good conversation going on. I guess we better get started. We've got a full day. Let's see. We'll just go ahead and jump right in. I don't take any time with any pleasantries other than it's good to see everybody here this morning. Look forward to your presentations. And we will start with the county administration budget. Start over here. Good morning, Commissioners. Chris Rose, Office of Management and Budget. Next to me, I have Catherine Pazian. She is the budget analyst for the county administration, all that's in there. It's a hard job because it has a lot of pieces to it and because she has to argue with her boss sometimes. And she does do that. So she and I have some good discussions. So, Commissioners, Catherine Pazian. Good morning, Chair and Commissioners. Beginning at the top of page one, the department purpose. Progressing to the budget summary through page one and the middle of page two. The budget summary includes five funds, the general fund, American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA fund, Pinellas recovers CDBGDR fund, fleet management fund, and risk management fund. For the general fund, it includes the county administrator, communications, Office of Management and Budget, including budget, grants, and purchasing, Office of Fleet and Asset Management, specifically asset management, and workforce relations. Towards the bottom of page two, specifically focusing on FY27, the purchasing division will eliminate one FTE by returning to a function within the Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP system to an out-of-the-box functionality. The county administration office will reduce head count by one, achieved by absorbing the functions of the board appointment position. The Office of Fleet and Asset Management, specifically in asset management, will eliminate one FTE by re-evaluating strategic priorities. At the top of page three, cost efficiencies continued. Communications will realize efficiencies by using Adobe Firefly AI to create voiceovers. OMB has equalized the annual PC replacements to provide a consistency in budgeting and reduce the peaks and valleys in expenditure years. And the risk property and casualty broker is expected to provide membership credits upwards of 20 percent and resiliency credits up of 10 percent. And those values are to be determined when we receive our premiums. However, in previous years, we've seen up to about 2.4 million dollars. Towards the bottom of page three, budget drivers, beginning with the general fund's most notable changes, the county administrator personnel services decreased $48,000 to $3.4 million. And that's due to staffing changes as newer staff are hired at lower salaries and benefits. Towards the bottom of page four, OMB purchasing, the FY27 budget decreases $26,000 to $2.6 million. And this is due to a one-time retirement payout made in FY26. And the elimination of four FTE to achieve budgetary requirements. This is offset by the removal of $226,000 in personnel attrition lapse savings as the division is fully staffed. And it is important to note that of the four FTE, three are being requested in a decision package. At the top of page five, asset management decreases $236,000 to $854,000 due to the elimination of one FTE and associated operating expenses, as well as the partial allocation of the director to the fleet management fund, which does follow prior year practices with the director of administrative services. The middle of page five, Pinellas recovers, or CDBGDR. This budget decreases $9,000 to approximately $261 million. This is really just a reduction in expenditure requests for interdepartmental contra charges. The reason being is that CDBGDR has enacted memorandums of understanding with key departments and appointing authorities. And those are specifically for services as needed, which means that the contras are no longer required. It is also important to note that their FTE increased 1.7 to 7.2. This is really an increase in headcount by two FTE, which is partially offset by a 0.3 decrease in one position allocation from 50% to 19% with a shift of responsibilities. Top of page six, the fleet management fund. The FY27 budget increases $2.5 million to $22.8 million. And this is primarily due to the planned vehicle replacement within the vehicle replacement plan, or VRP, as well as some personnel adjustments. Revenue increases $2.2 due to vehicle replacement and interest earnings. In prior years, interest earnings have historically been received higher than we have budgeted, so we have adjusted that in this FY27 budget. Reserves increased $2.5 million to $22.2 million, and that's to support the future VRP commitments, assuming a 3% annual vehicle cost increase. And this value would change with the decision packages that we'll speak about shortly, and that's approximately $421,000. The risk management fund, the FY27 budget, excluding reserves, decreases $147,000 to $27.7 million due to a one-time retirement payout and one-time carry-forward funding of the automated external defibrillator, or AEDs, the service packages associated with those. Revenue increases $225,000 to $19.8 million due to charges for services, which are determined by the cost allocation plan, as well as interest earnings. Operating expenses decreased $223,000 to $20.1 million, and that is despite the increase to our new workers' compensation third-party administrator contract, which increases $88,000 annually. The division took targeted reductions in workers' compensation, insurance, and claims liability to align with actual historical spends, and none of these reductions resulted in any service reduction coverage or policy payments. Reserves decreased $5.4 million to $19.6 million due to the planned drawdown of those reserves. At the top of page 7. Excuse me real quick. And the last part of that sentence is, and due to the outpacing of expenditures relative to revenues, so we're just balancing with some of those reserves? Is that what you're saying? Yes, sir. That's correct. And this is specifically in the risk reserves? Correct. In the risk reserve. And we control that because it's an internal charge to other departments for the risk services that we provide, in particular insurance. So, yeah. And somewhere in all of this over the next three or four days, do we have a summary of all the reserve accounts and all of our different funds that we can have kind of in one place? Yes, sir. We don't have it in hand right now, but let me work on it. No, before we get too far into that. Sure. We can do that. Thank you. Excuse me. Go ahead. Back at the top of page 7 for decision packages. There are seven decision packages, two of which have not been recommended by the county administrator and five of which have. The two that have not been recommended, these are ranked by the office order. And the first is through OMB budget. That is ranked number five with $111,000 recurring. And this is for a current vacant position. It's a request for funding. And the position has been downgraded from a budget analyst three to a budget analyst one. The second one that was not recommended is for OMB grants. This is a recurring $227,000. And this is for the addition of two FTE to support grant administration. Middle of page 7, the remaining decision packages have been recommended. The first of which is through OMB purchasing. For the request for three FTE to be funded. As we spoke about earlier, due to budgetary constraints, the division eliminated four positions. This is a request to fund three of those four positions as a result of service level impacts. So this would be a recurring $271,000 and has been preliminarily recommended. Hang on just one second. So commissioners, what you're seeing here, and you're going to see this through the next couple of days with county administrative departments, where we've asked the departments to meet a flat budget. Some can find efficiencies through other means. Others, they don't have anywhere to go but personnel. So they had to submit a budget that showed meeting that target. But then they can just try to justify that through a decision package to ask for those positions to be restored. Okay. And that's what you're seeing here. And so you'll see that in other areas. But again, it's it's to drive them to find efficiencies of which we've now done for six, seven years, and and try to force alternative service delivery, finding efficiencies to meet budgetary targets, even though you have inflationary pressures within contracts and things within the departments. So you'll kind of see that theme. And then the decision packages are are the way in which they can call back some of that cost savings if through no other means. And then we're making a recommendation on the decision package. Okay, go ahead. Thank you, Chair. Maybe just to help me understand a little bit. So to maintain a flat budget, they removed certain positions or projects. But then you're allowing them or they're being allowed to offer decision packages to then increase their budgets from what they were to have flat. Correct. So okay, like in this case, okay, if we eliminated four purchasing positions, that's going to impact department operations. It's going to slow down contracting, it's going to slow down all those things. We we we so we but they had to submit a flat budget. Now, you're going to see that even with appointing authorities, you're not seeing that with the Constitutionals. Okay, so you know, the the same thing, if they have a contracting, if they have contract increases, then, you know, some departments have the ability to find a way of dealing with those contract increases. Others don't. Okay, and so it's people, but then that has a service impact. This way, it's transparent, and you get to make a decision regarding whether you want to allow that increase or not. If we just allowed them to increase their budget, well, then you wouldn't understand the decision making that goes into how can you achieve that flat budget target. So we're trying to put it all out on the table and have a reasonable discussion about those choices. That's what we're trying to do. So it's not necessarily, I mean, in this particular case, it's, you know, it has significant impacts. And so we're just trying to be put it up front for the choices we have to make in order to achieve those targets. And I think as we go through the process, Barry, keeping track of that, those kind of activities so that we can not have to filter back through the whole presentations, there'll be a page, you'll see, you'll see an entire list of all the decision package for all the different departments. So that's a decision. And some of you said on, you know, BTS, and you saw the same thing with them, they have contract increases. They have no other way of achieving that than, you know, people or alternative service delivery. I mean, you know, so those are the types of decisions we're trying to. That's fine. I just want to make sure we don't have to dig back through it all. No, we'll have it summarized for you as part, that is our decisions that we have to make in deciding how we pull together the budget. So I just wanted to highlight that. That's the reason you're seeing it kind of formatted this way. I think it's just a better, easier way for you to see the type of decision making that goes in to achieving the targets that we've directed the departments to do. Go ahead. Bottom of page seven, purchasing training and education costs for a recurring $10,000. Top of page eight, one-time retirement payout for risk management fund. This is a non-recurring $128,000. Fleet management fund, two decision packages. The first fleet vehicle lifts for $86,230 non-recurring and repair and parts maintenance adjustment, which is $335,000 recurring. This is for $100,000 in repair and maintenance and $235,000 in vehicle parts and supplies. Towards the bottom of page eight, summary of proposed changes for user fees. The communications division has one user fee for closed captioning services and associated personnel costs. Specifically for Ford Pinellas, the division is proposing a 3% increase, which raises the fee from $206.50 to $212.70 per hour. The intention here is to align more closely with the actual costs incurred on the personnel associated with supporting the closed captioning. The second one is an elimination of a user fee for purchasing. Previously, it was $50 for an initial application for pre-qualification of construction contractors. This has been eliminated due to code revisions, so it is no longer needed. I will now pass it over to County Administrator Burton. So what you're seeing, and obviously under the County Administrator, there's a lot of different divisions, as she just outlined. A couple of the changes that it's a good time to kind of outline is like within the Office of Management and Budget, you know that with Joe Laurel retiring, we merged that department in under Office of Management and Budget under Chris Rose. Jim, you know Jim Abernathy, he was promoted to Deputy Director, and then Jake joined our team, and as an Assistant Director, overseeing the purchasing and risk management areas. So, some organizational changes resulting in some efficiencies. We're continuing to hold a couple of vacancies even within our office, especially now pending the review of what happens with the property tax issue. There's some other changes that we are looking forward to, such as the review of fleet management. So, we have a consultant report that's coming in on that. It's not here yet. That'll be a good discussion to say how are we operating, and you know what changes that we can possibly make in the way we do those types of operations. So, there's other opportunities. We continue to look as a kind of a good practice. I keep studying money. You'll see that within my office. We try to pick a department or two out every, you know, couple of years, and do that review, and look and see best practices, and see if there's ways that we've looked to try to drive efficiency, but maybe a fresh set of eyes can help us find additional opportunities. So, we continue to do that. We continue to challenge the departments to find efficiencies while, you know, trying to look for alternative ways of delivering the same service at a cheaper, better cost. With that, there's a lot of different divisions. Be happy to answer any questions. Any questions for Barry? Some of the things that you were talking about, Barry, with the positions and, you know, not filling them and waiting to see what occurs. It seemed like 10 years ago or whatever, when we were having these kinds of conversations, folks kept the positions and therefore kept the expenses in the budget. The positions were expensed because we approved it even though it wasn't filled at the time. Yeah. Well, how are we going to handle that particular thing in the budget as far as trying to get our costs down? Well, so for right now, one, this isn't a budget recommendation yet, so we have a little work to do before we get there. We've already eliminated, as was outlined, a couple of the positions, like the position that was transferred up from you guys for the boards and committees. We've absorbed that within our operations, so we've already eliminated that. So those positions basically will go away? They actually go away as part of the budget. Okay. There's other ones where we're looking, like right now, you know, we have staff that are helping out with DR, with the Disaster Recovery Program, and so they're in a support role and we're kind of looking at that organization and how does that operate and stuff. So there's additional conversations there. When we look at fleet management and asset management, you know, again, coming out of the fleet study, we may have opportunities to change things around there. So some of those are kind of in flux because we're looking at different reports and waiting on the outcome of those to make additional changes. But, you know, we obviously, we've made some and look forward to potentially making some others. So again, for the 28 budget, we'll know by that point which of those positions will have to be eliminated or not. Well, I think it's two things. One, it's a sustainable budget for current operations. If the property tax referendum passes, then I think it's a whole new review. And that would obviously start right here in our office and permeate throughout all the different departments, appointing authorities, and constitutional officers. Those will still be baked into the budget is what I'm saying. For right now. For right now, yes. Okay. Until we have better recommendations. Any other questions for Barry before we move on? Okay. Great. Thank you. County attorneys up. No, by the way, we do happen to have the duo of McSweeney and Atkinson back in the house today. So, deputies, thank you again for being here. Appreciate your presence and uh, always want to make sure we thank you for your, for your service. Good morning, commissioners. Uh, today, uh, right now we're going to be doing the county attorney's budget and, uh, Shira Hegde is the OMB analyst who is, uh, she's the analyst for a county attorney. So I will turn it over to her. Good morning. Good morning, commissioners, and thank you for having me. I would like to start at the top of page one. Here we have the department purpose. Next, we have the budget summary tables, and I'll talk about the numbers shortly. Moving to efficiencies and cost savings. In FY27, the office is keeping operating expenses aligned with the average spending from the past three years. They are reducing their print infrastructure by taking two printers