want to waste money on. So I tell you all of this to say. Ma'am, your time is up. Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you. Thank you. Harry Kogel is next, and that's the last request to speak form I have. If you'd like to address us, please fill out a form and get it to the bailiff. Good morning, commissioners. This is my fourth time trying to get some answers regarding that one evening meeting a month. People have been trying to get an evening meeting for years without a veil. You are five commissioners who have total control over a large county with little or no input from the public. Commissioner Harington, Heather Harington, stated that she would look into evening meetings a few months ago. Her question can be in the budget handling, and the county is willing to spend money on overtime and other issues. I believe the cost of one evening a month would be a slight burden on the county budget, and would be of a great benefit to the majority of the working taxpayers. Commissioner Kapp stated he doesn't want to be stuck here till 1 a.m., and I have the issue resolved by a review of the Martin County June 17, 2025 meeting agenda. Out of the 26 items on the agenda, 17 items can be resolved in the meeting. Those are the ones that I have checked. Two items could be day or night, depending on the topic, and that's on page six. Two items are questionable, and that's pages four and five. Only five items would be of interest for the evening meeting circled on pages four, five, and six. That leaves items that are departmental monthly meetings that could be covered in the 9 a.m. monthly morning meeting. You have no attendance in your 9 a.m. meetings, which you can actually see here today, because of the working public, which is now a Martin County majority unable to attend. May, June, and I'm actually considered this month because this is a budget meeting, the county held one meeting per month. We don't want to be acting as an across the sea, and the only thing I can say is we've got to do something. People just need to get here and at least let you know what's going on. So if you could give me some kind of an answer soon, I would appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioners, I'm going to depart a bit from tradition, and I'm going to pull consent item two, which is transitioning authority to approve plats from the commissioners to the county administrator. I think that that deserves public participation. So can we have a motion to approve the agenda, including the consent agenda, excepting consent agenda number two? I will move a motion to approve the agenda, pulling consent number two, including the consent agenda? Yeah. Including the consent agenda. Pulling consent number two. I will second that. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Let's see. We'll now take up commissioner comments. Commissioner Vargas. Yes. Just to address the last person that spoke, I've inquired about the evening meetings, and I agree we do need more support and participation. So I will continue forth with that at least once a month. We shift. We'll have to figure that out with staff, though. And I've spoken with our county administrator also about that numerous times. Yeah. I have some good news, though, before we start in the budget hearings. We had a recent trip to Washington, D.C., and the we is Commissioner Capps, Chairwoman Hurd. We had our county administrator, Don Donaldson. We had John Mayle, our environmental resource administrator. And we also had Sarah Powers, our legislative coordinator. So we had the opportunity to meet with the Army Corps of Engineers, the staff, and the Office of Management and Budget. And we discussed several key projects, including the Hutchison Island Shore Protection Project. That's a four-mile beach renourishment effort. We strongly encourage the Office of Management and Budget to approve additional funding requested by the Army Corps staff to fully fund the project. Well, we are pleased to share that the funding has since been approved. Martin County's contribution to this wonderful project is zero. Zero dollars. I repeat, zero dollars for this multi-million dollar construction project. Our federal partners have come through for all of us. And we'd like to extend our sincere thanks to the Office of Management and Budget staff for their diligent work and support in moving this project forward quickly. With this approval in place, this project is now on track to go out to bid this summer with construction anticipated to begin this winter. Again, we appreciate the commitment to coastal resilience and support of our community. Is that all? That's great. For the moment. I do have a question, though. I saw Commissioner Hetherington questions. I'm a little confused as to what this is. Can this be explained to me? Commissioner, those were a series of email questions that we got over the weekend. We provided Commissioner Hetherington a response to those questions. And we included you all to have a handout for you so you could see the responses to the question and the abbreviated response to each item. Okay. And the questions were from? Commissioner Hetherington. Okay. So these are questions from Commissioner Hetherington. All right. This has nothing to do with the other letter that we received from the state? No, it does not. Okay. These are questions that I pose to OMB or departments, which they answered. And they're providing that to all the answers to all of the other commissioners. Yeah, I haven't had a chance to look at this. It was just on my desk here. So I haven't had a chance to study this at all. I just sent them over the weekend. So it also just landed on my desk this morning. Okay. Commissioner Capps. I'm good today. Now, actually, there is a new caps in Hope Sound, is there not? That's right. It's a wonderful new addition. My first grandchild. It's a boy. His name is Caleb John Farley is his last name. But he's a cutie and we're quite proud of him. Wonderful. Congrats. Do you have pictures? I do. He does. He has pictures. Okay. Commissioner Hetherington. Oh, I, you all saw that Governor DeSantis announced on Friday while we were in Marco Island to, they were going to speed up the EAA reservoir by five years. So that was good news on Friday. And he made a trip to Marco Island to do so. And the second I was thinking, I was having a conversation with Karen Ripper from the Council on Aging and regarding how many, um, is she here? Oh, oh, um, unregarded to the budget, how many seniors were actually being impacted by fraud scams of that note. And we had a long conversation, whether it was, you know, certain programs of energy efficient windows, or they were having, you know, being scammed on these devices. I thought that it would be good, um, sometime in the future, if both the sheriff's department, I spoke to the sheriff's department too, they agree that it's a major problem. And we all get all of these notices to maybe do some kind of short informational piece to educate seniors on how to be aware of some of the scams that they're, um, that some of the perpetrators are putting out there. So that's all I have. Mr. Donaldson. Yeah. Just a one item. Uh, I did speak with the chair earlier. Tomorrow, um, Jupiter Island has an agenda item regarding a cost share agreement, uh, with us regarding, um, contribution to their beach program that we're obligated to under our Inlet Management Plan. Um, and so that in the event that this meeting spills over to tomorrow, I've requested that we would start at 11 so that it would give myself and Commissioner Cap's time to attend their meeting first thing in the morning. So thank you. Sounds good. Ms. Woods. Okay. Then we will take up the, uh, consent to, which is adopting a resolution delegating authority to approve, accept dedications and amend textual components of plats. And here to explain is Ms. Elder. Yes. Elise Elder, Deputy County Attorney. I think Mr. Griselka County, uh, engineer is here as well. So the Florida legislature amended section 177.071, um, to require plats to be approved administratively with no further action from the board of county commissioners. Um, and as a result of that, we are bringing an ordinance change next month to the board and we are amending the plat resolution and, uh, to update the signature block to have the county administrator as the signer instead of the chair. And we also, um, our, uh, county engineer and our, uh, Lisa Wisher updated some of the plat language because the last resolution was approved in 2002 and it was just out of date. So there aren't really any substantive changes to the textual changes of the plat. The main change is the change from the chair to sign to the, um, county administrator. And because in plats, the board accepts dedications. We also had to delegate the authority of the board to accept dedications of the plat to the county administrator. And that just will allow the county administrator to accept easements on behalf of the, um, county. When we do dedications of road, there will be a deed, um, that will be accepted by the board of county commissioner. So it would not be accepting fee simple in land. It won't be accepting property. It would just be accepting easements in the property on the plats. And the final debt, uh, delegation is whenever you have a plat approval, usually you have a surety bond and a contract for construction and improvements. And that is also signed by the chair because it's approved with the plat because the board cannot approve anything having to do with the plat. We also, uh, delegated the authority to sign the, uh, contract to the county administrator as well. So all those things are included in this resolution. We are going to amend the LDRs. I believe in August, we didn't do it sooner because we were waiting for the governor to sign it. And then with all the noticing requirements, we couldn't get it before the board quick enough. So we're just approving the resolution now, and then we'll have an ordinance change next month, which will be a public hearing to change the delegate to change the authority in the LDRs. This doesn't change any of the notice requirements. So I believe, um, applicants will still have to put a sign up on the property. So there'll be the yellow sign. So neighbors will know if a plat is, um, under works because they'll still have to do the signage that's required right now. Okay. So just to be clear, this was not initiated by the county. It was rather it was imposed by the state and became law on July 1, 2025. Correct. So that's the only reason why we brought this forward to eliminate any public participating hearing. Commissioner Campy. Thank you very much, Ms. Elder. I appreciate that legal version of the response. Thank you. I had the same questions this morning. Uh, I had a couple of people reach out to me from Palm City Farms with concern, like how would this affect them? And I did have an opportunity to speak to Mr. Donaldson and Ms. Woods this morning and I thought Mr. Donaldson summed it up, uh, quite well in layman's terms. And I would ask that he do, if he could give the same explanation that he gave me this morning to everyone else. I think the issue was how does this relate to the development and, uh, and the whole process. Keep in mind that the plat is the final instrument that is, uh, heard by the board or now, uh, by the, the, the, your county government. Um, and, uh, so the site planning process, the, uh, your final development approvals, all of those standards go through the same normal process. The plat is the final instrument that allows the subdivision of land for sale to private or, or, or, or to anybody. So it, it, it, uh, it is what, um, dedicates the easements to our utilities department and it's all, and it is, it's, it's, it's the final public record, if you will, of a, of a development project. And because it allows for the sale of, uh, properties, um, that's why there's all these sureties in place so that you don't have people plotting something and then the infrastructure's never built. Um, um, so it is, um, uh, in, in the process itself, when it finally gets to us, um, our decision-making is limited to does the plat follow the state law? Does it follow the county's, um, uh, uh, ordinances? Uh, and so there isn't a lot of, um, there is no, um, uh, judgment involved in terms of the county staff or the commissioners in its final disposition of whether a plat is approved. That process is really in the, in the site planning and in the final development plans. So there'll still be opportunities for the public in the beginning of the project and then sort of towards the middle of the project. And by the time it gets to plat's, that's more, as you said, administrative, uh, if someone had a question or concern or comment, could they still reach out to you? Yes, we'll have that outline in the process and that will be discussed and, and, and, and shown in our, in our updates to our land development regulations. But how anybody can, especially in the creation of the plat and the, in the common properties and the dedication of easements and other properties, um, um, the input on that is, is important. And so we will still have a process for, for the community to, to make comments on. I think an example might be did the, um, uh, in your area where we've had dedications of, um, equestrian trails as a part of the plat and the plat is the final instrument that secures that it, that it happens. And I think that's what my, many of my constituents are concerned as they try to still continue to figure out what is an appropriate equestrian trail on county right away versus people's private property. And I agree with what, uh, chairman heard said about this was not something that we had come up with here locally, uh, in an effort to pull back some, uh, participation from the public. This was a state, uh, law that was mandated. Yes. Um, I, I believe that we have had before us request for approval of plats. Now this is now administrative. I know there were quite a few laws that came into effect July 1st. I'm familiar with a lot of them. Your motion to approve consent two. I'll move approval of consent. Number two. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor. Aye. Opposed. That motion passes unanimously. We'll now take, we work through B and C one, uh, which is a request for a waiver of conflict of interest under section one, one, two point three, one, three, seven, eight Florida statutes for the appointment of Travis Waddell to the Rio Neighborhood Advisory Committee. Good morning, Ms. Corris. Good morning, Madam Chair and commissioners, uh, Susan Corris, Office of Community Development. And we're here to talk about a waiver of conflict of interest for Mr. Travis Waddell. And I'm going to turn it over to Frank Morley. Good morning, Frank Morley, assistant county attorney. Uh, Mr. Morley, would you move your, before you is a request to waive a conflict of interest for a neighborhood advisory committee, uh, appointment for Mr. Travis Waddell. He currently has two contractual relationships with Martin County, a debris removal contract through his company, Breemar construction, and then another contract through his other employer, Freedom Waste Services, which, uh, does dead animal removal on behalf of the county, uh, under chapter 112, um, section, uh, point three, thirteen, uh, the, the board of county commissioners can waive any conflicts of interest for advisory board members. And that is what book is before you. Um, he has filed his commission on ethics form for a, uh, disclosure of business transaction relationship or interest for both, um, contractual relationships, and then has submitted a new, um, application for the RIO NAC. Questions? Mr. Campy. Thank you for that, um, introduction. What's unique about this situation? I know that we have had, uh, normally the concept of conflict of interest causes concern. I remember that we had this conversation recently, um, and you explained it to me. I felt a, a level of comfort in your explanation that I didn't hear just now. So can you speak specifically? Why would we, why would we give in this? And I'm happy to describe, um, the situation. So Mr. Waddell applied for the RIO NAC. He filled out the standard application. On that application, it does ask a question about conflict of interest. He replied, no. Um, we then, he was appointed, and we then did our training session. We train each member, incoming member, uh, of the Neighborhood Advisory Committee. And during the session, we do a whole part on conflict of interest and sunshine and public records. And Frank was doing that at our training session. And he looked at us and raised his hand and said, I think I have a conflict of interest. The application, after we looked at it again, it is a bit confusing. And I don't think that he completely understood when he checked, no. So what happens next is that he had to resign, um, because he did have a conflict. That's the way. Commissioner, I think the, the issue is that you have members of the public who may have a business relationship with the county, the process by which we evaluate them. And can they still serve on committees? And the answer is yes, they can. And, um, and this is the process. I think, um, uh, Mr. Waddell has served on committees in the past. He's very passionate about the riot community. The services he provides for, like, dead animal removal are very important to our, uh, public works department. And we didn't feel that that service was in any way a conflict with his ability to serve on the committee. So therefore, in order to still maintain his relationship and serving the community, which he wants to do, this item is prepared to you. And I think serves really as an example that we hope that other people or business owners who may have some work with the county can see that there is a process by which you can still serve the community and be willing to come before you on this, uh, method to, uh, seek, um, a waiver. And that's what's here today is to ask you for a waiver, which staff supports and your administration supports. And Madam Chair, I would also like to add, but the contracts that are, that the applicant has were publicly bid. They were, so they were competitively bid. They were based on price. This wasn't, this was all done in the sunshine and according to our procurement. So it was based upon, uh, price. These were both competitively bid. So that again is why the county attorney's office supports this application. Two more points, if I might, uh, one, it's not as though the board, the NAC board was completely full and he is taking a position that somebody else is interested in. So there's an open space that he's looking to fill. It's not like we're choosing between him and someone else that weighed in my decision. And then secondly, as a volunteer member of the NAC, which is purely advisory at a secondary level of advising, he's not going to have the ability to be approving financial contracts that he might potentially even be bidding on. Correct? That is correct. Thank you. Commissioner Vargas. Yes, I do know, uh, Mr. Waddell. I know his family. They are local residents of Rio for many years. Uh, he is, uh, definitely an expert on our area. That's in my district. I looked at the application and I even said, I would have answered the same thing he did. It was ambiguous. And so I directed the attorneys to go back and rewrite it in plain English, which they did. And I appreciate your efforts sitting down with him and reaching out to him. Um, I strongly support Mr. Waddell to be appointed to the neighborhood advisory committee. There really is no other reason to deny this. And if there is some, some particular issue or project comes up that is a conflict, he will recuse himself. Motion to accept. I second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. The second motion will need to be to appoint him to the Rio NAC. Okay. Is there a motion to appoint him to the Rio NAC? Motion. Second. There's a motion and a second. Commissioner Capps? I was just going to second. That's fine. I'm sorry. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. We will briefly take up department one before we pass on to the budget process, which department one is a discussion of recruitment for the county attorney position. Yes, commissioners. Uh, um, in our last time we discussed this, uh, regarding the, uh, hiring of the county attorney with the retirement of, uh, Ms. Woods. Um, uh, we have suggested setting up at least a committee to review the applications and, uh, uh, put them in a tiered, uh, process of those most qualified, uh, versus the others in the, uh, um, uh, those that have applied. Um, the committee, uh, is suggested as a five-person committee, including myself, uh, Sheriff John Budenseek and our clerk of court, uh, Carolyn Timmon. And, uh, the board's discussion was to have, uh, two, at least two, uh, attorneys on from the outside, uh, participate. I provided a list of, of just of attorneys that would agree to sit on the, uh, um, uh, board. Uh, most have, uh, uh, uh, very limited or no, uh, uh, business relationships at all with the county. Um, we have on the list, Robert Kramer, uh, Mark Gaylord, Bob Burson, uh, Sean Plymel are all local attorneys at, uh, either personal injury or, uh, wills, trusts and estates or real estate. Um, and then Denise Marie Neiman is the retired, uh, county attorney for Palm Beach County. These were just simply attorneys that I contacted and are willing to serve. Uh, you certainly could propose, uh, another, but the idea was, is that, uh, to have two, two of these serve with the other three of us. We will review the applications and then provide board feedback on the, the list of applicants and, uh, their relative qualifications to each other. Commissioner Vargas. Yes. Uh, do you have a question? Um, because I'd like to review this. I just received this on Thursday. Um, how many inquiries did you receive? Uh, on the website, we had over 1,300, uh, reviews on our various, um, uh, uh, applications, um, and the, the, uh, is what we had in inquiries. The total number of applicants, uh, at this time is, um, seven. Okay. So, so we're presented with all of the completed applications. Nothing was weeded out. Nothing is weeded out because the committee has not met to, uh, review those with our, um, uh, with the assistance of our, um, HR folks, but, uh, that's the job of the committee to, to kind of go through them and give you a tiered ranking, if you will. And, and ultimately the process that selects the county attorneys is yours. I'm here to facilitate that. Um, and, uh, the committee's ideas just to help, help give some guidance to the board and some feedback. I would expect that we would meet again to talk about whether, what type of interviews may happen and other evaluation procedures, but this is just so that we can get the committee together, review the product, and then we would meet back with you again on, on the results and next steps. Well, for starters, I think that, that, uh, I'm really happy that Ms. Neiman agreed. She is certainly qualified. She was Palm Beach County's difficult county, and she was their county attorney for a million years. So she's, she's highly qualified. Everyone, everyone else is too. I, I, uh, I like Bob Kramer. He, I think he would be impartial and objective, and he's local. Any thoughts? Uh, Commissioner Hetherington. I, I don't know, um, Denise Neiman, but I, I certainly think as a former county attorney of Palm Beach County, she would be acceptable. I do like Bob Burson. I think he's, he's, um, methodical, level-headed, and, um, in unrelated to many parties in the county. Um, I, I think they're all really great choices, um, Mark and Sean as well, but I would, I would want to include Bob Burson in there, and I could go for, on any of the others. Commissioner Vargas. Yes. As I said, I just received this list on Thursday. I'd like more time to review this, uh, the next meeting should be soon enough that we can, that I would like to be able to make a decision after I do some, some work on this. When's our next meeting? Possibly tomorrow. The 12th. Okay. Uh, Commissioner Canvey. Thank you. Um, Miss Neiman was involved when we went through this process the last time, correct? It wasn't when we asked for the state, uh, association of county attorneys, and then they... The Florida Association of County Attorneys had her as the lead to assist with the search. Yes, sir. I remember meeting with her. I think the tricky part of this, short of us forming a committee to decide a committee for the committee, um, any of these names that you have put together that have come forward, I don't know how we would, short of literally picking someone out of a hat. Do you want to just have, have Miss Neiman? Well, I think he, the two keeps you to an odd number or whatever. I mean, I think Miss Neiman would be a perfect, uh, fill one of the two spots, but then with the, with the one of four, even allowing our newer members to review some of these folks, they're all great. And there's like, you know, I wouldn't say, well, it should be Bob Kramer. Mark Gaylord's a superstar. Sean Plymouth brings a different perspective. So any one of them. So for us to spend a ton of time trying to figure out who are going to be the people that are going to really do the figuring out, we almost need to agree that it would be Miss Neiman because she's also from out of the county and gives a different kind of perspective, but close enough to know what we're up. Plus she did the process last time when we selected Miss Woods. Other than that, I don't know how, I know all those folks. I would not want to render a recommendation on who it should be out of the four literally than picking one of their names out of a hat because they're all excellent. So to turn that into a process starts to make this a little bit crazy. Do you need two members? No. No, that was a, uh, we do not need, uh, two members. That was the suggestion that you all made to me last time. Commissioner Capps. Can we have a voting sheet made up and just settle this now? I don't think there's any great need to delay the decision. We could, um, and, uh, we could create the voting sheet and bring it back for the end of the day, if you want to do that. Mm-hmm. Works for me. Okay. Mr. Campy. I could make it much more simple and say, I make a motion that we pick Denise Naiman to be on the committee. The other four are very successful, very busy. I'm sure they put themselves out to support the community. And I agree we wouldn't necessarily need them at this time. And we would thank them for stepping up and just leave it at Miss Naiman because now we're going to have a voting sheet and then we're not going to agree. And then we're going to have to have a second vote. Let's just pick Denise and let the committee do their work. I agree. Just to remind everyone, today is Miss Wood's last day. So we need to have the process move along. I don't want to be in the fall and we're still trying to figure out who it's going to be. We haven't even talked about the actual applicants for the position. Commissioner Vargas. Yeah. Okay. So what I'm understanding is it's proposed that we're going to select Miss Naiman, who's out of county, who's now retired, as I understand, and not look at any of the other four. Is that what I'm understanding? That's what I hear. As a suggestion. I always hate to move in haste. I'm agreeable to. Want a motion? I made one. I'll second the motion. Okay. There's a motion and a second to appoint Miss Naiman to the committee. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Now we will begin work on our budget. I have one other question. You will still continue to feed us other applicants as we move forward? We'll provide you all the applications. Yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you. It looks like we have the complete sheriff's department before us here. Can we take them up first so that they can get back to protecting us? Commissioner Vargas. Is that an old light? Yes, it is an old light. Okay. Okay, commissioners. Before Ms. Murley starts in this brief introduction, I think, you know, Martin County is a special place and I think we're fortunate to have the resources that we have and the support of you and our constitutional officers. This budget really accomplishes just a couple of things. Most importantly is our commitment to maintaining what we own and operate. The department's first role is to build a budget that certainly maintains only what we had last year and what was planned to be built this year. We also and with that comes things like increases of electricity, contracted services, those types of things that are in there. We also looked at the departments made a number of requests for additional employees to fill needs that they saw. We did go through that list and 11 are presented in here that made it to the presentation here. Not all of those that were requested were submitted to you all. And it's also important to note that, you know, some of the changes in the budget reflect, do reflect a growth in things like utilities, but a lot of that growth is from our own actions of septic to sewer where we're adding new customers over and above the actual population growth, which is still quite small. I also think it's important to note that there's a lot of questions about the economy and where things are going. I can tell you that our building department is usually the first to show any kind of signs of that. Our number of building permits from year to date is at or more than it was last year. And the value of that construction is greater than last year. So we're certainly seeing the county itself move certainly in the terms of projects like Newfield and Discovery and Pulte. Some of those properties are coming in much higher values than what we saw in the past, which is also our challenge, you know, in terms of housing out there. Certainly Indiantown, we saw them groundbreaking on, I think, in terms of having workforce housing in that $300,000 range is something that I think will be just starting off. So I think what I am, it's important to note that as things are, when we try to project in the future, our, our, our, our, we have a stable construction market in, in several projects that, unless there is a significant recession, we would expect to continue on similar to, to what we've had this last year. Maybe not to the magnitude, but still, we will still have a growth, our small population growth with high value. And I think Ms. Murley will go through more details, but it's important to note that a couple areas that we were putting in for the future are our reserves, and the ability to buy down debt, and to solve a few problems that were brought up this year in terms of our capital. I think the final thing is, is that the, a significant increase in the overall budget is due to the taxpayer voted in sales tax. The voter referendum for, for the purchase of, of, of land for conservation and easements adds a significant amount, and we have to budget for that. And so, of, of the major increase, that is a significant increase in our budget. And so, with that, Ms. Murley's got a nice presentation, and we'll be here, all our whole team, to answer questions as we move through the process, and appreciate your feedback. Thank you. Good morning, Commissioner. Stephanie Murley, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, here to present to you the Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Workshop. On today's agenda, we will give an overview of Martin County budget and process, the basis for the FY26 tentative budget development, the tentative budget, the total revenues and expenditures contained, an analysis of our tax base, our budget impact from the July 1st, 2025 valuation from the property appraiser's office, the FY26 budget development summary, a review of all of our constitutional officers and county department budgets, and then finally, we would set the Martin County tentative millage rates. First, I'll remind you of the budget timeline. The budget process began shortly after the fiscal year began back in October and December with the development of the capital improvement program. Concurrently, OMB and the departments analyzed, review, and refined the operating budgets and departmental needs throughout February, April, and May. Back on April 22nd, the board tentatively approved the CIP, which was the first step of the development of the FY26 budget. The property appraiser's office provided preliminary taxable values to the county on June 1st. 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 are working with today. So today is July 21st, when the board has the opportunity to review the budget as a whole and set tentative millage rates based on discussion that is made here today. After the tentative millage rates are set, the county reports the rates to the property appraiser's office, who will then send out trim or truth and millage notices to the property owners, making them aware of their proposed 2026 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 even 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. After a full review of all of the budgets, the board will contemplate the proposed millage rates at the end of the workshop. We have allotted an additional day for the workshop if needed, if it does not conclude today. So some characteristics of the FY26 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 even budget? Martin County utilizes an incremental line item 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 piece of equipment, are deducted from the base budget. And 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. Line item incremental budgeting provides stability and predictability of county services and prevents drastic fluctuations in service level and budgetary needs. The FY26 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 county's budget is attributed to contractual or mandatory obligations 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 community redevelopment agencies of both the city 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 without creating levels of service deficiencies. Many departments maximize current line item budgets by reallocating within their respective departments based on the most current needs and trends of each division and are noted in each division page. To give you a little snapshot of the current year's revenue collections through June that we are using as a basis of projection, we are about 75 percent through the fiscal year and these are collections as of June. So we have fully collected all ad valorem taxes from the tax collector's office. The county's investments continue to outperform all budgeted expectations and this is largely due to the diligence of the clerk of the circuit court and comptroller's attentiveness to the county's investments. The county has collected over 86 percent of all anticipated charges and fees for services and is on track to fulfill those anticipated collections. State revenue sharing, gas taxes, and half-cent sales tax collections show a lag due to the state distributions typically being behind about three months but based on current trends we can expect to fully collect those revenue types. And then enterprise funds such as utilities, solid waste, and the airport are exceeding their estimated collections to date and appear to be on track to fully to collect their fully budgeted revenue estimates. So a little bit about Martin County's economic landscape. The Martin County's non-taxable valuations due to value limitations such as to save our homes, non-homesteaded agricultural and property tax exemptions impact the county significantly and account for 36 percent of the county's total property valuation. 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 in 2024 coming at $578,250 compared to 2023 which was $574,200. But while the median sale price is $578,000, the median assessed value of that same single-family home in Martin County is $309,839. So here is a little snapshot of the 2025 taxable values. These were as of December 31st, 2024. The taxable values for each taxing authority under the purview of the Board of County Commissioners are listed in this table and reflect a healthy tax base for Martin County. Taxable values are calculated and provided by the Martin County property appraiser and assist the county in deriving the millage rate based on the budgetary need for county operations. The FY26 tentative budget accounts for total estimated revenues of $763,103,070. The county budget is comprised of various revenue sources. Ad valorem or property tax accounts for 44.8 percent of the total budgeted revenues while other sources of revenue such as fees, state and local shared revenue, and fund balance account for 55.2 percent of the total budgeted revenues. And since our revenues must equal our expenditures, our budgeted expenditures are also $763 million with the breakdown as as follows in this donut graph. So now for our FY2026 ad valorem impacts. The total new ad valorem generated if the millage remained constant from FY25 would have equated to approximately 40.2 million dollars. The county's actual ad valorem need based on the budgeted expenditures amounted to 38.1 million, which resulted in a reduction of the total millage rate from the last fiscal year. The ad valorem impacts are as follows. All constitutional officers in the 19th Judicial Circuit offices account for 30 percent of the new ad valorem at 11.5 million dollars. The capital improvement plan, which was tentatively approved on April 22nd, is included and accounted for 5.1 million dollars in new ad valorem. The CIP added funding for public buildings, roads, and stormwater management needs. Various reserves were allocated in the FY26 tentative budget. General fund restricted reserves are fully replenished based on the county's fiscal policy reserve requirement of 10 percent. Additionally, the FY26 tentative budget builds strategic additional reserves to support a strong long-term fiscal strategy. These include reserves for future capital projects identified in our CIP, which fully funds the Supervisor of Elections Building Expansion Project and sets aside funding for future fire station needs. Additional funds are being set aside to establish recurring revenues for anticipated public-private partnership projects, such as the Martin County Operations Facility, which will serve as a county operation hub for public works general services and parks. And finally, this budget includes reserves dedicated to debt repayment, helping to further improve the county's already strong long-term debt ratio and reinforce its strong standing with credit rating agencies. Other ad valorem impacts to the budget include the mandatory obligations such as the Florida Retirement System contribution rates that are dictated by the state, county and city of Stewart CRA payments and health insurance premiums, and new ad valorem requests related to technology needs to maintain current levels of service and new position requests for library, general services, and fire rescue complete the budget drivers from an ad valorem impact perspective. That was a lot of words. So the question every taxpayer asks, where's my tax dollar go? And here's a little infographic for the typical unincorporated Martin County taxpayer. 61 percent of each dollar goes towards public safety, which includes sheriff, fire, 8-9-1-1, and emergency management. 