out of the replacement cycle and replacing older copiers with cost-effective models, all driven by lower printing needs. We have additional details here for efficiencies and cost savings for FY26 and FY25. Moving to the top of page two, budget drivers. The FY27 budget for the county attorney decreases by $71,000 to $5.9 million. Personnel services decreases by $85,000 to $5.7 million, and this is due to taking out a one-time leave payout expense in the FY26 budget. Operating expenses increase by $4,000 to $167,000, and capital outlay increases to $10,000. FTE remains flat at 33.0. This concludes my portion. I'd like to now turn it over to Jill. Jill, good morning. I will start by saying that this will be my favorite budget presentation ever because it will be my last budget presentation. As always, we're a pretty simple budget. We are primarily people. We have very little capital. It's really just equipment. To the extent you have questions, I'm going to let Melissa answer those questions. This is Melissa Kennedy, our office manager, who you see every year here with me. Again, we're very simple. The raises are not baked into this budget, as you know, but I'm going to tell you what the sheriff told you yesterday. The one thing I want from you all is raises for my employees. The same thing the sheriff told you yesterday about having a hard time keeping staff on is true for my office too. We compete with the private sector, but it gets very hard when we compete with our colleagues who are paying dramatically more than we are. There are counties advertising for entry-level positions paying $20,000 more than our entry-level position does. There are offices right here in the Tampa Bay region paying almost twice what we pay our employees, and those are governmental agencies. I know that this is a difficult year, but the one point I want to make is that on my way out the door, I want to make sure that my employees are taken care of. I would very much like to see them get whatever raise you all give to other employees. Again, I know that's going to be a difficult situation this year. Not concerned about myself, concerned about my staff. I very much want to leave you with a staff that I've worked very hard to build since you appointed me as county, well since the oversight committee appointed me as county attorney. We've done a really good job, and we want to keep those folks here, and that's the primary message that I have for you today. We've worked hard. We have great people. All the departments that you're going to hear from get support from the county attorney's office. I think many of you have had the opportunity to interact with our staff. I'm very proud of the staff that we've built, and I want to keep them in place. They have a lot of the same issues that the constituents that you talk about that are hurting have. They're also facing high gas prices and high grocery prices, student loans that are due, all the same things that everybody else is facing are true for my staff as well. So I ask you to take that into consideration as you go through the budget process. Aside from that, I'm happy to answer any questions. Outside counsel that you hire, where is that? That has been shifted. I think it was a year or two ago we shifted it out of the county attorney's budget and into like a general government, and I think OMB can probably describe that. We work a lot more with OMB now. The contracts really are housed there. We manage them to make sure that the services being provided are being provided. We scour through those invoices when they come in, and we question charges when we see them that we think are questionable. But we no longer have that in our budget. It has been moved over to OMB. Could you speak to that? Yes, we do budget. I think we started in FY25. We moved that out of the county attorney's budget, and it is in general government, which was presented yesterday. So there's a line in the budget detail that it's for outside counsel other than legal or other than court. So we have about a million dollars for... Yeah, we increased that this year because of some pending issues. Yep. I'm sure Joel's briefed you on. Do they eventually find their way to the department that's utilizing the service? I mean, does that... Well, the bills are paid out of the general government, and it's all the outside attorneys that they engage. So we would capture them eventually through cost allocations as needed. So if it's someone that's not in general fund, and they're using the county attorney's contract, then we probably would... If it's like utilities, we'll capture that cost back. If it's a general government, then we probably wouldn't. Is that correct? Correct. Because it would be general fund paying general funds, so... But if it's an outside... No, I was just thinking as far as capturing allocation, like... Yes, we're pointing out that, you know, one of our departments has this heavy... We're definitely... We're definitely charging Jeremy. Okay. We're definitely charging Jeremy. Well, that's kind of what I was going to mention. And Mark at the airport, and CBB, and you bet. Yeah. All right. That is part of our process when we... To recapture those charges. Yeah. Trying to figure out, like, where it's going. Yes. Okay. Thank you. And the largest driver of those outside council costs here recently has been some construction litigation. Construction is not an expertise that we try to keep in-house when cases go to trial on cases like that. It's just... It's very intensive for, you know, for discovery. And it's a pretty... It's a pretty specialized area. And it's just not something that we can maintain staff on on a regular basis. So that's what's been driving those costs here recently. Any other questions? Yes. Commissioner Flowers. A comment. Jewel already knows. And so, Don, wherever you are, you know, this is why I always ask the question, if we are litigating something, and should we come out as defeating whatever lawsuit that we ask for a remuneration back for attorney's fees and costs, because that'll help pay back into our buckets for when we're having to spend our funds to litigate. So if we win, we should ask. I mean, they can always say no. But this is why I feel it's important that we can, you know... When we have the opportunity to do so, we certainly do. Generally speaking, you can only recover attorney's fees when there's a contract or a statute that provides for the recovery of attorney's fees. You'll often hear people refer to attorney's fees in costs. Those costs are not as much money as the fees. We have a lot better success, I think, recovering costs. And that's going to be things like deposition costs, you know, transcriptions and things. Nothing in comparison to the attorney's fees. But absolutely, Commissioner Flowers, when we have the opportunity, we do go after attorney's fees. Anybody else? Nope. All right. Thank you, Jewel. Appreciate it. All right. We'll move on to emergency management. Kathy Perkins, hello. Welcome. Okay. Commissioners, we have Tony Merrill, who is the OMB analyst for emergency management. Good morning. Good morning. Okay. I'm all set. Good morning. Good morning, commissioners. And thank you for hearing me today in regards to emergency management. We're going to jump right in with the department purpose on page one. After that, you'll see a summary table of the general fund expenditures from fiscal year 23 through fiscal year 27. The department is 100% general fund. On page one, you will see the efficiencies and cost saving measures from the department. In fiscal year 27, emergency management achieved a $25,000 savings. And this was due to staffing, technology, printing, and notification cost savings. They also had savings and efficiencies in fiscal year 26 and 25. You can find all the details to those savings in your documents on page one and the attachments starting on page 16. On page two, I'm going to go ahead and summarize some of the budget drivers for you. Again, the department is 100% general fund. The budget decreases in fiscal 27 by 25,000, 1% to 2.2% or 2.2 million. Sorry. Personal services are decreasing $10,000. And that is due to some retirements and replacement hires at a lower starting rate. They may, the department maintains 16 FTEs. Operating expenses are decreasing by $15,000 through the deferred computer replacement, reduced contractual services, and the elimination of advertising costs. The department did not request any decision packages for fiscal year 27. They are not requesting any changes to their user fees in fiscal 27. But I did want to state that they did increase them last year and they are keeping an eye on them to make sure that they are concisive with the state mandates. You go to page two, you'll see that the CIP budget drivers, capital improvement program projects will be discussed separately. And those are going to be discussed on June 12th in the budget information sessions. At this time, I'm going to turn it over to Kathy, who's going to speak about the department context and consideration along with her accomplishments, work plans, and performance measures. Thank you, Tony. Good morning, commissioners. So as Tony mentioned, we're a really small department of only 16 personnel and we're able to do the work that we do. And we support that through having a strong foundation that we've built, but we also foster relationships with partners, leverage as many funding opportunities as possible and with your support. There are three main focuses that EM must maintain as per Florida statute. And we continue to streamline our budget with a focus on three things. The first being maintaining critical capabilities while evaluating efficiencies. We must ensure that we have an operational emergency operations center. We are currently evaluating the purchase and replacement of equipment with changes in technology, also while reassuring that we have redundancy in case of widespread communications outages. We make sure that we have supplies and resources on hand and vendor contracts ready to enact. We've been able to leverage recent disaster events to be able to replenish supplies and resources as allowable. That helps us extend the life of the resources that we have, and it also reduces costs to the county. The second focus that we have is making sure that we provide a high level of service to our partners, communities, and residents. The evaluation of our efficacy and understanding gaps in service delivery, building relationships, and leveraging existing networks to support our diverse communities is how we're able to do that. With a high focus on our at-risk communities and ensuring that we're able to provide services to people at their time of need. The third thing that I always have in mind in our focus is ensuring that we have dedicated, experienced, and qualified personnel and professionals to lead our programs because the people doing the work matter. When we get into disaster situations, we ask them to leave their homes and come in sometimes 24 hours at a time, day after day, week after week, and in the 24 season, month after month, to make sure that we're there to respond to and help all of our residents and coordinate with all of our partner agencies. We provide opportunities for growth and development with paths and ladders, and we identify training and speaking opportunities. Our personnel have become sought-out subject matter experts, not only within the state of Florida, but also from other states as well. You have a premier emergency management program here, and it's thanks to the support that you provide to us. As I have just met with you a few weeks ago to talk about a number of the accomplishments that we've been working on, especially in light of hurricane season, I'll just only focus on a couple of other things. We continue to make improvements to our processes, plans, and coordination across all facets of our community. The integration of the Acela program, which is what we use to do our health care plan reviews for over 300 facilities, we've been able to cut our review time about in half, and we've also increased our revenue. So very excited to see the Acela program is working well for us. We continue to work on our mitigation projects, and thanks to the commitment to utilizing penny funding for that, you know, we're ongoing with that. But we've also asked for support not only from the state, but also from the federal legislatures. At this point in time, in the current budget at the state level, there's six million dollars allocated to us. So we're just hoping that the governor signs off on that and does send that money our way. And then we also have a federal appropriation that we're waiting for for 2.6 million dollars. So as you can see, emergency management will never miss an opportunity to try to leverage funding from other sources. We have seen a slight decrease in the number of people attending outreach events this year. I think after 2024, people wanted to seek out a lot of information in 25. People may be feeling a little bit more comfortable this year, but we're still on track to meet our goals. Commissioner Latvala joined us at our Clearwater event, and it was really awesome. I think we had about 600 people come out that day. And it was nice because we were actually able to have a lot of meaningful conversations with our residents about how to prepare. And we have also seen an increase in our percentage of our timely and effective engagement with our partners. So this year they ranked us at 95 percent in giving them information. I know that most people think of us as just the hurricane people, but I can assure you we do much more than that. Over the last two years, in addition to the recovery work for the 2024 hurricanes, we have worked with partners in response to cold weather, tornadoes, heavy rainfall, multiple hazardous material incidents, wildfire, drought, and as well as a condo evacuation. And that was just within our county alone. We are also called upon often by the state to be engaged and to be monitoring things that may be happening not only at the state, but at the national level. Your emergency management department is here for events and incidents large and small. We are the front line for monitoring and assessment of situations to determine the magnitude of impacts. We're called upon to support operations county-wide with all of our jurisdictions, with all of our departments. We are also, we guide the protective measures of our entire community, and we're often the first line of notification, not only to our almost one million residents, to also the millions and millions of visitors that come to our communities. I just want to thank you for your continued support, and I'll open it up for any questions that you may have. Well, first of all, thank you for being here and in that presentation. And, you know, there's a certain sense of security when those things come our way, having you and your team at the helm. It's important, you said it in the beginning of your comments, it's not just filling positions, but making sure we have good people in those spots. Even though they can be at risk for leaving us if somebody wants to take them, it's really nice to know that our department has become that kind of a call, call to find out anything you want to know about emergency management kind of staff. So appreciate all you've done to nurture your people and make sure that we have a good, good folks in place when we have that issue. So that's all I wanted to say, but thank you so much. Comments, Commissioner Flowers. Good morning. First of all, great presentation. Thank you so much. You guys are hands and shoulders above any other department. I'm not just saying that because you're sitting there. I'm saying that because I have a chance to talk with other departments statewide. So congratulations on your teamwork and your presentation. Question on page two of 22. And I'm sorry if I don't know what this is. What is the MNET system? That was the emergency management. That was at the state level. That was a system that they had in place for us for communicating not only with the state. So they phased that out. So we were able to phase that out and we've replaced that with more current technology. Okay. And then just asking your badging system, is that just like what we use to swipe in and out or what? Yes, the badging system was actually used for all of our partners when they come into the emergency operations center. As you can imagine, sometimes we have as many as additional 400 people coming in per day when we activate. So we were going to implement a badging system, but we've been able to supplement with other technologies that we have. Okay. Okay. And the last thing I want to say is your department has partnered with another organization that I volunteer with when we're providing hurricane preparedness information. And we have something coming up shortly where you guys will be present. Your table is one of the ones that gets a lot of attention. So I'm glad that the messaging is getting out there about early preparation. And I want to thank you all for that as well. Because some people think just because they're not in a flood zone that they won't flood. And the information that you all have been providing has really helped. So I just wanted to say thank you for that. And thank you for this. I'm sorry, I didn't know those things. It's okay. Thank you, Commissioner. Those community partnerships really make a difference for us. I always call it the force multiplier because they're able to talk to their residents and to the members of their groups and reach out into the community in so many different ways. So that's really, we would spend a lot of our time. I kind of joke sometimes the EM stands for endless meetings, because if you look at our calendars, we are constantly in meetings, but it really is about developing those relationships, having those conversations, identifying gaps, identifying resources and possibilities to be able to respond to the community in the most effective manner possible. Thank you. You always do such a great job. Thank you so much. You and your staff are amazing. And I'm just really proud of you and your department. I want to talk about the work plan. So we've got all the Penny for Pinellas retrofits. Have we started any of them? Are we in process on any of them? Yes. Okay, can you give us like a little bit of an update on where we are on that work plan? Yep, absolutely. So we are currently, John Hopkins is almost done. So unfortunately, with every construction project, sometimes as you are taking down old screens, you discover some issues, you discover that the as-built drawings may not have been as they expected. So we needed to do some additional engineering. They had to put in different screws. So John Hopkins is almost done, as is, I believe it's Sanderlyn is the other one that's almost done. The vendor has already cut the screens for a number of schools. There are five schools that are known as a Hoffman prototype. Now on the second floor, we had to do some additional analysis for engineering. There's a series of six windows that needed additional engineering support because the wall, and then there's a small little overhang. That area wasn't as strong as they thought it was from the as-built drawings. So we've had to do some additional engineering to make sure. And then we're having to evaluate if there's any increases in cost. So we're watching that very closely with schools. I'm hoping John Hopkins is going to be done very soon. Okay. So we're close on two of them. And so I assume these are timelined out. And so I guess what I'm getting at is, I know this is penny money. I know it's already been designated for them. But is this something that we should be going to the state for to finish these up? Honestly, Commissioner, there's very little state money to do mitigation at the shelters. I think statewide, it's only like $350,000 or a couple million dollars. It's ridiculous for 67 counties, right? So what we did go to the state for is because we had aging generators at two of our special needs shelters. So that's part of that $6 million allocation that we're hoping that the governor will sign off as part of his budget. Yeah, it's very difficult to get state monies for that. Okay. All right. Thanks. Appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Always great to see you, Kathy. It was mentioned, I don't know if it was by you or the budget, that user fees were remaining the same for this year. What are the user fees? So the only user fees that we have are mandated to us through the state statute for the review of the comprehensive emergency management plans for healthcare facilities. So we did make a slight adjustment to that two years ago. And then the other thing that we did, once we put the Acela process in place, now we have the facilities pay up front when they submit for their review, similar to what other departments do for like permitting and other things. So that's been a, we've been able to get more money. We ensure that before we even do any review, we're capturing at least a minimum fee. And then we're seeing, you know, we're making sure that before they even get a certificate or anything, their full fees are paid. Okay. Thanks, Kathy. Appreciate it. Thank you. Next up will be utilities. And while they're coming, Commissioner Scheer is going to join us via Zoom between 1030 and quarter till. And I'm going to leave for an appointment. I'm going to be leaving for an appointment. And then I'm going to probably be joining back at one via Zoom. So I have a motion and a second. Does that include me as well? Mine is just for sure. Really? Okay. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Okay. Any opposed? All right. Let's take care of that business. And we are up with utilities. Good morning, Jeremy. Good morning, Chair. Again, Chris Rose, Office of Management and Budget. I will remind you that our enterprise funds, we have a slightly different twist to how we present. We have our operating budget analyst, Shane Kunze, here on my right. And we have James Lewis, the capital budget analyst over on my left. So for the three enterprise departments, we will have both sides presenting. Those that are not enterprise will be presented Friday afternoon in the governmental, which is mostly penny, but not entirely penny. That'll be Friday afternoon. So enterprise, the three of them, and I'll make note of each time when we come up. So, um, and then of course we have, uh, Director Wah and Linda Benoit next to him. So thank you both good partners with us. And with that, Shane, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you, Chris. Good morning, commissioners. Thank you again for having me this year. Um, this morning, as Chris mentioned, we're going to talk about utilities. It's infrastructure, one of our most vital resources in the county. Uh, they are supported by a total of six, uh, funds. You'll notice there's still eight in the reference materials. That is because of past year usage of the solid waste fund and the water impact fund, um, that are not going to be utilized moving forward for FY27. Uh, but there's still prior year actuals that you can see. Um, because there are so many funds, we're actually going to begin our conversation on page four and that we will start with the efficiencies and cost savings for FY27. Uh, the department identified $478,000 in operational savings from the advanced metering infrastructure commonly referred to as the AMI project. And then further, um, savings of $600,000 from staff attrition, um, where they made the decision to keep wages lower, um, during the hiring process instead of hiring at a, at a higher rate. So that was, that was an intentional decision by the department to do that. Um, we won't go through FY26 and 25, but they are there for reference, um, at the bottom of page four. I would like to now direct your attention, uh, to the top of page five for our budget drivers. As I previously mentioned, there are six funds that are going to be supporting, uh, the FY27 budget. Um, they are split up, um, between CIP and operating as Chris mentioned, we are an enterprise. And so therefore, uh, I'm going to talk about the operating today, and then I will pass it over to James to discuss that capital section and go into more detail. Overall, if we exclude our reserves and transfers, uh, the department is decreasing by $103.5 million. And, uh, if we further exclude those CIP projects, the, the, the operating budget that I will be covering decreases by $4 million to 169. Some major drivers for that, the personal services overall is decreasing by $257,000 and FTE remain flat, uh, for FY27. Um, there was some allocations behind the scenes between sewer and water that you'll notice that are offsetting each other. Um, but overall this decreases due to, um, attrition that's going on in the department. Hold on one minute, please. Hold on a question. Uh, this is something we've, I've talked about a couple of years now, and certainly recently about the attrition of our staff, you know, the, um, folks, and then hiring at a lower level. And I see that's a pretty significant number here. So, um, that, that change is, is, as we look over the next three to five years is pretty, is going to be pretty critical to observe and to see how we can, you know, you're getting, trying to keep control of some costs. So we have, um, kind of, you know, kind of that organic, in an organic way. Go ahead. So commissioners, we have policies regarding hiring, um, and where departments can bring in, uh, new employees. So if someone retires out, they can't just bring them in at the highest salary. Um, they, if they, they're allowed a certain amount that they can bring them in above minimum. If it goes above that, it then requires an assistant county administrator approval. And if it goes above midpoint, it requires my approval. And so, so we have some guidelines, obviously different positions and the experience needed and the technical nature of those positions, it's different, but we do try to do that. And we bake those into the budget as those changes occur. Sorry to interrupt question. Thank you, commissioner. Um, moving right along, I'll reorient you. We are about middle of page five. Operating expenses overall are decreasing by $2.6 million. Um, there's two major drivers, uh, the water revenue and operating fund is reducing, um, by a total of 1.6 million. That's primarily due to a $1 million reduction in the procurement of water, um, which is due to primarily the city of Clearwater, uh, not needing as much from us. So you're going to see a reduction, not only in our operating costs, but also in our collected revenue from the city of Clearwater as well. Uh, and furthermore, the sewer revenue and operating fund re is, is overall, it's got a reduction as well. Um, this is primarily due to a $2.4 million reduction in consulting fees. Uh, various studies are coming to an end, various needs in those studies. So that's, that's a major driver for the reduction in our operating expenses. Capital outlay, as I mentioned previously, uh, the CIP will be touched on more by James, but just overall, this is decreasing by a hundred, uh, 100.7 million dollars in FY27. Your American Rescue Plan Act fund, your water renewal and replacement fund, and your sewer renewal and replacement fund all support the CIP. And those are the major areas of the reductions that James is going to talk on. However, I would like to discuss at the bottom of page five, your water revenue and operating fund and your sewer revenue and operating fund are both also decreasing, uh, due to operational needs for vehicle replacement and other equipment. They just have less needs in FY27. So that's why you see those reductions year over year. Debt service is increasing by $28,000. This is primarily due to the calculations from the 13 week treasury bill and also payments on principle. Grants and aids remains flat at 300,000. Transfers to other funds is decreasing by 55 million. This is based on need in the CIP with a reduction in CIP. There's less need to transfer over that revenue. And then reserves are increasing by $41.3 million. Um, and again, that is also tied to the reductions in CIP as revenue is coming in. Um, we're putting that money to future years, um, for later expenses. And then finally for our budget drivers, revenue, excluding transfers from other funds, decreases by $13 million. The primary driver behind this is a reduction of $12.8 million in intergovernmental revenue, uh, for the CIP. And that concludes our budget drivers. I will take us to page seven at the top is our FY27 decision packages. The department has three that they have requested. Uh, all three of these are recommended by the county administrator for approval. Uh, the first one is a financial services customer payment kiosk for $45,000. Uh, almost half of that is recurring. The other half is a one-time installment fee. North operations asset, uh, request. They are in need of generators, infrared cameras, and trailers, uh, to conduct operations, including reducing our SSOs. And then finally, there is a maintenance asset request for ground penetrating radar and camera systems, which allow us to, um, detect issues underground, and, uh, also, um, help with, with looking at soil conditions and getting in there, um, and preventing, um, further issues. And then finally, for my section in the middle of page seven, uh, we'll discuss the proposed changes to user fees. Uh, in, in prior years, you've seen us come with a four-year study and a, and a increase that, you know, could be pretty significant because it factored in four years of growth. Um, we mentioned last year that we were going to move away from that model and start having more gradual increases based on CPI. We will still do the study, at least the study is still planned. Um, and then we will come back with essentially a correction if needed. Um, if the CPI wasn't enough or we did too much. And so what you have in your packet and attachment seven, beginning on page 111 is a list of all the CPI increases that we are going to be asking for this year. So again, it's a more gradual transition versus a major one-time increase after four years. Additionally, utilities is also adding an app to opt out fee for the advanced metering infrastructure. If residents do not want to be a part of that program, they can opt out, but there will be a fee affiliated with it. And then also there were some language changes, um, to say bi-monthly to per billing instead. Yes, sir. I got to ask about this opt out of a fee. Well, I opt out. I don't care. I don't want any fees. Uh, what's this, what's this all about? We're not doing any more manual meter reading, correct? So this program, um, there has been successful cases, lawsuits against cellular readings to sorry against utilities worldwide. Um, and so following the example of some other utilities, specifically Duke energy locally, uh, but other water utilities that have cellular type read meters, there is an opt out or a customer to say, I don't want to be exposed to the cellular signals. I am willing to pay an additional fee for you to come manually read my meter. So it's an opt-in. So this is an opt back to a manual read. An opt-in of an opt-in. No, so right now all meters by, by rule are AMI meters. Okay. So they are all cellular meters in our entire system. So there, truly there is no opt out right now. It's really about opting back into a system where it will be manually read. Correct. So, so this fee would cover the, the cost, operational cost to go manually read. I literally a handful. So it's less than 50. So really everybody's on this, on the digital system and all of that. There's nobody that's, unless they specifically request. Right. They have to request it and then there's an additional fee for that. Okay. All right. That, that makes a little more sense to me. Thank you. Um, yep. Did you have a question? Commissioner Scott. I did have a question. Thank you. And good to see you, Jeremy. Um, just trying to find where I found it here, but something, uh, it was the, uh, interest was going up on some of our debt. It looked like, so we have, must have a floating rate on our, on our debt. And then it looked like the, uh, it was based on the 13 month. Good morning, commissioner. Excellent question. Um, in the water fund, we are required to show as debt service, about $480,000. And there is a statutory requirement that we pay interest on customer deposits and the customer deposits are all designated as water deposits. And so when the treasury and we, we have to pay interest at the, the treasury rate, a very specific rate. And when that rate goes up, then our cost to pay interest on the customer deposits goes up with it. So that's the interest expense that moves our regular sewer loans and borrowing. Those are at fixed interest rates. Okay. Great. Thank you for that. Great. Um, okay. Any other questions before we continue? Okay, go ahead. All right, commissioners. We're going to transition over to the capital program in the utilities department. I will remind you of one operating thing. In the meantime, the decision packages that are being requested in utilities are of course from utilities funds. They're not asking for general fund for those, but it's still a decision package that they ask and come back to the board and to the county administrator for. So just want to make it clear that those three requests are not general fund requests. That's all. So James. Oh, wait, commissioner. Yeah, I'm sorry. Commissioner flowers. Can you also share just for any public that may be hearing or viewing that those funds cannot be used to supplement other things? Because some persons may be under the impression that our funds that we receive from departments like this as a result of the revenue that's generated by service, we can use elsewhere. Yes, ma'am. I meant to do that at the beginning and was moving too fast. So thank you for asking me. Enterprise funds and we have three enterprise funds in the county. We have utilities, we have solid waste and we have the airport. Those are closed system, financially closed systems where those funds don't go out. They don't come in. They are, they're closed to the rest of the county. So we do not use general fund on those, nor, nor do they pay the general fund. Now there are some cost allocations. So when they, when they, they do help pay for the board's services, they pay for the county attorney services for budget service, the internal services, but it is a closed system. It is, is a, uh, an enterprise standing on its own. So thank you. Um, could the state or county government change the law on enterprise funds? So like for instance, when we open a parking garage at the airport and if we raise the parking fees or something, would we be able to divert that money to other things? I would say probably not within the bounds of what an enterprise is, uh, because these are governed, uh, nationwide, even worldwide on how, how they're done. So if you, if airport fees are used to build that garage, it's an airport asset and the revenues would stay back with the airport. Um, laws can change, but I, I don't believe that would