28 percent goes towards general governmental expenditures, which include all of the other constitutional officers, county administration, county attorney, general services, public buildings, and information technology. Seven percent goes towards roads, stormwater, and environmental expenditures, which seems small, but those dollars leverage millions of grant funding opportunities through FDOT, FDEP, fine, legislative appropriations, and more. And then four percent of each dollar goes to culture and recreation type programs and includes the Martin County Public Library System and general park operations. So to give you a little Martin County debt snapshot, the county's long-term debt continues to reduce as a result of principal payments budgeted within our debt service division, which represents 2.3 percent of the total county budget. Governmental bonds and capital leases have decreased over the last five years, while utility septic to sewer bonds and state revolving loans have increased, which aligns with the board's strategic priority of the septic to sewer conversion program. As mentioned previously, the FY26 tentative budget includes reserves for the satisfaction of debt, which ultimately continues to strengthen the county's strong debt ratio and capacity, as well as our outstanding bond ratings by S&P and Fitch, holding at a double A-plus rating. The Martin County BOCC personnel summary includes a total of 1167 positions, which represents an increase of 11 positions from FY25. Positions requested are included in the library, general services, airport, building, public works, fire rescue, and utilities department budgets, and justification for each position is described within the division pages of the budget book for those requests. During the department presentations, staff will elaborate on the service level and public purpose needs for those positions and answer any questions regarding the impact those positions will have on their respective operations. The FY26 budget also includes 792.5 FTEs for the constitutional officers, which reflects new positions for both the Martin County Sheriff's Office and the Clerk's Office. And my final slide before we go to the constitutional officers. It's important to highlight the county's continued commitment to operating efficiently and planning responsibly for the future. County departments are perpetually analyzing their operations for cost savings or streamlined ways of doing things. This is evident in many departments efforts from maximizing volunteer opportunities for the county's libraries to evaluating the rebate potential of the county's P card program through the bank. Energy conservation through guaranteed savings contracts, transitioning the county's light fleet operations, and pursuing proactive wellness initiatives and non-circle options for treatment such as on-spot dermatology visits and Regenex to minimize employee health insurance claims provides tangible cost savings to make each dollar work harder for the taxpayers in Martin County. Concurrently, the county is planning for the long term by building strategic reserves for capital needs and maintaining strong debt management practices. The county remains resilient, fiscally sound, and prepared to provide the governmental services the community expects. So this concludes my overview presentation, and I'm happy to answer any questions. And if there are no questions, we may begin with the budgets of the constitutional officers and 19th judicial circuit. Thank you. Questions for Ms. Murley. Mr. Capps. Yes, Ms. Murley. Page five in the big book, Distinguished Budget Presentation Award. Yes. I know you touched on it just earlier, but I thought I'd let you explain that a little more. I thought it was interesting. And I want to congratulate you and your department and our county administrator for a great job putting all this material together. And I found it to be well organized and easy to understand. Thank you. I love talking about our budget presentation award. It's the one thing our Office of Management and Budget gets to do. This is hopefully what I'm presenting to you would be our 28th consecutive year receiving the award. And what it is, is a very rigorous criteria of demonstrating transparency and accountability through a document for the budget that is supposed to basically tell your county's story. So we have to maintain, we have to hit a whole bunch of criteria in order to get it. And we receive feedback every year and try to improve every year based on these very stringent requirements that are set forth through the Government Finance Officers Association. It's like my little baby. It's the pride and joy of my department. And I'm so thankful for all the staff in my office that contribute to getting this award every single year. Thank you. Thank you. Proceed, please. Okay. So we have the constitutional officers budgets, and I will let the ones that are here, if they would like to, um, I believe the Sheriff's Office has a, a presentation. But overall, um, the county constitutional officers, um, represented an eight point nine zero nine percent increase or an increase of 11.5 million, um, that we have budgeted. Um, I just want to make a couple notes. The property appraiser who's not here today, unfortunately, but I'll transmit the information. This property appraiser's budget includes funding that was previously budgeted in the county's technology improvement plan, um, that was transitioned into the property appraiser's operation during FY25. So they kind of had a shift of operation, so her increase isn't as large as it looks. And then the tax collector budget also includes the tax collector's operational budget, and then the estimated fees that we are expected to have to, um, be paid by the county. So I just wanted to throw that out there. But otherwise, um, I'll let the Sheriff's Office come up and do their, their little thing. Hi, Kevin. And in the budget book, the Sheriff's, uh, budget begins on page 505. All right. Good morning and welcome. Good morning, Madam Chair. Good to be here on this hot July, uh, Martin County morning. Commissioners, thank you for your time. County staff, uh, Mr. Donaldson, Ms. Woods, we're going to miss you, by the way. Thank you for all your hard work. But thank you for working with us and allowing me time to talk through our budget, really for the most important audience in the room. And that's our taxpayers and the people that, uh, that keep us going and keep us hired every day. My presentation pales in comparison. It's brief compared to the amount of endless work that's gone into this from our command staff that's here. And yes, I did bring a lot of backup with me, but from our command staff that's here, that individually presented their needs from from their different divisions to, uh, Kevin, our, uh, walking calculator here, our CFO. And, um, and then was on us to try to come to us commissioners, come to Mr. Donaldson and Mr. Graham and, uh, figure out where we needed to be this budget year in order to facilitate the needs of the Sheriff's office, but also keep in mind the, uh, the ask of our citizens and that's not to raise taxes and to be fiscally responsible, which we've done this year. And we're proud of our hard work. Kevin, if you want to load up our first slide this year, uh, and for our taxpayers, our budget was dropped off the first part of June. So I know you've had time to review it, but this year 2025 to 2026, our total budget request is 119 million, $388,000 and 205. Um, our percentage adjustment on that budget is 8.84%. And, um, that's an increase of 8.84%. Now let me clarify something that I know you all know, but it's important again for our audience is that a budget increase within the confines of the taxes that have come in in no way represents a tax increase. There's not a tax increase in our budget. Yes, our budget's going up, but we're growing as a business would proportionally with the county and the county's needs. We go to the next slide. There's some drivers in our budget increase this year and I'll go through them. The last slide is where I'm going to spend the majority of my time. Uh, but we had an increase in the Florida retirement system rates of $1.2 million. That's non-negotiable. The money crunchers in Tallahassee get together. They do their, their, they do their numbers and then they send us a bill. And, uh, some of which we disagree with, we've tried to push back on through state legislation, uh, personally try to push back to no avail. Those are just numbers that we have to pay into the Florida retirement system. So $1.2 million going to them, uh, an increase in health insurance costs. I think that's across the board in any industry, health insurance is important. We've done our best as was already mentioned to work through our clinic to keep our costs down. We've raised our copays. We've done a lot of things. Unfortunately, our employees are bearing the brunt of these insurance costs. And, uh, while we have a good plan, it's a costly plan, even to our employees. Next slide is the rising costs of technology, hardware, software, and equipment. That's basically anything from guns to computer systems at the sheriff's office through inflation has gone up. And I know we joke about it, but it seems like if they paint it green or say tactical on it, they can double the price and charge law enforcement or government entities a higher rate. So we are, we are studious in the fact that we try to, to shop these, uh, vendors and make sure we get the best bang for our buck. But the cost of everything's gone up, vehicles, gas, the list goes on. And then the last slide that I promised I would spend the most time on, we have negotiated a 7% market adjustment for our employees across the board. And there's a lot of drivers in that. When we were preparing our budget this year, uh, the command staff that's behind me came in with, with legitimate needs asking for 50 new positions and say that again, 50 new positions because of the different unit and division needs. And we started doing a deep dive into those positions. What do we actually need versus the wish list? Most of them were, were something that were actually needed, but the most compelling thing to me was the positions that we have currently funded that are vacant. Currently funded at the sheriff's office, we have around 630 positions. Of those 630 positions, 66 of them are vacant. 66 of them, more than 10% of our positions are vacant. And so instead of coming in here this year and asking you for 50 new positions, I thought it would be most appropriate to do a market adjustment and appropriately pay positions that we are already budgeted for in order to get a good town at the Martin County Sheriff's office. These are some of the pressures that, that I'm up against as a sheriff. And I know some of your other county, uh, uh, entities are up against the same issues. Over 52% of our employees, 52% of our employees live in another county because it's cheaper for them to live in that of the county. And then they work here. 52% of our employees drive to basically Port St. Lucie every day, uh, after they come in and do their shift and then they go home. This morning I got up, if you saw it, I got up and read an article in a TC Palm that kind of highlights where I was going with this all along. And that article stated that Martin County is the fourth most expensive county in the state to buy in the fourth most expensive county to buy in. And it's, it sounds like a hard number to believe, but I believe that article also read that, um, in the country we're number 178. So we're a very expensive place to, uh, to buy and then really to live. And that drastically affects our deputies. A little history on how, uh, the budgets have gone in the past, really the salaries have gone in the past. Traditionally, Palm Beach County, has always made more than Mark County Sheriff's office. They still do. They're one of the highest paid sheriff's offices probably in the country. And, uh, our goal is, has never been to be parity with them to be exactly where they are, but our goal is to at least see their tail lights. So our employees don't leave us and go down and work for them, which has been a problem that we have had until, uh, us commissioners met with within Sheriff Snyder and gave a market adjustment in order to keep our employees from leaving, which we've lost a lot of good employees of Palm Beach County. So our model in the last few years has worked, uh, keeping them in sight. Our employees making enough money not to want to go down there, but more money than any of the counties north of us. But that's flip-flopped on us. In the last couple of years, uh, Palm Beach County Sheriff's office now makes more than our Sheriff's office and most of their municipalities do also. And now Stewart police department does for St. Lucie, Port St. Lucie police department just got a significant raise. And, uh, St. Lucie County Sheriff's office, if you look at their benefit package, makes more than our deputy. So with 52% of our people living in St. Lucie County, how am I going to get them to want to come and work in Martin County when we're paying less than where they currently live? So that's, that's really one of the things that struck me when we were preparing our budget and union negotiations, uh, trying to get our, our, our staffing where it needs to be so we can facilitate and facilitate the needs of the county. Um, point number four on there, if you can see it, we're trying to maintain a competitive starting salary for recruitment and detention. Uh, governor DeSantis last week was here. And one of the questions that he asked me was Sheriff with, uh, with all the pressures in these other more liberal states and my $5,000 recruitment bonus, are you getting recruits here to Martin County? And my answer was governor really, not really. And, uh, uh, uh, I've compared myself to Martin County to other counties, but I look across the state Pinellas County, $30,000 signup bonus plus the $5,000 that the governor's giving you $35,000 to come in the door. So we have recruited from out of the state. We have recruited from other counties, but, uh, people do when they're shopping for a job are looking at their, uh, at the benefit package. We have worked diligently. The command staff again behind me has worked diligently on a program now to recruit local town. I think some of the commissioners and I have talked about that. So we're trying to recruit local town, but we've got to get them the adequate pay so we can keep our staffing where it needs to be. So with that, the last, the last, uh, point there that 7% market adjustment was needed to remain competitive with agencies that immediately surround Martin County. Now, a lot of times you look at these, these different agencies as they do their, their salary adjustments, and it looks like a horse race. If you ever watch a horse race, one second, uh, flowers, the horse is ahead and then the next horse. And they're back and forth. We're not even jumping far ahead in this. We're talking about a $40 spread. I believe Kevin, if I'm correct between us and the Port St. Lucie police department, $40 spread 7% really isn't enough. And I'll probably be back here next year asking for more just to keep competitive. So, um, I'll close with this. We have, and I know every sheriff says it, but they're all liars, except for me. We have the best sheriff's office in the country, not just the state in the country. And that's didn't happen by accident. It happened because of my predecessors, uh, going all the way back to the beginning of the county. And this year we celebrate a hundred years. They made this county a reputation across the country. Martin County has always been a force to reckon with as when it comes to law enforcement. And so I have inherited something that's dear to me, dear to keep and dear to the taxpayers of Martin County. And these individuals behind me, uh, do a phenomenal job every day, taking care of whatever comes our way over the weekend. We arrested a doctor for homicide. We had a suicide. We had an overdose. We had an 87 year old missing lady yesterday that we pulled everybody out for their stuff going on every single day. And even with our shortfalls, which I explained to you, they rise to the challenge and they do that not just by themselves in a vacuum, but they do that because the commission supports them and the residents of Martin County support us going out there and taking care of business and keeping them safe. So thank you. I know I was brief, but if you have any questions, I'm here and if I can't answer, I have the, uh, the money wizard here beside me that can help. Back to you chair. Thank you. Questions for sheriff food and seek. Mr. Campy. Thank you very much. If you could go back to the slide where you had like one through seven, I think it was one through five, one through five. Yes, please. Perfect. Thank you. Uh, I think you're going to be the first of several today that are going to give us this information that's going to carry across all of the departments, um, especially public safety. We've addressed this in the past. Um, over 52% of your employees live outside of Martin County. Sure. If you and I have had the opportunity to discuss this, I think that number is probably indicative across all of our staff. Um, and then it leads to situations beyond just the obvious that the folks can't live where they work. Uh, and I think most people would like that. So as a recruiting tool, as you had mentioned, nevermind, you could make a couple dollars more or a lot of dollars more somewhere else. You'd like to, you know, have a shorter commute to work. Um, that also adds to when people are saying there's so much traffic on the roads and our, our growth rates don't really show that we've, you know, exploded in development, but where are all these cars coming from, especially out of season? I think that there are numbers and statistics that have been sent around that nearly 50,000 cars come into the county every day from folks that live somewhere else and work here. And then they obviously go home in the, in the evenings. So that requires a tremendous amount of traffic. Then there's the folks that live here that can't find employment here that have to go out of the county, potentially north or south, because that's where the bigger employers are. And so there's those folks. And then there's the 25,000 to 30,000 folks that are fortunate enough to live and work in the same county. So when people are like, one of the biggest complaints I hear is there's a tremendous amount of traffic. Well, all of this plays into that. And so then we get to number three, which I remember also being an issue with fire rescue is, and I have friends, as I'm sure everyone does, that have some of, you know, either in law enforcement or fire rescue that work out of the county. And they would tell you that these agencies, just like you are telling us your concerns and strategy for recruitment, they're doing the same thing there. Except it's a little bit easier when they can say, throw at someone, like you said, 10, 20, 30, $35,000 worth of extra money. But in your particular case, we can't afford to have 66 vacancies. And I think you didn't really touch on it. You also are responsible for our county jail. So if you could give us an understanding of how many, what's the percentage of your employees that, of the full staff work in the jail? About 630 employees, we have around 127 that work in our, on our jail over there. This year, in our budget, we did ask for, Kevin, was that how many positions in corrections? 10 positions, because we're on track this year to spend about $4 million in overtime to offset on a perfect day when everybody comes to work. We're still not where we need to be staffing wise. So our staffing in the jail is relatively good as far as the, the budget of compliment, but we just don't have enough people. When we sat down, we crunched the numbers and adding, adding positions will actually save us money in the long run. We've done presentations for you in the past. I know we're in the process. It's a long play of the mental health pod that we're working on. But because of the different, let me back up a little bit. The history of the jail is it's a 700 bed jail, but because of the different people that have to be separated, males, females, juveniles, adults, trans people, and the list goes on and on. Our staffing has been broken up trying to facilitate keeping everybody separate. It's not just males and females and, and, and juveniles anymore like it was in the nineties when the jail was built. So our staffing has been sucked up and moved around the jail and we have to grow. Thankfully, the jail population's not growing, but even with a smaller population in the 700, we still have to have more employees to run that jail successfully. How many people are in the jail currently? Uh, today, Captain McMurrin, 594 today. Okay, 600 people in the jail. And like you said, there's so many mental health issues that make those people very, very difficult to supervise. Um, see, you're in a situation where we can't have any mistakes. Uh, and as you were making your presentation, I was thinking of all the different ways that that could happen. My wife's, uh, three generations of her family are law enforcement, her grandparents, her father, all of her brothers. So I, I get the one minute of one day could be catastrophic. So for that in mind, I appreciate all the efforts that you've done to try to create a budget that our residents could look at and say, okay, this is fiscally responsible, but everyone would be pointing the finger at you if something terrible were to happen. And they'd say, well, why weren't you prepared? Or how come you didn't have the right people there? And it's, it's a spin of the wheel, you know, the tragedies that we've seen happen all over. And we've been blessed here in Martin to not have the nationwide catastrophic circumstances that can happen. But even once something does happen, then do you have the capability to respond effectively? So I had said it to your predecessor, both of the last two, I've been fortunate enough to know both, uh, Crowder and Snyder, and now it's a pleasure. And I'm so thankful that it's you because the other point is, is that just to our North, you saw what that sheriff's race looked like and how that transition really was not what the residents would have wanted. So that was another benefit for Martin. So with that said, I appreciate that you've come with the budget that you did. I appreciate that you have scaled it back without hopefully, um, jeopardizing any of your men and women that, uh, put the badge on every day or work also in the jail, because I've had the opportunity of touring there. I don't think most people have any comprehension of how difficult and, and dangerous that facility is quietly sitting over there in the middle of Stewart. So I don't, what are we doing tentative approvals today? I would, uh, with honor tentative, make a motion to tentatively approve your budget with at least my personal thanks to you and everyone that wears your, wears the badge. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Vargas. Yes. Um, I appreciate what you're doing, the whole department. However, we are in era of belt tightening. People have confidence and voted for you that you could stay within the budget. You received a healthy increase last year. I've looked at the CIP also, and I do have a lot of questions about that. You talk about staffing, you talk about needs, not just within the department, but also within the jail. And I think that needs to be reviewed also. Again, I appreciate what you're doing, but people who voted for us want us to stay within our budget. Well, Commissioner, if I can respond, uh, we are staying within our budget. If you look at the tax increase that's coming to the county, we're well within the parameters of our budget. And the first part of June, we dropped off our budget, uh, to you and I came and met with you personally. And, and I left you with, if you have any questions or you want clarifications, please reach out to me. So if you had any questions for the last month and a half, I've been completely available. Uh, if you have anything today, I'll try to answer them for you. If we can, if we can, I believe any increase in revenue should replenish our reserve and pay down our debt. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Hetherington. Thank you. Good morning, Sheriff. So I'm looking at your slide and while I think it's wonderful, we have our employees live here. I think you're seeing number three, you know, are, are on your slide across all, not just governmental sectors, businesses, workforce and labor and employment is on the top of mind of every business. Employees will leave for a few thousand dollars here and there. And I, I see our businesses struggling with this. And on top of that, you have FRS and mandates. So I think you've done a responsible job of putting forth a responsible budget with looking at the conditions because our residents expect a level of service. And, um, while again, I would rather have as many people that working inside of Martin County, living inside of Martin County, it's most important to me that you are able to retain and train and attract employees to provide the residents, the level of service that they require. So I think as far as your, um, personnel, which is your priority, um, here, and I think it's been responsible. And I will say, um, not to nothing unrelated to the sheriff, but one thing I did read over the weekend is, um, our new CFO blazing Golia. He said, if your local, if your local government have spending problems and they're taxing you to pay for that spending, rest assured they are going to be contacted by me. We are watching. And those of you that know, blaze knows he means what he says. So, um, I think this is responsible. I think we are going to be, um, in Martin County, I think we're going to prove to the state that we will, um, use our taxpayer money responsibly. And when it comes to, I think this budget as a whole, we're going to have to prioritize critical needs versus low priority creep. And to me, this is a critical need. So when we're looking and having conversations all today, that's what I'm going to keep in mind, critical needs versus low priority creep. And I think this is a critical need. The residents expect it. And I'll second the motion. Thank you, commissioner. Yes, sheriff. I think that we all have been paying close attention to, uh, contract negotiations in our neighboring counties and they're staggering. And, you know, we, we know what's going on in Palm Beach County. We know what's going on in Port St. Lucy. We know what's going on in Indian River County. So we know how difficult it is to negotiate your contract. And I think that you've done a terrific job of, of negotiating this contract. And I think it's important to note also that, that your senior, you and your senior staff are locals, your natives, you know, this is, this is your nest too. So I think you're doing a great job of protecting it. Thank you. Commissioner Capps. I'd like, I just like to say that, you know, public safety is the most important thing. You know, it's the baseline for all the good that comes in our community. It's, it's sort of the baseline for a good economy and a good quality of life. And if we're going to have a great sheriff's department, we're going to have to invest in it. Um, I'm looking at point number three, that talks about the higher salaries and neighboring police departments and sheriff's departments. Um, I, I believe that is the situation. And so it appears to me that our deputies could be making more money somewhere else. And I would have to ask the question, then why are they choosing to serve at the Martin County Sheriff's department? And it seems to me like morale is very high at the Martin County Sheriff's department and has been for a long time. It's a great place to work. People are fired up about working at our sheriff's department. And I think that's a great tribute to your predecessors and to you. And, uh, we're very proud of our sheriff's department. And, uh, we live in an inflationary economy. There's growth in the county. Uh, there's a need for more deputies and we have a lot of vacancies. Um, so I am in support of your budget. Thank you, commissioner. And you're right. It's not me that keeps the morale going. It's, it's really the county supporting our deputies doing their job. There's other counties around us that could be equally as successful, but the public doesn't support them. And, uh, we take care of business here, but we don't do it by accident. We do it because everybody cheers us on and we do it within the confines of the law. Uh, but we do it the right way and we do what people expect of us. We keep them safe. So thank you, commissioner. Commissioner Campy. Thank you. In closing, I would say to commissioner, excuse me, to commissioner caps question. Why do they want to work here? Obviously for the, uh, for the respect and loyalty to your internal leadership starting with you, but I think it's important that they understand that the commissioners, the county's leadership, uh, sends a loud and clear message that we appreciate them and we support them, not just in words, but in actions, which in this case is the budget. It's important that the public supports you, which we obviously are known as a law and order County, but we can't be a law and order County unless you all are giving us that, uh, that right to say that. So I just want to make sure that you are hearing and your command staff, but all the way down through the whole department understands that where you come forward with your budget, that the commissioners, the county's leadership has your back. And I believe we certainly do. Thank you. Thank you, commissioner. And I know that I feel that in our, in our employees feel that and our county sees us working together hand in hand. Again, when I, how I started off, this budget didn't happen by accident. We met individually. We talked it through, we figured out where we needed to be. We worked together to be where we are today. So thank you, commissioner. Thanks. There's a motion on the floor and a second. All those in favor. Aye. Opposed? Aye. That motion passes four to one with Commissioner Vargas dissenting. Thank you very much. Thank you, commissioners. Are there present? I see that we have the supervisor of elections with us and the clerk of courts and the public defender. Would any of you like to speak to us? Thank you. Good morning. Good morning, commissioners. Good morning. County administrator, Sarah. We will miss you here at the county level. Enjoy your retirement. Our best wishes. I don't have a presentation. You have my budget before you with a modest increase. I try to keep my budget flat as we move forward. But as the sheriff said, and as you have commented too, as commissioners, we all face increases, especially in health care, FRS. I do want to give my employees a modest increase in salary. And we do have many mandates through the legislature that have caused increases. So you have my budget before you if you have any questions. We've also given you a hundred year. Well done. Yeah. It's remarkable how few supervisors of elections. We've had seven. Yeah. I make number seven. Yeah. So enjoy. It's really a rough draft. We wanted to get it to you, to share it with you today. But we do have some additional edits to make. But if you have any questions, I'm available. I just want to thank you for your support. Thank you, Stephanie, for all you you do for us. And Tracy, thank you as well. Um, George over in the corner and Matt, thank you for all you do for us in elections. But I appreciate your support. I think it's interesting that there's only seven because you and Miss Robbins make up 50% of the, make up 50 years of the hundreds. So congratulations and good for you. A few years. Um, I do want to point out before I take my seat, um, page 10 in, in the document that I, um, that you have before you, we do have a voting equipment replacement account with substantial dollars. Um, as you know, at the end of every fiscal year, whatever's left in my election account goes into equipment replacement. I will be coming back before you next year for equipment replacement. Uh, there won't be any additional funds needed. It's, it will be, um, paid for through this reserve. Uh, but we are at a 20 year level with our voting equipment. So it's, it's time to make that replacement upgrade. So with that questions, how is the design going for the expansion of the, um, canvassing versus? Well, I, I haven't been able to get with Sean regarding the, um, but I appreciate the, the fact that it's factored into the budget, um, for, for total re for a total build addition to, to the building. Um, when the building was purchased, I'm not sure how many years ago now, Stephanie, yeah, it, it was 1.3 million for the building at that time. So you can see how inflation has caused cost of construction and just everyday living to increase. But, um, the need is, is there. And Steph, uh, Stacy, thank you for your support. All three of you who, who have been on the board, um, have served in canvassing board. So, you know, the need that we have for canvassing for training and at the seams. Yes, we are at the seams. We are. So hopefully we'll be able to get that, that new facility in between elections and before the next large election cycle. Yes. Sean, Sean Donahue, general services director. Yeah, that's, that's what we're working on, uh, scheduling. And, uh, we did come up with a very good, um, schematic plan where we take more advantage, uh, due to some mock-ups and, uh, Vicki was helpful and just moving some furniture around to see what it looked like, make sure it works for her and then flow and everything. We were able to take advantage of current existing space, uh, to provide a lot more efficiency. So we don't need as big as a, uh, an addition as we were originally contemplating. Uh, we actually shrunk, shrunk that down a little bit for cost savings. So, so we just did geotechnical borings, uh, a week or so ago. Uh, we're working on the planning and the permitting of it right now. Needs to be done by August 18th of 2026. We are in a hurry. Yes. With that, I, if no one else has questions, I'll move tentative approval. Second. Any further questions? There's a motion. Oh, Commissioner Capps. He puts the light on. He's still doing the light. He's new. Thank you. Got to jump in with both feet. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor. Aye. Opposed. That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, clerk is here. Ms. Timmon, would you like to address us? Good morning. Uh, thanks for giving us all the opportunity to be here before you today. I really appreciate that. I'm primarily here to answer any questions that you might have. I did want to make one special note on my budget request. Um, and I wouldn't call this an error. Um, however, we did return $89,000 of unexpended approved budget from last year. So that reduces us from, I think you had 11.54 or 11.58%. It's actually 8%. Um, once you return that $89,000. So although it's a high percentage, when you look at it like that, um, my budget is essentially a smaller amount. So any increase represents a higher percentage. Most of my budget request is FRS healthcare. Um, those regular increases as we've all experienced, uh, based on basic inflation. Then I do have the new FTE, additional FTE for payroll. That's to meet the needs of the county as those, uh, increases have come up, including fire rescue and the complexities of that. And then one half FTE in case, um, you all, because I've heard from the courts that they're interested perhaps in veterans court. And if that occurs, we had to put that in the budget. Now, if that does not come about, then that those funds would be returned as well. So that's primarily my request. I have a little bit of extra auditing money in there, uh, again, to meet the needs of the growth in the County. Commissioner Vargas. I like the fact that you take care of the pennies because the dollars will appear. I really do. Uh, and I think that's responsible. I, I'm really trying to keep the taxes down, right? We cannot, cannot ignore the fact that taxes are way too high and we need to be cutting expenses. We, you and I had a long discussion and I understand that you, you know, you do have fees that you charge from other departments. There was a breakdown. And so, um, the, the return of less than a hundred thousand dollars makes it a little softer. I have 11.58, but it's 8%. Correct. Okay. At this point. And there may be a few more dollars coming as I understand. So you just put that right back into your budget. You don't come back to us for more. Um, because this seems to, you know, been a continuum, you know, with a lot of departments here and people have confidence that we can do the job. As I said before, stay within our budget as we would personally, I would hope maybe everybody doesn't do that, but I do. Um, so, um, I appreciate it, what you do. Uh, it's not an easy job, but you make it look effortless. I will say that we get healthy increases. We give, have, have been giving healthy increases to every department and they really need to start belt tightening. They need to do what they need to do. And that's it. It's live with, within their means. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Campy. I would move, uh, tentative approval of the clerk's budget. Second. And while we're at it, uh, yeah, see, good for you. While we're at it, I would add in the property appraiser and the tax collector as well. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor. Aye. Opposed? That passes unanimously. Would you like to speak to us, Ms. Liddy? Okay. Come on. Thank you very much. No, this was your last day? Yeah. Oh, goodness. Well, maybe, maybe it's her last day. We're not sure. Yeah. She's, you're going to come back again, right? Yeah. No, I just wanted to say thank you. And, and if you have any questions, my, it's upside down. My budget went, uh, slightly up, but, um, it was because of computers, et cetera. But, uh, I just want to thank you for supporting us all these many, many years. Thank you. Any questions for Ms. Liddy? Commissioner Campy. Ms. Liddy, thank you so much. Can you, we know you, can you do us a favor and share a little bit of, uh, what your office does, this scope of your work for the folks that are paying attention to our budgets? They might not be familiar. Sure. Uh, what our office does is represent people who are acute and hello. I didn't say hi to you. Um, uh, what we do is represent people who are accused of crimes who can't afford a private lawyer. Um, we have currently 35 assistant public defenders. Um, the rest of our staff, which is another 35, 40 people are support staff, investigators, et cetera. Um, with that, that small amount of attorneys, we represented, uh, over 16,000 cases last year. Um, and we are very proud since, you know, 33 years ago. Um, when I, I got elected, um, I really believe that our office could do more than just representing people in court. And, um, we did that. Um, we started diversion courts, which are in all four counties now, almost 20 plus years now ago. Uh, they are wildly successful mental health court, which you all, uh, helped fund when it was, nobody even knew what mental health court was. Um, it has, it has just been extraordinary. The average recidivism rate for those who are released from the department of corrections, um, generally hovers at about 68% for those that have mental illness for those who go through our mental health health court in Martin County and the other counties. And I, this is, this is going to blow your mind. The average recidivism rate is about between eight and 12%. Uh, so these diversion courts really work. Um, we have a very robust, um, reentry program throughout the four counties, which helps people, uh, get jobs and housing, et cetera. Um, and, um, get back on their feet. So they're not frequent flyers as we call them. And lastly, and you guys have, have been wonderful to support that as well. We started our own charity 15, 16 years ago now called life builders of the treasure coast. And that charity helps people, um, who have touched the criminal justice system or the dependency court system, which is the court where, um, children who are, have been abused or neglected or placed, um, be successful. And we help with, you know, things like bikes to get to their job or housing for one month, whatever. But, um, it, it really makes a difference and it makes Martin County safe. It makes everybody happy. It makes law enforcement not have to rearrest them again. So it's, it's a wonderful thing, but you guys have been wonderful to us. So we appreciate you. Can you share with us how many years you've been in your position, miss? Uh, 33, but I still love it. I'm telling you. It's apparent. No, I do. I swear for it is so obvious. Oh, any further questions? No, go ahead. Commissioner caps and the four counties are Okeechobee, Martin, St. Lucie and Indian river. So all of the, let me tell you something, you know, these one County, you know, constitutional officers who we love, you know, talk about, oh my gosh, I got to do, well, imagine times four because you folks are totally different than Okeechobee are totally. I mean, it's, so you gotta, you know, you have to play to the crowd. If you will. I was at the Okeechobee County budget hearings last week and they stop there. I walk in the room, they stop everything. They say, Ms. Diamond, come on up here. Just give us, is everything okay? Like only in Okeechobee, you know, but it's fun. How do you staff people? Do you, do you have to move them around a lot? Like people who live in Stewart might have to work in Okeechobee for a while. If we're short staffed, we, you know, they, and that's part of the deal when they come to work for us, that they know that I know you may have roots and, or have a house somewhere, but if we're short and we got to ship you to Okeechobee for a few months, you got to go. We'll bring you back. So you're not, you know, commuting so long, but yeah, we have to do that sometime. Commissioner Campy. Make a motion to, uh, tentatively approve the remainder of the constitutional office. That's exactly what I was about to say. Yes. The remainder of the constitutional offices and the 19th judicial circuit. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor. I'm opposed. That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. And you, Sarah, you call me anytime. You just want to talk about the we have so many stories. Anyway, we are returning to our, uh, tentative budget meeting. We'll now take up administration, which starts on page 95. All righty. Um, so just to kind of set the stage, we're going to be going through each, um, department's budget, um, department by department. You may provide tentative approvals as we go, but just keep in mind that this is a working document and you can make, you can make changes as, as we advance through the budget workshop and any of these changes that are made throughout the department will be reflected at the end during budget wrap up. So just to let you know, we could, we can make adjustments as needed before the end of the meeting today. So we have gone in alphabetical order. So there was no rhyme or reason. And we're going to start off with the administration department with Mr. George Stokas here to kind of go through it. Uh, good morning, ma'am chair, George Stokas, assistant kind of administrator before you in the slide is, uh, a representation of our tentative budget request. Uh, the request represents a 10.38% increase. There are no, uh, requests for an additional FTEs. Uh, our budget considerations are of course, to maintain the current level of, uh, service and support for all divisions, as well as, uh, one of the notes is the allocated funding to support services associated with the opioid cell and prioritizing treatment recovery support and public health initiatives. That's a result of the, uh, opioid funds in which we receive from the state of Florida. You can also see that there are our goals there, uh, starting it off with really not much of a lot of fanfare there, but there are representatives from each division within administration within the room. And I'm more than happy to take any questions, comments, or concerns. Questions. Mr. Capps. Can you expand a little bit on the opioid settlement and when that happened and maybe how much we got and what its purposes are? Yes, sir. We, we received an allocation based on, I believe, a class action lawsuit from, um, um, I think it was from a federal court order. We receive approximately between 800,000 to 1.3 million per year for the next 18 to 20 years. And the health and human services, the, uh, division of administration has moved that into your, uh, mental health and drug court costs because in both courts, in both cases of that diversion programs, you have individuals who for, I would say 90% of those individuals have some type of drug, uh, issue that is occurring that brought them to mental health court or to drug court. And that's the, really the, the, the, the higher altitude, uh, I was going to get there, sir. Uh, and if you had any more specific questions, I'm sure Ms. Miller is behind me and will be more than happy to answer those questions, depending on how deep of a dive you wanted to go into that. That's good enough. Thank you. Mr. Hetherington. Yes. This might be Michelle or it might be you, George on page 97, the human services, medical services. So in 2024, it was 5.9 million. And then the actual adopted it. So it went from 5.9 and then 2025 adopted. It went to 353,000 and tentatively set at 363. I'm just curious from the 24, why such a large number to such a smaller number in human services, medical services and human services housing? Yes, ma'am. I'm going to have Ms. Merle explain that for you. So during FY 24, um, we had reallocated the inmate medical services out of the, um, the medical services administration budget. And it now is reflected within the sheriff non-departmental. Um, and just to talk a little bit about that, um, there was legislation that was passed recently with, um, sheriff or not sheriff John Snyder, um, that we are now actively looking at to, um, see potential cost savings with our sheriff's department with the new way that the cap is with, um, the reimbursements. So we have maintained that budget level currently in sheriff non-departmental, but we anticipate able to reduce that significantly in the next year or so. And commissioner, if I might also add going forward this year, I know that the county administrator and his staff, as well as Ms. Miller are working with Cleveland clinics that they can better utilize the Indian indigent care funds, as well as making sure that those funds, um, are better utilized through other examples. We are looking at Jackson, uh, Duval County, I think is the correct County as to some of the programs that they're outlined so that there's, you know, a better dollar to citizen cost ratio and service. What percentage are utilized every year? And then they, do they roll back over into fund reserves if they're not? So I would say at this point, Michelle would have the actual numbers, but I, we're probably using approximately half of what our indigent medical, um, budget is. And when those funds are expended, they do roll back into fund balance, but those have been pretty integral in, um, appeasing the inmate medical services increases that we have, we have were unexpected the last couple of years, um, prior to the legislation being passed. So it really has helped offset those sudden increases so we can maintain a, like a level budget. Yeah. So the, um, uh, indigent medical can be paying for not, uh, just the, uh, jail inmates, but it will be shifted back to, or to actual indigent care. So that's, that's the benefit of the, the local bill allowing us to negotiate proper rates. And then the item that Ms. Murley talked about will require another special act or revise the existing special act so that we can, uh, spend the funds, uh, on other as requested by Cleveland clinic. And look, so we're looking at that in terms of that language, working with the County attorney's office. So we expect that to be, uh, one of our legislative requests this next year. So we can amend that special act. And then one more question on page 100 agenda process time. So in 2024, it was 92% and 2025 projected 75, 20, uh, 2026 projected 75. What is agenda process time and why was it in 92% in 2024 and 75% in 2026? Well, ma'am, uh, commissioner, we, the projected is the, is the goal or the line. My understanding is this is the goal or the line where we want to, uh, measure success. However, in 2024 act, we brought it to, we agended the processed on time 92% of the time, uh, for 25, I can't provide you actuals cause we're not through actuals. Is that releasing like define agenda process time? Is that releasing the agenda to the public? No, I think it's multiple metrics. It's both when we release it to you as well as to when we release it to the public, which I believe is the draft is, I believe two Thursdays prior to the meeting. And then the, the, the final agenda is, I believe Thursday at noon, uh, the week before the Tuesday of the meeting. And I think Ms. Gordon, if that falls quite bit into Ms. Gordon's realm, and I am very often the receiver of notification that we need to get that move forward. She's very good at effectively communicating that to us. Commissioner Vargas. Okay. So, so what is the increase percentage increase? Then we're talking about the administration at this point, correct? Right. So the, the bulk of the increase is related to the costs that are basically fixed, which is your increase to FRS, your increase to health insurance, your already contractually negotiated salary increases. Um, that's really the, the majority that all the 10% falls under. There's no additional FTEs. Um, and the additional opioid settlement funds that have been included within this budget. So it's, it's a lot of the cost of doing business, um, maintaining levels of service with the staffing that you currently have based on the mandates of Florida retirement system, health insurance, um, FICA, Medicare, those mandated rates, as well as opioid settlement, um, funding that has been added to that budget. Okay. That's a lot of money on administration. That's a lot of money. And we do spend more than we should here with administration. We need to be cutting our expenses, however you want to do it. Everything should be looked at. Uh, nothing is sacred. We are in the era. I said that before, belt tightening, not expanding and not bring more people on board. So you're going to have to look at this and make it work however you can. Commissioner caps. As I thought I would mention the various departments within administration and the staffing levels in each one of those departments on page one Oh one, there's the administrative administration division. And in 2025, we had 12 people and we're keeping it there at 12. That's the same for all divisions within administration. There are no net increase of FTEs or full-time equivalents to the administration budget. Right. And then page one Oh five administration office of management and budget. That's your department. You have 11 people and you're keeping it there 11 and then page one Oh seven administration commission. There are, we're 10 people and 2025 and we're keeping it there this year. That's correct. That's correct, sir. And then, uh, let's see. There's one called, uh, human resources and risk management 12 last year and 12 in the coming year. That's correct. No request for an increase. And, uh, then we have purchasing page one 13, six people last year, six people in the coming year. Correct. No increase, no request for an increase to FTE. Yeah. One more, uh, communications, eight people last year, keeping it at eight in the coming year. Yes, sir. We're not asking for an increase into RFD. Uh, is that it? Nope. You also have human services and community services, which is 0.9. We're not asking for an increase in that one, sir. Okay. The next one after that is, uh, veteran services. We, uh, are, we're last year at 4.05 and we're asking for 4.05. So no increase into that. However, I did send your offices about a month ago, a memo talking about the increase in efficiency and customer support that has occurred. I think Mr. Drouse is doing a phenomenal job and it's a full turnaround in that department. I'm sure Ms. Miller is behind me and would agree. Yes. Madam chair on, uh, human services, social services is 0.85. Uh, I also would like to have most of the positions in human services are not county FTEs. They're contract FTEs. So there's federal programs are dismantled or not no longer being funded. Those no longer funded. Those positions can be, um, let go if see if need be. Uh, and then we will work as staff to see how we can bridge the gaps in that type of funding. Uh, but in that division, you're at 0.85 and we're not asking for any additional FTEs. The next one is human services, substance abuse, abuse and treatment assistance. Last year was 5.25. The next one is 5.25. There's no one asked for an increase. I can keep going through each one. If you want to work. That's good. Okay. That's good. Uh, I think the points are well made that, uh, you're doing what you can to, uh, hold your staffing down, uh, as efficient as you can. Um, and I think you're being reasonable. So I would move approval of the administration budget. Mr. Campy. Thank you very much. Uh, sort of tagging onto what commissioner caps was mentioning about just sort of giving the viewing public because most of us are already had an opportunity to discuss this with the different departments and or already know the departments. But since we have new commissioners and probably new people following along, uh, this year that we might not have had in the past, uh, and since we're on the first one of the book, Mr. Donaldson, can you share with us sort of your marching orders to the department heads on, you know, flashback six months, nine months, a year ago, uh, and discuss what your marching orders were to the department heads? It's not just, hey, present any budget that you'd like and, you know, whatever increases in money or personnel just have at it. Can you share? I know that in years past, there's always sort of like marching orders. Can you share with them what they are? And then since we're just starting and this is administration and basically, uh, our administration leadership is here. I'd like the departments as they come forward to share a little bit about what they do, because I know just the thing that spurred that in my mind, Ms. Murley is when we were discussing your 11 beyond putting this binder together. Uh, it'd be interesting for the, the public to understand exactly what your 11 people in the department do. I'd like to hear that from the other departments as well. There's a concept here that maybe it's just a free for all and, you know, it's, it's a money grab and we have more people and we're spending money inappropriately. There is a real fiscal conservative nature of our county's government that starts at the top with Mr. Donaldson and runs through every department. I don't think he has to, um, twist arms. The department's leadership and personnel all understand it's not a free for all here. So maybe this is another year for a refresher in that we can't just assume everyone understands what the departments are responsible for. Uh, certainly, uh, commissioner and, and there is an element of trust and, but verify. And so I think, um, Ms. Murley talked a little bit about the beginning and it was, uh, a very short, uh, description, but that is you take the, your, your budget and you look at, uh, how you're spending the money this year, uh, for, or last year. Uh, and we only want to account for changes of, um, what was the cost of doing business? You hear us talk about that before. And so if for instance, public works has contracted out a certain amount of mowing, they mow some, any acres of right away or whatever. Um, a legitimate request on that is I had a contract for $750,000 and now I rebid it and now it's 900,000. That would be described as a cost of doing business. That would be accepted as, um, as a change, a legitimate change, um, cost of electricity or something else like that. May I stop you just for a moment on that example? Using your example, public works had a $750,000 contract for cutting grass and now it's nine. We don't just accept the nine. That's correct. You would base a process of beating people up, you know, figuratively, um, going back and it's not like, well, Hey, it was seven 50. Now it's nine. I guess it's nine. There's a process that right. So legitimizes the nine. Well, the other choice is, is if you can't afford the nine, then you reduce the mowing frequency or so that's, uh, uh, or, or we rebid it or, you know, those. So there is a, yeah, absolutely. There's a process of whether or not that, that change was accepted. And that dialogue happens with you all as well in terms of, uh, that's where that adjusted budget comes in. Is this, is this, is, is the amount of that contracted service correct? Um, and if the actual cost to deliver that service is more, um, we, we basically asked the question this year, you may have already approved the contract to finish the previous year at a rate of 900,000. The budget is another opportunity to ensure that that is the actual, um, level of service that we're doing. So getting back to the, the, the general, um, process by which we do this is, um, is to look at those costs of doing business. The other part of that is, is the, um, budget office and administration, uh, would look at are there certain areas within the budget that they are consistently spending more on? Um, there's certain repairs or certain items that are, are costing more in vehicle maintenance or something like that and other line items that perhaps they are, are, are, could, could go down. And so there is a line item adjustment process too within all of the department's budgets, um, from everything from like, uh, uh, travel to publications to, uh, the, uh, the actual, um, buying of equipment and things like that. So that, and you'll see descriptions in the, uh, in essentially in all the items to talk about a lot of the, uh, uh, budgeting process is readjusting within the existing approved budget to make sure that the money's being spent, uh, where it's needed. And, uh, and, and if there are some items, line items that, um, we could cut back on so that we can shift it to where it's needed. So that's happening. So that's the, that's the most critical part of the budgeting to start with. Then the next piece of it is, you know, I'm not able to meet a certain level of service. I would like to add a person or I'd like to add a process, or I'd like to contract, um, for some other item. And then that is comes in as a request to the County administrator and then administration will review with each of the departments, um, their request. And, um, and, and we vet through those in terms of, uh, what we feel can be, uh, as, as a, as a legitimate, legitimate, they're all legitimate requests, what we believe it would be augmenting the board's objectives. And then we submit those in here as a request for an addition. So, so you have your base budget, which is cost of doing business as Ms. Murley puts it. And then you have the request for a new service or a higher level of service and, uh, and the justification. There were, um, there are more requests in here than that were presented, uh, uh, more FTEs than, than there are presented. And we felt that the budget presented to you was, um, um, um, indicative of meeting the board's priorities and objectives. But as again, uh, this is a workshop. And as we go through some of those individual requests, um, uh, it, it can be, it's the judgment of the board of whether we include those additions or is there a particular level of service in an area that you feel, uh, should be looked at. Thank you. It's a judgment of a majority of the board. That's correct. Thank you. Any further questions? I'd second Commissioner Capp's motion. Any further comments? There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Aye. That motion passes 4-0-1 with Commissioner Vargas dissenting. Thank you. We're moving on to airport. Good morning, Madam Chair. Good morning, Commissioners. Andrew McBean, airport director. Commissioners, the budget before you today, uh, reflects a 12.30 change, uh, from last fiscal year's budget. Uh, the budget considerations that we have today is an increased cost of business, which make up the bulk of our budget, uh, change. Uh, in addition to that, an additional full-time, uh, employee in the airfield maintenance, uh, area. The, but, uh, the department goals that we have this, uh, year, commissioners, is to complete the fiscal year 26 capital projects at the airport, implementing a new air traffic monitoring system to lower operating costs at the airport and enhance the airport's noise compatibility and announce competitive solicitations for available aeronautical properties to comply with federal and state regulations. Commissioner, commissioners, as always, this, uh, the airport is an enterprise fund. The budget before you is funded by the airport's own revenues and the budget before you is considering, uh, our ability to ensure the ongoing maintenance and operation of the airport in a safe and serviceable condition as required by both the federal government and the state of Florida. Uh, with that, commissioners, I'm happy to answer any questions regarding the airport's budget. Thank you. A couple of clarification points. Um, 12.3% increase, not coming out of necessarily the taxpayers' pockets. It's coming out of your, um, enterprise. Can you explain what an enterprise fund is? A lot of folks that are watching at home might not know what that means. That's correct, commissioner. So that 12.3, uh, 0% is coming from the airport's enterprise fund. Uh, being an enterprise fund, the airport operates like a business, uh, that's a part of a government agency. Uh, we generate our own revenues and our own revenues is used to support both the operating and capital, uh, expenditure for the airport. So we do not operate on the taxpayer's dollars, commissioner. So in other words, um, as you mentioned, just like a business, you're going to fund your increased request from dollars that is generated on the site. Absolutely. And just like a business, we're also looking for ways to, um, reduce our expenditures as well. So, and you also mentioned that, um, you're doing, there's three categories. FAA is constantly putting requirements on you for safety and efficiency that you have no choice, but to participate in, correct? That's correct. The state, the FDOT is doing similar. That's correct. How much would you say between FDOT and the FAA you bring in or they contribute in grants? In all of our grants, uh, the FAA right now is doing 95% and, uh, FDOT is doing 2.5% commissioner. And then the rest is based on the fees and monies that you were able to collect. That's correct. So when the FAA, some people like, well, you know, why are we slaves to the FAA? Well, the FAA is paying for 95% of what they're asking for you to do. Yes, commissioner. Which is based on their feeling that these things would enhance safety and efficiency at the airport. Absolutely. Commissioner. Okay. And then the other thing is, is that a 12.3%, even if it was enterprise dollars, it's not like you're just deciding, Hey, we should add all these luxuries in. You might spend money this year in, as you mentioned, in an effort to decrease costs in future years. So it costs you money to enhance a program or a technique that you're using, but in the future, it'll be less expensive to actually operate it. That's correct, commissioner. Thank you. I just wanted to mention that the revenue source is fuel, fuel flowage fees and leases from the airport FBOs. As well as the Customs and Border Protection Facility. And not just FBOs, DeHair is not an FBO and they're paying a lease, right? Yes, sir. Okay. So anyone that's a tenant on the airport property? Yes, commissioner. And when we move the maintenance facility that is currently a government entity operation that's on the property of the airport, when we move them out, that'll free up how many acres? About four to five acres. You can then rotate back into your inventory. Thank you. Commissioner Vargas. Okay. So I toured the facility. We've had discussions. I understand about what an enterprise fund is. So when you hire an outside attorney to help you with litigation or to offset, who pays for that? The airport does, commissioner. Okay. So this 12.3%, what, what are, what are you asking for the taxpayers of Martin County to pay? Zero dollars, commissioner? Zero dollars. Yes, commissioner. Because we need to be cutting expenses here. We have tremendous, tremendous responsibilities and we don't want to be cutting back services. So we're going to have to find another way. And I just want that verified and I want that videotaped also. So this costs nothing. This will not increase the taxpayers' bills. Is that correct? That's correct, commissioner. Commissioner Hetherington. My question, Mr. Donaldson answered it. The revenues are, or clarified it, fuel flowage fees, leases, and customs and border protections. And what, your additional FTE, I'm just curious, what does that position do? That's going to be additional airfield maintenance employees. So with the additional capital projects that we're doing to maintain a safe and serviceable airport comes new technology and new equipment and a required level of service that's expected by either both the flying public and the FAA. Okay. Does the, seeing as many of our fees are generated from the businesses at the airport, do you review this budget with the stakeholders at the airport? Not always. Sometimes when we, when we bring certain things, before we bring certain things before the board that could impact their fees, yes, we do review that with the stakeholders at the airport. Um, yeah. So yes, yes. No one has any additional questions. I'll move tentative approval of the airport budget. I will second that. Any further discussion? There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. We'll move on to building. Blue blazers today. Good morning, commissioners. Good morning. Jeff Daugherty, director of the building department. Today we're presenting our budget for 2026 fiscal year, and we're asking for an increase of 10.86%. Seven and a quarter percent of that is requirements of the collective bargaining agreement with the overhead associated that through FICA and the FRS. The balance has two main components, one of which is the, uh, allowance for overtime. We have overtime in there. We have records dating back to the 1980s. We went to an enterprise software system in 2017, 18. At that time, it's the cell system that makes us much more efficient. The efficiency has allowed us to lower our fees in 2023, and we lowered our fees again in 2024. So we're very conscious of that. We did so looking out in the future for what revenue we would be receiving. The difference between what we're doing with the overtime and the Acela is we had many documents that predated the Acela that were basically put from paper into PDF format and stored on our servers. We also received notification from the IT department that when we went to Acela, all our records were kept on a server in-house. The cloud at the time was in its infancy, and, uh, it wasn't really known how well it would perform. Last year, we can had, uh, technology consultant with Acela convert all our documents that were in Acela from our servers to the cloud, and therefore, we didn't have to pay to replace our servers here. We are in the process of converting the old documents that are on servers, not in Acela, into Acela, so they will have a proper maintenance in the cloud for that. We discovered that it's much more efficient for our staff to do it. We average about $9 to $9.50 per file to actually create a file, copy the file, and put it in. A consultant would be much more expensive. We also have new legislation by the, uh, state that requires us to dispose of records at a certain time frame. So we're currently working backwards from the first year prior to Acela, which is around 217, back to our 10-year date, which will probably be in the 13 or 14 range because it's the date where the project was started. And at that time, we'll do the disposition of those documents. So the overtime is for an efficient disposal and proper disposal of our historic records through the requirements of the state. The third item is a new FTE, plan reviewer and inspector. Uh, we have, uh, uh, very, uh, efficient organization. We have recently taken over and support the, we act as the building department for Indian town. In that particular case, we anticipated $50,000 of revenue for through the first nine months of this year, we've generated 79,000. So we are, uh, uh, funding that and receiving reimbursement appropriately. Additionally, we have five people on our staff, both full-time employees and part-times that are currently in their eighth decade of life. Uh, we have our inspect that's in the seventies, not eighties, but, but the next one too is half of our staff that goes and does building inspections are 60 year old or higher. Believe it or not, I'm in that category. But, um, so half of our staff is there, we need to plan for the future because this could be a big problem. We have over 12 people now that could retire today and walk out. They have either retired and come back or they're currently eligible to retire and drop. So in a blink of an eye, our staff could change overnight. Uh, it's very important for us to compete too, uh, against the private sector. We literally compete against the private percent private, uh, industry, the private provider statutes every year. The state makes it more and more difficult for us to compete against them. Most recently, July 1st, if a private provider comes in with plans, you must, you shall issue a permit within five days. We, uh, are allowed 30 days, uh, through the statute. But if we do 30 days, we might as well just close our offices. So we have to compete against the private industry. We are 100% user funded. We generate, uh, money and we also contribute about 20% of our budget back to the county for the support they provide us through indirect. That includes legal budgeting. Thank you, Stephanie. Um, also HR, it, all those things of that nature. So we not only generate our own revenue, we contribute for our overhead that the county provides us. A couple other things the staff, the state has done. They've, uh, given us more with the milestone inspections. That was the big thing with the condominiums. They've increased the requirements of that as of July 1, we have substantial reporting, uh, requirements through the, uh, Department of Professional and Business Regulation. So we have to take and accommodate that. We have to create our own emergency management plans from the counties for a building department and functionality after, uh, an event. And all these just became online. Uh, they just totally revamped the local licensing law that went into effect July 1. So we have a lot of, a lot of, uh, reading to do and get on board. We're working very closely with legal for that to make sure they, they come together. Um, overall in the county, we have seen a little increase year to year. We're, uh, up, uh, about 125 single family homes over, uh, last year. Uh, we're up about 120 townhouses, uh, uh, cumulatively. You can almost pinpoint that was, uh, the townhouse project at Canter and 95 behind Cracker Barrel. And I think the new homes are probably related to a new field. Interestingly enough, with the increase in townhouses, our average cost of construction has not decreased, but actually increased a couple thousand due to the high value of the ones coming in from Atlantic fields. There haven't been many came in, but they are very high end. So our, our revenue has been consistent. When we looked out and lowered our fees, uh, to remain competitive, we are covering our overhead. We are, uh, providing the service and we must continue. Again, we're the only government entity that I know of that competes head to head directly with the private provider industry as it's mandated to the state. So with that, I'd be glad to expand on any of the questions. And, uh, uh, one other thing, the, um, uh, commercial was up about, uh, uh, 40, 50% in terms of dollar volume. We measure commercial and dollar volume because you can have a small modification to a dentist office or a new office building. So, um, from our perspective, the revenues are remaining consistent and strong, uh, ahead of our forecast and we've been able to continually lower fees and maintain, uh, the operational efficiency because we are purely a service. Commissioner Campy. Thank you. That was thorough. I appreciate that. Um, if you could touch on code enforcement a little bit and derelict boats fall into your world, uh, as my first question, my second question is, I think it bears repeating. You had said user funded. The airport said, uh, enterprise, no tax dollars from our budgets are used. No ad valorem budgets, uh, dollars are used. You are funded through the fees that you're collected from the people that are utilizing your services for the most part. Is that correct? Yes. We are not an enterprise fund by definition of the County. We are by statute 553, which is part of the building code. And we are not allowed to take any of our money to spend on anything but the enforcement of the building code. However, we do pay indirects, which is allowable. As I said, we pay actually 20% back to the County for the support that they provide us to operate. Right. So to that point, you said HR, IT, legal, uh, budget. Uh, so some dollars that are collected through fees of people utilizing the services can then go back into those departments, as you said, indirect, which then if someone from, we'll use Ms. Murley as an example, if someone from her department is working on assisting you with your budget, they're not exclusively a building department, uh, expert in Ms. Murley's department. They're then using, so there is a, an indirect, as you said, advantage for taxpayers to have the services universally because of funds that are collected from your department. Yes, sir. Can you tell me about code enforcement and derelict boats? Derelict vessels is actually a function that is mandated by state through law enforcement. The County comes involved once law enforcement tags a boat that designates it as derelict or about to be derelict, two different categories. And they run their course, which is 21 days. The sheriff's, uh, attorney gives us a letter saying they've adjudicated essentially the, the case, hand us a letter, and then we remove the derelict vessel. We currently have about 30 on any year. Uh, it can go up with a hurricane or that, but it seems to be right in that range. Uh, our typical boat is, uh, about 30 feet long, 25, 30 feet fiberglass. All those boats must be destroyed. They cannot be reused except if it was used for an artificial reef program, which typically none of them are in shape that would qualify for that. So they destroyed all of our derelict vessel cases. Approximately 50% are able to be brought back into compliance. So only 50% of them are actually destroyed. Uh, we have a dedicated full-time person doing that who works hand in hand with the sheriff's office and has retired from the sheriff's office. So there's a good, uh, uh, synergy there. And it's very important. They go out and if there is a boat that's tagged as derelict, we will know about it within a day at the longest, if not the day of we prepare our paperwork, we contact our vendor, they go out, they take a look at it, give us an estimate. So as soon as we get the letter from the sheriff's office or the city of Stewart's attorney, if it's, uh, adjacent there, we are able to act on it immediately in terms of code enforcement, go on to code enforcement. Let me just say that Jeff's program and the synergy they've had with the sheriff's office, they've taken on the road and other counties are trying to copy the accomplishments that they've made. So it is, um, uh, it's really a close collaboration between his department and the sheriff's office and also lining up the contractors to be able to do this. It's not as quickly as he laid that out. It's not as simple as that. Uh, and it takes a lot of effort also to line up the grant agencies and things to help supplement the funds. And so Jeff's team has done a really remarkable job in that field. Well, and also reaching out to find the folks that might own these boats. And I know that in Palm city along the South fork, I, one of the larger complaints I get is people that are desperate to get these boats, especially while they're still floating because once they sink, everything in them goes into the river. So, I mean, I don't think most people would comprehend that our building department, uh, encompasses and handles all of these other categories. Um, so when people are like, well, why do you need this amount of employees and why is your budget going up? Because what we require of you, whether it's state mandated or we've just put it in as, as the BOCC, your job is much bigger than most people might consider. By way of, um, example, FDEP, uh, had a, uh, news release or press conference out of Indian Riverside Park, not quite a year ago to tout what, uh, they were doing through fish and wildlife too, for derelict vessels. And they had said they, from Melbourne down to, uh, keys, they had excluding Martin County, they had taken 43 derelict boats. And in that time, Martin County alone had taken in 42. So we, we actually take care of ours and get rid of them very quickly. So, uh, working with the sheriff is, uh, uh, law enforcement because it is their, uh, legal responsibility to tag it and then our responsibility to remove it. In terms of code enforcement, we continually, um, look to improve efforts in that, uh, over the years, we, we look to, uh, make things better for how we do code enforcement, but also the building code. An example is, uh, code enforcement historically would go out and look for expired permits, which really could be, uh, a building department function or is in code enforcement. They look at, uh, uh, working without a permit. And we also have people looking unlicensed contractors. So what we've recently done is said, okay, how can we do this better, get better coverage? So we've taken and merged those positions so that one person has a third of the County and we'll look for unlicensed contractors, uh, expired permits and working without a permit and divide them up and put them all in the building department, which will ultimately make the cost of code enforcement, uh, less, but it also gives us better coverage. So we have less people traveling the whole County and a third concentrating in each. And we've started that just about over a month ago and it gives us better success rate because people get to know their area better and what's going on. So we continue to look at those types of things, how we can operate better. Commissioner Vargas. Yeah. Um, I understand what you're talking about e-permit hut and you and I've had a couple of conversations also. Um, is this an AI program? Have you considered AI other counties are and it really cuts down on their costs if the public can use AI to come in and start the process or complete the process or in between? That's a great question based on just the timing list of the new laws that came through July one. Uh, there's depends on what your definition of AI is. I guess, uh, e-permit hub is a way to view documents much better than our older system. It's integrated into the Acela software, which is the enterprise management system. The state recently allowed AI to be used for building permit reviews. What specifically that means? We don't know. We're looking at software for that. Uh, by statute, it must have human eyes on it to sign off. So at what point does AI start and what point does AI stop? Uh, several of these vendors are providing, uh, new software for AI and we're looking at that. Uh, we obviously can't just plug and play in all the software. So we've got to make sure it's compatible. Uh, most recently e-permit hub, we've had those discussions and, uh, we're looking for some guidance from DBPR and from the Florida Building Commission for what is exactly acceptable for how you do AI, but still maintain the quality control requirements of statute 553. So some of the legislature is actually in conflict with what we have to do. And that's what they're working through right now. We certainly want to use that to certain degrees. We use, uh, remote inspections. So if someone has a hot water heater goes out on Friday night, the plumber comes up Saturday and fixes it, you know, it's one thing, but if they come in Tuesday, get a permit on Wednesday and they get their hot water heater changed, they don't want to take the day off on Thursday and wait for an inspector to come. So we have a visual spec and we one of the first people to use it. It is a geo coded inspection software. So you take videos or pictures within the visual spec software. You cannot take a picture on your camera and upload. So it has a longitude and latitude components. So you can't take a picture of someone else's garage, uh, pinpoint it down. They'll go through all the points of the, uh, hot water heater, the electrical connection, the electrical panel, all those components. It's done. It's sent in electronically. Then our inspector reviews it remotely for compliance. Uh, you can always ask for inspector to come out, but many people for those types of services, such as changing a hot water heater, changing a air conditioner, where we do have the, where you're just changing, not creating a new one. Um, sometimes people will put a larger hot water heater in and then that will require a larger electrical connection. And that's where we would pick it up. So that's the, uh, introductory one. We use drones to, uh, for both inspection quality and for safety. If you have a roof two story or a slope that's greater than 612, which is approximately 45 degrees, we'll put a drone up and inspect the roof that way. It is surprising to me how accurate and detailed they can be because the drone goes up and zooms in and you can literally read writing on the nail of the net, uh, nail of the head. Um, you know, read what's on there. Uh, I'd have to call on the roof of my reading glasses to get that close to look. So we use technology that way as well. Um, and we continue to look at operations with our enterprise fund and with AI and alternative inspections and those types of things to provide our customers the best service. And we do have, I believe, the lowest rates of any building department in the area. Right. I was thinking about cutting down costs, you know, maybe eliminating a position if you don't need somebody to go out or something else within your department. If we, we need them because we are getting more and more mandates to be more competitive with the private industry. If we cut them, it would cut, uh, it wouldn't have any effect on taxpayer because we're a hundred percent funded. We are a little bit different than most businesses in the sense that, uh, we're kind of like a airplane. You go buy a ticket to fly somewhere. You pay up front before you fly. You come into the building apartment and you pay us when you get your fee. So you've paid us for inspections. We better provide the best possible service because you have paid for that. And that's the expectation of all the customers. We do not roll inspections, roll inspections where you get too busy and you say, Hey, I can't get there today. We'll do it tomorrow. We have never done that. Uh, since I've been there, the customers expect the service. If we have to work late, we'll work late. If we don't, we will be competing against private industry. They have paid for that service and we do it. Um, we don't, uh, uh, have unlimited ability to inspect. An inspector cannot go out and do 30 inspections, uh, a day because essentially they will violate the license requirements where they have to do so much each day. Uh, we do have remote tablets instantaneous. If an inspector goes out and passes an inspection, hits the button, it immediately notifies the builder, the owner and staff of what it is. So that has been very, very successful. The building, uh, inspectors do not come into the department. They immediately go in the field because everything is on their tablets. So all that investment in technology has allowed us to lower our fees, uh, each of the last two years and remain competitive. Cost too. I was referring to cost also. As I said, we're, we are probably the lowest rates of fees of any building jurisdiction and continue to provide the service. We, uh, just recently, uh, about a year ago, uh, I, I noticed that our inspectors were spending too much time on the phone answering calls. They really didn't excuse me, our plan reviewers. And we entered a 24 hour scheduling. So if you wanted to call in and talk to a plan reviewer and had a specific question, we will make appointment. You will get a call at two 20 on Tuesday. We won't call you Tuesday. We'll call you at two 20 or whatever that is. You have a choice of a face to face, a phone call or zoom meeting. And on 25% of them, the person we have dedicated person to manning that system, they are able to, if it's a simple question, get that question, get it answered, answer the question and cancel the meeting because we have answered the client's question prior to the meeting. Okay. Commissioner Hetherington. Yeah. You've done a good job with, um, um, I've gotten good feedback on your fees and your response times and particularly that scheduling the, uh, appointment. So while this is not particular to yours, but Stephanie, you, you did an introductory and the beginning, the slide that had the efficiencies and the enterprise leasing was, and there's some changes and yours and a number of departments. Could you just give a brief overview on that fleet leasing and how, what the efficiencies will realize from that? So I, I'll give a little introductory on that. Um, but Sean Donahue will be able to explain that a lot, uh, more thoroughly, but high level from a budget perspective. Um, we previously had our own light fleet, um, vehicle fund and we would purchase vehicles outright and we would have replacement costs for a vehicle, say for 10 to 12 years that each department would pay into the fleet replacement fund in order to replace that vehicle at its end of life, um, say 10 to 12 years down the road. And as we mentioned at the, um, beginning of the workshop, we're constantly looking at ways to save the county money and do things better. So we looked into the enterprise, um, fleet lease, uh, program. And essentially what it's going to do is create a lease program where you would have your vehicles, um, and the lease would last approximately five years. We have about a four year like cycle that we're going to have to cycle these in. And instead of driving a vehicle into the ground at year 12 or so, you're going to be paying a lease and turning in that, that car a lot earlier than you would have at the end of that 10 to 12 year cycle. What this does is it reduces costs, not only for, um, repairs and maintenance, because that's what tends to happen towards the end of life of a 12 year old vehicle, but it's also going to save, um, it's going to give us a higher rate of return for the lease vehicle at the end of the cycle, as well as keep things pretty much level year over year. So we aren't as susceptible to those huge increases in vehicle purchases, um, because enterprise has such great buying power compared to a little County like us. So we're able to really maximize and take a look at the, at the vehicles that they have available to us to kind of fit our needs a little bit better. We're able to downscale a lot of vehicles to, and then our fuel efficiency as well will essentially go up because we won't need to burn through the fuel as bad at year 10 to 12. I say that as somebody who's not a light fleet expert, Sean can explain that, but from a budgetary perspective, it looks like we're going to see a lot of cost savings down the road. And when will that begin Ms. Murley? In FY 26. So we are, yes. So this budget, you'll see there's, um, reallocations within each division. Um, there used to be a light fleet replacement charge, and now you'll see, um, it'll say rentals and leases light fleet. Um, that is just a reallocation of those funds previously. So it starts in FY 26. The departments are creating their, um, vehicle list right now. So we're able to cycle that first year of vehicles in. That's year one. I think it's 185 vehicles, but it's going to take four years to fully cycle all of those vehicles in. And I'll talk, I'll let Sean talk now. You said everything absolutely perfectly. I've learned a lot. If that helps. Thank you. Commissioner. During your item. Commissioner Capps. Yes. Um, Mr. Doherty, can you comment a little more about the state requirement to dispose of old records? I know that in the insurance claim situations these days, a lot of times residents need access to old records at the building department, um, in order to prove things about the work that was done on their homes. Um, and, uh, will that ability be preserved or will we'll be losing that ability? My understanding is there was some issues with government entities charging a lot of money to research documents that roll because there are so many documents and ultimately it evolved into specific timeframes for building departments and the building department for residential is 10 years. And it says you shall dispose. So anything beyond 10, 10 is based on the, uh, final inspection, final certificate. So it could have been two years building. So let's say 12 or 13, but beyond that, we're mandated to dispose of those records and commercial has a different cycle, but they both have a very definitive cycle that was put in that legislation. That's interesting because I know, uh, you know, a lot of times, um, people will need to dig way back in time, you know, to prove something to an insurance company, but would, but then I realize also it's a state mandate. There's not anything you can do about that. We, we often get, uh, questions on mobile homes and when the deck was put on in the 1980s. And, uh, so in nineties and we, we get those all the time, but eventually when we totally comply, those records will not be available. Interesting. Um, another thing, if you could comment on is giving 20% back to the County. Yeah. Tell us a little more about that. Well, there's indirect and it is established through the budget process. We do, uh, we support budget, which obviously they work with us, uh, monthly and monitor our costs and expenses, uh, IT. We work with IT. Uh, uh, they support the, uh, uh, IT functions that we have as well as, uh, purchase, uh, computers when we need it. All that is routed through them and those services. Uh, we also use legal on many different things, whether it's, uh, uh, compliance with a statute or, uh, licensing board and, and all those types of things that are in there. We have contracts that, uh, we work with legal on, uh, we have HR as we, uh, uh, uh, hire people and, uh, uh, recruit people and all the functionality that HR provides as well as any other departments that support us. And occasionally your county administrator. Yeah. If I, if I may, um, we conduct an indirect cost study or cost allocation plan every two years. Um, and what that does is evaluate all of the expenses for all of those various departments like county administration, budget, county attorney's office, information technology, even so far as the clerk of the circuit court, the services they provide as well. And through that indirect cost study or that cost allocation plan, they're able to, um, derive proportions that my office assist Jeff or my office assist, um, say fire rescue as well. And then what, instead of my salary, for example, being a hundred percent property tax funded, what they're doing is offsetting my expense through contributions in the indirect cost study. So he's essentially paying for my services. Pretend I'm a vendor for him. I'm providing him excellent service and he has to pay for that. It's, it's apparently non-negotiable. It's non-negotiable. We, we also pay general services for the maintenance of our building and cutting of our grass and all those. So we contribute, you know, whatever's appropriate to us as a landscaping bill and the odds and ends that they come and do for, for us from time to time. What's ever considered a centralized service such as general services. So the air conditions running here, um, we have to pay for that. Um, and that's kind of divvy dump amongst all the divisions within the County just to come up with that. It's Tracy Hurt unfortunately gets to do that cost allocation plan and it's, it's pretty dreadful, but it's very thorough. Um, I have a business and I've interacted with the Martin County building department for 32 years and I would, and I interact with a lot of other ones as well. And I would have to say that the Martin County building department has a, a very clear, uh, customer service mindset compared to the other ones. And I appreciate that very much. Um, and I'm sure that comes from top down. So I appreciate that. Um, and a couple of things that I think go into that customer service mindset that you mentioned that stand out to me are the lower fees. I know that some of the building departments are around the state, um, almost look at building department fees as a cash cow and where they're, they're in the profit making business or something because the fees are quite outlandish and those fees get, uh, passed on to customers. Uh, but that's not really the case at the Martin County building department. The fees are quite reasonable compared to the other building departments. And then also, I really appreciate the fact that you don't roll inspections as you mentioned, because it, it seems to me like when building departments do that, they're basically signaling that the economy, uh, is at their mercy, you know, and you know, the economy doesn't stop because building departments can't get to their inspections and you don't shut the economy down and say, well, I'm sorry, you can't, you can't work tomorrow because I don't have time to come and do your inspection. And I appreciate the fact that you all do not do that. Thank you for the kind words. And I'm, I'm fortunate to be part of a team that a great staff. So they get all the credit. Yeah. Commissioner Vargas. No, I think that was an old light. Is there a motion to approve? Move, uh, tentative approval of the building department budget. And I will second it. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you very much. We'll take a, uh, lunch break now. We'll be back. We are back taking up our budget hearing for FY 26. We'll now take up the capital improvement plan. Okay. Um, commissioners, uh, this is just a slide to kind of set as a reminder that we, um, tentatively approved and went through all of the CIP back on April 22nd, 2025 at that workshop. Um, it added an additional 5.1 million in ad valorem, um, for services such as rail safety improvements, road resurfacing, stormwater infrastructure, and equipment replacement. Um, part of the large increase for the capital improvement plan, as mentioned earlier, was about $20 million for the Martin County forever, the environmental land acquisition program. And so we have to anticipate those receipts into the budget and therefore an additional 20 million was added right off the top for this year's budget. Um, so I'm not going to rehash it any longer. We went through it and if there's no other questions that we can go ahead and move along. That's that part of the story won't make it into the conversation. It'll just be a 50% increase. Well, there's actually more. Um, things have changed since April. Things have, have changed substantially since April. Um, so, um, among those things are, um, the fact that we have a dire need to move our, uh, public works, public works department. Um, we have, we purchased a, we are in dire need of building a new public works department and, uh, the situation there is shameful. There, uh, at present are, I think, two restrooms and that's 100% more restrooms than were available there about 10 years ago. And it's home to, let's call it a hundred of our hardest working employees and lowest paid employees. And we just kick in the, keep kicking the can down the road. We desperately need to build this facility. And now there's, there's some new constraints. One is that the existing department is on the airport, airport property, and we're being evicted and we're being evicted quickly. And we partially addressed this problem in 2018. I think we bought a parcel, a parcel of land and the parcel of land that we bought is in the most inconvenient location. It can possibly be in, in Martin County, but there was so little property that was available. We bought it. So it's over off of canter highway. It's, it's around the golf resorts. So we purchased, uh, 30 acres, for $6 million. Um, so we have debt service. We had to build a road, um, that, and we're, we've been saving a little bit of money here and there to build the project. We don't have anywhere near the amount of money that we need to build the project. And it's still in a terribly inappropriate and inconvenient location. And now also the, uh, governor and the legislature and the newly appointed, uh, chief financial officer have signaled their intentions for next year and the year after they're going to go after local governments. They're going to do something. They're, they're going to use, they're going to do something to our ad valorem collection. And in Martin County, that's absolutely catastrophic. So when we purchased the property in 2018, as I said, we looked all over and all the locations were terrible. So we chose the least awful of the alternatives, something that we didn't consider at the time because we still had a eight year lease was the fairgrounds. The fairgrounds, uh, lease ends next year. So all of a sudden that property, which is combined with the, uh, uh, parks department, uh, maintenance facility on Indian street and the fairgrounds, I think it's about 20 acres. Am I right? 22 acres, 13 acres. I don't know if we can build the facility on 13 acres, but I think we need to figure out whether we can or not. And part of the way to fund this is to sell that property that we purchased on off of 96th or can or wherever it is and use some of those proceeds in order to help us, uh, build this facility. But we need to set aside money now in order to move the, uh, public works department. And that includes in my way of thinking that includes adding more money into this budget and there's money available. We have no choice. We are going to be forced to provide a public works department. Uh, let's do it as quickly as possible. I don't know that we're going to have any ability to raise funds next year at all. So we're kind of, kind of in a, in a, in a, uh, an urgent place right now. And another urgency is the, the, uh, clinic. Oh, we also, our lease is ending there and we have plans to construct a clinic and that is such a convenience and it's such a money saver for Martin County taxpayers. Uh, we need to proceed with both of these projects. And unfortunately that means we need more money, but it's available fortunately from this year's budget. If we make the political decision to do the right thing. Commissioner Vargas. Okay. So, uh, you're saying we need more money. You mean to add on. Yes. As an additional here. Yes. Yeah. You know what? We really need to go back to this particular budget. There are some items in there that don't belong. Tell me what they are and let's see if, and then let's eliminate them. Well, somebody wants to put an EV charger in the parking lot. I don't think it's not good. That's not going to make $10 million. No, it's not. It's not. But the point is where are we going then? Because we only have so much money. It's not a bottomless pit and people can smile and say, well, you know, why is she asking this? I understand that. But what about our reserve? Shouldn't we be shoring that up? We are. Well, if we're going to be spending more money here, how does that work? How much extra are we putting in reserves this year? It's substantial, but we need both. In our general fund reserve alone, um, we have our 23.8 million required restricted reserves. Um, we have another five and a half million for our long-term fiscal strategy reserves for debt payoffs for the supervisor expansion, and also another 2 million to hopefully offset that public works facility P3 annual expense. We also have started building up all of our fire rescue, um, um, reserves about 7.3 million in order to take care of those future fire station needs. That's another thing. If we don't, if we don't prioritize for our employees, then our money is going to be instead prioritized for new fire stations, new training facilities for the sheriff, new this and that. And meanwhile, our own employees, our own hardworking employees, we're not providing a suitable home for them. And that's shameful. Okay. But are there other headings where we need to pull in curtail so we can provide for employees? And we have to look at this very carefully. I mean, the constant budget increase, it's not sustainable. I hate to use that word. It's been used a lot, but it's just not by the county, unless we're starting to raise taxes. And I I'm just not going to do that. We need to be cutting expenses. Commissioner Hetherington. I, I will just point, I, and I didn't support the CIP during this, the, the, uh, well, I didn't support, um, a portion of it because there were a lot of new projects in it. And there was a $6 million new park that has not made it yet, even in the review for parks and rec. And if you would, and that got budgeted, I believe in the CIP, that might be a good source to look to divert pineapple park that had not been vetted in the park center at master plan. And that might be a good place to look to move to crucial public works facilities. Ms. Murley, how much money do we need to build a public works department? Um, the cost is estimated between 80 and a hundred million dollars for the public works facility and 6 million is not as dropping. Somebody smiled a moment ago. It's dropping the bucket. Okay. Same thing. But if we're talking about where to cut, then we have to have a conversation about that's fine. And we can cut, we can cut, but 6 million is not even touching what they're asking for to do this. So we have to go elsewhere to really start to bring rain in the dollars. $6 million is a pretty hefty start. Uh, everything's very large, but that's not going to really make a dent right here. Mr. Donahue, would you come forward, please? So by way of background and commissioners, one of the areas that we've been looking at what with, uh, both the clinic and the, um, public works, which also includes, um, general services and parks facilities is to look at a P3 process where, uh, we can have a public private partnership that might also build some facility that, um, helps pay for it, uh, leasing out a section, et cetera. Uh, that is something the legislature introduced, um, a few years ago. Um, it's just now making its way into use by local governments and school boards have been using it more effectively or, or using it more period. So we were looking at, to explore, we have hired a couple of firms to assist us with this this past year to identify as opposed to a traditional, um, uh, design bid build concept where you have all of your funds, uh, at once to look at a P3 process where we would be looking at a, a reoccurring revenue that we could devote to sort of like a lease payment, uh, lease purchase, really. It's really a lease purchase, um, um, and the combination of either a pure lease purchase or a lease purchase with a revenue source that would help, um, um, uh, that, and that's what we've been looking at. Oh, that's our only choice we thought at this point to be successful in the near term as opposed to saving up a long period of time for the traditional design bid bill or, um, borrowing traditional funds against gas tax or something like that for, for a borrowing. So anyway, that's, that's in our, you all approved us to, to explore that. We still don't have the results of that, uh, yet. So, um, that's, that's what's our current plan. Just letting you know is that our current plan is to, to continue on with, with a potential of a P3 project for, um, for the public works facility. And it looks like we will be able to bring forward an item for the, uh, um, clinic here shortly. Um, and that's not using county general revenue funds. It's using funds we have allocated to our health system, which will save us money, um, without incurring future, uh, obligations to the, to, to your ad valorem source. Mr. Donahue, do you think that we can build an adequate public works facility on 13 acres? The fairground site doesn't currently have stormwater improvements. It doesn't have turn lane improvements. So when you take that 13 acres, start adding those, those necessities in it, you're left with about, let's just say 10 acres. That's currently what we're sitting on at the current facility. That's with or without the stormwater improvements and the turning lanes. Currently what we have at, at the, uh, airport facility does not have, does not have the turn lanes and it does not have the stormwater facilities either. So once you start cutting those things out and building the site into it, uh, we're going to be left with the same square footage, same acreage. So it'd be tough. It'd be tough to gain anything out of it. Is it doable? Doesn't that be a ornate building, just a building? It's such a, we, it's such a long and narrow site to be able to do something adequate with and still plan for the future. If we're looking to build this facility for another 25, 30 years, it's going to be extremely difficult to do it on that particular site. Okay. So go to the inconvenience site off of Canter. Um, when do you think we're going to have enough money to be able to start construction? I don't have an answer for that right now. We are, like we said, like Don said, we were looking at, um, real estate consultants to see what we can do with a piece of that property to leverage that to help finance, uh, the construction. Uh, another benefit of using a P3 would be the efficiencies of construction. Uh, a lot of companies can come in and build industrial warehouse facilities, either by metal building, enhanced metal buildings, uh, or a thermal, thermal store, uh, uh, sip, sip is basically what it's called, uh, where it's an insulated metal building. Uh, there's different ways of building this thing. It's probably more efficient than we could do it on our own. So there is a benefit of bringing in an outside firm to help us with that construction, as well as build, uh, you know, a commercial piece, uh, that would help finance it as well. And when are we being evicted from the airport? We got a guy. George Stoke, assistant county administrator. You're, the airport received an airport compliance letter as a result of a part 13 adjudication proceeding with the FAA, in which the FAA has requested, has noted that that property is intended for aeronautical use and is currently non-compatible. So they haven't given us a, you will drop dead date, which you leave, but failure to take such actions will lead to a part 16 FAA process, which is similar to a court function. And then if we're found in non-compliance, there are penalties that come along with that. So, you know, I, just from a professional perspective, I would say you've got five years. Commissioner Campy. Wow. The meeting got really interesting all of a sudden. I thought we just ignoring our needs. Hey, listen, I'm, I think you're making bold statements and I'm not disappointed in what you have to say. First thing I say that I would disagree with is I would absolutely say that our men and women of fire rescue are Martin County employees. So they're definitely part of our family. So that part, yes. But a lot of what I've been here, you know, as you have been for a while and we have heard these things and yes, we have kicked the can down the road. I remember several years ago being absolutely shocked when I heard that I think at the time 90 employees that were staging at the public works facility at the airport, you can imagine you show up for work, you're getting your equipment together, the truck together, you're putting your teams out to go to different sites. And maybe before you start the day out on the side of the road somewhere, you might want to just use the restroom. And they had one for 90 employees. I work at another, my regular job. There is eight of us bathrooms busy all day long before with eight people. I cannot comprehend. And remember, we're not talking about people, 90 people that are staying at this location. So if I can't go to the bathroom right this minute, I can come back in 15 minutes. They all have to leave within X minutes to head out into the, into the County to do their work. It's embarrassing. It's the same conversation we used to have with the fire stations. Anybody, you know, you drive past your local neighborhood fire station, you had no idea that sewage would come up through the shower pans or the kitchen cabinets were falling off the walls or the bathrooms were filthy or everything was rusty. We should be embarrassed if we are treating any of our employees and forcing them to work in substandard facilities. I think our residents would be very disappointed and embarrassed in us when we're talking about this morning and it walks through every department. How do you recruit the people that you need? How do you retain the people that you need? There is dollars and cents things like your benefits package, but the intangible is people have a level of pride or a certain minimum standard of where they will find it acceptable to work. And if you go over to the public works facility and I've been there many times, all, we have many different departments there, mosquito control, signage, traffic, lots of different people there. And they work in what most of us would consider highly substandard conditions. That speaks to whether or not you might want to work there or continue to work there. We've been, we used to kid, we've been having this conversation since Mr. Donaldson was the county engineer. Now look at him. We used to tease him, or at least I would tease him and we would call it the Don Donaldson complex. We thought eventually he would pass away and we'd have to name it after him. But that being said, you know, of old age, I was so happy for him when we finally found a piece of property to purchase. I didn't realize to Commissioner Hurd's point that it was as inconvenient as she feels that it is. I know that we looked at a couple. It's a catch-22. It's a, it would hopefully be a large operation. So I know we looked at a piece of property on Willoughby, just south of Pinewood Elementary School. And that really didn't work. And then we looked at some other spots. So the concept of getting to the piece that we finally purchased through a heavy negotiation, I would, this is the first I'm hearing that it might not be the ideal spot. So I wrote a couple of notes when I heard my colleagues speaking. What is the value? I know we're not selling it. So I guess what we would need to do is have Mr. Stokas and Mr. McBean figure out once we vacate the airport site. And then we would leave it as clear ground that we would have to build whatever's going to be there? No, you, you, you would simply, uh, Commissioner, you would simply leave the property. No, I understand that. But what would we do with it once we left? What would the airport do? Oh, the airport will then engage into its five-year capital improvement program and it will clear it and turn it. Currently, it's, uh, under the master plan and what this body has seen before is it will be, uh, approximately 64 sunshade hangars to address the dire need for that type of aircraft storage. That money that is raised renting those hangars, there stays on the airport, stays on the airport. Absolutely. No, no possibility of squeezing cash off this property to come out of that place. Yeah. Do you currently pay rent to be on the airport? Yes, you do. You currently have a day-to-day operational license at the airport. What would we save by moving us off of the? Up to $600,000. It's just under $300,000 a year. Okay. So if you're creating a column, there's the first $300,000. Um, now the fairgrounds has also been, I have said for many years, is probably the most valuable piece of property that the county owns. I can't think of more. One, it's large. It's not gigantic, but it's larger than most. Two, it's beautifully located next to the industrial hub and train and transportation. It's in the heart of Stewart. I wouldn't think about putting another one of our government buildings there. I would think about selling most of it because I think it's very valuable. Taking all of the proceeds of that and put it on the same ledger that we just did the $300,000. Then I also, part of that $11,000, are you including the parks department maintenance in that same number? Just the fairgrounds is what I was talking about. Okay. I would also include the parks and rec maintenance facility that is currently located there. And on the corner, the, on the southern corner, the most valuable piece, and consolidate that operation into our public works operation. How many acres are we currently on? Did you say 10 at the airport approximately? About 10.4s. Okay. So let's call it 10. And there's a couple of acres that parks in rec? Yeah, about three or four. Okay. And how much is the Canter Highway? 30. 30. 