change in the process. I'll defer to the county attorney if there's anything else. I mean, I tend to agree with, with Chris. Um, I mean, certainly the, you know, the legislature can make attempts to change things, but you know, it really comes down to the fundamental difference between a tax and a user fee. And from a legal perspective, user fees need to support the use. So if it's airport use, then it needs to go back in and support the airport, you know, solid waste, et cetera, et cetera. We have in the past taken loans from solid waste fund, but we set that up just like you would an arm's length transaction. So when the county borrows from that fund, it actually pays interest back to the solid waste fund. So, you know, again, there is, there is a distinct difference between taxes and user fees, and these enterprise funds operate off of user fees. So that those are, those are intended to go back to support the use and not charge more than, than what the use should be. Like toll roads that have been long paid for for roads. Those are user fees, but I have no comment, but you know, honestly, those are probably going into support the maintenance of those roads long term. So, because as you all know, we get potholes and we get trips and falls, and you know, you all have dedicated certain millages to, to support pavement projects. So I, I suspect that's what toll roads are, are going for at this point. And I wanted to follow up as well. Um, one of the, uh, annoying questions that I keep asking about is use of, uh, penny funds for capital augmentation, because you just talked about it being a closed system, uh, capital, additional capital for the, the sewer, the utility fund. Um, are you saying that that's not legal? We can't do that? Or that's just a, that's our decision to make. That would be your decision because that would be general fund for use in a utility. Well, so it can go one way. In that case, it's the penny dollar, the penny fund. Well, but penny, you, you have, it's governed by the use of the funds. And so if, if it's utility, you can't send that out to put it into roads, like, you know, but you could, you could do penny into utility projects. Yes. That's, that's kind of what I think that that use is allowable. Okay. And again, this is one of those midterm, longterm kind of discussions as a way to help keep our utility rates under some, and again, reasonable control. And we have a lot of dollars needed for that system, whether it's plants or distribution or everything else. And all it does is slow right through to our residents. So the more we can augment that, and they're already paying for the penny. So that's just a, just additional, but we can do that if we choose to do that. That's all I want to know. Okay. Go ahead. All right. Good morning, commissioners. Are you finished commission? I'm teasing you. All right. So at the, at the bottom of page seven, we have the, the CIP budget drivers. The, it's quite all right. The CIP is the capital improvement plan. And so that's a six year plan of capital infrastructure investments. In this case, FY 27 through FY 32. The first year, FY 27 is what is actually adopted for appropriations. The rest of it, 28 through 32 is a plan. This includes capital projects that are at least $50,000 in value, and we'll create an asset or rehab an asset that will last for five years or more. So for utilities, the last several years, we've come to you and said, look, we looked at the forecast based on mostly the capital plan. We need to borrow, you know, a few years down the road. This year, utilities has done a lot of work at reprioritizing their projects. So they, they have taken certain projects that they scored at a lower priority and moved them into outer years. Previously, the capital improvement plan for utilities was very heavily front-loaded into some of the, the more, the near future rather than further out. By doing that, they, they shifted that spin curve. It's not a big, you know, bell curve. It's more of a flat line going out into the future. The forecast now shows that with the existing fund balance, with the grant proceeds that they expect to receive with rate increases, they won't need from a, from a fiscal perspective, won't need to borrow at least through FY32. So for the six year plan, the, the utilities CIP decreases by 160, 161 million to 709 million. And like I said, that's due to that reprioritization of projects. A lot of projects were moved out beyond FY32. They're still in the plan. They won't be in the actual, you know, the budget book that is published, but they are in our, our plan internally. The water fund, the water renewal and replacement fund decreases by 55.5 million, and the sewer renewal and replacement fund decreases by 80.9 million dollars. Now for FY27, that's the first year of the plan that is actually adopted for appropriations. The utilities CIP decreases by 99.5 million dollars, and that's for both the water and the sewer renewal and replacement funds. FY25 actual expenditures for those funds were 107 million. So the FY27 request is actually lower than what they spent in FY25. So they are really real resizing their budget to fit what their capacity to produce is. It is actually lower than that 107 million. I think that's appropriate as the, the big decreases on the water side, the AMI projects wrapping up. So they're not going to have those big expenditures in FY27. The next big project in the water funds, the Gulf Beach Booster Station, and that's not quite going to construction until 28 or 29. All right, now at the middle of page eight, we have the CIP decision packages for utilities. They did have a total of 67 capital decision packages, and the way that we use decision packages on the capital side is any project that is either increasing or decreasing by at least $250,000 and 15%. So as we discussed, because they reprioritized a lot of those projects, they took them from 27, 28, 29 and moved them out to 33, 34, 35. They also added an escalation of 5% per year, assuming that those, the cost of those projects will increase if they're done, you know, 5, 10, 15 years down the road. That's a large portion of these decision packages is due to that reprioritization. We, we have not built in any increases due to recent inflation. The, the plan was put together before any of the conflict in the Middle East started. We have seen the consumer price index increase. We, just this morning, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics put out numbers for, for May is 4.2% year over year, April 3.8, March was 3.3. So there's a, an increasing trend there. We'll get the PPI, the producer price index numbers tomorrow. And that's what it costs wholesale producers to, to make things like plastic water pipe and concrete. We do see some encouraging signs still in the PPI and that the plastic water pipe is still down 13% year over year. That's very general. It's not necessarily the, the PVC pipe or the HDPE that the utilities is using, but we see other, other items that are increasing. Cement and concrete still up 3% year over year. Electronic components are up 20% year over year. So for the projects that are programmed in, in some of those outer years, that 5% per year escalation should address that. We'll have to keep an eye on it. We may need to go back and make some changes, especially for projects that are going, um, out to, out to advertise for construction contracts in FY 27 and make sure that we have those properly programmed into the plan. Utilities does have five new project requests for the FY 27 through 32 plan. I've highlighted two of them here for you at the bottom of page eight. Um, one of them is the North Booster Station improvements. There's already a project plan for the North Booster Station, which is, is right there on US 19, just north of, uh, state road five 80 near the bowling alley. Um, they already have a project to harden that facility while they were going through the preliminary design. They identified a lot of other, uh, infrastructure, electronic upgrades that are needed there to, to keep the facility efficient. And so that's 15.5 million. Um, that's planned to occur between FY 29 and FY 32. And then we also have North Reddington Beach pipeline rehabilitation utilities, uh, recently acquired the sewer system from the city of North Reddington Beach. As part of that agreement revenues coming from the city will be used to investigate some of the pipeline, the pump stations that are out in that system, rehab them and get them up to a operating level. With that, we'll hand it over to director wall to talk about department context, accomplishments and work plan. Thank you. Good morning. And before I dive in there, just cause James just hit on it. Um, the cost of our materials, specifically plastic petroleum based pipe, we just had a, uh, a contract that you guys awarded the bid. We've negotiated with the contractor. They've already, they haven't started work. They've already come back and said, I need a new price on my material. And he's got his letter from his manufacturers bids from plants that build PVC pipe and their costs are going up 20, 30%. So it hasn't hit the year of year numbers yet, but we are seeing the direct impact in some of our construction projects for petroleum based products. I'm sure that will hit all the other projects and shipping. Hang on one second. Uh, commissioner flowers. Thank you, Jeremy. So when we see that, and you may do this, when we see that, do we actually go out and test the market just to make sure that that 20 to 30% increase that they're wanting to pass along to us is actually so appropriate. So we had not started because we got that notice back. We have, we said, okay, stop. We're okay. We're going to time out. Um, we do test the market ourselves. Okay. Um, we pull second bidders and see what the second bidders are. And then we make a decision. Are we going to absorb the cost, right? The contractor is not going to lose money. We'll just back out of the project. Um, so do we absorb the costs or do we reabid the project and just test, retest the market? When you reabid the projects, you lose nine months, right? So then you, you just delayed everything, pushed it back another nine months. So we're in the middle of that decision-making process. Like literally yesterday, that issue came to me, but since he brought it up, we are starting as of yesterday to start seeing that impacting our capital. And, and I apologize. And I know that's a recent one, but you know, I'm just curious, is that 20 to 30% specifically for the, uh, actual product or does that incorporate some of their additional costs? So we're, we've, we're diving that back in. So look, I'm not going to absorb a labor rate increase. Okay. That's if you tell me it's the pipe, show me it's the pipe and maybe I'll consider it. But if you just inflated your whole cost 20%, then we'll probably reabid. All right. Thank you. So yes, ma'am. And, um, that example that you're citing, if, uh, you go out to rebid, um, and it costing you nine months and, um, new, new vendors are going to rebid in the past, has it cost more than 30% with, uh, doing a whole new process? I, I, I, I don't have a, an opinion on that. So sometimes certainly sometimes you actually come back to a better deal. So, you know, when the contractor's bidding on a project for 12 months from now, they're doing their own speculation on the cost of materials at the time they purchase. So they all have their own internal, uh, forecasting that they would do. Uh, but for this specific instance on this specific material, there's lots of examples for us to go out and look at neighboring markets that have been awarded. PVC pipe is used all over the world. So I have lots of opportunity to find out what is the real current price and compare what they're giving it. And if it's reasonable, maybe we'll consider it. If it's not reasonable, then we'll probably go back and rebid. Okay. Thank you. Well, we have, the short answer is we've had examples of both where we've rebid and it's cost us more and we've rebid and we actually found the savings. Sorry to divert from the agenda, but since he brought that up, I thought I would mention it. All right. Some of the drivers for our operational costs. Um, we continue to pursue operational, uh, efficiency with all of our work teams, um, specifically using technology to update our workflows. And you guys have heard me talk about some of the technology changes we've made. We continue to do that. And really over the next couple of years, uh, my intention is to modernize how we perform work. Um, that's happening in all of the business across the world right now. And we're, we're trying to bring that into utilities government. Uh, another thing that we've done in our CIP delivery process is used outside consultants to scale our work. So we're using that model then to scale, um, some of our other work processes. We can bring an outside sources when we have an influx and we can scale up and down our work product. Uh, we're also pursuing some efficiencies through our workspaces. So as we are consolidating down to a central campus from, um, downtown Clearwater, uh, we will be limiting our footprint within the central campus building and using some of our other internal already owned spaces to minimize our footprint from a office space standpoint. From a CIP standpoint, um, we are continuing to, uh, look at our overall costs. Um, as I presented a month ago last month, we're performing a rate study coming up starting this summer, uh, where we're going to be bringing in all of these factors like loans, uh, potential rate increases, overall CIP priority plans and present that to you as an overall, uh, strategy for you guys to review and look at and make decisions upon, which would then drive the future budget decisions for our next six years. So October 1st of 26 will be the last year of the approved rate increase that you approved four years ago. So it's a good time to regroup and rethink about what is the strategy overall for our budget, our plan, our utility, um, overall accomplishments. So last year, um, you've heard, uh, we're bragging about the completion of the AMI project. So we did complete that project under budget ahead of schedule. Uh, it was a $72 million project plus or minus, and we've saved or came in about $8 million under budget by the time we're done with it. Uh, most of that cost savings was due to, uh, doing some work, some of that work in house with our own staff. Some of the bigger meters we did with our staff, instead of allowing the contractor to work on them, uh, as well as being ahead of schedule, you save money, time money on operational costs. Uh, we're also celebrating the completion of eight mobile home communities through the ARPA program where we've taken eight, uh, resident owned. So these were not corporate owned. These are resident owned mobile home communities that had aging and failing sewer infrastructure that were also high inflow and infiltration contributors. So they were harmful to us operationally. Um, we effectively use the ARPA dollars to help rebuild their systems. And then lastly, uh, we've, I've been talking for several months now about our improvements to our customer service. So we did start rolling out. We did purchase, uh, AI and technology programs, uh, to help start rebuilding how and modernizing how we improve our customer experience, uh, so that we're going to start looking at first time interaction resolution. So the first time a customer talks to us or emails us or goes to our website, their issue is resolved and they get back to their day of not dealing with utilities. So certainly I'll hear for any questions and I tried to keep it brief. Anybody have any questions? All right. Thank you very much. Uh, next up we have office of human rights. So commissioners, so Calissa is going to, um, do the introductions on this. I wanted to just highlight, she is one of our ICMA fellows. We have an, um, ICMA international city and county managers fellowship program. We bring them in under a two-year program. Um, they get experience that we rotate them around through the various departments. She's what, she's, uh, one of the fellows under that program, but she's also gets to present a budget, uh, today. Thank you commissioner. I appreciate that. So, um, we didn't have her do utilities or anything. Yeah. So Kalesia Raymond is to my right, as, as the administrator said, ICMA fellow and the only mandatory stop, uh, on their rotations through departments is the office of management and budget. And we bring them in for the real meat of the season when we're doing this work. So what you don't know is she's been running the, uh, the, the PDFs up here behind all of us. Uh, and so I've got Jim running it right now and, and, uh, she's going to be, yeah, it might, it might be, you know, well, you don't want me running it. So, hey, so, uh, Kalesia is here and we have Bettina and Jay over at the table there. So thank you both for being here and, uh, Kalesia, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you all very much for the introduction. Um, and thank you commissioners for the opportunity to present, uh, the office of human rights budget for you today. So starting at the top of page one with the department purpose, um, we will actually move down to the middle of page two for efficiencies and cost savings measures, uh, taken over the past three fiscal years. So for FY 27, the office of human rights overall budget decreases $64,000 to $1.4 million, which is 4.3% lower than FY 26 is budget request. And the department is fully supported by the general fund. The agency reduced its operating costs by $21,000 through right sizing travel, legal and contractual services while ensuring service delivery still remains fully intact. And the FY 26 and 25 efficiencies are available in the document for your review. And we can move to the budget driver section on page two. So revenue is increasing by $48,000 and that's based on the agency's current caseload. In addition to the anticipated number of inquiries and referrals received from the U S department of housing and urban development, as well as the equal employment and opportunity commission, personnel services is decreasing by $43,000 due to staff turnover, more details provided below. And then operating expenses is decreasing $21,000 with detail included below. Finally, uh, the office of human rights has been working with the office of budget and management to look further into the recommendations that had been provided in the consultants report. There are no decision packages requested by the agency this year. Um, there are no user fees and no CIP projects. And I can turn it over to director Barron for agency context and considerations and FY 26 accomplishments. Good morning, everyone. Can you hear me? Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? Okay. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for having us. I will be combining the context and considerations with accomplishments, uh, because our considerations tie into our accomplishments. First and foremost, I would like to thank you all on the board of county commissioners for supporting the office of human rights on behalf of my staff. And I, we are grateful for your continued commitment to outreach training, and, uh, enforcement in our investigative capacity, um, ensuring that fairness for all in Pinellas County. So we are extremely grateful for you all. Uh, so some of our accomplishments, we've maintained a strong relationship with our federal partners. Uh, we've continued to enforce the law that certifies us as substantially equivalent to HUD and EEOC, which also, um, ensures that our current ordinance, uh, language is approved by the federal government, which it just recently was. So we've satisfied that, um, we're also monitoring some of the federal developments, um, to ensure there's no impact on our work. And as of now, there's no service impacts. We are in the process of satisfying our EEOC work sharing agreements and our HUD case processing performance period, which ends, uh, this month. We've maintained a robust wage theft and recovery program and our special magistrate hearings. Um, as you know, that's been a huge part of our discussions recently, uh, which ties into our future consideration for additional staff. Uh, we've noticed a high increase in more wage theft complaints. Um, so our wage theft, uh, coordinator is being bombarded by more complaints. Um, so that is something we are monitoring, um, and also something to be mindful of in terms of what is happening in our community for those that are not receiving their wages or alleging that they're not receiving their wages. So we are monitoring same. Uh, we continue to have effective mediation and conciliation services for all areas, including housing, employment, and public accommodations. And wage theft is a part of the mediation process as well. We continue outreach and community engagement with nonprofits, community organizations, housing providers, legal providers, businesses and employers. Uh, we continue to, um, uh, attend outreach opportunities and provide training also to our external stakeholders. Uh, we recently just did a training for the Pinellas County, um, housing authority and they were grateful for that, um, partnership and we continue to maintain those partnerships in the community. And we also provide internal guidance, um, to department organizations and departments for guidance on civil rights matters and grant assurances. Also, uh, we'd like to thank commissioner flowers and our human rights board chair for attending the fair housing month, um, Tampa Bay fair housing symposium. We are a member of that and we continue to maintain a longstanding relationship with that consortium. And thanks to commissioner flowers, she kicked off the symposium with a very inspiring message, um, to all attendings attendees. And we were able to, um, celebrate April fair housing month. Also thanks to you all for presenting the proclamation as well. And that is all for me. Any questions? Not a question. Oh yeah, sure. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, just wanted to uh, draw your attention to, um, the good work that continues to be done, maintaining, um, the staffing that we have while also looking at a $9,960 reduction, um, in the general fund that was brought forward to do what it is that the, um, administration requested, which was to look at reductions in any way possible. Um, some of the trainings that, um, staff attend are required in order to maintain our HUD certification. So there was a reduction in the, uh, training line item, but for those programs that are required, um, so that we remain compliant on those, um, are still in force. And again, um, just want to commend staff. Um, I had a conversation, uh, regarding the increase in the wage theft, um, and the wage theft, um, complaints and concerns. And it's kind of hard to meter out what's real and what's not until you kind of get into it. So, uh, kudos to the staff for, um, handling the overage, um, in that area. And then, um, yes, the, the housing conference, um, talked about some innovative ways to try to assist individuals and how to educate individuals. So I was very thankful that we were the sponsors for that. We got a lot of kudos for it. Um, also, um, the $43,000 total decrease for personnel services. Again, uh, falling in line with what it is that all departments have been asked to do when it comes to, um, looking at, um, decreasing, um, the budgets by 3%. So I just wanted to draw some of those things out that may not have been drawn out in the presentations. And I want to thank you all for continuing to do the work. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, ma'am. Any other comment? Uh, Commissioner Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good to see you this morning, Bettina. On the increase in the wage theft, uh, complaints, is there any particular industry that seems to be driving that? So we're monitoring that, um, thanks to the recommendation from Commissioner Nowicki. We're monitoring the industries now. Um, so typically it's, um, tourism, tourism, hospitality, construction. Um, we've had a few in the mechanic industry, um, multiple actually recently. So, um, we're going to monitor the trend for some time to see. Um, but the range and the claims also is something that's been interesting because they're higher claims now. Um, so sometimes we'll get a small claim. Sometimes they're up to the minimum that we have, which is 15,000. Um, so that is something we're watching as well. Any other comments? All right. Thank you all very much. And you did a wonderful job. You get an A plus, which is a grade I really ever got. Yes, thank you. Yeah. So tell all your friends that may be coming behind you, we're good people. Yeah. Even in a budget crisis, we're good people. Convention and Visitors Bureau is next. So commissioners, you recognize Andrew Brown going to sit down next to me here on the right. Um, you know, Andrew doing his, his capital work, but we're also doing some cross training in the office of management and budget. So he's going to be working on an operating budget this year, uh, has been working on convention and visitors bureau. So he's going to be presenting on the operating budget, uh, of that and, and the capital, I suppose as well. Um, but, uh, we, we do have Brian Lowak president and, uh, and Frederica Collins, vice president of finance and administration over at the table here. So welcome as well. Drew, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you, Chris. Um, so today we're going to be talking about the convention and visitors bureau. Uh, you should see that heading at the top of your document. Um, at the top of your document, you're going to see department purpose as well as a table for the tourist development tax fund. I want to orient you to the bottom of page one, however, where you'll see, um, cost efficiencies and cost saving measures for FY 27. The department did reduce 247,000 in expenses to align with historical spending patterns. And you can see the breakdown at the bottom of page one. They eliminated several low or no ROI trade shows and conferences, allowing resources to be focused on higher value opportunities. They reallocated funding from lower performing events and festivals to programs with stronger return on investment. They redirected funding to new street level one contract to improve visitor center and event performance measurement. They maintained investment in earned media and public relations efforts to support tourism promotion without increasing costs. And they did all this with no impacts of services. Beginning on page two, you'll find more detail regarding FY 26 and 25 cost savings. If I can, I'd like to orient you to the middle of page two, where you'll see a header budget drivers. FY 27 budget maintains core tourism marketing sales and visitor services through internal budget adjustments without reducing services or service levels. The total FY 27 budget decreases by 1.3 million or 0.5% to 279 million. Personnel costs increased $12,000 due to select position adjustments while staffing remains unchanged at 50 FTEs. Operating expenses decrease $15,000 through reductions and reallocations and travel, memberships and training. Grants and aids, and this is your capital projects funding program. Grants and aids increase due to funding commitments for capital projects $6.9 million. Transfers increase $100,000 for beach nourishment projects to $7.4 million for FY 27. And then reserves decrease $8.3 million. Beginning in FY 27, the Public Works Coastal Management Division associated costs are about $689,000. We are proposing that they be funded by the tourist development tax because the division's work is solely dedicated countywide beach nourishment projects. This was shared with the TDC back in May. Top of page three, there are no decision packages. Also top of page three, there are no user fees. And then finally, middle of page three, CIP budget drivers, there is one capital project. It is the Toytown remediation of the Toytown landfill. It's funded by ARPA, state appropriations, and TDT funds. And with that, I will hand it over to Brian to speak about the department context, FY 26 accomplishments, and work plans. Thank you, Drew, and good morning, commissioners. Really, I want to spend my time just focusing on one item. And if you'll recall last year, you all revised the capital projects funding program guidelines. And one of the changes within those guidelines that was added was that I will come to you all and look for direction on what a maximum spend we're willing to invest in those capital projects, each cycle that we open up, open those up for applications. And so we're we're ready to open those up for applications. And in order to get some direction, we've taken a stab at looking at what we believe would be reasonable allocation to consider funding those projects at. And that that figure comes out to about thirty one million point six thirty one point six million dollars. And and how did we get there? So when you look at the only dedicated source within the TDT that you have, you have a set aside of one half of one percent on the capital side, and that goes towards beach nourishment. And what I've consistently heard from this board from the tourist development council is that the beaches are are the top priority that we have. And so we felt that we would not recommend funding capital projects higher than what we fund beach nourishment at. And so what we proposed in that thirty one point six million dollars, that would be a split between two pots, one for what I'm dubbing traditional capital projects. So the museums, the aquariums, the ball fields, things that you've seen come before you in the past. And then one category for the new the new projects, beach park facilities, which was added to the tourist development plan this year and the capital guidelines. And so if we fund each at a max of one half of one percent, that comes out to assuming TDT collections is approximately ninety five million dollars, which I think we're going to land within plus or minus one or two percent of that this year. That brings each of them because this we open this up every two years. So that brings each of those to fifteen point eight million dollars that we we would consider as the max we'd be willing to recommend funding for. And so I wanted to put that out before you this morning, hear your thought process on that. If I could get some sort of consensus, although I'm counting around the room and yeah, I will then take that. I have not proposed this to the tourist development council yet, but if I can get your feedback, I would take this to them in July. And depending on their recommendation, we would then be ready to open up applications in August and hopefully get some recommendations to you by the end of the year. So if I could just add on a little bit to what Brian was talking about. This this board brought this up, you know, what about a year ago regarding some of the tired facilities and things like that. So we so Brian tried to take a look at, you know, what's precedent set and where could this apply? What type of projects that are out there? And so, you know, he's come back at this trying to set some some parameters around that. There's also pieces that I think you're talking about with matching funds and things like that, where they're skinning the game for everybody that wants to apply. So it's partnership, right? And, and so it's a first stab at trying to address kind of that deferred, you know, maintenance type issue that you brought up a couple of years ago. And so that's, I think the framing of the discussion. The concern was, you know, how big is the need? But it's, again, it's got to be tied back to the tourism piece. And that really skinnies down where those funds could be used. Commissioner Flowers? So I haven't really had a chance to absorb fully what the proposal is. I'm glad that you're looking at dividing the funding amount, the funding allocations up so that they're not higher or could potentially be higher than what we do for beach renourishment. Because I think we would have holy heck from the beach community about that with someone getting more when in fact they've been asking if we would consider, you know, enhancing their pot. And their comments towards that is because of the amount of tourism they bring in from persons staying at their hotels and whatnot. I would be willing, I don't know if we would be able to maybe workshop this before we make a decision or something. I'm willing to hear more about this and just or give me a little time, if you will, to absorb it. I think it's a good idea. I think it's a good start. I just want to have more information so I can make a better informed decision. That's all I'm saying. And that's fine. I mean, I think if we, from a budgetary standpoint, if we, he was, I think he was just looking for your input, not kind of a vote. We can certainly bring it back. It would be part of the budget so we can have those discussions in August. So that, that's, that's not an issue. I think he just wanted to introduce the topic as part of his budget presentation. Yeah, I think it's worth considering. And, and then maybe by that time, Brian, you'll also be able to share with us what the committee, your TDC committee, you know, feels or thinks about it as well. I think it's a good start. I just want to, I want to learn a little bit more about it. And I certainly can call you offline and, and, and say, you know, ask you to educate me just a little bit more on the structure. Mr. Scott. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Always great to see you, Brian. I like the idea, I think, running up the flagpole of the TDC and see what the feedback they, they've got and bring it back to us. But I mean, I like the methodology you've come up with, and it's, I think it's a good starting point. Commissioner Sherrod, do you have anything? I just, I would like to reiterate Commissioner Flowers' comments. I'd like to know more. I think it's a good start. But I would like to bring it back, talk about it further, because I'm really not up to speed on exactly what you're proposing. Yes, sir. Commissioner Nowicki. Thank you, Commissioner or Vice Chair. You know, Brian, you know, a great job with the cost saving measures. I think, you know, more time on what you're proposing, what kind of everybody else is reiterating is good. Have we looked at, you know, reduction of to chambers, you know, to see what's their ROI? Because I see like a lot of your reductions are kind of tied to, there's not really an ROI. I mean, so are we getting an ROI from funding, you know, chambers of commerce that really don't draw any torts? Yeah. So to directly answer the question, no, we have not looked at reducing that funding amount. In 2023, that was the first year that the board actually increased that funding amount from 500,000 to 600,000. And at that time, there wasn't a there weren't any guidelines around how that money was distributed. We put in place working with our community relations VP and Broad and Crossroads to come up with the methodology on how we disperse those funds to the the chambers. And we continue to to refine that. But essentially, the reason we do that is because we have 13 chambers that are in that program. And they have, I'm going to get the number wrong, but I believe 19 different visitor centers throughout the county. And these are visitor centers that are that are built, that are operated, and people walk in the doors every day. And they're visitor centers that we don't have to staff or construct or maintain. So the funding that we provide to those chambers, 50% of it goes towards staffing costs reimbursement on a one to one basis for the staffing there. And then the other 50% goes towards marketing. So what are you guys willing to do to market the broader destination? And we then reimburse you for those allowable expenses. Yeah, and I mean, that's a good point you bring up. And I, you know, I see a lot of these chambers post events for networking for bid, I mean, I don't see any of them doing like tourism events inside their chambers. It's all just, you know, people already in the community. You know, so I think if we're looking at, you know, all reductions through like this ROI lens, right, I mean, that's what a lot of them have been done through is what's the return on investment in tourism heads and beds. I've heard that a lot. You know, I think we need to apply that same metric to these chambers. You know, some of them do political advertising, some of them donate money to politicians. So, you know, I think we need to look at that, that some of them have political action committees. So, you know, we're giving taxpayer or taxes, not taxpayer ad warm property tax money, but a tax to some of these chambers that are heavily involved in political lobbying and political activism. So I'd like to see an ROI of heads and beds, you know, applied to some of these chambers that are getting money for salary. So, again, to answer directly, I don't think we will be able to put a heads and beds ROI on this, but we can't put a heads and beds ROI on a lot of things that we do. A lot of it is marketing and advertising the destination that, you know, on the direct marketing expenditures, many times we have methods of seeing exactly how many heads and beds they produce, but a lot of things you don't. And so I can give you one of the things that he mentioned that Drew mentioned was the street level one. And so we've installed cameras at each of these chamber offices to get a real-time count of how the foot traffic going through there, where those people are from. So are they residents or are they visitors? How long were they there? Destination magazines that were distributed there. So again, I think it improves the destination. We're more than just a destination marketing organization. We're also a destination management organization. And I think this would fall under destination management a little bit more than it would on destination marketing. And to that point, you know, like, you know, we have all these, you know, Michelin star up-and-coming restaurants, you know, here in Pinellas County. I mean, are we giving money to those restaurants that drive tourism here that people walk through that door? So, I mean, if that's the metric, right? I mean, I see the little boxes outside of some of these restaurants downtown St. Pete. What if they just move the box inside and they say, hey, we brought, you know, 10,000 people here? You know, I mean, you know, we're essentially funding a private business. And I think that's the, to the restaurants, we saw that restaurants were a big driver for us. And so the answer to that one is yes, we are funding those because we went and being in the Michelin guide isn't free. That's a marketing deal that you do. And it's, it's costly, but that was an investment that we thought was very worthy. And quite frankly, our, our hospitality, our culinary institutions around the destination, they deserve to be considered for that. So yeah. And I'll follow up with the, you know, one-on-one with maybe some of these other metrics that you're doing with the chambers. And, you know, that's something I brought up, you know, with you last year. And, you know, I think it's something, you know, to continue to look at. So thank you. Thank you, sir. I have a question about the trade shows that y'all decided no longer to attend. I noticed there's one Air Canada vacations project launch. Is that specific to this one, one, I guess, a vendor, or is that more because people from Canada are choosing not to come here? Why we removed it from the list. Yeah. Yeah. So we, a lot of these, let me look at this one. Because some of these, some of the other ones kind of made sense to me, but the one that looked like it was in Canada kind of stuck out to me. And I'm, was just curious why that. So that's a, that's Air Canada vacation. So a lot of the airlines will have their airline side of, of the shop, and then they'll have a vacation side, which they put together, um, essentially like a, they put together, uh, packages. So in addition to the flight, you're going to get the hotel, the car rental, the attractions, they put that together in a package. And then we do, um, partnerships with them and we can track how many, how many packages they're putting together selling and how many people come over here, uh, and provide those heads and beds. And so what we really folk, we started focusing on is for a long time, we were going to the same ones every year. Um, and we really honed in on, do we need to go to that show anymore? Do we need to, are we, what, what did we get out of it last year? And, um, on that particular one, the numbers just weren't there for us to justify going that show again. So we removed it from the budget. Okay. So that one is, is just from the airline. I guess I should have noticed air Canada would be the airline. So I guess the bang wasn't worth the buck. Um, no, not on that one. If we eliminated it, we eliminated a lot of them. If we did it, it was strictly because they weren't producing room nights. Okay. Does that make sense? Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Uh, commissioner Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to kind of follow up on that, having attended a lot of trade shows in, in my professional career and also attending trade shows with, with, um, our, our fine folks that visit St. Pete Clearwater, there's the trade shows are very, very competitive environment. There's a lot of trade shows out there. They're very expensive to attend. And, you know, you really, it's kind of difficult sometimes to understand what the ROI is on them. You really kind of go by how many leads did you get? How many quality appointments did you have at those shows? And sometimes you just need to shake up, you just need to shape up the ball game a little bit and say, you know what, we've been to this one of the last seven or eight years. We're going to go try something new next year and take a break from this one. And sometimes you just have to kind of rotate around and just see what you get. All right. Thank you all very much. Uh, next we will have, uh, forward Pinellas. And since Whit is a resident of district five, I expect y'all to be nice to him. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. And I have John Androvic sitting to my right. He is the, uh, operating budget analyst for Ford Pinellas and lots of other things. You'll see him over the next couple of days, several times. And we have Whit Blanton, uh, executive director and Rodney Chapman planning division director here. So with that, John, the floor is yours. Thank you. And good morning. The Florida Pinellas planning council annually adopts a countywide adworm tax with the corresponding millage levy authorized by the board's county commissioners. The maximum tax levy authorized by the special act is one six of one mill, which is 0.1666. The FY 26 millage levy is at 0.175, which is 10.5% of the maximum millage allowed. The initial proposed budget for Ford Pinellas assumes a 2% growth with a flat millage rate of 0.0175 for FY 27. May 29th property values did increase to 4.21. The millage rate was reduced from 0.0200 and FY 25 to the 0.0175 for FY 26. The FY 27 budget is increasing 813,000, which is 11.2% to 8.1 million. If you exclude the reserves, the budget decreases 138,000, which is 3.6% to 3.7 million. And this is due to reductions in professional services of 193,000. The reserves did increase by 951,000 to 4.4 million. Revenues have increased for $40,000 and that's due to the 2% increase that we have built into the budget. Personnel services has increased 64,000 to 2.5 million, but there are no salary increases included in this budget. Operating expenses decreased by 174,000 and that's due to the professional services decrease. And that's the operating expenses. Now, all appropriations come from the Pinellas Planning Council Fund, so there's no general fund in this. Ford Pinellas has not submitted any decision packages and does not have any user fees. At this point, I will turn it over to Witt. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Commissioners, or morning still, I guess. It's a pleasure to be here and just wanted to highlight a couple things for you. Legislative changes certainly affect our work. We've had Senate Bill 180 with the burdensome and restrictive requirements which have limited a lot of local government's ability to undertake planning activities. And also, we've had a lot of changes to the state impact fee legislation that has affected some of our ability to advance projects as quickly as we would like. And along with our flat budget requirements, that's put a little bit of pressure on us to spin down our reserves. But we do have a game plan to spin down those reserves with some projects that we would undertake in the coming year with the State Road 60 corridor study that the Department of Transportation is leading. And that would go from essentially the roundabout all the way out to McMullen Booth Road. And then we have a downtown Dunedin project. And then we have another project that we're working on in Largo that we'll be undertaking this year that looks at the Bay Vista office park where TD Cinex, one of our Fortune 500 companies, is located, which is something that they've come to the City of Largo and looked at what can we do to retain that employer and retain their employees. Our demand for technical assistance remains really strong. It continues to grow. We've worked with the cities of Pinellas Park and the City of Largo to help them reduce regulatory barriers to improve their retention and recruitment of high wage jobs here in the county. And that's consistent with our target employment industrial land study. Finally, just a key point I'd like to mention to the board is that we have established a subcommittee to develop recommendations for amending our special act to streamline the countywide planning process, the MAP amendment process in particular, and also look at the board composition if we do go forward with a potential MPO merger, while also exploring ways to more effectively serve all 25 local governments. At our meeting earlier this week on Monday, the subcommittee recommended that we move forward with one of those streamlining mechanisms that we can implement now without changing the special act, and then we'll continue to look at some other changes to the special act. So those are a couple of key highlights that I wanted to just mention for you. The target employment industrial lands policy is huge. Last year we amended that policy to give local governments more flexibility in how they work to retain their employment base here in the county, especially for those high-wage jobs. And the work we did, as I said, with Largo and Pinellas Park has significantly advanced those to actually codify those changes. And St. Petersburg has brought forward the warehouse arts district as one of those changes as well that's consistent with that. The impact fee ordinance that we're working on on behalf of the county and the cities of Clearwater, Largo, St. Petersburg, gets a county-wide ordinance. And we've had to break that into a couple of different phases because of these continuing state law changes that required an interlocal agreement and then require a sort of a plan-based methodology. And then Senate Bill 180 limits our ability to increase impact fees because that could be unnecessarily burdensome and restrictive. But that does expire later this year if we get no more hurricanes, and we can certainly look at that. But we have the phase 2A and 2B scopes will be undertaken in the coming fiscal year. And those are most of the things I wanted to cover. I think as far as the regional MPO, that is a significant undertaking. Really appreciated the feedback we got from the Tri-County BCC meeting last Friday. We met yesterday with our consultant team and are continuing to refine the bylaws in our local agreements based on the direction that we've gotten. And we're now diving into costs, staffing, and all those thorny details that need to get worked out before this can advance. I do expect to bring back a full package for your consideration, hopefully by the end of the year. And I'll turn it open to any questions that you have for Rodney or me. Thank you, Vice Chair. Whit, am I understanding we're not looking for any kind of millage rate reduction in this budget? We've certainly been talking about a millage rate reduction and we are still continuing to evaluate that. Well, from my perspective, I think we need to get an answer from legal if everybody agrees. But I've heard that one of the reasons we're running such large reserves and adding to it is because the reserves could be used for the merger. But then I'm also hearing from other people that we're not allowed to use millage ad valorem taxes for the merger. So before we decide to leave millage alone, I think we need to have an answer on whether or not it can even be used for what we're reserving it for. Would you like to answer that? I can say the PPC millage is dedicated exclusively to PPC purposes. That is not the MPO. When we re-evaluated the system and brought the two together, I think it was back in 2012, I worked on that. I wrote the special act that accomplished it. And it wasn't here yet. Whit got hired, you know, after the fact, once we got the PPC and the MPO together. And the advice I gave at the time was, so let me back up one second. MPOs operate on a float. So they get reimbursed from the federal government. Somebody has to provide that float. Previously, the MPO in Pinellas was housed by county government and the county provided the upfront money and then got the reimbursement from the federal government. I did give the advice tentatively back at the time that that dedicated millage for the PPC could be used to float the MPO through. I think it's quarterly the reimbursements come, at least that's what we discussed back when, with the very strict understanding that 100% of those ad valorem revenues would be repaid back to the PPC side of the merger. I have very strong feelings about this being used on a regional basis and do not believe it would be appropriate because that is not in support of Pinellas County. It's in support of a regional entity at that point. I hate to break it to all of you, but probably at that time, the proper entity to be providing that float would be the three county governments, if we come to a regional MPO. If we stay status quo, and I don't, you know, I don't know what the likelihood of any of those things happening. As long as we're here within Pinellas County, I have a lot less heartburn with that float being used for the Pinellas MPO. Regionally, I think the accounting, and I'm going to look over here at Chris, I think the accounting starts to get screwy, and I think we just put ourselves in a bad position because the special act is very clear that those ad valorem dollars are dedicated to Pinellas Planning Council purposes, period. So without putting anyone else on the spot, is that legal interpretation shared by your office as a whole? I do believe so. Okay, thank you. Any other? Commissioner Nowicki. Yeah, I mean, what would be, I mean, how much would it be to get like a rollback at all? I mean, don't we have like reserves growing by almost a million dollars? We do. We've had reserves grown because we used to have a $600,000 contingency. Last year's budget, that contingency was eliminated down to $50,000. So, but that was still reflected in this year's budget because it was the closeout of last fiscal year, and we didn't use all that $600,000. We don't need $600,000 contingency, so that's why it's now $50,000. At your meeting on May 19th, you moved some dollars from reserves into our operating capital, about $500,000. So that also reduces reserves, and that's not been reflected in your numbers. And then I mentioned the three other projects that we would be doing this year that also continues to spend down those reserves. So they won't be growing by a million dollars, and we'll be mitigating that growth in reserves. Well, like it would be like $100,000 to like, but yet you're like the salaries are going up. I mean, year over year, even though you're saying they're flat, they're still like increasing. So I'm just kind of confused on how we can offer any relief to the taxpayer in your department when reserves are growing by a million dollars. I mean, they're still growing by almost a million dollars. So I mean, even though you're saying they're being spent, they're still growing. So it's impossible. You can't find a way to reduce your budget by $130,000? No, we certainly can. And I've talked with each of you about potential millage reductions that we're still considering. I'm not ready to say what that is right now, because we're still assessing the property tax reform potential. But we certainly will have that ready for you in advance of the budget hearings. Okay, yeah, I would be in favor of some sort of a millage rollback. Commissioners, we did go through, as part of the budget process, scenarios for millage reductions. I do think what Whit said, that requires some individual discussion between him, his board, and you all. Ultimately, it's your decision. But you have to be cognizant of a sustainable budget over time. If the property tax referendum passes, that hits that fund by over $600,000 annually. So it's just part of the discussion. But yeah, they do have scenarios that we've worked on with Whit and what that would be. We'll be getting some direction from our board at our July meeting. Excuse me, Chair. Commissioner Scheer. Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. What is the quarterly float that's required that we've been using our search for? The quarterly float for the MPO services? Is that what you're asking? I want to say it's about $400,000. All part. Okay. Commissioner Scott. Thank you for that. I didn't hear that. Commissioner Scheer, are you done? Thank you, Mr. Chair. So Whit, there's the personnel service increased by 36,000. Is that partly due to that trail coordination person? I'm not sure. I don't believe so, because we haven't used those dollars yet. The trail was just a budget amendment that just passed, so that has not been established yet. Right. Right. And we're not assuming salary increases in this. No salary increases. I know next month we're going to have a greater discussion on this at 4 Pinella. More to come. Yes, sir. Any other questions or comments? All right. Thank you all very much. Thank you very much. Economic development. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. As folks come to their chairs, Belinda Amundsen is joining me again, and James Lewis is going to be coming and talking about capital. Just as a point of reference, we do treat the Star Center like an enterprise fund, even though it is not officially an enterprise fund. That's why James is back, and Belinda, you saw already this week. So we also have Dr. Johnson at the table and Brad Graybaugh, facilities engineer for the Star Center. And with that, Belinda, I'll let you take it away. Thank you, Chris. And good morning, commissioners. We will begin this morning in the middle of page two with the efficiencies and cost-saving measures for FY27. Expenditures decreased in the general fund, mostly due to staff turnover and an increase in personal lapse savings. This was accomplished while maintaining service levels. For the Star Center fund, reductions totaled $311,000. And for the most part, these adjustments follow the fund's long-term financial plan and were achieved without reducing tenant services. Moving to budget drivers at the top of page three, the department includes both the general fund for economic development proper and the Star Center fund for that property. Overall, the entire department's expenditures, excluding reserves, decreases $460,000 to $11.5 million. Focusing on the general fund first, expenditures decreased $273,000 to $3.6 million without reserves. And that's primarily driven by operating expenses by operating expenses, which decreased $214,000. And that's due to a nonrecurring decision package in FY26. FTE remains unchanged both for the general fund and the Star Center fund. Moving to the Star Center fund in the middle of page three, revenues increased $48,000. And that's due to an increase in space rent. The total expenditures for the fund minus reserves decreases $187,000 to $7.9 million. And that's primarily driven by the capital outlay decreases of $250,000 based on the Star Center's six-year capital plan. Reserves decrease $837,000 to $4.1 million. And the department does not have any decision packages and is not proposing any changes to user fees this year. And with that, to the top of page four, I'll move to James for the CIP budget drivers. Good morning again, commissioners. At the top of page four, the CIP budget drivers for economic development includes the penny set aside. We'll discuss that as part of the governmental CIP projects on Friday, June 12th. And then we have the Star Center CIP. The Star Center CIP is very stable. It has a total decrease of $813,000 to $4.5 million for the six-year plan FY27-32. The last year, the Star Center reprioritized how they approach capital improvements, opting for some smaller rehabilitations and revitalizations instead of full replacements. And that helps the fund stay balanced through at least FY33. FY27 decreases $250,000 to $882,000. The department has no capital decision packages and no new project requests for FY27. And so with that, we'll turn it over to Dr. Johnson to discuss department context, accomplishments, and work plan. Can you hear me? Oh, now you can. I can hear myself. Good morning, commissioners. We're going to kind of combine our departmental context and a couple of accomplishments. One of the things I'd like to start off with is our workforce incentive program, which we have coined the Skills Enhancement Training Program. It was created in partnership with the One Pinellas Alliance and Career Source Tampa Bay. And that program we coined as SET. So I just wanted to say that in case you hear me say SET again later, the SET program really has the opportunity for us to increase the opportunity for our citizens to get additional skill sets so that they can be positioned for higher wages. So our program is a performance-based funding program. It's reimbursable and it is for customized upskilling in our critical skills gap areas in the target industries of our community. The program allows for a company to actually design the curriculum and select the trainer of their choice to perform the training. This reimbursement program is designed to not only enhance the skill sets, but to support our citizens with economic mobility. We did a recent assessment of what does the ecosystem of training providers look like in the Tampa Bay region. And we came across over 113 providers, large and small. Of those, about 55 percent of them are specifically providing training in our target industry areas. You know, really demonstrating the need for this program. And so for an example, how we use this program, we have partners within the training system from AmSkills to St. Pete College to Pinellas Technical College of all different sizes and capabilities. So for example, a company could pick an advanced manufacturing training opportunity. Then that company selects the provider in which they would like to use, whether they, you know, I'll use AmSkills as an example. They can select AmSkills as their training provider. So what the company would do is work with that provider to create the curriculum specific to the training gap areas that they need. And as the program advances, the training occurs, the application is completed by the company. We reimburse the company a percentage up to 50 percent, no more than $2,500 per trainee and no more than $20,000 per company. So we then provide that reimbursement once the training is completed. And then that company then pays that training provider for the service of providing that training set. So we're very excited. We opened up the portal accepting applications in February. We started our marketing initiatives in February. We've had numerous, over 75 presentations about the program. We have had about 100 one-on-ones with different training providers explaining, not training providers, but companies explaining the program. Right now we have 18 applications in the portal that are under review. And we're hoping to get them approved and moved on so that our citizens can get that training. So we're really excited about the SET program and the promise that it brings to our community. And then I wanted to highlight another one of the programs that you all and our citizens supported us in being able to develop. And that's our employment sites program. As you know, we have 28 projects that have been approved through the employment sites program. And we've committed, you all have committed $43.8 million towards those projects, which we have been able to leverage over $344 million in total project impact. These projects have been very instrumental in us creating more modern industrial and office space throughout Pinellas County. We've had projects from St. Pete to Tarpon Springs and all in between. It is one of the few opportunities that we get to touch all areas of the county with really good projects. And so this year, the taxable value of the nine of the 12 projects I totally completed was at $69 million in excess of $69 million. So these projects are not only being completed, they're increasing our tax base. And so we're looking forward to an additional increase this year with more projects coming online of completion. And we'll be implementing those. Currently, we have 11 projects that are actually in my office on my desk. And those projects are being reviewed by staff for completeness. And then they go through a third-party review within our internal stakeholders before it is actually a completed application. And then that application goes before a third-party financial review where we actually get an outside financial assessment of is it a real gap in funding? And is the feasibility of the project necessary? So once that is done, then those projects, which right now it's totaling about $33 million in requests, and we'll bring those projects back to this board for approval. But we're pretty excited about what's happening in economic development in our STAR Center. Brad has been with us for about eight months, eight years, about eight years. And I just wanted Brad to come so you all can get to meet him. Brad is going to be key in our P3 redevelopment project at the STAR Center. He's our facilities engineer. And right now he is taking the lead on our facilities condition assessment that we're doing at the STAR Center to ensure that we have proper information to provide the future developer so they can make an informed decision when our request for negotiation goes out and we get those responses and we'll bring back to this board. That's it for me, Chris. Commissioner Flowers. Thank you very much for the presentation. Glad to see that we are still moving forward when it comes to high wage paying jobs that are coming in based on the recruitment of the companies that we're attracting. I know Brian has gone on a number of tours and whatnot for businesses that have come in. I've attended some as well as touring the STAR Center. And I'm not sure, was he present that day when I came on tour? Because I think I asked you for, yeah, what stop we could get in there for lunch. I believe I met you that day. Yeah, I believe I met you that day as well. So good seeing you again. Good seeing you. Question based on that day. I know we were talking then about, I believe it was Raytheon that was looking to expand and needed more room in order to bring in a couple of high-tech projects that they had that they were either about to be funded or were funded on through the federal government. I guess military in nature essentially because of the level. Have they gone ahead and moved forward with that? Are we still looking at that? Is that a part of the space analysis? That kind of thing. Well, yes, that is coming to fruition for them. They are scrambling. I mean, when I mean scrambling, they are just moving in, shuffling stuff around so they can bring in two of those major. They have even more than two of that. Like I said, they are really working at getting their spaces and so on so they can start, you know, obviously production and everything else in those programs. So it's working out nicely. It's just also I coordinate a lot of issues with that with them, not really issues, but that coordination and construction, everything else that we get told what's going on and so forth. They are moving forward. So to that point, Commissioner, we're very pleased to say that from that meeting, they have expressed a request for two, two additional requests for expansion of space. And they are going to be hiring more than 100 new employees for these new projects that they have. So they are currently working with staff. So it's been a very good expansion. And then just a comment, I am glad that we do have a third party financial reviewer, because sometimes potential requests for support or assistance can be a little overreaching. And it doesn't necessarily, the request doesn't match, you know, exactly what they're doing. But I think this is another way to show the taxpayers how we are really paying attention to the funds that are being provided for whether it's a startup organization or whether it's one that's been around for a while. But they are certainly providing a service that's needed. So I think that for me, that gives me additional comfort when you guys are bringing it to us. That should hopefully give our finance department greater comfort as well. Because there's nothing like bringing something on board and you can't complete the project or you're having difficulty completing the project because you've been a little overzealous in your application to be able to win the bid, but you can't finish it. So I want to thank you guys for doing that. That's it, Mr. Chair. Yes, ma'am. Commissioner Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Great to see you both this morning. Is there a timeline on the developed master plan for the Star Center? Well, right now we're at the second phase. Our first phase was completion of the request for negotiations. And so we have crafted that documentation. And we are entering the second phase, which is advertising and selecting a developer to bring back to this board to decide on. And that's going to take about 12 to 18 months. And so after that point, we'll have a new timeline that we will share. The problem. So sometime in 27, we'll be looking to select. Thank you. Well, any other questions? All right. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Housing and community development and Lealman CRA. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So Catherine Pazian is coming back to the seat next to me. She was here at the beginning of the day and she ends the day here as well. James Lewis is going to stay right where he is because we also treat the capital aspects of the CRA as if it were a, well, let me say better. There's some capital that James is going to get into. So I'll just say it that way. Greg Mims, director, is at the table and Bruce Bussey is right next to him. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Catherine. Good afternoon. Beginning at the top of page one, the department purpose. Progressing through page one and two, the department has four funds, the general fund, the community development grant fund, the state housing partnership program or SHIP fund, and the community housing trust fund. Beginning at the top of page three, cost efficiencies and savings focusing specifically on FY 27. The department took a handful of cost reducing efforts, including a total of about 38,000 in operating expenses, such as professional services. And this was to align with prior year actuals and direct resources to the most impactful opportunities. To the middle of page three, budget drivers underneath the general fund, which is the planning division. The FY 27 budget increases $104,000 to 1.9 million. And this is due to the removal of personnel attrition lapse savings as the planning division is fully staffed. Top of page four, community development grant fund. Um, this fund is fully funded by federal grants, uh, revenue increases, uh, uh, revenue increases $440,000 to 21 million. And it's primarily attributable to the second ESG rush, um, allocation that was received at $1.6 million. The FY 27 budget for community development grant fund decreases $407,000 to about 26 million. And that's primarily due to the drawdowns of two one-time funding sources. The first is the community development block grant for COVID-19 or CDBG-CV fund, or excuse me, grant. And that is anticipated to be fully expensed by the end of this fiscal year. And then home ARP, which is also associated with COVID-19. Um, and that is just a drawdown of those funds as well. This is offset partially by the anticipated, um, entitlements to be received in FY 26 and FY 27, as well as program income. Uh, it is important to note that FTE decreased by one to 12. Um, and this was a vacant community development specialist position that was eliminated to reduce grant administration costs. The three specialist two positions were reclassified to CD3 levels, um, in order to carry out the grant program work. Middle of page four, the SHIP fund. This is primarily funded by state grants program in, uh, income and interest on loans. Revenue decreases 147,000 to, uh, 4.9 million. And this is mainly due to the spending down of the SHIP allocation, which is partially offset by, uh, increases to interest and program income. The budget for SHIP decreases 1.8 or 1.9 million to 17.9 million, which is primarily due to the expenditures incurred against the program. Um, so again, just a drawing down of those funds at the bottom of page four, community housing trust. The community housing trust is fully funded by program income, loan principal and interest payments. Revenue remains unchanged at $309,000. And the budget for the