30. All right. So that's 13 currently used to 30. Any other, I know there's a little maintenance place at Hal Patiochi. I can't imagine you move them because they're working at that site. Do we have any other that I'm not thinking of off the top of my head? Do we have any other yards or maintenance facilities? We do have some of our storage is off-site, you know, for general, for public works, for instance, aggregates and things for roads. We had to move that off the airport a few years ago. So we've been storing some of it, either we have it at some out at the landfill, and we also have some at our old EOC site that we've been using. So that's, that's probably... You don't gain any financial value from consolidating it to Canter. You're not... No, we don't. No, other than that's, that's... It would be smarter to have it all combined. Right, exactly. We're not paying any rent. No, we won't, we won't gain any economic value of, other than consolidation of efficiency. So now to my colleague's point, assuming that, that she's right and that Canter's not the ideal spot. And maybe you guys agree. I don't know. I've never had that conversation with anybody, but I'm not disagreeing. If that's the case, we bought that before anything was built there. Even, what is that called? The South Florida Gateway. What's it called? South Florida Gateway. I've been by there. We just had a conversation at our last meeting about it. They're moving along, and that's become a real class A industrial park that we own 30 acres of. Maybe, and what did we pay? Whatever, whatever we... Six plus three. I bet that property is worth more than six plus three now. So if, if... Six million. Six million. If Ms. Commissioner Hurd is accurate, which I might believe her, let's see what it would cost to, what we could make selling it. And then to your point about a 3P or a public-private partnership, we have a couple of businesses, large businesses, that have been doing their own deals. Specifically, Ashley Capital has the old ag tech that's now called Sunrise Grove. And then they have a piece of property that they've been more than willing to negotiate with. Our fire rescue on the other side of the street. Now, that's only a couple hundred acres. I don't know if they'd want to give up 30. But if you were on one, the east side of 95 or the west side of 95, maybe you work a deal with them that you buy X amount of acres with the ability to buy the second and third phases up, you know, in the future. Because there's no way we're going to build an 80 or a hundred million dollar facility. You'd have to decimate the rest of the budget in every other department to be able to build a public works facility for one department or maybe public parks and rec. So I think if that's the case, we should give some of our very talented thinkers and negotiators the task of taking the next couple of months to go out and figure out how to do this. Because one of the most successful strategies that the county has used was what the CRA came up with on Map Road and Bridge Road. We would never have been able to get those projects done. We were in the same kind of cycle that this public works facility is in. Great ideas, lots of thought, lots of conversation, just could never get it done. As a matter of fact, we did the same thing with the new fire stations. We borrowed the money, which is a legitimate business practice for big corporations, that basically the county government is a business enterprise. And then, but you need to know, you'd have to have the ability to borrow the money at great terms, which the government can. And you'd have to have the stream of being able to pay it back. We did that on Bridge Road and Map. And we finished those projects that we never would have been able to. We still would be discussing because we only brought in enough to have a conversation and plan. We never had enough to actually do it. And so when we did, so even with three or four fire stations that we've successfully built, it would have taken, we'd still be talking about them. And meanwhile, Mr. Donaldson, have we been discussing this for 10 or 15 years? Haven't we been having this conversation for at least a decade? Yes. Yeah. So to Commissioner Hurd's point, and that's why I said it's bold. I wasn't expecting her to say that. It's actually politically daring to say something. When you first said, well, you know, we got a lot of things going on here. And I heard Commissioner Vargas agree. We've already know that Commissioner Vargas is expecting a tight budget. And I think she was shocked by what you said. And but that being said, you still need to get three of us to agree and have the public understand its importance. And I don't know if the public necessarily feels like, like when we talk about moving the county administration out of this building, I don't think there's ever going to be a political will for that because the public money's tight for everybody. They don't want to hear about the government building new buildings. But I think people are smart and reasonable that if we can present a case that makes sense for why we would have to consolidate public works and treat people respectfully, now the five of us and staff have to figure out how do you pay for it. I think that's the only way you're going to be able to pay for it. Because to raise 80 or 100 million dollars for the public, and it's not going to be the Taj Mahal. You're talking about pretty generic buildings, but it's just going to be really expensive to do. You'd have to really make a point to show that, as well as the other departments can't feel that they don't count, that everyone's budget is going to get decimated so that we can raise half the money. So I think you'd have to put it out for some kind of big bond, and then think about how do you pay for it. But you can't wait five years, because it's unfair to add another five years to a 10 or 15 year process. That's really kicking the can down the road. So my final comment is Commissioner Hurd's not wrong. She's sounding an alarm, which I give her a lot of credit for, that this is something that can't just be discussed for a couple of minutes at the meeting and then moved along. So good for you, Commissioner Hurd. Mr. Capps. Yes, my visit to the public works facility a few months ago, I was really rather surprised. It looked like a bunch of old mobile homes that have been bolted together that people are working in over there. It's pretty primitive. And so I see the need, and I applaud our chair for wanting to address it. And I have a mortgage calculator on my phone, just to give a little bit of context. And I put in $80 million, 30 years, 7%. And the payment would be $532,000 per month. And if we borrowed that at that rate. But we don't pay at seven, what do you figure we would pay? On three to four. Oh, really? Yes. Three. I would be surprised. So you're three point, you want to do 3.5? Okay. So that would be $359,000 per month. And did you say, how much are we paying for rent now? We're paying just under $300,000 a year. So that's not going to sink us. I mean, the difference between what we would have to pay if we just went out and borrowed the money. And what we're paying now is, you know, $60,000 a month. So that helps to give a little perspective. And there are probably more creative ways of going about it that would bring that difference down to even a smaller amount, I suppose. And Commissioner Capps, I like what you're doing. Can you look and make that $40 million instead of $80 million? Yeah. In 3%. Yes. Okay. Well, but even at three, I don't mean to make it like where it's a number that we just find the number that we like. I like 3.5% because I do. But if we create a public-private partnership, if we understood that it wasn't a blank check, if you had to build what you needed to build, and you could only spend $40 million, which let's not forget, that's a ton of money. What's $40 million? Yeah, $40 million, 30 years, 3.5%, $179,000 a month. I remember when I first got here, the property appraiser and the supervisor of elections and the tax collector were leasing their spaces. If some of you that were here a long time, you remember we purchased Mrs. Davis's building on Martin Luther King. She was renting it. And Laurel Kelly was the property appraiser. She was renting in the tower. And I don't know if it was Ruth Ski or her, Larry, what was his name, Larry Osteen. They were renting. And I remember when I first showed up, I think, and you can double check these numbers, I think Laurel was paying $50,000 a month. And Vicki was paying $30,000 or $40,000 a month. And we purchased their buildings. And there was an uproar. Why are you purchasing? You shouldn't be spending this money. We have saved millions of dollars since the day we purchased those buildings. So when someone here is $175,000 a month, oh my God. I'm sure there'll be a member of the public that'll come and say, shame on us. But you got a $760 million, give or take, dollar budget to create this and use a financing tool, not to be spendthrifts, but to use a financing tool. Let's get it done and get it built and be done with it. Everyone was horrified that we would build the Indian Street Bridge, the Roosevelt Bridge, all of these projects. And we finally did it. And it became a benefit to the community. So to Commissioner Hurd's point, let's agree that it's not going to be something that five years we're still discussing. Let's take her charge and ask the staff to come back. We're brainstorming up here, but come back with a legitimate version of this. I don't know if I would move off the property. I think if you're over on Cannes or you're on Martin Highway or you're on Willoughby, it's the same. It's about the structure, the facility, and the convenience and efficiency of the process that's most important. So if we want to make a vote to decide to ask staff to really think about it much more seriously, I'm in. The medical clinic, I'm a little more leery on. But the maintenance and public works facility and consolidating everybody we could put over there, storing stuff that's stored all over the county and securing it in one location, I think that's a good idea. I didn't think we were going to be discussing it today, but I'm happy about it. Well, there's some urgency. I'm getting it. I hear you. There's a lot of urgency, simply because I think we're going to see ad valorem caps imposed in six months, and I also think that we're going to be evicted in the next three years. So we need to figure out a plan probably today. All right. Good for you. Commissioner Vargas. Okay. So I think the suggestion is that we go into debt. I am not for that at all. And we're just picking figures out on the air. The market dictates what money costs. It's not free at all. It's not going to be near free at all. So, you know, we really need to step up to the plate and really take a hard look and see how we want to proceed forward. We're going to have to nip and tuck elsewhere. We only have so much money. Somebody made the comment that, well, businesses do that, but businesses provide a product. We go to the till. We go to the pocket books of the taxpayers, of which I am one of those. And that is not the same concept whatsoever. So we have to remember what our chairperson said. We're going to be seeing severe situations. And are we suggesting we're going to raise taxes in Martin County so that we can have a public works in one area and buy another piece of property and maybe we'll sell a piece of property and maybe it'll be this price and maybe it'll be this interest rate. We're kind of talking, you know, just kind of pie in the sky type thing at this point. Mr. Capps. I think that this might be a good time to talk about, and I know you'll be talking about it again later, about our overall debt position and whether or not we could afford to be borrowing more money for a public works facility when the time comes. And in my studies, it was very evident to me that Martin County has a very low debt policy and has for many years. If you look at the amount of debt we have compared to the amount of reserves we have, we have more reserves than we do total debt. I do believe that's true. Okay. And then if you look at, if I can find it here, where is that page where the debt policies of Martin County are very conservative? Page 87. There are four different benchmarks that we use to measure our debts in Martin County. The county's debt capacity will be maintained within the following parameters. Net general obligation bonded debt per capita will remain under $900. And then net debt as a percentage of estimated market value of taxable property will not exceed 3%. And then the third test is the ratio of debt service expenditures as a percentage of governmental fund expenditures will not exceed 10%. And then lastly, the debt per capita as a percentage of income per capita will not exceed 5%. I was quite impressed with that. And it suggested to me that Martin County's fiscal policy is very conservative. And we don't have a lot of debt in Martin County by comparison, probably to other local governments. So that's perspective that I think that's very relevant on this subject. If it comes to a point where we have to borrow some money to build a public works facility, I think the operative question would be, are we in a low enough debt position to be doing something like that? And it would appear to me that we are. Commissioner Hetherington. So just a couple points that were raised, and I want to weigh in on the public works facility. So if we're getting evicted in three to five years, then I think, and this has been in the CIP since I've been here in 2018. And I see the urgency of getting a facility if we're getting evicted in the next three to five years. I'm not in favor of adding to this budget. But if there's something in here that are not critical needs, and that public works facility has been in this book for a while. There are new projects that were added this year, and we've got to prioritize them. If that is what we deem a critical need, we have to prioritize that first. And all new projects that were, not all new, if it's not a critical need, then we've got to first put our dollars towards those critical needs. And I think 80, the other, no, 80 million, I believe is an inflated number. I think with the P3 and some of those strategies, I think we can do a lot better. So not in favor of adding to this budget, I'd be willing to move resources that are not allocated to critical needs. I think we need to really consider based on that eviction notice, and again, prioritize. And the fairgrounds, I think that we had looked at a proposal for its highest and best use. And I feel like there's probably, I don't know what it is, a better highest and best use than public works than that facility on that particular property. Well, I would certainly like to find some certainty about our capital improvement plan before we leave this today, because I think it's, we need to prioritize the public works department. We need to prioritize building that building, and we need to have better, more solid ideas how we're going to do that. Commissioner, maybe I can make a suggestion. I think we hear you loud and clear, and we agree that the public works facility is a priority. Let us, my suggestion would be to leave the CIP just as it is, that we would identify or bring back projects that we could at least put as targets to be potentially on hold until we figure this out. Let us work with our P3 partners and try to bring some ideas to see if there's a way to structure a project using traditional means of what you, public works, which would be our gas tax and our franchise fee types funds. And what I have a lorem is potentially available in this year through Ms. Murley's recommendation. If that's not enough, then we could have some projects identified that we could postpone or take off the books that would be able to help fund the reoccurring funds for, for this project. But having not identified the actual need, why don't we leave those projects alone? And then we can work with you on identifying those between now and the public hearing, which projects we would target as potential projects to put on hold that you could be tentatively approved or even approved in the budget, but they would not move forward until we've resolved the public works facility. Commissioner Capps. One of the, you know, I'm open to all of these ideas, but I would like us to be able to not raise the millage rate. You know, like if I would want, that'd be one by one condition that we'd be able to have a flat millage. That would be an outer perimeter for me. I'm not opposed to rearranging priorities and even adding a little bit for something like this, but that would be nice to be able to say that we didn't raise the millage rate. I think that would be really good. I have one other question. When you look at this ad valorem impacts sheet, it says reserves for future capital projects, $4.3 million. Is that already allocated to a number of different things? Um, that is a 1.5 of that's going to be the remainder of the supervisor of elections, um, facility expansion to get that. She was also expressing urgency for that situation, but the, the rest is to just offset some of these, these pending capital projects that are currently unfunded within the CIP as well. So a good bit of that is already spoken for? No, just the 1.5 for the supervisor. Oh, okay. So that's, that's a nice little chunk to start with, you know, so, uh, um, you know, and there are all kinds of funding mechanisms, right? There's the P3, traditional financing, you can do like a bond, right? Uh, and I guess to me, the, one of the big things is how much money do you need up front for a project of that size? Um, I guess it depends on which funding mechanism you select. And, uh, but you know, what kind of, what kind of money do we need to come up with to sign the dotted line and, and commit ourselves to building this project? Is it like 10%, 15%, 20%? So commissioners under the traditional, um, design bid build, you would need a hundred percent. Uh, some of these other, um, uh, methods of P3 is, uh, where some of the schools have built facilities, um, they've actually done it with zero and then they, uh, have, they keep their funds for what they call the FF and E furniture fixtures and equipment. And then your lease payment essentially is your lease purchase amount, um, where the financing essentially is built into the P3. So I think there's a combination of those. You're, you're, the more you have, as you know, to put down the last year annual payments or lease payment would be on the project. So I think it's, I think that's probably the most interesting thing about the P3s and why the school system, the school boards have used it so much as they, their capital funds have been restricted, but they're operating, they may have the operational dollars, but not the capital funds. And so that's where this method of, um, of, um, construction that it's, it's similar to a design build, only it has the added, uh, concept of actually rolling in, uh, the financing with it. So what, what we're probably going to need to raise is somewhere between zero and $20 million to be able to do this. That's correct. I would say that's, that's, uh, I think, um, um, uh, somewhere between zero and 20. I don't think you would need more than that under a financing method. Yes. Right. Right. So that to me gives it more perspective. I mean, when you hear the 80 and the 100 million, that seems gigantic, but, but really to, uh, to do it, you just need somewhere between zero and 20 million, uh, probably. And that's the, those are the kind of dollars we'll need to rearrange to be able to pull this off. Also commissioners bear in mind that we today set the tentative millage rate and hereafter, all we can do is lower it. So keep in mind that there is probably a cap coming our way. So would you start it? No, I was talking to Mrs. Murley. I wouldn't say that to you. Oh, thank you. I would say it to Mrs. Murley. She started it. Okay. Okay. So we have an understanding that we're going to be looking into this immediately and we are going to have before our final budget hearing, we're going to have more concrete answers about our ability to borrow, how much we have to borrow, what we can rearrange in our capital improvement plan in order to make this, uh, fast track. Okay. And also if a P three is in the offing. Yes. To garner favorable lease terms. Okay. Is there a motion to approve the capital improvement plan? We didn't discuss any other. Yeah. We didn't discuss. I do want to discuss any, any parts of it. You have any more? I have nothing else to say. She said we already approved it. You already tentatively approved it. So do you need them? And the reason that there's such a huge increase is because they have sense. Yes. That bears because the wall have sent sales taxes included in it. Oh yes. I wrote that move approval. We're not making a motion. No second. There's a motion in the second. All those in favor. I opposed opposed. A motion passes four to one with commissioner Bargast dissenting. We will now move on to the commission, right? Yeah. So I'll, this is, um, the commission MSTU, uh, slide, which these are the, um, the, the little discretionary funds that are per each district. Um, I made the assumption to keep everything exactly the same dollars as the previous year, but this is anybody's opportunity. If they would like to adjust their millage rates or their dollars, I'm happy to do that prior to the, the end of this, this, this workshop. And tell us what discretion we have, how much we can raise it and how much we can lower it. Well, the discretion is barely any. Um, you are mandated by state statute that you have to use it on a public, uh, purpose within the confines of your actual district boundaries. Um, these funds have often been used to offset, um, capital projects that are already in the CIP. Um, they've also been used to match grant funding for these same projects. And it seems like they're basically the ending boost to get some of these projects done and over with. So, um, with that, you, you really don't have a lot of discretion, but you've got to spend it on a public purpose. But you can raise it and you can lower it. You can raise it and you can lower it. And it is really up to the commissioner what they would like to do with their funds for that fiscal year. Mr. Vargas. I would like to hold my funds from the previous year. I think I've already given you that information. Yes. Thank you. Mr. Capps. I would also like to keep my millage rate level with last year. Okay. Sure thing. I think mine is lucky. Yeah. Yeah. I can see why. Like an Atlantic field in your district. Yes. Where is, uh, Apogee? Is that okay? Yeah. So there's two. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a distinction there. You understand? It's fine. Any other takers? So, so in summary, we have the, as presented, but, um, um, uh, we'll keep the millage flat for, um, district three. Yep. No others. Anybody else want to change? You want to stay the same? I want to keep my funding level, but my millage is decreasing. Okay. Well, same with everybody. That's your, yep. Just commissioner Capps is keeping his millage flat. No. Yeah. All right. I did not ask to increase the millage. I think I gave you that information. Yes, you did. Thank you. So with that, is there a motion? I'll make a motion to tentatively approve the commission MSTU budget. As presented. As presented. As amended. Amended. As amended. Yes. Oh. Thank you. You're a second. Oh, we're still doing that? Yeah. Right. Don't we have to approve it? Yes. Sure. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Community development. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Commissioners. Susan Cores, Director of the Office of Community Development, here to, um, talk about our operating budget. We have a budget increase of 6% and that's due to salary and benefit increases based on pre-approved bargaining agreements. The same for the rest of the county, uh, employees. We have no requests. Our budget operating budget remains flat. Um, commissioner can't be said earlier today that we should talk a little bit about what we do. So those watching might have an opportunity to, uh, figure out what it is we do. So I'm going to talk about the three things that we do. The first thing that the Office of Community Development does is operate and manage the Community Redevelopment Agency, which is a dependent special, special district. And we are focused on infrastructure projects in every district. We have big ones happening in each of the six CRA areas. Um, all of those projects will do things like increase drainage and stormwater capacities, enhanced pedestrian and vehicular safety. Some of them underground utilities for additional sustainability, uh, providing sidewalks, adding light lighting and landscaping, and increasing parking for our residents and visitors. I have staff that manages all six of those. They are extremely effective and efficient. Um, and in their management, they do 60 public meetings per year. That's minimum. Uh, they also start and complete capital construction projects. So from conception to ribbon cutting and everything in between, they manage those projects. Things like map road and bridge road, for example, that have been discussed. They manage all of our volunteers on our different committees and boards. We take part in development review and permit review, and they also manage grants from beginning to end, writing them, researching them, and then managing those funds. The second thing that we do is the Martin County art and public places program. That's a county wide program. It is separate from the CRA. And we have in the past few years increased our inventory by I think eight or nine artworks. So we're up to 24 in the county. Uh, we've got a few coming up that I think, uh, everybody's going to be really excited about mosaics in the manatee pocket. We have more bikes and, uh, bike racks and benches coming in Rio. Hope sound is going to get a beautiful, uh, new mural on its library and some additional benches. Um, that like I said, is a Martin County program. So art is placed throughout the county and we have, uh, a staff member who looks after that program as well as historic preservation boards. So we also look at, uh, the management and the operation of that board and our staff, along with many nonprofits in our community and the historic preservation board itself celebrated historic preservation month. That is an annual thing that happens in May every year. This year we had over 30 events within that month. We organize the kickoff for all of those events. And we also do the preservationist of the year event, which is a really nice thing that takes place at the Elliott museum. This past year, a Florida historical marker was placed on the Salerno colored school. So that was kind of a big event. And we've been involved in planning the August 1st, uh, centennial celebration at the county courthouse. So those are the kinds of things that we do in our office. And again, uh, I would like to mention my small but mighty staff doing all three of these things and doing them all well. I'm happy to answer any questions. Any questions for Ms. Corris? Commissioner Vargas. Yes. Uh, this morning there was a public comment about $20,000 grant to businesses. Tell me about that. So it's called the CRA investment program. Uh, I think it's been going on a couple of years. We've had approximately 13 or 14 projects happening in all of the CRA areas. And it is a grant program. It's a match. So, um, percentage wise, the applicant needs to apply for the monies and they have to hit certain elements. So there's elements that we fund and things that we don't fund that the program funds. And that goes to, uh, the CRA board and goes through the process. The business itself is the one that pays for all of those things until they are at the end of their project. Then they invoice, if you will, uh, the amount that they were approved for after being, after the project is looked at and made sure that everything is done the way it was supposed to be done. And then they receive their portion. So the $20,000 is the maximum that you can receive. And the way the program works is it's up to $20,000. It's 80% of your project up to $20,000. So not everybody gets $20,000. Depends on how much your project costs. Okay. We do have, uh, several of them that spent quite a bit more than that. And that is the goal. It's to, again, kind of focus on infrastructure, if you will, because it helps those businesses kind of shore up their buildings and their properties. It's easier and less expensive to assist local small businesses than it is to get new ones. So as opposed to having vacant and or buildings falling down, this is one way to, uh, assist that. Okay. I, I find it interesting because every private business I've owned successfully, nobody's given me a dime. And I think that we should not be spending any money on something like that. If you own a building, you obviously have an asset that's a value. And then I think my colleagues said borrowing is fine. So that's what you do in order to shore up your building. Um, I'm, I'm very much opposed to that. We've had that discussion also. Um, I don't think that the residents of Martin County want to be supporting a commercial entity. The marketplace dictates that. Commissioner Hetherington. I was just going to move, uh, tentative approval of the office of community and development budget. Second. Any further discussion? There's a motion in a second. All those in favor. Aye. Opposed? Opposed. That motion passes four to one with Commissioner Vargas dissenting. Thank you. Thank you. We move on to the county attorney's budget. Yes. Sarah Woods, Martin County attorney. Um, I have a slight, Sarah Woods, Martin County attorney. Um, yes. Um, for the first time in a while, unfortunately I have a, a budget, uh, increase, but my increases due to the salary and benefit increases that were based upon pre-approved bargaining agreements for all our county employees. I've kept my operational budget, which I do have control over, uh, the same with no increases or decreases. And I'm happy to answer any questions about that. Questions for Ms. Woods. How many attorneys you have? Oh, sorry. I have, we are small, but mighty. We are very mighty. We have six attorneys and one, um, office administrator who probably needs to get a purple heart once a day for staying in the office with the rest of us, but it's we, and we have remained flat in the, that regard as well. And we provide all legal services for the board as well as all county departments and advisory boards. We also provide, um, some support to our constitutional officers, uh, should they ask for assistance. So to, um, not have unnecessary outside legal fees. Commissioner Vargas. How much do you invoice out to other attorneys? Um, it depends upon what, uh, what's currently, what outside litigation we have. Um, last year. I don't know if I have that. I, I, we, I'll look that up. It's, it's not contained within her, um, operation, not in my budget for obvious reasons, because there's no way to budget for it. It depends on how the lawsuits come in. That's put in the non-departmental. Um, and again, it just depends on we, this year, this past year, I can confidently say we've handled the vast majority of lawsuits, uh, in house. We haven't used outside counsel. We have a few old, uh, lawsuits. And some pending that we've used, uh, outside counsel with, but I don't anticipate Ms. Murley can confirm that it's a large amount. And we will not be exceeding the budget that's allocated. Is there a motion to approve the county attorney's tentative budget? Yes, there is. So moved. Excellent. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor. Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. We now move on to fire rescue. Good afternoon. Chad Chancherly, fire chief, Martin County fire rescue. And to my right, it's Matt Resch, fire rescue administrator. Uh, before I begin, I really just want to say this. I just want to thank Ms. Woods for her, uh, service to the county, service to our department itself, and just what you have done over the years. It's very impressive. And we just wish you well in your retirement. Thank you so much. You're welcome. So, um, we'll get here to present to your FY 26 tentative budget, and I'll start with the FY 25 adopted budget, which was 66.3 million. Our FY 26 tentative budget is 73.9 million. And that is a change of 11.44%. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to kick it over to Mr. Resch. He will break down the budget details. I'm going to circle back with you and go over a couple of goals. Thank you, chief. Good afternoon, commissioners, Matt Resch, fire rescue administrator. So the first consideration for your review is the FEMA SAFER grant. SAFER stands for staffing adequately for fire and emergency response, and it's intended to help municipalities offset the cost of hiring additional firefighters. It's a highly competitive grant, and they award less than 5% of the applications they receive each fiscal year. Here at Martin County, we've been fortunate enough to receive the grant three times over the last 18 years, offsetting the cost to hire 75 firefighters. The most recent SAFER grant award we received at the beginning of this fiscal year, and that represents 1.65 million, or 2.5% of the budget increase. If we were to remove that from our budget request, the percent change would decrease from 11.44 down to 8.9%. This particular SAFER grant will fund 18 firefighter positions, 100% in FY 26, and continue to fund those positions into FY 28, totaling $5.9 million in non-advalorem revenue. Next, we are seeking to convert a temporary position that supports our logistical operation to a full-time logistics coordinator. Our logistics team provides critical support to the operation. Currently, we have one position that supports fleet maintenance with the acquisition and management of a truck part inventory for a fleet of over 60 heavy-duty trucks and equipment. Then we have myself and one other position that supports the needs of 435 internal customers, including purchasing and distributing station supplies, medical supplies, uniforms, conducting bunker gear maintenance and inspections, hose testing, and a variety of other logistical needs. Also, in the event of a natural disaster or large-scale event, we are responsible for sourcing, acquiring, distributing essential supplies. For example, during the COVID pandemic, we assisted all departments countywide in acquiring masks, gloves, gowns, disinfectants, and other various supplies. So the span of control has become increasingly more difficult to manage. The staffing level logistics has not changed in over 20 years, but the demand for services has increased significantly with rises in call volume and increases of personnel that we serve internally. So the total cost to convert the temporary position to a full-time position is approximately $51,000. Moving on to our operating budget. And just for clarification, the operating budget includes essentially all the expenses to keep the lights on and move the operation forward. And that includes all the station utility costs, building and landscape maintenance, appliances, janitorial supplies, medical supplies, office supplies, all the fuel for our fire trucks, and all the maintenance for our fire trucks. With that, our operating budget increases $318,000. It represents only 0.48% of the total budget increase. Also, looking at the history of the operating budget dating back prior to fiscal year 20 and the COVID outbreak, we've been able to maintain a modest average annual increase of 1.8% despite significant economic impacts caused both by the pandemic and inflation. Along the same lines, our capital improvement plan, which we just reviewed in April, has maintained the same level of ad valorem funding for three years straight at right at 2.1 million. Prior to that, we maintained the same level of funding for a five-year period straight. Finally, I want to highlight a point made by Ms. Murley early in her budget presentation in regards to the fire rescue MSTU tentative millage rate at 2.6376. The rate has fluctuated slightly over the years, but it's essentially the same millage rate that we had 12 budget years ago in 2015 at 2.633. To me, that illustrates that our budget has been sustainable over the years by staying consistently within the growth in countywide assessed taxable values. And with that, I'll kick it back to Chief and Julie. All right. Thank you, Matt. So there's just a few points I just want to talk about about our goals. First, I want to talk about just the operational efficiency in fire rescue. Every year I come before you, I'm always going to talk about how can we do the job better? How can we be more efficient? How can we respond to your calls in a timely manner? Because seconds count. It's not a catchphrase. It's real. So what we have recognized, if we look at a year snapshot, we run roughly 55,000 unit responses to emergency calls, 55,000. And out of that 55,000, roughly 86% of them are medical. So what we have recognized that if we take our rescue trucks, which some may refer to as an ambulance, and if we put three personnel on those trucks, out of that 86% in total, we can respond one truck to 90% of those medical calls. And what that does for us is it leaves the other trucks available in their zone for the next emergency call to drop because they do. And it also allows them to keep the fire trucks. It allows them to keep the ladder trucks and the special ops trucks, as well as the hazmat trucks available for the calls that they were designed for, for the structure fires, the industrial incidents, the motor vehicle collisions that are happening on a continual basis that continue to increase. So that's one thing. We are getting huge returns on how we manage our resources without the community. The other thing I want to talk about real quick is operational readiness. What does that mean? Operational readiness is this. There's a picture we put here on this slide, specific, something you may not actually know that happened. Literally three weeks ago, we had another industrial incident out at FPL. If I go back one year, we've had three major incidents that happened just on one industrial site. On that site, for perspective, this pertains to operational readiness. It took us 44 firefighters with all the apparatus along the way to complement that call to actually mitigate that incident for a few hours, 44. On a shift, I have only 83. So we were over 53% of the shift on one incident. How's that translate in operational readiness? I'll tell you how. 9-1-1 calls, guess what didn't happen? It didn't take a time out. It didn't say, wait a minute, fire rescues out west on industrial fire, fighting a fire, we have got to schedule your next stroke, schedule your next cardiac arrest, schedule your next drowning. That doesn't happen. What happens, the calls keep coming. And they did. And our units were able to respond. That's operational readiness. That is a healthy organization. Last and closing, I just want to talk about the training facility and kind of wrap this up. Our training facility is something fire rescues have been talking about 15 plus years. It's been a long time. What's so important about training? I'll tell you what's important about training. Training is where you get the essential understanding of how to do the job. A lot of people will say, well, look, Chad, just get it on the job training. Just show up to the call. Figure it out. Here's what happens. When you do on the job training and you don't have the appropriate training to back you up before you get to that call, you do learn in that call. And there's lessons learned along the way as that call evolves. But guess what you can't do? I can't stop it. I can't rewind it. And I can't apply the lessons I just learned to change my outcomes. Where do I do that? In a controlled training environment. You get quality sets and reps along the way. You learn the lessons. You apply it again to another rep. And then eventually when you get out there, you're extremely efficient with how you perform. So training is one of the most essential components of fire rescue. And without the majority of the commission support, we wouldn't be where we are today. And we want to thank you for the support that you do give fire rescue. So with that, I'm going to conclude our part of the presentation and turn it over for any questions you may have. Any questions for the chief? Commissioner Vargas. I appreciate what you do. I really do. The salaries, that's an awful lot of money. You just talked about training. It's just like right now, we have to look at everything because our taxes are already too high. We've been spending more than we should. And I'm not certain about the ad valorem, how that's going to be for us. I really don't know. And I don't think anybody else here on this panel could say, yes, I know it's going to be there or this is going to be the decrease. You know, the thing is that it's a constant budget increase request to the county, which is not sustainable. We've talked about fire station. You talked about training. You talked about having to increase salaries. I mean, there's got to be a give and take in your budget as to what's most important for you. And again, I appreciate what you're doing. But you had received a very healthy increase last year. And now you're back asking for more. Commissioner Heather. Heather. All right. Would you like me to respond? Sure. Go ahead. I just want to clarify a couple things. So when you ask what's the most important thing for us in fire rescue, right now, hands down, I'm going to tell you, it's the people. It's the people of fire rescue, what they do, how they do this job. And it's the sacrifice and the commitment and dedication to the community. And let me tell you, they do things and see things most people could never do. Now, of course, people are going to say, well, explain the salaries. How do you justify that? Well, it's simple. It's a market analysis. Just like any business you would have, you have to know how to pay your employee. You're going to pay your employee based on what the market demands. You're going to look at employers that are similar to the structure that you have. And then you're going to compensate them accordingly. That's how we come up with salaries. Here's what we're not. We are not at the top of that salary scale. In fact, we're not near the top. In fact, I can have someone drop right now today, drop their gear, walk away, just go to a zip code down south, and they can gain $15,000 to $20,000 overnight. I can't help that. However, the sheriff kind of gave you perspective a little bit this morning about it. You have to be able to at least see the brake lights. You have to have somewhat of that gap. You have to do a little bit of a close. We will never be Palm Beach County. We don't want to be Palm Beach County. But we have to recognize our employees, because they are the most valued part of fire rescue, are compensated accordingly. So that's the most important part about who we care about in fire rescue. Commissioner Hetherington. Yes, I will say I have a question, but on your operational readiness, that was actually a very good description of how that moves about when there are large calls. And I think it exemplifies the level of service that Martin County provides. And I believe that that is, I've never heard any different, that that's the level of service that the Martin County taxpayers are demanding. So I look at this as a critical need. I do have a question, and Matt tried to answer it this morning. I didn't see the email. On the ambulance user fees, we were collecting 5.1 estimated. We were collecting 7.1, then it went down to 5.1. Can you just explain that? Sure. So what you're looking at there are the performance measures. Is that under administration? Yeah. So if you're looking at the 2024 actual, it's 7.1 million. And then we do a projection in FY25. And I'll take the blame for that. When we were developing the FY25 budget workbook, I overlooked updating that number to reflect what the actuals were. So I looked after getting your email. The FY25, I mean, obviously, we're still within the budget year. Currently, we're at $5.6 million collected through June. So we still have three months left. On average, we collect around $600,000 per month. So the estimate would be around $7.4 million. Oh, so we should be collecting. Yeah, there's no dip. That's great. Sorry about that. No, no, no. I knew I couldn't find it in the budget book. That's because it was back in administration. So with that, I believe we talked about this morning that residents expect us to put our dollars first in public safety and critical needs. And to me, this is a critical need. And I will gladly motion for a tentative approval of the fire rescues budget. Commissioner Campy. Thank you. I think I'm pretty clear. My track record of agreeing that public safety is our number one responsibility to the citizens. As the sheriff said this morning, without it, all of the other categories, the qualities of life that our residents expect can't happen. I think it's our responsibility as the board to make sure that we have the right amount of people that are properly trained and motivated with the proper equipment and training and whatever is necessary to make sure because that's the first thing. And when we fail, it's catastrophic versus some of the other categories. Chief, can you speak to me about any funding or your philosophy on the physical and mental health? Not physical like day to day, like long term physical, the increase of cancer and other. You know, your team is exposed to so many horrific chemicals and the job is changing and you're fighting electrical car fires now and there's chemicals. And like you said, you're out at FPL and your people are being exposed. As well as I think you touched on it briefly when you said your department, your personnel see horrible things on a day to day basis. And then they have to somehow compartmentalize it and go home to their families. What's the philosophy and how are you budgeting that long term physical health and mental health? So I appreciate the commission of the question, commissioner. It's that's a that's a question the entire industry is struggling with. The mental health, the physical health of firefighters today is something that unfortunately we don't have one recipe that says this is the fix. What we do, especially in our organization here, is we continually have peer support of each other. And it's important just to have healthy quality conversations. And I'm not going to I'm not going to share with you the calls they see because I'm telling you it would disturb anyone to listen to what these people do see in a regular basis. And I tell you that the souls they have are incredible. It's incredible what they do and how they do it. But it does come with a sacrifice mentally and physically. And it wears on people over the years. The cancer side of this job is something that we have fought and fought and fought to get better at. And we have gotten better over the years. But we still have people to this day that have terminal cancer. And it's in our own organization. And I'm tired of going to the funerals for it. I really am. And I don't want to go to it anymore. But it's sad that it's there. But this is what we signed up to do. We signed up to protect the community. And yes, there's compensation with it. And yes, there's terms and conditions of employment of what it takes to be there to do that job. All we're asking to do is to fund them properly so they can do that job well. And then the sacrifices they make along the way, we take care of our own. We invest in them. We have peer support. We have counseling. I'm not saying it's perfect, because it's not. It needs work. And we're trying to get better at it. But we constantly preach, if you see something, you got to say something. You have to work on yourself at the very beginning, in the very beginning of this career, that when you have these catastrophic events that you witness, almost on a daily basis, that you need to be able to sit down with people and counsel and just talk. Sometimes that's all it takes is a healthy conversation. Sometimes it's an injury. And I call it post-traumatic stress. I don't call it PTSD. I don't call it a disorder. But injuries can be healed. And I believe with the right counseling that we can be successful in that and be better about it. But that's what we're working on today. But I don't have a clear answer for you, unfortunately. But we are working to be better about it. Thank you. The last thing I would say is the same thing I said this morning. Like you said, your personnel can go either north or south and get more money. And so a lot of folks, for whatever their rationale is that they wanted to work here within our organization, I think at the very least, hopefully a majority of us will send a message to them that we at the government, the high level of the government, appreciate that they're here and send the proper message. I know that a lot of them watch these meetings to see, you know, at the very least, we should show our level of support. I will second Commissioner Hetherington's motion with honor. Chief, I'm looking at fire rescue training and operations management. There are three bureau chiefs, five district chiefs, two division chiefs, and one training facilities program supervisor. Who makes these determinations about how many there are? So the way we have it with, we have over 375 people that we have to train on a daily basis. And your training cadre has to complement the people that you have out there. We have medical training happening. We have fire training happening. We have new recruit training that's happening. And then we have a constant evaluations on all employees that are happening on a daily basis. So how that structure works is what our administration comes up with, the most efficient type of structure, it's not overinflated. It is the perfect fit for the amount of people that we have our training. If you would just take a day and spend a day with our training department, you would see each and every one of them of what they're doing, how well they do and how professional they are, because it is absolutely amazing with how well they do that job, because they believe in what we're doing for the community. They believe in our people and they train to a very, very high level. Ultimately, who makes the decision of how that's structured, that comes on me, 100%. So it's a numbers evaluation? It is a numbers evaluation. It's based off the needs of the organization at that time. Also, I'm looking at, do you have a separate mowing and landscaping contract, or are you on the county's contract? No, we're part of the county's contract. That contract is terrible. It's so expensive. Also, with operations, once again, who makes the determination how many there are? I mean, there's a battalion chief paramedic. There's a captain EMT. I mean, there are 13 of the chief paramedics. There are four captain EMTs. There are 43 captain paramedics. Who makes the determination about how many of those elevated positions there are? So I just told you, we run 55,000 unit responses a year. So out of that, you have to have supervision. Look at the picture we have right here, right? So this is FP&O. This is a high level call. How does that work? Well, you have firefighters that have to actually mitigate the scene. You have so many people there on the operation for the assembly to actually mitigate the call. You have to have layers and leadership in place. This isn't a new concept. This is just like the military. This comes from a military organization, hence why they call us a paramilitary organization. You have to have that structure. It's no different with an airline pilot. You have the captain. You have your junior pilots. You have a rink structure there for a reason based off experience. And that experience right there is how they lead their people. They have the understanding. They have the knowledge. They have the know-how, and they know how to run these calls very efficiently. If you don't have leadership, you can essentially have a day one person on a job on that particular incident right there in your picture. What's going to happen? You have to have leadership in place. But to answer your question again, simplistically, it comes down to me. Every decision with this department comes down to me. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Any further questions? There is a motion on the floor and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Aye. That motion passes four to one with Commissioner Vargas dissenting. Thank you. We have the General Services, a tentative budget. Good afternoon, Commissioners. Sean Donahue, General Services Director. The General Services Department is responsible for maintenance and operation of 1.2 million square feet of buildings and assets across the county. We also help other departments with their maintenance requirements with our trade staff. Some of the things that we do for maintenance include our trades, plumbing, painting, HVAC, electrical. But we also do landscaping and custodial contracts. You mentioned a little bit about the landscaping contracts. I'll bring that up. It's not being done in my neighborhood. We do HVAC monitoring and maintenance contracts. We do life safety, safety, and security. We have elevators under our purview. We do all payments for facilities for utilities, electric, water, gas, solid waste. We manage the backup power systems. We manage the fuel tanks. And we maintain large vehicles and small vehicles in our light vehicle replacement areas. We have critical facilities. We have the jail. We have the public safety complex with the emergency operations center and the real-time crime center and the dispatch. We have all fire rescue facilities, which are 24-7 operations, as well as the public safety when you start talking about 9-1-1 dispatch center. It's a 24-7 operation. We have all the constitutional offices. We have, and that includes the courthouse, two large four-story buildings downtown, Stewart. We have this building, the administration building. We have the ops facilities, and we have all the libraries as well as a few other buildings. We've got some very talented people in the general services department. We can do a lot of neat things, a lot of good things, but we're not doing very good on some areas, and that's largely what I want to talk about. We have to do preventive maintenance on all the thousands and thousands and thousands of components that are out there in these facilities. HVAC components are, like I said, thousands and thousands of them, and they all need to be checked. They all need to be checked quarterly. If you don't check them in a preventive maintenance fashion, we start having to do reactive maintenance. We start failing. We start having indoor air quality issues. There's a ripple effect that happens when you don't do preventive maintenance. Preventive maintenance also gives us our planning information. We can project replacement of certain devices and equipment as needed over time. We can budget for that. We can, instead of reacting to it, paying exorbitant costs to fix on fail, emergency response services, closure of facilities, indoor air quality issues, we can plan this out with preventive maintenance, and right now we're not making that cut. We are behind on preventive maintenance, specifically in the HVAC department, to the point where we're missing, out of 4,000 work orders we get, we can't do 1,000 of them. We're missing 25 percent of our preventive maintenance work orders right now with the staff that we have. So I set that up to say we need staff. We need staff in order to do our job. We need staff to be able to save money for the county because the more we do preventive maintenance, the less we have to do in reactive maintenance, and that's proven. So we're asking for a 5.88 increase. It does have three positions in it, an HVAC position, an electrical position, and a painter, and I'll walk through those real quick. Again, HVAC technicians, we're missing 1,000 preventive maintenance work orders a year. That's over the last two years as well. Electrician, we have 745 preventive and reactive work orders for each electrician that we have, and we're not cutting it. There are more electrical services and inspections that we need to do across this county. We don't look at our panels. We don't look for failures and hot spots within our panels through infrared technologies. So there's certain things that we need to start doing so we don't have major issues in our older buildings, and we have some very old buildings. I'll put the House of Refuge aside. We're dealing with 50-year-old structures. We're dealing with two-year-old structures and everything else in between. It's tough to maintain these buildings, the way these buildings have been remodeled and changed over time. This building in particular has been remodeled, gosh, I think eight or ten times over the last 10 or 20 years. Significant remodels. So it's hard to maintain these buildings if you don't have that knowledge. Painters, we have one painter. You've seen him in operation if you watch this chambers get painted and fixed up. He has about a thousand work orders a year by himself. He does well over 200 hours of overtime to get things done. We are burning that young man out. He's the best painter I've ever seen. He is fantastic. He's also a fantastic father of three young kids, and he needs some home time, and we're burning him up. So yeah, and we outsource a lot of painting, about $130,000 just this year in painting contracts alone. We can do better with another painter. I know painters, it seems aesthetic, but painting is waterproofing on the outside of the building, and when I start looking around the buildings and you see stucco failures and stucco cracking, that's waterproofing. That can be dealt with if you see it, if you deal with it early with just a cone of paint. It keeps the water out of the stucco, keeps the stucco from popping off the substrate. So there's a method to it. It can save money over time. If we ignore it, it's going to cost us more and more money. It starts getting into deferred maintenance. It starts getting into reactive maintenance, and I think we're better than that. I think we're on the road to doing some really good things from being a stewardship of maintenance, and there's different levels of it. Reactive, it can cost you a lot of money. Crisis management is the lowest level of maintenance. We're not looking for flagship maintenance, but stewardship is the right way to be it. We have a very strong work order management system within for. We've got good people that manages that. We've got good background data. We're just lacking the manpower to get it done. So that's where I'm at on FTE. Other things, cost of doing business. That was a speech for 30 people. How many positions did you ask for that Mr. Donaldson turned you down on? Actually, well. You're not allowed to say. Yeah, you're allowed to say. The chairman just asked you. I did what Don recommended. Was it two? Was it four? I asked for an extra one. Four? For a facilities maintenance worker, just a general facility. But the trades are really where we're struggling, and that's where we can do the most value for our dollar. Cost of doing business increases, I heard you. We talked about the landscaping contract last year. We just initiated and rebid this thing back in 2024. We're in our second year. It's very expensive. We are keeping these guys honest, and we have daily, not daily, but weekly meetings with these folks. We are constantly evaluating facilities and giving feedback. We're trying to get it pointed in a better direction, and I think we've made a lot of progress over the last couple years, but there's more to do. I agree, and it's a very, very expensive contract. When you start pulling back off of that, the only thing you can do is stop mowing as frequently, and then you're going to cause other problems. Custodial, another big hit this year, our custodial, we had the rebid. Our current incumbent vendor backed out, gave us notice. We had to extend his contract by about 90 days, and we are in the process of bidding for that right now. So that is going to come with an increase. It always does, and we'll see where that ends up. We projected, I think, a 20% increase on that project or on that contract alone. Paper products, bathroom supplies, paper towels, operating supplies, another increase. It always increases every year. Electric and utilities went up 2.5%. That was looking actually to be about 14% when we initially started budgeting, but now it's 2.5%. We're at the Mercy to Public Service Commission, and it changes all the time. And then we tried to offset some of this, you know, these impacts by pulling back on certain things. We did reduce our building repair and maintenance budgets. We're trying to economize there. We talked about, Stephanie talked about the enterprise project earlier. It's a great way to save some operational dollars. It's a great way to save some of these big peaks and valleys of buying cars every year, and it flattens out that budget curve. Once we... How many vehicles in your fleet? The light vehicle fleet is going to be 250-some fleet vehicles, and the heavy vehicles, that's up in another 300 or 400. But the light vehicle fleet is where we think we can do some good on that. Is the heavy one enterprise also? It is not. It is not. But there are certain vehicles that can be. I've had experience at my previous positions where we've exchanged out chassis. So we have a bucket truck. You take the bucket truck portion of it off. You put it on a new chassis. You get some more miles out of it. So there are things that we can do. You know, we'll have to start looking at that once we get enterprise kind of set up. The beauty of enterprise is we start doing more fleet analysis, and enterprise can come in and say, hey, this vehicle over here, it's not getting as many miles. It doesn't have been 10,000 miles in the last two years. You may switch over instead of doing an equity lease, which is a lease where you would buy the equity back or get the equity back at the end of the four or five years. You turn it in. You get the money back. You put it in the next vehicle. We could maybe switch over to a walkaway lease where there would be a mileage restriction to it. But if it's not making that many miles over the five-year term, you can turn it in. You get a lower lease payment, monthly payment up front. So you don't get the equity, but you're getting that back on a monthly fee. Sounds fantastic. There's different ways that we can play with that and analyze our fleet to make that work better for us. Departmental goals, like I said, we're trying to offset some of the increases, some of the seepage of money by pulling back on certain services and certain budgets. We do plan on coming to the boards very soon with a train energy savings program. August 12th is scheduled. Air conditioning train. Air conditioning train. But we will come back. And that's an operational savings as well as an energy savings project. A couple of major components of that are the public safety complex where we have to replace the HVAC chillers very soon. We can now attach that to the chiller plant that the board and the county built about three or four years ago. It's a very efficient system. It's built to add on to. And it was planned for this event sometime, you know, right now. So and it's a 30-year chiller plant instead of a 10 or 15-year have to do it again to replace the systems. Same thing with Cummings Library. The plan is to get rid of some of the old, I think there's 15 or 17 units, general commercial air conditioning units in that facility. We put in one package unit. Instead of replacing those every 10 years, we're going to replace it every 25 years. So there's efficiencies to find in doing these major large systems that last longer. Okay. And then we're continuing to explore cost savings strategies. We talked about P3s. We talked about we're looking for additional operational savings contracts, maybe with the train, maybe with another company. One example might be the rooftop units of the courthouse complex. That's a major component replacement project that we have to save up for. It's about a $10 million project. We're just in the early stages of saving. Maybe we work with an energy company and we can buy that out a little bit longer over five or seven years instead of having to save up and do it all at once. And then we're also looking for grant opportunities constantly. In fact, this year alone, we are working on about $2 million worth of grant projects, a couple at the sheriff's office in the public safety complex and in the house of refuge. So we're trying to offset some of the opportunities or some of the expenses as best we can. So with that, I'll leave it there. I'll be glad to answer any questions. Questions? Good job. Mr. Campy. Excellent presentation. Thank you, sir. Yeah. As you were going through and then you just kept going, I'm thinking to myself, this, you're a classic example. And it sort of struck me with you, but so far, every department head and everyone involved in the budget, and I'm sure we'll see it for the rest of the afternoon, is the reason that Martin County is as good as it is. I mean, listening to you, you have to be nearly an expert on employment law, staffing, human resource, all of those grants, all the technical stuff. And you said it so quickly, originally, the scope of your responsibilities, that it's like one of my daughters, she talks really fast. I said, slow down so I can comprehend, so I can absorb what you're saying. And you were saying, oh, by the way, we do the courthouse and the constitutionals, and we do the parks, and we do the four-story building, we do this building, we do that, and we do this. I don't think people can comprehend that your department is doing the work that maybe 20 companies would do, but you're doing it. And just like Jeff Daugherty, when he started to speak about the, you're on top of trends and things that are happening in the future, just what you were saying about chiller plants, most people would never figure that out. The comprehension of understanding about painting. So, well done. As a perfect example of all of our leaders, that, you know, when people complain that, you know, you guys are too expensive, your people are overpaid, you're incompetent, or you're inefficient, absolutely not true. I would put us up, you know, when the sheriff said this morning, he thinks we're the best sheriff's department. I think we would, as a county staff, and I've been here a long time, I've seen, you know, people coming and going. It's remarkable how well our staff is. From the leadership, because it all starts at leadership, and then when I say leadership, not just these guys, department head leadership. So passionate about their work, and that obviously trickles down into the staff, we're blessed. I make a motion to accept whatever you said. Commissioner Vargas. Yes, I have a question. You mentioned that you had to redesign, renovate several properties over 10 years, multiple times. What properties are you talking about? Did I misunderstand? So certain systems within buildings, chiller plants, chillers, air-cooled systems, water-cooled systems, sometimes they only last 10 years. We are pretty much on the coast. We might as well be on the ocean when it comes to outside metal and corrosion. So the fins and the coils degrade over time. And that's, when you have residential type or commercial, light commercial type air conditioning systems, they only last about 10 years in this county. So instead of replacing them every 10 years, we buy a much more efficient system, a more sturdy system that can take some of the corrosion. And we can maintain that system for 20, 25 years in cases, sometimes 30. If we do a really good job and it's inside of a building, we can make things last much, much longer. So we're offsetting operational costs by not having to replace those systems as frequently. Okay. So you get more mileage out of what you're asking from us. Yes. So you pay a little bit more up front, but it lasts three times as long. Commissioner Campy. I think the other point about redesign is that our veteran services office used to be a snack bar. The growth management conference room is now a ticket or pay your bill windows. The closet in the Palm City Cummings Library is now an idea center. So you've had to, you know, there's a TV studio over there. I see the mailboxes are gone. So there's constantly redesign and rework within our facilities, like actual construction work to re, to maximize the efficiency of the spaces. And we try to do a lot of that in-house. So with the right staff, we can do a lot more in-house with those dollars. Despite the fact that I think that Mr. Donahue should have gotten the extra position that he was asking for, I'm going to support the motion. There is a motion. There's a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thanks. Next up is growth management. Another one of my favorites. Good afternoon, Commissioners. Paul Schilling, growth management director. I'm pleased to be here this afternoon and present the tentative 2026 budget. Just some preliminaries. The percentage rate is 5.85. As you know, those reflect the cost of doing business for the most part. There are some adjustments with respect to training and travel expenses. We are not asking for additional training or travel expenses. Those have simply been moved around. We've taken an opportunity this year to do a very thorough review of our budget, line item by line item. And we found that some of those items should be more focused. For example, if there was training associated with a wetland scientist, that was reallocated to the actual development review environmental division as opposed to being in comp planning. So some things of that nature. I would point out that there are 28 full-time units, full-time staff. I have the pleasure of leading those folks every day, day in and day out. We do have four divisions. So administrative, which is kind of the backbone of the department. Those are all the bookkeeping and so forth and those other matters, agenda items and so forth. And then the comprehensive planning division, which is the long-range planning, of course. And the development review division, which is the current planning and building permit review component. And I would point out that the comprehensive planning also involves the customer service component, which we do have a lobby office right across the hall here that our residents or anyone for that matter can come and ask their questions during business hours. And that's pretty unique. And then we have the environmental division, which is coastal permitting, preserve area management plans. We manage and inspect 800 permits. We have a top 40 list. So those are some of the things we do. I'm drastically oversimplifying it. However, I would just ask that we have been good stewards of the taxpayers' dollars. Our mission is to ensure regulatory compliance so that our residents can continue enjoying the Martin County difference. That's what we focus on day in and day out. And we fight hard to try to protect the resources and do the best job we can implementing the comprehensive growth management plan and the land development regulations. We do have a very nuanced zoning code. We have over 70 different zoning codes, six community redevelopment areas with all their own zoning codes. And then, of course, we have some master plan communities, which are getting kicked off and so forth. And we have five commissioners to deal with. Yes, yes. So that, in essence, completes my presentation. I'd be happy to answer questions for you. Commissioner Hetherington. Yeah, I think you did drastically oversimplify it because you all also are a small but mighty team. Particularly, you shine this year in looking at all those legislative implementations and outlining how that impacts Martin County. And that was no easy task. That was probably hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of hours worth of work. I have a question on your performance measure, because I don't know how they come up with them. But on page 269, it says unit of measure board inquiry response. If that, I feel like you should be so much higher. Like you are, I believe, I don't know what the metrics are, but I feel like you perform close to 100%, and these measurements are not really reflecting that. So that's a snapshot in time from October to just last week, actually, the 11th. I agree with you. That may be a little off. I believe we meet those criteria very, very close to if not 100%. Yeah. Again, I don't know how that was calculated. And the same thing on 271, it says performance measures, oh, 2024, 487. I assume that means comprehensive plan amendments. And projected in 2026 is 1300? Those are hours as opposed, hours. Hours. Oh, okay. Not amendments themselves. Correct. I think you guys have a Herculean job. I will motion tentative approval for your budget. Thank you. Commissioner Vargas. I have faith in you. All of my interactions have been very professional. And I know that you're diligent, and you really do go above and beyond what I've seen. I'm going to ask that you hold your pencil very sharp. We're not in an era of just spending. I think you got that flavor throughout the day. Yes. So I would like to be able to go back to the taxpayers and say, hey, we're not raising your taxes, but we're giving you the quality of life that you're here for. You know, what you mentioned about Martin County being different than other, north or south. Thank you. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. We will now. Thank you very much. Thanks. Now we'll go on to Information Technology Services. Ms. Sinclair, please join us. Afternoon. Hi. Hello. For the record, I'm Erica Sinclair, and I'm the CIO, Chief Information Officer for the ITS Department of Information Technology. I'll be presenting our ITS budget along with the technology investment plan. So you're getting two for one here. You've got another saving. So to begin with, our budget, as you will see, we're not asking for an increase. I know it seems shocking, but we're not. But we are asking for the addition of a replacement vehicle as we provide 24-7 services in our communication department. That means we need to be able to deploy our staff as promptly as possible when needed to service our sheriff, our fire rescue, and other staff that have those radio services. These vehicles have special tools and equipment on them. So providing that available for our staff is going to produce good side effects for everyone that we support. So that is what the one ask is in our department. Do you have any questions for me before proceeding? Mr. Campy. I've asked some other departments to share a little bit about the scope of who you assist, because not just county, you do some of the constitutionals, and if you can share with the public some of your department's responsibilities. Because like you were, you said it just briefly about radios. Most people would think you're speaking about computers, telephones. They don't understand the actual... Well, I think if anyone in today's day and age, we support all the technology for all the Martin County BOCC departments, and that includes their tools, their hardware, their desktops, their iPads. If you are in any of these departments, and I think you've heard it today as they come across and and visit with you, they're sharing all the technology initiatives that they have. And it helps them serve the public. And that is our goal. We have the same goal as every department here, and that is to provide the best services for our constituents. And that does come with a cost with the technology. But in the end, we feel that it's what the departments are needing to serve their constituents, and we do our best to provide that. So along with that, we do provide the help desk, which I think all of you have probably benefited from. If you're using your technology and you're one of our employees or who we serve, which are municipalities, we do serve those municipalities and some of the commission districts. So we're just, we're here providing services to them. And we are able to deploy staff at any time that's needed. If our computers are not working, we're there. We just are always available 24-7 for connectivity issues. Um, is there any, anything I'm missing here in terms of municipalities and which you also do the sheriff, correct? Right. We do the sheriff. We support them. Um, those radios will go towards to support their additional staff, um, the mobile devices and the radios. And we also support, um, the property appraiser to the terms of the connectivity that they will have. Um, we're also support the city of Stewart for, um, connectivity radios. So, um, I'm not sure if I'm missing anyone here. All the municipal, all the, the supervisor of elections also, I can't forget them. Um, and commissioners, I know too, the tip is also a part of that and there's a large work effort that they do in implementing all of the technologies that we're using and whether it's in public works or, uh, or utilities or all the other areas. Um, and so that, uh, um, and, and of course all of our servers and having a redundant server system, uh, backups, integration of the cloud, uh, our experimentation with, um, um, uh, um, AI, which has been, uh, our library system too. So I think, um, um, um, and of course, I think overriding all of this is the constant, uh, issues with cybersecurity and all of our technological systems are constantly being upgraded. And every time we upgrade them, they sever their connections, which makes our departments work well. So they're repairing, they're putting them, um, back together again. Um, the, the software that we use today, we want it to talk to each other. We want the, the, uh, the system that collects your timekeeping to talk to our accounting system that, uh, provides a number to our asset management system. So we know how much time and energy was spent on, you know, on, on, on, uh, general services staff that they're working on a particular item. And so all these different systems and services, um, you know, parks is using a, uh, billing system or what is it the, for, uh, for payments and collecting the funds. And so every one of these is using technology, um, that we want, we want it our way. And IT guides us into doing it a way that could be done properly and with security. And then as soon as we upgrade it, or there's a patch for security, these linkages come apart and they're the ones who put it back together again. So it's a, it's a, I think it's a, you know, it, it's a very, um, uh, it's obviously highly technical. Um, it's expensive and when it goes down, it is, um, disastrous. So with all of that in mind, Erica and her team do a great job. Any further questions? So do we have, we, we're considering both the, uh, information technology services, which are our personnel, and also the technology investment plan, which is all the technology and it supports every one of our departments plus every one of our constitutional offices. Two separate motions though, right? I don't think so. I think we can do it in one, right? Commissioner Vargas. I have a question. Uh, so this vehicle here, I see on page 287, 54, 665. Is that the cost? Yes. Why aren't you leasing it and then outfitting it? Wouldn't it be more effective? So we, we're in the middle of transitioning to that. So this, during the cycling of enterprise lease, she's going to have to, it's the timing of how this budget was formed and then the enterprise lease. So we had this in the budget already. Um, but we can, she can always go to a lease option if this is not going to work for her. We can reduce it whenever to do, to be able to do that. I suggest that a lot of money for a vehicle. And if we're entertaining leasing, then why, why don't we look at that? I mean, you've been operating without. We can take a look at that. I think that's more feasible. Do we need two motions or one motion? I think you can tentatively approve both at the same time. Yep. Zero motion. Motion to accept both the technological investment plan budget. Information technology services. And the information technology services. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor aye. Aye. But again, I made my comment about the vehicle. Noted. All right. Thank you. And all opposed to that motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Next up is library. Good afternoon, Ms. Salas. Good afternoon, commissioners. Jen Salas, library director. I also have in the audience, Richard Riley, our deputy library director. And what happened to him? Yeah, really? Is this part of like to make sure you get your budget? No. It's purely coincidence. He's a running superstar. I see him at every 5K. He and I run a lot of 5Ks. He wins them. And I try to finish before they deflate the start arch. Our FY26 budget request includes three new FTE positions for the purpose of ensuring that libraries remain adequately staffed in order to provide citizens with access to high quality literacy and learning opportunities, as well as enhanced library programming. The three positions include one children's assistant for programming to our youngest patrons and two lead library specialists who would be responsible for our digital services to our residents. We have exhausted all efficiency strategies we have available to us, including recruiting between 200 and 300 volunteers and interns at a staff savings of over $600,000 annually, outsourcing the processing of library materials, which saves almost $500,000 of staff time annually, implementing RFID systems for automation, which saves up to $70,000 of staff time for each branch library over the life cycle of the equipment, and creating an AI chat bot to help alleviate the amount of questions our public services staff respond to. Demand for our youth programming has soared. Storytime attendance has increased 364% since 2021, with programs once drawing 30 to 40 participants now regularly attracting over 160. Demand on our technology services has also increased 244% since 2021, with residents needing more help at as technology advances beyond their current knowledge level. Not only are we seeing an increase in our services, the demand from our residents, the time it takes to help answer their questions has increased as well. What used to be a one to two minute interaction at our information desks has now increased to an average of 10 minutes per transaction. We have not requested funding for new library positions in five years, and we have tried to manage within our current resources. We are at the point where we either need to start reducing services to our residents, or add more staffing to meet our residents needs. Nationally, libraries, their statistics are decreasing, so it's a wonderful problem to have that ours are increasing. It means that our residents are valuing our services, and that my team is doing an amazing job at meeting the demands of what they want and need. But I'm asking for your help to help meet that current demand. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Commissioner Vargas. Hi, Ms. Sellis. I do appreciate libraries. As a former language arts teacher and IB teacher, so critical. Does this include staffing for Newfield? It does not. How many are you going to need for that, and when? Um, so we have not gotten notification as to when that branch library will be built. It'll be in the next few years, um, but the developer has not stated a time frame yet. Should have included that in his budget as a requirement. Mr. Campy. Ms. Sellis, thank you. I have heard your statistics in the past. Can you give us, the folks that might be paying attention, a brief synopsis of how many libraries you have, how many staff, and your interactions? Like, you started to mention some of them, but I know the numbers of visits and books that are taken out and other materials that are taken out is staggering. Can you share some of that? Sure. Um, so right now we have six library locations, one in each city in our county. Um, when the new field development, um, proceeds, we will have a seventh branch there. Um, between our part-time, uh, resource staff and our full-time equivalents, we have about 70, um, library staff. And that includes, um, from our administration to our public services, um, and outside our buildings, we have a number of outreach staff to bring all of our resources into the community. Um, if Richard, if you don't mind coming up and stating we have all different stats on visitor counts and collection. Yes, yes, we do. Hello, Richard Riley. Richard, we pulled the mic up. No, no. You don't mean to be a pain in the neck. So between our six locations, we have 70 employees and 150 volunteers that help us get all of our services done. Um, we're open 12,700 hours throughout the year. And we, we get about 40 people per hour using the library while we're open. And then while we're closed, we're seeing increases in after hours usage through that AI chat bot. And our RFS usage has also gone up 156%. So, um, people are coming to us request for service. Yeah. So people are coming to us for those traditional library services to borrow items. So they're, they're borrowing, um, over 400,000 items a year. And the downloads are now making up about half of that number. Um, which is great for all those users who want to access library services while we're, while we're closed. And then the event attendance, um, we still per capita provide more library events than Broward County, St. Lucie County and Palm Beach County combined. Um, so when we look at where we might make some decreases, that's where we start with the number of events that we're doing. But then when we have over 100 people coming for a story time, it's, it's hard to say no to those families who show up to the, to the toddle pop stories time and things like that. Um, other than that, our, our one-on-one technology services are also very popular. So, um, we see over 88 people on average at each of our libraries per month and help them with their devices to help them get connected to the internet, to learn a new skill, to submit an application online. And I think those are our most popular. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Hetherington. Thank you. I think it's just phenomenal how many volunteers that you have to step up and assist. I will, uh, happily move approval of your tentative budget. Commissioner Capps. Uh, I was privileged to be able to take the tour of all of the libraries with the two of you, and I really appreciated that experience. Um, and what popped out to me was how you had mentioned that libraries and nationwide are kind of in decline, you know, uh, they're losing ground, but ours are gaining ground and we, um, have the opposite concern where we need to staff it more. And I, to me, it's a testament of you all's leadership and how you've made libraries popular. And I was amazed at all of the entertaining things to do in these libraries. And one, one thing that was kind of touched my heart in a way was, uh, when we visited the Hope Sound Library, where I live, there was a group of ladies who were, did crocheting and they focused on crocheting these walker bags for senior citizens. It's a bag that you attach to a walker to put your cell phone in and stuff. And they were really, really well done. And, and it just, it, it, it really spoke to me about the kind of people we have in Martin County who would spend their time doing something like that at the local library. But I appreciate that as an example of innovative thinking about how to make libraries popular and entertaining and a place to hang out and to spend a lot of time and, uh, made me want to spend more time at the libraries myself. So good job. Yeah. Our libraries are definitely one of our community's most cherished resources. I hear that every day. So it's because of the wonderful job that you do. Thank you. There's a motion in a second. All those in favor, I opposed that motion passes unanimously. Thank you so much. We're going to take a minute. We're going to take a minute. Don wants to, there was a, yes, I'd like to gathered in the back of the room. We'd like to take a minute since, uh, we're continuing on while staff are here to come and celebrate, uh, Ms. Woods and her tenure with Martin County and her pending departure, uh, this week, uh, uh, earlier today, I was, uh, trying to open the door for Ms. Woods and she, as she barged through the door, she goes, you know, my kids say I'm a force of nature. And so I said, I was just trying to help. And she, as she storms through the door and it made me think about, absolutely. She is, she is a force of nature. And I can tell you that some of those who don't get to work with Ms. Woods on a daily basis, like I have, you know, um, she can be intimidating, you know, I mean, she, uh, she, she has an opinion and she lets you know it. And, uh, and sometimes she won't let go of that opinion for some time. It's a legal opinion. It is a legal opinion. Uh, every once in a while, uh, her own opinion on county government and how things should be run leaks through. And we have, we have discussions, but, uh, and always it's, it's, it's, uh, it is, uh, it is, uh, it is fun. And it, uh, it's always, uh, at the highest level of, uh, uh, professionalism and, uh, and, and, and the like, but I can also say that, you know, um, Martin County, um, one thing this board has always done and, and all in our previous boards has given the county staff the opportunity to, to try new things to go after, whether it's environmental lands or earlier, you talked about contracts with train and other things. And, uh, one reoccurring theme with all of those is, um, is legal contracts. And if you look at our procurement department and our real estate division and, and all of the different things we do, uh, we pump out a lot of work. And, and in that time with all of that work comes, um, putting together these, these documents and, and especially in construction and, and procurement and all these different things, there's a, there's shared risk and how you deal with the problems and, and not everything is perfect. And, and as we know, a lot of all of our contractors aren't perfect either. And in the, in the end, there's always situations where, um, there are, uh, disagreements and sometimes it's due to, um, you know, uh, either the contractor's inability to deliver their financial problems, whatever we wind up in, uh, um, in terms, difficult relationships. And Ms. Woods has always been there to work with the county staff and work with this board and all and previous boards to, to bring to resolution these complex, um, uh, arrangements to, uh, an equitable, um, conclusion, both for the county and what's in best interest oftentimes for the contractors. They may not realize it, but it was in their best interest. Um, and so for that, I thank you so much for your continued, uh, leadership and, uh, and, and your wisdom, um, and your, uh, the soft side of you rolling up your sleeves, uh, and knowing when to jab and, uh, and when to bring things to a conclusion, you've done it with, uh, with great expertise and, and knowledge and partnership. And, uh, so cheers to you and your retirement. And wait, if any of they want to speak first, we have a rose ball for you. Oh, she's now growing roses. Yeah. That's my retirement point. There you go. I have brief remarks. Okay, please. Do you want to hear from your folks first? Do you want to end with your remarks or do you want to speak first? I, I would like to get this. Have at it. A force of nature. Yes. Sorry. It's all right with me. Please. Thank you for the honor and the privilege of serving as your county attorney. 24 years ago, when I walked through these doors, I couldn't have imagined the journey ahead. It quickly became apparent what a special workplace this is because of the quality professionalism and dedication of its employees. Martin County has the finest employees of the state with a deep and genuine culture of caring. What's your mic on? Over the years. Is your mic on? Sorry. Over the years, we faced challenges and we've celebrated successes together. We've navigated complex legal challenges and we've worked through some difficult decisions while always striving to serve the best interests of our county. I want to express my appreciation to each commissioner, both past and present for your trust and your partnership. My, my thanks to our county administrator, our county employees, and my colleagues in the county attorney's office. Your collaboration and support have made my years here rewarding and meaningful. As I retire, I do so with confidence in the future of the county attorney's office and the county. I know the foundation we've built together will continue to foster innovative thinking and energy for the work we care so deeply about. I'm grateful to be part of an organization that makes saying goodbye so darn hard. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That's so beautiful. Would anyone from her staff like to address us? Yes. Sure. You have three minutes at the two minute and 45 seconds. Thank you for letting me speak. I wasn't actually expecting it, but I will say I've lived and worked in Martin County for 29 years and working for Sarah Woods has been my favorite job. I'm getting emotional. I'm sorry. Has really been my favorite job in all the time I've been an attorney. She's an inspiration. She's been an incredible mentor. She gives everybody in our office a leash to do what we need to do, but she also oversees us and just is an inspiration to all of us and an incredible mentor. I have not learned so much in all my years since I've worked for Sarah and I'm going to miss her desperately. I think we're all going to miss her and I know my colleagues and my the other attorneys and Rebecca feel the same way. We are just so thankful that you hired her and that she hired us and we had an opportunity to work with her and we're going to miss her so much. Thank you. Would anyone else please come forward? Sarah, of course, I wanted to thank you for all your positive remarks when things were dark and weren't necessarily great. You always took the time to talk to us whether it be me or my department and all those managers and just give words of encouragement whenever it was definitely needed. Thank you for your phone calls in which I immediately understood what kind of point you were making and there was no gray area whatsoever. But we had this discussion before but there was calls that I would get from Sarah in which there was really no gray area or it was either yes, no, there was no maybe or whatever. So the direction was clear. We appreciate that of course. And also on a personal level, certainly lately, thank you for your comforting words. I appreciate your time. And you are the type of person that that I hold dear and that I hope I can continue being in contact with you. So thank you. Commissioner Campy. Thank you very much. When I came back in 2016, we had a change in leadership in the legal department. I would say much needed change. One of the reasons that I had come back from my short retirement in politics was based on a lot of the things that were happening within your office through no fault of your own. I came back in 2016 to the Lake Point lawsuits and the All Aboard Florida lawsuits that had really disrupted the entire county and put us on a tricky financial future. Had some of those lawsuits gone all the way to the decision, we could have been in catastrophic financial situation. So when I came in back and asked you if you were interested, it was the logical choice. In my mind, it was the perfect choice, but there was a process. And so you stepped in and stepped up at a time where you could have just as easily said at that point in your career, thanks, but no thanks. But you didn't. You said I'll come in. So you had to restructure the department in a very difficult time with new commissioners and change the direction or the commission at that time change the direction and forced you in a completely new direction to rebuild the staff to rebuild the confidence in the staff that was still staying and create all of these new folks. And as I had said earlier about the leadership of the departments that trickles down into who the important players are within our county family, you've done that. You've basically created a rock star law firm that if you, not that we want you to, but if you were to take them all and go out into private practice would be a premier law firm with each of the individual people that you have now and have had in the past. You have had to deal very astutely with multiple commission or personalities, myself included. And then you entered into the retirement phase and we were leery because that's what you said to me. You said, well, you know, I'm in the drop and, and, you know, maybe you shouldn't be selecting me to head the department if I don't have a long future in the system. But we figured that out. At that point, we were so fortunate. You've heard me say many times when our key staff come forward in a moment such as this, I make a motion to deny the retirement. When that happened last time, you were the only case where we've ever been able to get someone back and to our huge benefit. And when I say ours, I mean us as commissioners, this group, the past group, our staff and our residents, you could have, and I won't make a motion this time because I know how much you love your daughters and your grandchildren. You suffered a lot of personal loss during your professional career. This last section, your husband, your parents, you could have said I'm done, but you didn't. The only thing I will miss more and I value more than your leadership is our friendship. Thank you. Commissioner Hetherington. I should have definitely put my light on first, but you're very hard to follow. But I, the short amount of years that I've worked with you, you were grace and grace under pressure, very stern, graceful. And I would say to Patricia, when you do retire, we need half the time for our meetings going forward. But you came back, you know, you, we were without you for what, seven, eight months, and you came back in our tenure. And every, I can echo everything that Commissioner Campy said. And I think of you two as a maternal strict figure. I have this calendar that I published. She's going to go in it. I have this calendar that I published every year to honor. It's to honor mothers that are leaders in the community. And it's called One Tough Mothers. And I think that you fit, because not only you are a leader, but you've mothered this county, your departments. And I mean, in a stern leadership fashion. So you, to me, are the epitome of a One Tough Mother. I will miss working with you. And I wish you the best at growing roses and orchids. And I hope that we can come by and see them. Commissioner Capps. I've only been a commissioner for eight months. But I watched a lot of YouTube videos on the weekends prior to becoming a commissioner. So I saw you in action for quite some time before becoming a commissioner. So I feel like we've had more of a history than my tenure on the commission. So I've always been so impressed with your command of the subject matter and your professionalism and your demeanor. I am a, I like to, to read John Maxwell books about leadership. And I have a few quotes here that seem to summarize your leadership in the county. Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less. A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, goes the way, and shows the way. A leader who produces other leaders multiplies their influences. A leader is great, not because of his or her power, but because of his or her ability to empower others. So those seem to encapsulate you very well. And I'll miss being able to communicate with you whenever I need to. And I wish you the very best in your retirement. And I wish you all the best in your retirement. And I hope that you really seriously consider a second profession as a Sewell's Point commissioner. They need you. I would like to say just for a very short time, every meeting I've had with you has always been, well, delightful. I think that's why you said, yes, I'd be delighted to meet with Commissioner Vargas. And that's the same way I feel. Let me know if I can give you any travel tips. I've lived throughout the world and traveled to many places. Okay. The best to you. Would anyone else like to address our departing county attorney? Thank you all for joining us. We'll wait till the room clears a bit and then take up parks. Thank you, commissioners, for allowing us to interrupt the meeting for that. That was very special. Thank you. Thank you. And we will now take up Parks and Recreation's tentative budget. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Kevin Abate. I'm the Parks and Recreation director. And Sarah, thank you for the last 15 years since I've been here. It's been great working with you. Sad to see you go. As I approach my 36 years coming up this October and the retirement system, I have to put on my reading glasses to give you a little highlight of what Commissioner Campi, a very high level, what Parks does, and then go into what I would argue is our best budget in my last 15 years and our simplest budget by far. So we have several different divisions within the department. One of them is our Parks Operations divisions. They maintain our safe, clean 74 parks and 1,400 acres of land. We do manage and support over 100 external special events. They do daily inspections for all of our playgrounds and they do requests for service. Last year, we did 3,390 requests for service with an on-time resolution rate of 97% as required by the system itself. We also maintain all of our park buildings, seven community centers, the Lankford Pavilion. And then within the budget for park operations, we also house the budgets for the Jensen Beach and Manatee Pocket Mournfields, which last year did 850 different rentals. We also manage and maintain our premier family destination, Indian Riverside Park. Last year, the park was incredibly busy with more than 360 pavilion rentals and also 360 rentals for the dockside pavilion and the mansion at Tuckahoe. It's also a home to our new boardwalk we just opened, the Boardwalk Lagoon, the U.S. Sail and Center, the Children's Museum, and of course, Captain Sewell's house. Under our recreation programs for the Parks Department, we manage all external special events. Like I said earlier, over 100 permitted events, including about 14 county events, and we do over 2,700 field rentals for youth sports, adult sports, and facility rentals. And we manage volunteers and programs, and also within the budget for recreation, we also house the budgets for the Beachside Cafe. We have also have a great grants program, primarily funded through the Children's Services Council that provide recreation, education, and health and wellness initiatives for after-school program and summer programming, which is happening right now. We also under the Parks Department is the Cooperative Extension Services Program that the county provides funding for with support of the University of Florida through the Master Garden programs, certifications for pesticides, 4-H youth development, Florida-friendly landscaping, and many more programs to list. We also oversee a 60-acre public campground with over 100 campsites, adventure tents, fishing pier, and last year we did over 6,600 rentals. And of course, going on its 14th year is the premier swim-in destination in the Treasure Coast, Sailfish Splash Water Park and Pool, of which last year we hosted more than 25 swim meets, diving, synchronized swim-ins, swimming lessons, over 300 swim lessons, and over 55,000 people at the water park. And finally, our last product that we worked on is the golf course and hitting bays, which is our 27-hole golf course, practice driving range, short game area, junior golf lessons, adult programming, welcome to golf. And they're doing quite well this year. As of my report this morning, they were at $964,000 in net revenue combined between the two, the golf and the hitting bays. So all that being said, a lot to do in parks. It's a very, a very high level approach, but we are looking at a very simple budget. We were able to raise a revenue throughout the past year. So our increase is 1.92 percent. We've had some efficiencies. One of the biggest things we did is we eliminated, we had outsourced our golf course maintenance. It was about just over a million dollar contract. We brought it in-house through outsourced employees and hired a full-time county employee to manage it on. We saved a couple hundred thousand dollars just by doing that, reflected in this year's budget, by the way. We continue to build on our budget reserves for the revenue-generating facilities, the ones that are able to generate net cash flow to use those for future repair and maintenance. And of course, this year, we demolished the Jensen Beach public bathroom and cafe. And we took that off the books this year. That's why the increase is as you see it here today. Our goals for the department are our master planning goals. There's goals one through four. As you can see on the one-page presentation is goal number one is to continue our number one priority, which is to maintain and improve our existing facilities and amenities. Goal number two is to improve our financial opportunities and support revenue facilities. Goal three is to improve programs and service delivery. And our final goal is to improve organizational efficiencies. And over the last 15 years, I can tell you we have an amazing team. We have no vacancies. We have a stellar rockstar team in the parks department. Our reviews through our daily Facebook posts, which we have tens of thousands of followers, is quite phenomenal. And my hat's off to the team and do an exceptional job. If you have any questions for me, I'd be happy to answer them. Questions for Mr. Abate. Mr. Campy. Mr. Abate, thank you. I'm a big fan of the organization. I think, actually, I guess I know that for many citizens, the only interaction they have with their local government at all, unless they're building something, is with either the library or Parks and Rec and primarily Parks and Rec. I can speak for the interaction that I've had with not only you and Kevin Kerwin sitting behind you, but a majority of your staff up and down the ladder. Professional, friendly, helpful. The parks that we have been working on within my district, and I know you have five, and I'm sure each of us feel that we have your department's undivided attention, because that's certainly how it feels. The progress, either the maintenance of existing parks or the imagination and the skill set that we are using. I'm benefiting from your work with dog parks, new boat ramps, redoing Charlie Layton, redoing the community center at Charlie Layton. The skate park, I live near there, so I drive by. Day and night, it's busy. From little tiny kids who I'm surprised their parents would let them be at a skate park, they look like babies, to grown-ups. So it really has quite an appeal, and it gets a tremendous amount of use, but it's always in perfect shape. And I just shared with you earlier today, had the opportunity to be at an event at the Hitting Bays, and the Hitting Bays are how old now? Two, three years? Our second year operating, correct. That's it? Two years? Feels like more. I went in with a pretty critical eye to see after so much use. I hadn't been there in a while. It looks brand new. The club selection, the machines, the mats, the furniture, the things that could start to look like wear and tear, but especially the staff. The staff that were there, they didn't know who I was. I was with a group of co-workers, and it was top-notch. Every outside, anyone that comes to visit us from out of the community or the state, one of the things my wife and I immediately do, is we have breakfast at the Seaside Cafe. The staff there, the quality of the food, the pricing of the food on the ocean is absolutely remarkable. So again, like I've said about the past, yours is one of the biggest, and I know that you take some heat from people thinking that we are doing things that we should have left to the private sector. What I don't think most people realize is that by you utilizing those revenue-generating opportunities as you have, your budget is only a 1.9%. Not only I get an increase is an increase, but it would be dramatically different if you did not create the entrepreneurial revenue-driven facility. Now, I don't think that should be everywhere, but where you have strategically put it in place has worked not only to your department's benefit, but to all of ours. So job well done. Commissioner Hetherington. I was just going to say, I think you and your team do a very good job at delivering recreational programs and with not a very large staff, and your leadership has made the Parks and Recreation very efficient, and just how you indicated the golf, how you've used outside contractors, because as we saw in the previous budgets today, had all those been county staffers, there would have been a higher increase with FRS and some of those things. So I give you kudos for running your department very efficiently and offering great programming to our residents. Thank you. Commissioner Capps? I believe when I took a tour with you of some of our parks, there was talk about this point right here under department goals, improve financial opportunities and support revenue facilities to offset operating expenses, and how our parks department was uniquely good at that compared to other parks departments and other counties. And if you could touch on that comparison. Yeah, so once again, I've been I've worked for three counties for close to 40 years, the big two to the south, and know several colleagues throughout the state and the country, quite frankly. So most parks departments are about 90% subsidized by their tax dollars. We have actually reached a point where we were almost 50% revenue driven to help offset those costs to the taxpayer. And you know, and it's not it's not easy to do. But we happen to be really good at it over all these years. So we get a little smarter, we there's a lot of efficiencies that we put in place. So it helps take that burden off and make things a little easier on us when we're not having to spend other folks money, we treat it like it's our own dollar practically. So Stephanie knows we're, you know, very stingy when it comes to spending. So, but yeah, so a lot of departments across the country, and throughout the state are heavily subsidized on tax dollars just, but then again, to to Commissioner Hetherington's point, you know, we have the other side of the coin with service side with program and swim lessons and after school programs, those are all free and new sports and new tens of thousands of kids using our programs that that they don't pay anything for. So there's this great balance between senior services, recreational program, grant programs, and things that people would like to pay for, like golf or mooring fields or campgrounds. So I think it's a nice balance and the county is the right size to do it. I think in some of these larger counties or smaller counties, it's just the burden is just too big. And I think to our approach to outsourcing a lot of our, our private sector labor, we can control those costs. And so we're able to do that. So most are 90%, but we are somewhere around. I haven't done the recent math. We had, we have approached 50% last year. Okay, great. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. I don't have the statistics, but I'll just bet you that our, just like our library system, we exceed the average per capita use. I'm absolutely certain that our park department does too. Our parks facilities are so well utilized and so much appreciated. You do a phenomenal job. So thank you very much. Thank you. Is there a motion to approve? I would make a motion to tentatively approve the parks and erect FY 26 budget. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor, I opposed that motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Next up is public works. Mr. Gordon. Afternoon. Good afternoon. Jim Gordon, public works director. The public works department is comprised of 13 different divisions. I'm just going to touch on what each division does so that the public knows what we do. So I'll start with traffic engineering. That's our group that does the, handles all the street lights, the traffic signals, the signs, the striping on the roadways, and they have a traffic management center, which if, if anyone has the opportunity to take the CARES program, they can do a tour of that facility. And that's where we monitor and manipulate the signals so that we maximize traffic flow through all of the roadways through the county. This reduces, you know, travel time, but it also reduces environmental impacts from vehicles that are stopped because vehicles that are stopped actually put out more pollution than vehicles that are moving. And by keeping those vehicles on the road and moving, particularly on our main thoroughfares, that can greatly reduce that. Secondly, we have the MPO, which is really our long-range transportation planning group. Right now they're working on a 2050 long-range transportation plan. And what that is for is to project where we're going to have roadway failures, where there's going to be congestion in 2050, and plan our future projects around those projections. The next one up is our transit system. And we're right now in an efficiency review of the transit system, looking at ways to use the existing resources differently to improve ridership and reduce our cost per trip. Our survey and mapping division handles all the surveys for all the different departments in the county. And they also handle quite a bit of the GIS work where we have maps that are on the county website. Much of that data is created and maintained by our survey division. Something in this budget that they have is they're trying to use technology to increase efficiency. And they've proposed getting a drone that can pick up some of our survey data because there's areas where it's much cheaper to do it that way. We use vendors currently, but we think we can pay for the device in less than a year just in the savings from contracted services. The next one we have is our capital project program. That program largely does horizontal work, which would be roadways, sidewalks, curbs, things like that. But we also do vertical construction as well. We just did the burn building for fire rescue. We help parks with the construction as well. We just completed the upland facility in Port Salerno. After that, we've got the environmental resource division. This is the division that's the the most fun division. I think everybody in that group always has a smile on their face. So they do our conservation lands. They also do our coastal management. And the big thing they're working on this year is the environmental land acquisition. So we've already had our first two meetings with that group. We're going to have a agenda item soon with recommendations that they made for for acquisition for two two parcels. We have another meeting coming up in September where we're going to review better part of 20 different properties that have been proposed for that program. They've also done a really impressive work with seagrass installation. And I'm happy to say that even though we had releases this year, most of that seagrass that we planted is still viable. Our engineering services division is the one that complements our in the development review program. We do the technical side of reviews relating to stormwater, ADA, site grading, things like that. And happy to report that some of the outside consultants in years past, we've been criticized that it takes us a long time to complete those reviews. We like to be thorough in our reviews and make sure everything meets code. But we've reduced that wait time to the point where we've had some folks reach out to us that were still tough, but we have reduced that turnaround time to where we're no longer holding up projects. Our stormwater maintenance program, those are our folks who maintain the drainage assets throughout the county, both pipes under the ground and open ditches and things like that. It's a small division. It's only 17 people and they cover the entire county other than the incorporated areas. But the way that we make that work is we use technology to maximize what we have. So each one of those crews has an iPad that has all of our assets loaded onto that iPad so they know exactly what's there. They can do inspections against that, work orders against it, and it just reduces the amount of time it takes to do the documentation side of what we do, which is really necessary when you have an asset management program like we do. Our field operations division, that's the one that most people would think of when they see public works. Those are the road and bridge folks, the people that have mowers and big heavy equipment and things like that. But they also do landscape maintenance. And one thing this past year that they did is they've been transitioning over to more of a native plant palette. And they've also installed moisture sensors to reduce the amount of water that we use because some of our sites are on potable water, which can get expensive if you use too much of it. So now we only put down what we need when we need it. Our mosquito control division, that's another county-wide program that if anyone has an opportunity to take the CARES program, we highlight that one as well, because not too many people really know exactly what happens with a mosquito control division. But they are working with resistance testing. They've got some really capable professionals in that group where they're testing the chemicals that we use to treat the mosquitoes and making sure that we use the right chemicals at the right time. And mosquitoes actually populations actually do build up a resistance to certain chemicals, so you have to rotate them around. And that's a program that's really grown over the last five years. Our real property division, they manage all the leases in the county and purchase and sale of property. And it's only five people. It's incredible the amount of work that they get done. They also do all the easements. And so they touch almost every department with the work that they do. And the last one I have is Veterans Transit Services. This is a program where we help get our veterans to the VA down in West Palm. So a new program that we added to that is we added a first-mile, last-mile Uber service. So the veterans who go down there, typically what has happened in the past, they get picked up at the Moorgate Library, hop on a Marty bus, and go down to the VA. Well, they have medical treatments. And some of them driving to and from that Marty stop is a challenge for them. So now we have the ability for those veterans to be able to pick up an Uber right as they get off the bus, and we take them back to their house. So first-mile, last-mile service. So I went through them quick, but I just wanted to touch on some of the efficiencies that we've been working on over the past year. As far as our budget, we have some budget asks. The first one is the transportation disadvantage service overmatch. That's handled through our MPO program. Every year, because they're on the state budget cycle, which starts in July, our budget starts in October, we get asked to add funding to that right before that cycle begins. This year, we're putting it into our budget rather than going to reserves, and we've requested that funding. The next one is a new FTE, a traffic safety project manager. We created a few years ago a traffic safety CIP sheet, and we funded it pretty healthily. And we have quite a number of projects that we're working on, and the way that we've been managing those projects is whoever's got time, and it's really not getting the level of service that it needs to make that program as functional as it could be. So we want to have a traffic safety project manager dedicated to that program to deliver projects. Current projects that are in that program are the roundabout at Sunset Trail and High Meadow. Looking very well. Just started. I've had a feedback already. Good. People are, one, saying, what is this, and then when I tell them, they're like, oh, good. Yep, yep. The St. Lucie Boulevard traffic study, the rail safety in Hope Sound, and we have some safety improvements in downtown Jensen Beach where we're looking at lighting as well as traffic layout. So all of those programs, we're working through it right now, but to be able to be more effective, having a dedicated project manager for that program would be helpful. The next one is professional services plan review support. So in years past, this is another one that we funded out of fund balance, and it is to provide additional resources. Because what happens in our engineering services department is you get ebbs and flows of submittals, and at times you get, you have just your normal workload, and at other times you get these huge projects that come in that take all of your time to review them. So our ability to respond and get things out the door quickly, we have this open PO with a consulting firm to supplement our services when we need it. We don't use it all the time, but when we have, you know, a peak in our workload, that's when we trigger the service, bring them in, and use them. So that was the same amount that we had budgeted this year. We're not going to spend it all this year, but we wanted to have enough in case we got some large projects in, and, you know, looking at what's on the horizon, there may be some large projects we need to review, and this will allow us to hit those dates that we need to. And then the last one is enhanced landscape sites. So most of that is the roadways that we were transferred, that are being transferred from the state over to the county. We now have to maintain the turf and the medians on those roadways. So onto the department goals, environmental land acquisition. We have, you know, tons of support and some really exciting opportunities out there right now. We already have some funding partners lined up for our first two acquisitions that we're going to bring to the board. So just maximizing that funding and being able to purchase the properties as they become available. Next one is traffic rail and multimodal safety initiatives. We study all of those locations and have some projects in the pipeline right now where they're normal projects where we could just go in and resurface the roadway, but we can also look at enhancements on those projects where we can, for pennies on the dollar, add in safety improvements when you're already doing that other work. So that's something we're focused on this year. Our neighborhood restoration program is mature now. We've been doing that for quite a number of years. That's where we go in and touch all of the infrastructure in a neighborhood. It's much cheaper to replace everything all at once, tear up the roadway once, do all the underground work once. We work hand in hand with our utility department to install water, sewer, underground stormwater, and then do all of the drainage improvements. And then at the very end, resurface those roadways. Our transit services update, I already touched on. And then another big project that we have this year is our four mile beach project that'll be coming through. So that's the North County line all the way down to Santa Lucia beach. So that's going to be quite an undertaking. We have added resilience into that project. So we are raising the dune height and permitting a higher dune to adjust for sea level rise and the larger storms that we're starting to see. So hopefully that'll provide more protection for our infrastructure that's on the, and the homes that are on the backside of that dune. So with that, do you have any questions? Questions? Mr. Capps. Yeah, I'm always amazed at the, the breadth of your department and the breadth of the experience that you would have to lead it. I counted up 13 different departments in your department that range all over the board. And various activities. And that's, that's pretty amazing. And then I remember you saying that when it comes to the CIP, that your department handles like half of it or something. Like this year, we've got a little over 30% of it. Next year, we're at 30% of it. Close to half. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that's a lot of subject matter. And then one other thing in Martin County, we had this thing called an RFS request for service. And what's neat about it is you can, you can do it in the evenings on the weekends. And that's usually when I think of things when I'm riding around, uh, in the Southern part of the County. And, uh, I will, uh, send messages to Colleen and tell Colleen to do a request for service to Jim Gorton. And he gets them all and he, he responds the next day. He gets on it. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, that's a wonderful thing for our residents. Um, like how many requests for service do you get? And do you get most of them? Does your department get most of them? Yes, we do. So we have the, the two most in the entire County are, um, drainage complaint investigation followed by report adult mosquitoes. So those are the two, uh, highest volume of, uh, requests that we get. Um, I'd, I'd say pothole repair would probably be our third. So, right. And, uh, those three are the top three in the County. That's great. Well, you do a great job. Thank you. I used to call Jim directly, but then he blocked my phone. So Jim is the, the department head for 171 of the hardest working people in Martin County, and you do a fantastic job. I'm just noticing on your, your travel budgets. Um, I know that in the environmental resource division that John has become an expert and we drag him everywhere we go. I don't think you have enough money in your travel budget for him. And I also suspect that we don't have enough money in your travel budget. So we, we, we know that we rely upon your expertise and professionalism to, uh, speak professionally with the agencies and we can't do that without you. So make sure that you have enough money to accompany us. And speaking of mosquitoes, um, I live in Rocky point and the mosquitoes are just awful, just awful. I was, I would, I would talk to a kid from Palm city and he said, they're worse there. So, um, I, I paddleboarded over to the North end of Jupiter Island, right across from, uh, um, Rocky point this weekend. And the mosquitoes out there are really bad. They're salt marsh mosquitoes, the real small mosquitoes, and we can't treat the state park. We're not allowed to treat the state park. So when the wind's blowing to the West, um, those mosquitoes are coming across the intracoastal and getting into Rocky point. And when they get to Rocky point, we can treat them. But the source is really the state park on the other side of the water. Um, yeah. Now up in Jensen, we do treat, uh, because that's not a state park. We are able to treat those salt marsh mosquitoes. We just did that last week. And, uh, we, we, that's kind of neat. We use a drone for that as well. And, um, just deliver the, the exact amount of treatment that we need to the right location. We fly it really low. We don't get complaints in years past. It used to be a plane. You always got complaints about the plane. Then it switched to a helicopter. We got lots of complaints about that, that as well, the drone, really no complaints at all. And, and we're able to use much less chemical. Um, and we can treat those salt marsh mosquitoes up in Jensen, but unfortunately near the St. Lucie and Lint State Park, which is a beautiful park, but the, um, it's a source. No, they don't. They don't. Can you ask them if we are allowed? No, unless there's a disease outbreak, they don't allow it because the mosquitoes are part of the environment. And, uh, so it's, it's so bad in my neighborhood at the eastern end of, of, uh, of Williams way next to twin rivers park that my neighbors walk into their house houses and the mosquito swarms go in with them. So they're, they're getting rid of mosquitoes in their houses. So we, we are able to fog when it's not windy, we can fog in, but so we can knock them down. But the next time they come across the river, we just need to get out there again and fog. And, but we are seeing, we are aware of it and we are seeing the numbers are pretty darn high in that area. Thanks. Commissioner Hetherington. Yeah. I would just say that the, the majority of the number of constituent calls that we get in our office are all, uh, relative to public works resolving. And in some months and weeks, we have many of them, and I'm sure it's the same in all districts and your, your leadership and your team, they handle them, um, expertly. They address them. They follow up on them. Sometimes they drag, you know, months. It requires communication and you have done a great job at that. And I think that Hunter, that traffic safety project manager is absolutely necessary. So good job on your department. Well, I think what happens is when you have 13 different departments within your division and some of them don't even seem like they should be in there. I think Don just assumes that you have such great leadership skills. He's like, yeah, give it to Gordon. When Don had the department, he also had the airport. I don't remember that. That's not a problem. It's so much of a problem anymore. Not like it used to be. No, no. Congratulations. Job well done. Is there a motion? I make a motion to accept the 20, FY 26 public works tentative budget. Second. Motion in the second. All those in favor. Aye. Opposed. That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. We are doing, let's see, utilities and solid waste. I can tell you I'm not going to be nearly as exciting as public works, but since it's been a long day and I know you're ready to get out of here, I'll be brief. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Commissioners. It's good to be here and present our budget request. As you can see, the current budget is $65,306,000. We're requesting $69,769,000. This is a positive change of 6.83%. And with that, some of the budget considerations were we have a request for one FTE. This is currently a, we call it a resource worker or a contract position for plant maintenance mechanic, and we're requesting a full-time equivalent. That's about a $28,000 impact for that position because it is a transition from resource to FTE. There's been an increase in the cost of contractual services, primarily CPI. A lot of what we do, particularly in solid waste, is inflationary-driven for our vendor contracts. We include CPI in each of those. We want our vendors to be profitable, and that way we don't have any issues with levels of service. And there's also been a general increase in cost of supplies, chemicals, materials, and electricity. Our department goals, we're prioritizing preventive maintenance throughout the treatment facilities, distribution and collection systems, and also the transfer station. We provide reliable and cost-effective services for potable water and wastewater and solid waste. And our large ticket item is to complete the design of the Tropical Farms Water Treatment Plan expansion. We're expecting that to be a $4.6 million expansion. And if I could just give you a few statistics, not to bore you to death with numbers, but on the utility side, we produce an average of 12 million gallons per day of water. We treat 4.7 million gallons a day of wastewater. We maintain roughly 4,200 fire hydrants, five vacuum pump stations, 400 wastewater lift stations. We maintain 620 miles of water main, 300 miles of sewage force main, 220 miles of gravity sewer mains, and we maintain currently 1,100 grinder sewer stations. We also maintain, operate two wastewater treatment facilities, two water treatment facilities, two water repump stations, and two wastewater repump stations. On the solid waste side, we manage contracts. We have employees on staff that operate the transfer station, operate the scale house, and a few other operations there, such as a household hazardous waste facility, and the Hasmobile. What we do contract for is vegetation processing. We contract for construction and demolition debris processing. We manage the waste management contract. That's our largest contract, and that's paid for through the solid waste assessment. We'll be coming back to you on August 12th with the final assessment resolution for that, and that sums up kind of what we do on a day-to-day basis. I do want to mention on the septic that's suicide, the Coral Gardens project has been advertised. It's out to bid, and Port Salerno, New Monrovia, as we spoke individually, will be about four to five weeks behind that going out to bid. So one last thing I wanted to mention, we have, the county has a contract with Solar Energy and Loan Fund of St. Lucie County, and that's where they assist financing for the grinder sewer program. We've exceeded $1.5 million in loans to date through that agreement, which is tremendous. A lot of people are using that to finance their grinder systems, and with that, I'll entertain any questions. Questions for Mr. Amerson. Mr. Amerson, you're an enterprise fund, correct? So the increase in your tentative budget is funded within your own organization? That's correct, through rates, fees, and charges. So it's not going to be a direct increase on the millage, taxpayer millage? No, sir, it is not. Important point. Commissioner Vargas. Yeah, I have a question. I think there's going to be an increase proposed at $464.37 to each property owner. Is that correct? If you're speaking of a solid waste assessment, that's correct. That's the total for the annual cost. The increase is, I didn't bring the numbers, $19.68 per year increase. Okay, so that will be the new number, and it's about $19 and change. That's correct. So are you an enterprise fund? Yes, ma'am. So you're totally self-funded? That's correct. Solid waste and utilities is self-funded. Except there's a line item on the tax bill for the taxpayer. It's a non-advalorem assessment. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I was trying to, I think it's, I wore that one down. I was trying to think. Starts in parks and ends in utilities, right? I like that. As George says, welcome to the end of the pipe. Any further questions? Commissioner Capps. Move approval. Thank you, sir. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Now we go on to the most easy to understand, non-departmental. And that's going to be me. Okay. Okay, so non-departmental, it's exactly what it sounds like. Non-departmental encompasses budget line items that are either intrinsically countywide or not assigned to a specific county department. And we have various divisions within non-departmental, which include risk management, economic development, grants and aids and debt service. It's essentially the catch-all. So if it doesn't fit in a department, it belongs in countywide because it's considered the umbrella department, right? Like the public works of. It's the public works of departments. Yes. Correct. So I'll go into a little bit more depth, but not too lengthy. So of the whole non-departmental budget of the divisions contained a non-departmental budget, the reserves accounts for 44.8% of that total department. And so I'll describe each of the other ones as I go here. So the non-departmental program, so non-departmental is the general cost center for expenditures in the county, which includes the county and city CRA payments, wellness and indirect costs paid by the enterprise funds, as well as items such as the county's audits, property insurance paid to the property insurance fund, the county's employee backgrounds, fixed asset compliant and actuarial expenses. The economic development division is essentially the BDB. There is no contractual increase there. We are keeping that budget level at $465,000. The following division budgets that are based on contractual obligations for debt services based on current debt obligations that the county has payment schedules for, risk management, which is based on the property and health insurance premiums that are paid by all county departments, participating constitutional officers in the insurance pool, as well as employee contributions into the program. And then the most exciting one is budgeted transfers that are just an accounting function that provides a mechanism for interfund transfers for payments of items contained within the various county budgets already. So the grants and aids division, we kept the grants and aids division relatively flat with the exception of an increase of $340,000, which I'll explain in a moment. But the grants and aids division pretty much has contracted services, which is the budget that organizations provide a direct service for on behalf of the county, which includes Humane Society of the Treasure Coast and others. The grants to governmental agencies, which include budget for unfunded mandates, Florida statutes or other local ordinance, including the county indigent and Medicaid hospital bill from the state. Grants to private organizations, that's the assistance that are given to local nonprofit agencies, and I'll detail those. And then other aid organizations, which includes our annual Dory Slasburg Driver Education Trust, that is court fee derived in the Porcelona fishing dock lease. So for grants and aids contracted services, the only increase here is for $33,811. And that is the increase to the Humane Society, which is based on the costs associated with the flea and tick medications that are provided at that facility for providing our human animal services. The grants to governmental agencies, everything stayed flat in this division, with the exception of a very last minute update to the Medicaid hospital increase of $307,165. This was a mandated by state statute and is for the county's required contribution to Medicaid hospital for the county's share of costs for Medicaid recipients. And that is dictated to us by state statute. The grants and aids, the grants to private organizations, this is the exact same list that was there last year, and there were no changes from FY25 to FY26, and there was no additional request made for those. Other grants and aid, other aid organizations, your Dory Slasburg Driver Education, $65,000. That's exactly the same. Those are pretty stable fees that we are collecting from the court. And then the Porcelona fishing dock, which is the same lease amount of $15,855. And then last but not least is reserves, which is the greatest part of this. And I talked a little bit, oh, I'm sorry. Murley. Yes. On some of the charts that you just showed, if we approve them tentatively today, that doesn't mean that we're locking ourselves into the specific percentages of each of the different organizations, correct? You are allocating the dollars in this tentative budget, and so unless I'm directed otherwise to reduce it at a later date, these would be the dollars. Correct. Yes. If in the course of the next couple of months during the process, some of those numbers could increase, decrease? Well, I can't, once I... Not increase, I'm saying the grand total can stay the same. The grand total can stay the same. But if within the line items, we could... Correct. We could shuffle it around. Okay. Yes. The net has to stay the same. Thank you. So as I mentioned in my overview presentation, reserves, our general fund restricted reserve requirement for FY26 is $23.8 million, and that has been fully replenished. And additional funds have been allocated to reserves to cover future capital expenditures, including the satisfaction of current debt obligations, the supervisor of elections expansion project, and anticipated recurring funding for the countywide operations facility project, anticipated in conjunction with P3 financing arrangement or other arrangements. But as you can see, our total reserves equate to $112 million, with a good chunk of that being our enterprise funding, which is utilities department. But with that, that is all of non-departmental, and I will field any questions to the best of my ability. Questions for Ms. Murley. Mr. Vargas. You know, I look at some of these line items here that you've gone through and that I'm looking on this sheet also. We're spending more than we should for some of these particular classifications. Um, and it's something that it's a lot of money. It's a lot of money funneled through. Um, people, as I said today, have confidence that we know how to apportion money with what we have. Um, I think there were several that asked for an extension, uh, the development board, an extension of their contract for an additional five years and a cost of living increase. And they wanted a higher amount to make up for it. Steward had pulled from them. Is this, this 465? Is that? I mentioned in the economic development division that there was no change to the BDB contract at $465,000. Okay. Did we extend the contract for five years? That's what they were asking for and a cost of living. I'll ask George. That's not a budgetary question. Good afternoon, ma'am. Chair, George Stokas. The business development board contract falls under my operations. No, there was a request that there ain't at their contractually required presentation, but the board took no action. So their contract stays at the 465. There's no COLA or inflation rate increase, nor is there an extension to their timeline. I don't have the contract in front of me, but I think they have only five more years left or something along those lines. I don't know the exact number, but I can get back to you and let you know. Yeah, I I've seen the contract. I'm familiar with what you're talking about. I've read it thoroughly. Um, I see there's an increase in the lobbying of almost $50,000. I mean, I'm looking at all these numbers here. It's those are, uh, the increase in lobbying that's based upon all of the contractual obligations that we currently have in place with our lobbying. And I will say even with an increase in lobbying, I will say the grant funding has come back tenfold. Um, we have approximately $85 million in grant funding in, in our pockets right now. So it may be paying for itself as, as part of an offset year. We currently have $85 million in grant funding for the years. Is that correct? Yes. But currently in hand, we have $85 million worth of grants and you have grant writing costs and on and on. We need to approve non-departmental move approval. There's a motion in a second to approve non-departmental. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Opposed? That motion passes four to one with Commissioner Vargas dissenting. Uh, we now need to wrap up and set our tentative millage. So at this time, um, I've made one slight change to the budget, um, based on the feedback that has been provided to me and that's to just adjust district three's, um, millage rate. But at this time, if you have any more comments or suggestions before I pull up the millage sheet for tentative adoption of those millages, I'm happy to, to listen. Commissioner Capps. I have some general observations about the budget this year for 2026. And it, can we pull up page 49? Um, there's summaries at the beginning. Wonderful. Yes. Yeah. Very good. So thorough. Very good. Very good. But I, I think this is a really key and very, very basic and fundamental to understand. There's a graph there that shows the Martin County, uh, millage rates for the last seven years. And you can see here that the millage rates have been very stable, uh, for the last seven years with this year as no exception. Uh, in fact, the proposed budget this year has a modest decrease in the millage rate. But I think that's, that's very telling about, uh, very stable finances in our county government with, with this year being no exception. And I've made a few other observations that I would just like to emphasize. We have very conservative debt policies as we talked about earlier. Uh, if anybody wants to look it up, it's page 87. Um, and I understand about 2% of our annual budget goes to debt payments. And we have about $101 million in total debts, but we have very strong reserves to counterbalance that, uh, that's page 89. Uh, total reserves are $113 million. So, uh, we have enough money in reserves to pay all the debt that, that, that the county has, uh, how many business enterprises could say that, uh, we have a bond rating of, uh, a plus, double a plus, double a plus, which enables very low interest, uh, loans. Um, and, uh, so on page 48, just one page over from what I, uh, we looked at earlier, it shows that, uh, property taxable values have increased about $5.4 billion this year from 25 to 26, resulting in a increase in tax revenue of about $38 million, also on page 48. So what that tells us is that we have some extra money to work with this year. Uh, there are many increases in the costs to run the county government. Um, our constitutional officers are asking for about $11.5 million more, uh, about 10 million of that's from the sheriff and the other constitutionals are asking for about a total of about $1.5 million in extra resources. And then there's another category called state mandates or, or agreement increases, which, uh, if you add them all up, that's about $5 million, $5 million, $354,000. Um, and then there's, uh, another category of additional expense called capital investments. If you add those up, that's $5 million. So just those three categories there together are over $20 million, um, dollars that go into, uh, that come off of that $38 million. And then there are other increased expenses this year. There are 11 new full-time equivalent employees that are needed and various departments that we've heard about throughout the day. There are increased healthcare costs and, and many other increases that go into the budget this year, um, that are outlined in this, uh, ad valorem impacts chart that you prepared for us. Um, another thing to keep in a couple of other general observations about the budget, uh, yeah, or that, you know, there's an, uh, a chart that says that the budget's going up, uh, 13.45% this year, but that includes the half cent sales tax money of $20 million. So that, so if you take that off, uh, the budget's really only going up about 10.4% or roughly, um, uh, just for that. And then if, if you pull out a lot of the reserves that we're putting aside, that would drop the increase in the budget because we're not really required to do that, right? We're just doing it because it's a good thing to do. If you pull the reserves out, your, your increase in the budget would be below 10, uh, this year. So, uh, uh, those are very important things to keep in mind. Uh, my conclusion is that this proposed budget offers offers a modest decrease in the millage rate while producing a significant increase in the tax revenue. I think it is good to have stable, predictable millage rates, which we have had for many years this year included in the good years. We should solve problems rather than allowing problems to pile up. And in the bad years, we should tighten our belts and avoid the temptation to raise the millage rate. This year is a good year. It's a year to solve problems. And I think the budget is sound and I support it. So, uh, I don't know if it's too early in the process, but I'll go ahead and say it. I'll move approval of the FY 2026 tentative budget. Mr. Campy. Commissioner Capps, thanks for that, uh, recap. Having been here a while, that was still an astute, uh, recap and vision of how it was done. I like how you did that. Just as a point of clarification on the $112 million worth of debt service, uh, can you tell us the dollar amount that is from septic to sewer? Because we fund those projects with debt service that is going to be paid out over many years by the residents. It's not truly like we borrowed the money to do something. That's the way that those septic to sewer conversions are funded. It's not going to be paid back by the universal taxpayer. It's going to be paid back by the benefiting party. Right. Um, so our total debt as mentioned is 101 million all in, but for the, um, utilities, um, revenue bonds and state revolving loans regarding that, that is approximately $39 million of that 101 is utilities bonds. So when you hear people say, well, you have a hundred million dollars worth of debt, well, almost 40 million of it is designed specifically to take people from septic to sewer. Absolutely. And it will be paid specifically back by the people that are benefiting. Correct. And of the remaining debt, what we've asked in this budget is to buy off some of that debt to reduce it. That's what a portion of those reserves were requested to do is to use the, to, to preserve fiscal soundness for the future by eliminating some of the debt that is on our books. So with that, um, I've got the millage sheet up and everything is exactly the way it was as presented. The only slight change that I have is to district three's, um, millage rate to make it even with, um, last fiscal year. So it is 0.0404. And if possible, if you could make a motion for, um, to set the tentative millage rates at each, um, countywide in MSTU level, that would be most helpful for us to complete those, the truth and millage forms I mentioned to the property appraiser's office. So Stephanie, do we need an individual approval for each one like we do at the hearing or do, or do you, can you do a wrap up one based upon what you have the sheet in front of you? You can do a wrap up one for countywide total MSTU. Actually, you could do both of this, this total millage countywide in MSTU, um, that 9.9185, um, which produces a millage rate reduction of 0.713%. And then you can go ahead and do a cumulative one for the non-countywide MSTUs, which includes Hutchison Island at 0.4760. And that should take care of all of our requirements for the purposes of two separate motions. Two separate motions will work. Commissioner Campy. Yes. Prior to, um, supporting any votes up or down, uh, I'd like to hear from my colleagues potentially, if this is the time to discuss reasons and rationale or offer suggestions on if you don't see, uh, that this budget is appropriate and you don't have, see the ability to vote positively for it. I'm, this is the only time we're allowed to speak and hear from each other. I'm interested to hear suggestions, uh, on what could potentially change that people would offer this so that we're not looking for a majority. I'd like to hear from my colleagues on, instead of just being like all those, uh, you know, passes three to two or four to one. I'd like to know because I'm interested if someone's got suggestions on, and we've done that in the past, if someone has suggestions short of just saying I refuse to vote for the budget, what needs to happen in order for you to vote for the budget? And I, I should reiterate that these are, these are the top millage rates that you're able to go, um, for the truth and millage process. So this is what this is doing is setting up and letting the, um, taxpayers of Martin County know what their, their, their highest potential, um, tax bill is going to be. You can only go down from there at the public hearing. So if there is a need for adding or subtracting, this is the time to do it. Otherwise we can only go down from here. So. Commissioner Vargas. Hey, um, you know, in the good times, we need to be conserving our dollars. We don't know what next year is going to bring. And what we're trying to do here is be as healthy as possible. Um, as I've said, there's been healthy increases across the board, which should be sufficient. Um, replenishing the reserves is good business sense. And after we fill the reserves and retire all of our debt, then we can talk about increases in the budget. We cannot raise taxes. They're too high already. People are going to be taxed out of their homes. Many of us sitting here and we need to be cutting expenses. We've been spending more than we should. And I hope that none of my colleagues are suggesting, well, let's just go ahead and raise taxes because that's what we do. Okay. Um, the millage, the number that we control for the most part is the millage. If I'm not mistaken, it's, it's a modest decrease. Correct. I mean, it's not one we're going to write home about, but it's a modest decrease. So the concept of tax raising, unless you're speaking of someone's home increasing in value and then they're paying more, then there's all sorts of homestead exemptions and people that pay nothing. Um, my house has, you know, obviously increases in value and then I pay that. But if the portion of the budget that we control, uh, Mr. Donaldson is showing a slight decrease of 0.713. That's not a, that's not us presenting or proposing a increase. That's a slight decrease. So let's call it neutral. Um, people's home values increasing. Yes. But I think today was a good, uh, exercise in hearing from each of the departments on why they wanted what they wanted. Um, as Commissioner Capp said, when times are going well, you start to figure out what you need to do. You make the corrections and our staff does that all the time. Um, we have had a strong, I was here in 2008, nine, 10 when it was a bloodbath and we did a very good job. We, we entered into that great recession, uh, fiscally sound. So we weren't trying to play catch up and then it just got, and we fell off a cliff. Our reserves were higher when we hit with catastrophic back to back hurricanes. Um, we had reserves in place that allowed us to not only dig them all out, but very quickly after we paid down and did what we needed to do. A lot of counties, if I remember correctly, were completely financially upside down. We spent a lot of our reserves. I think all of it or millions and millions of dollars of it, but we had it. And then when the situation was dire, eight, nine, 10, 11, you know, the commission at the time, the leadership at the time, Ms. Crista had just come in at that point. And really with department heads, we were slashing, we, we did furloughs, we did, uh, eliminated employees and got it back on track. Uh, and since then, you know, for the years and commissioner Hertz got a longer history to share with us about, you know, the ups and downs of the housing market, uh, through the pandemics and everything else, I think we've done. Um, and when I say we, I don't mean the five of us or any variation from the past. I mean, the staff, the staff does all the work. You do all the work, whether physically the work or financially figuring it out. We just say good idea, bad idea. So there wasn't too many things. I heard today that I was vehemently opposed to, uh, I think the modest request for additional employees, I thought was explained in such a way that it was appropriate. In certain cases, they probably could, as commissioner heard mentioned earlier, they probably could have had an extra one. You know, you bite your nose despite your face by trying to present some snapshot of fiscal conservancy that in the future costs you more money. When we take, uh, individual air conditioning units off the courthouse roof or any roof, this roof and switch or the library and switch to a chiller plant. Yes, you're spending more money upfront to do that. But we know that in the long term, we're saving money. The future Martin County taxpayers, the future, future Martin County commissioners should say thank you. I was here when we switched over from ridiculous lighting programs at each of the parks that were unreliable out more than they were working. And we switched to the Moscow lighting system or when we put the train train is is almost boring now because we've saved so much money for so long. But there was a time when that didn't exist. And now you mentioned it today. And several years from now, when we talk about the enterprise fleet program, that'll seem boring because that was something we've done all along. So I, you know, it sounds like I'm gushing and fawning all over our staff, but because they deserve it, we run a very tight fiscally conservative county. Commissioner Smith said something a couple of budget cycles ago that just rings in my ears. He said, there is a constituency for every dollar that we spend. If you don't go to the library, you don't care about the library budget. If you don't go to the beach, or if you don't play golf, or if you don't do the things that that we're funding. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't fund them because you personally don't use them. The five of us are responsible for creating a lifestyle socially, economically, for everyone. And throughout the day, when we're talking about, well, Palm Beach County can afford to pay their public safety more people more, or their county employees more, or so can Port St. Lucie, you want to know why they have a very diversified economic base. And when we try to do that here, a majority of our tax burden is paid for by the residents. We have a ridiculously small percentage of industrial taxpayers, commercial and industrial taxpayers. Palm Beach County doesn't have that problem. And St. Lucie County certainly doesn't have that problem. So if we don't want to change the look and feel of what some of our areas should be industrially or commercially, then we can expect the residents to have to pay for this stuff. We're not going to skimp on police, we're not going to skimp on fire rescue, and we don't want to skimp on the rest of the things. So today's the day that other decisions that we've made in the past, today's the day that they come home to roost. If we don't diversify, we'll never be able to pay our employees more. And what we'll see is the best of them, of you all, go somewhere else. Because if I were in, not you specifically, but if I was a Martin County employee, and someone in a municipality, not even Palm Beach County, but someone in a smaller municipality in Palm Beach County, offered me $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 more to come down, on behalf of my family, I'd have no choice but to do that. So at the very least, we can make them feel that we appreciate what they're doing, because they're doing beautiful work. And then we can support the budget. Or if we don't like the budget, let's figure out today, where we need to make changes. Because if, if it's a fractured budget, then why should I support it? Or two others or three of us support the budget, so that two people or one person could say, I didn't support it, because I didn't like it. Well, if you don't like it, why? If you're sitting up here, representing the constituency, what's the suggestion? Versus just, I'll take a quick no. And I've made that speech several times, and quite often to Commissioner Hurd, we've been out here, it'll be 1030 at night, we're still here, on the third day, we did three days of this. And at 10 o'clock at night, she would potentially, what? Good times. She would potentially say, I'm not supporting it. And I would say, Commissioner Hurd, why aren't you supporting it? And I think we've started to see sort of a blending, because a lot of what she didn't like in the past doesn't exist anymore. It's different. A lot of the credit can go to her. She kept pushing and pushing, and eventually got some of us to agree to her way of thinking. Plus, the county is just a great county. And I yield back the remainder of my time. Commissioner Capps, you made a motion to approve, but that's not what Ms. Murley needs. She needs a motion to specifically approve the total millage countywide and MSTU, that number, and also that one. Yes, I would make a motion to approve those two, as stated by Ms. Murley. Is that good enough? Yeah, that works. Any further discussion? Okay, yeah. So I'm trying to understand here, we can go down, correct? We are not locked in today, because I'm hearing down there that we're, we have to make a decision today. I mean, there's too many numbers going on here. I understand about the districts. I understand, and I'm looking at the chart right here as to what was previous year, previous year, beyond that, and this year. Is that what I'm understanding? So this, these are the billage rates that are going to be tentatively adopted, that will be presented in the truth and millage notice that will be mailed out to all property owners in the county about the first week of August. Per state law, the only changes that we can make going forward are to go down rather than up. But I think Commissioner Kipi is stating if we're not going to have full support of the budget, he would like to make those changes now rather than wait at the public hearings. I'd rather wait to the public hearings. I want to clarify. I appreciate that, Ms. Murley. I'm sorry. I'm not opposed. I wanted to, this is the workshop. This is the workshop. And to my new colleagues, this is the number that will be printed in the newspaper that everyone will sort of lock onto. It's happened in the past. And a couple of years ago, it passed four to one. And I was the one that was a no, because there was a slight increase in what I felt was a time where nobody wanted an increase. It was the opposite, literally the opposite of where we are now. It was like a 1% increase. Now, in my mind, to my new colleagues, I said, if it's only 1%, then we don't need it. Because the story in the paper will be Martin County Commissioners raised your taxes. It didn't say anything about the percentage. It just said raised your taxes. So at the workshop, so by the time we showed up a month later in August, the room had 200 people in it with torches because they were furious about an increase. And then a month later, it was filled again. And at that point, Commissioner Vargas, it became very difficult to change the narrative because the ship had sailed. So that's why I just think that this, although I'm not opposed to in the next three months, that's why it takes three months to sort of, you know, pick and choose where we need, we're going to have to do something with the public works facility. But today's the story that they run in the newspaper where, and then the truth and millage, the trim notice goes out and says, so this won't say increase. It'll say modest decrease. But if there's not enough meat and potatoes here to support it, then I'm interested today to figure it out. But not line item by line item. There's time for that. But it seems close. Call the vote. Is there a motion? Do you state the number? Yes. I believe the two that you want stated in the motion are total countywide 6.5614. What's that? 9.9185. Okay. And that's total countywide. And MSTUs. And MSTUs. 9.9185. And then this one. And then total millage non-countywide 0.4760. Yes, please. Okay. I will make a motion to approve those. There's a motion in a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Opposed. That motion passes four to one with Commissioner Vargas dissenting. So just as next steps I mentioned, we set these millage rates and OMB transmits these rates to the property appraiser's office. And then the trim notices do get mailed at the beginning of August. We have our first budget public hearing. It's a little wonky this year. It's on a Wednesday, September 10th, 2025 at 5.05 p.m. And that's just due to restrictions with the school board. I'm sorry. They get first pick and they picked our date. So the first public hearing, the state gives them preference. It's never been the thing before? No, we're number two. No, but I mean, it's never really affected us. It's never affected us. I think it was the way Labor Day fell this year. And then the second budget public hearing, which we adopt the final millage rates, will be on September 23rd, 2025 at 5.05 p.m. With that, I want to thank my entire staff of, my mighty staff of 11 that analyze every single line item in this budget over the last seven months. And as well as all the assistance from the department heads and the critical staff that form this budget, they do such a great job. And I know I look like, you know, cheery and fun here, but I'm a little bit like tight on the back end. So they, they really have a hard time like going up against me and they justify it all. So I'm really proud of all of the work that they have also done. You too. Thanks. Good job. That's all I have. Okay. Any commissioner comments? Any Mr. Donaldson comments? No, thank you, commissioners. It was a productive day and we'll get back to you on the discussion we had on the capital projects for public works. Thank you. Parting words, Ms. Woods. It's your last chance. Thank you, Sarah. And let me say, Ms. Woods, thank you very much. Job well done. Yes. Thank you. You're adjourned.