trust fund increases 398,000 to 3.4 million, um, primarily due to the carry forward of prior year funding. Top of page five decision packages. The department does not have decision packages. Uh, there are no, um, changes to user fees and CIP will be discussed on June 12th. I will pass it over to director Mims. Good morning. I'm Greg Mims. I'm the director of housing and community development as a matter of reintroduction to the commission. I've been with the county now for several months. Um, I had the pleasure of serving as a city manager of a local beach town for about 13 years. So quite good to see you. Look forward to spending more time with you. Uh, just want to take our a moment. I know I'm between you and lunch. So just want to take a moment to cover some updates on state, uh, state and federal funding of housing programs. Uh, uh, state, the state housing trust fund was funded again for the six year in the six year in the row in a row. The panelist County allocation was $3.4 million. The total state housing budget was reduced 48% from $873 million to $458 million. At the federal level, uh, we received, uh, uh, CDBG allocate out allocation of $2.3 million. Um, the home funding is allocated a little over, uh, 1 million, 1 million, $15,000. And I, and for the benefit of the update to the, uh, the, to the commission and the public talk briefly about the, uh, Penny for Pinellas affordable housing program, the counties invested $92 million in penny program housing initiatives, supporting 19 housing projects, producing 3,189 units of which 2,240 or affordable assistant units and leveraging more than $850 million in private investment. There's been a decrease in the estimated revenue for the countywide investments. Half of the 8.3% countywide investment penny revenue to be used for the housing projects went from an estimated $99,565 million for the penny forward decade to 94,090. The decrease is largely due to the elimination of business rent sales tax by house bill 7031 that was effective October 1st, 2025. To date, the amount it's spended and obligated through this program is 93 million 564, leaving a balance of, uh, 2.5 million. Um, and Bruce would tell you, and I, and in previous meetings, we've indicated, um, there's a, a long list of projects, uh, people that would like to apply for money, but that's the balance as we sit here today. So that's the update I have for you. And, and Bruce, or I will be happy to answer any questions that you have. Well, thank you all very much. Oh, uh, Chris, we, we do have the Lelman CRA still to cover. So I just want to make sure that we get all their parts finished. Okay. Yes, sir. And they did a great job. They did. Beginning on about the middle of page one, the budget summary, the CRA has one fund, which is the Lelman Community Redevelopment Agency Trust. Towards the bottom of page one, efficiency is due to the nature of the CRA appropriations of all funds and services are required. Um, however, Amy and her team have looked to do cost efficiencies and savings measures. Uh, and this includes an FY27, a revised approach to property identification, specifically as it relates to stormwater infrastructure development. Um, so the CRA is proactively identifying, uh, potential properties with attributes suitable for water treatment, uh, stormwater treatment and storage, um, as well as any blighted properties. So that is something they are making a, you know, a considerable effort to achieve. The budget also includes, uh, 25,000 for augmentation of CRA staff as needed through professional services. So this is in lieu of adding FTE top of page two, um, in the budget driver's section. So the Lelman CRA trust fund is fully funded by ad valorem tax increment financing. Uh, revenue for Lelman CRA is estimated to increase 279,000 to 5.7 million. And that assumes about a 4% growth rate, which is, which is about in line with prior years. The FY27 budget increases 2.3 million to 17.9 million. Uh, most notably operating expenses increase 1 million to 3.4 million. This is due to contractual services increasing to support the home investment program, also referred to as hip, uh, as well as operating supplies to support the fabrication and installation of the branded street signs. Professional services, um, is an increase specifically as it relates to the St. Petersburg Foundation contract. This is not an increase to the contract itself, but an increase to Lelman CRA's funding to support it. Uh, capital outlay increases 966,000 to 12.9 million. And this will be discussed further by James in the CIP section. Grants and aids increase 33, uh, 33,000, excuse me, 330,000 to 1.1 million. Uh, and this is really just expanded funding for the residential facade, which is going from 370,000 to 500,000 commercial property grant program from 300,000 to 500,000. Um, and it does continue to fund the accessory dwelling, uh, unit or ADU pilot program at the bottom of page two. There are no decision operating decision packages, and there are no user fees at the top of page three. I will pass it over to James Lewis for the CIP morning again, commissioners. So still at the page of top of page three, we have the Lelman CRA CIP budget drivers. So the CRA established in 2015. And since that time has been collecting those TIF revenues that Catherine discussed. Um, but they haven't been spent on capital projects at the same rate. Um, and previously we didn't have as many capital projects planned in order to spend that fund balance. So we've worked with, with community coordinator, Amy Davis here this year to, to get some projects planned in their CIP and any forecast is largely dependent on those capital projects. So the fund balance is forecasted to continue increasing through this fiscal year 26, but then begin to decrease down to about 2.6 million FY 32 for those planned CIP projects. So the FY 27 through 32 six year plan includes new projects for, um, land acquisition of about $10 million, Joe's Creek industrial park improvements at about a little less than $9 million, Rainier Park improvements, a little more than $500,000. And it has increases for the linking Lelman project, um, of increase of 5 million up to $6 million. Uh, FY 27 is budgeted at $12.9 million. And that, that does include about 2.6 million, uh, for Joe's Creek 34th street box culvert upgrades. It's managed by public works. CIP decision packages. The department does have one for that linking Lelman connectivity project, uh, again, increasing 5 million to $6 million, uh, provided some analysis there that you can, you can, um, absorb. Essentially this will be fixing some, some gaps and, and sidewalks and some other multimodal improvements in the, the Lelman area. And with that, we'll hand it over to community coordinator Davis for department context, accomplishments and work plans. That was one thing I was trying to remember to do. So good morning. Um, happy to be here. Uh, the CRA is going into its 10th year of operation and we're really focusing on four things. We've been continuing to focus on affordable housing. Uh, the hip, the housing improvement program really focuses on an ownership, affordable housing program. We also have grant programs. We've been really, um, reviewing those. We have the review of the residential grant program that took place last year, and then the review of the commercial grant program that took place this year. And that was really to keep those relevant. Um, and then also focusing on infrastructure improvement. Um, adding sidewalks is a key component to, um, uh, nice neighborhoods and walkable neighborhoods. And I've been hearing feedback that that's really how people are getting to meet their neighbors, um, by having them walk around on their sidewalks. And so they are meeting each other and that's a great, you know, bonding and community identity, um, aspect. Um, and then really focusing on stormwater improvements in the Joe's Creek industrial park area. Lastly, we also are about ready to finalize our contract with a consulting firm to update the CRA plan. That's going to be very, um, good for us because we're going to get a lot of data from that. We're going to get a thermometer on how far we've come in achieving our goals, um, already identified in our plan and then where we need to pivot and perhaps change in direction in other areas. I did review these budget priorities with the, um, CRA committee, and that was done in February with an update just last month. And they do support all the budget priorities. Talking about some of our accomplishments, the home improvement program, which is a contract that we have through habitat for humanity. Um, we've done a significant number of houses, um, with them in partnership in the Lowman area. And while the packet refers to 39 homes, just as of the time that this packet was done and today, that's actually 47 homes. And that is a total of 1.47 million that we've invested in partnership with them. But in turn, that has resulted in a tax-based value of 16.5 million. So it's very exciting. We just started the, uh, first tranche of eight single family homes as part of the Lowman Heights, um, affordable housing development. The St. Petersburg Foundation activation of the Lowman exchange continues to go, um, well, and it's strong. And every day I'm amazed at how many cars are in the parking lot and the people that come through the door. You just got that update from Amy Cianci, the project lead, um, at a workshop back in March. Um, we also are completing the fourth year of our alleyway program and we have 176 alleys that were identified through that initial study. We've added one alley that wasn't included on that. So we're actually, um, contractually maintaining 177 alleys as the ultimate goal. We're working on clearing all of those. There's roughly a handful that are still needing to be cleared. They have encroachment issues. They're a little bit more difficult. So we're working with code enforcement to work through those and hopefully get those cleared over the next year. The commercial grant program, as I mentioned, we've updated and we are excited to get the word out. Um, the board approved the changes in April and we've created a flyer. We actually shared that just, um, last week with our Joe's Creek mixer attendees. That's a new engagement, um, conversation we've started with Joe's Creek businesses that is occurring every six months. So we've shared that flyer and we are also going door to door and just meeting more people and sharing the, uh, the new grant program, the new and improved grant program. And then we've also sent out a flyer on our residential grant program, because I suspected that a lot of people don't know about it. And, um, maybe we shouldn't have sent the postcard out to the entire CRA area. Um, but we are certainly getting a lot of activity in that area. So that's exciting. Um, we have, um, that's an update from the numbers in your packet, 269 actively or in progress applications. Um, so we are very busy getting through that and 45 of those have been approved just in the last couple of months. So that's exciting. Um, in the packet, we always present our work plan. And so that's in this, this packet as well. And while I'm not going to go line by line, we do highlight in red any changes from the prior year. And so when we adopt the CRA budget, it's adopting the CRA budget along with the work plan. So I just wanted to draw your attention that that that is next in your packet. And, um, just, um, not to reiterate anything that's been already mentioned, but there are on the second page of the work plan, um, just bringing to light the three new projects that we're proposing, the alleyway grading maintenance program, assigned placemaking, which is to finish off the branding and placemaking through all the signage throughout the Lelman community, and then the rain area park improvement. Um, and that's really as a result of, um, it will be as a result of communicating with our community groups and anything that the park may not have been able to have as part of its reconstruction or the construction and the expansion of that park that we could add to make it, um, uh, a place that is really easy to have events and maybe, um, things that didn't quite make the budget on, on the construction of the park. So, um, with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions. Yes, ma'am. Any questions or comments? Uh, Commissioner Nowicki. Thank you, Vice Chair. Uh, thank you, Amy. You know, I spend some time in Lealman and always hear positive feedback from residents on you and your team's, you know, hard work to making the neighborhood better. So I appreciate that. Uh, maybe I, you know, missed the work plan and read and what you're talking about, um, the, with the explanations, but for the, uh, Lealman or the Lex implementation, I mean, it's going like three and a half time price, uh, increase. Um, I didn't really see the wheelman exchange strategic plan implementation going from 175 to 608,000. What was the reason? There's no change in terms of the amount that, um, is going towards the, uh, Lex activation. Um, but we are changing the allocation instead of being split between the general fund and the CRA is all now being funded out of the CRA. That's the proposed change. Okay. Uh, thanks for that. And then in additionally, with the $10 million for the land acquisition, um, would that be like the CRA or, or maybe Barry could answer this, the county government getting into the real estate business? I mean, I have this discussion all the time. Um, so, you know, it's always been envisioned that they, they would look at strategic type of purchases down in Lealman. Uh, right now, I know of only one, maybe Amy can shed better light on that. Um, but I don't think you're in a position to discuss that. Um, and so, so it's, it's where they can add value, community value, and it's tied back to their strategic mission. It's certainly, um, we don't want to supplant private sector initiatives, you know, um, but where, where we can, uh, do things that would encourage other private development. It may be, uh, worthwhile. These, the, yes, the county would be buying that land and then holding that for redevelopment or other purposes. And that 10 million, it's really 2 million that we're putting in. And then as we spend it, we would be replenishing it to 2 million. So I think that's in the notes in the package. And what they're really trying to do there is to give them flexibility to where they can act quickly, um, on if opportunities come up. And so right now, again, they're, they don't have $10 million of projects. Um, we've heard for years, you know, we need a grocery store. Well, you know, just going and buying a piece of land and putting a grocery store, it doesn't make it a viable business, right? And so you got to evaluate what it is that they're looking to achieve and what the community need is and whether or not the purchase of that land in fact is strategic. But the idea is to use it for a bigger purpose, not, of course, to get in land development. Okay. So would, uh, any land acquisition come back to this board for approval? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Commissioner Scher, do you have anything? All right. Thank, thank you all very much. Thank you. I just want to note that if, uh, Chair Eggers were here, we would be here until four o'clock. Uh, yeah. Uh, would that, uh, and let, do you have anything, Barry? Nope. Lunch is served. Uh, there's lunch, uh, over there for all to enjoy. Awesome. But, um, you know, just for the board, you know, I did talk with Barry yesterday about, um, like sending out a list or an email to everybody of what would be like the core functions of government or what would be the legally mandated agencies or programs. Um, so I just wanted to put that on everybody's, you know, radar. So we would have a running list of what our requirements that we're actually legally bound to provide. And so if everybody's okay, I think Barry is going to assimilate, uh, what the amendment passes. No, no, no. This would be, yeah. I think this is in anticipation. So as you're going through budget, you can see what is it that we're required to do versus, you know, what's a need versus want, um, fact did actually a good report on that. And so we'd send you that, uh, that's the easiest thing to do. Um, if we go through the departments where it gets gray and this was what commissioner and I had that conversation about, you know, there's mandated functions, but there's probably 30 different functions within a mandated area where some of it's required, but it doesn't say whether you need one person in there or 10 people to do that job. Right. Um, and so it's, it's really difficult to go. You almost have to go line by line, division by division, but, but we can give you a general sense of those things that bar are both. There's two different pieces, one by statute, and then the other is within our charter. And so within our charter defines things that are different than what is required by statute. So we can provide those two things. It gives you a framework to work from at least not to put anybody on the spot, but if it does pass, when does the implementing bill by the legislature have to pass? They likely would come back right after that. Um, right after the election and, um, and probably during the swearing in, which is like two weeks later. Yeah. They, they would do it. What we've heard is immediately after then they, then they would reconvene and then do a special session for an implementing resolution. Yeah. Okay. So we'll send that out. Anybody have anything else? All right. We're adjourned.