It is 5 30 ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Board of County Commission meeting. It is Tuesday, September 22nd and we are going to start with our call to order. So thank you for quieting down so quickly. It's because we all can't get out of here fast enough, I think. Maybe we should start all meetings at 5 30. We're going to start with an invocation and a Pledge of Allegiance with Robert Bradley, Bred of Christian Life Church. Thank you so much.
Let us pray. Eternal God, our Father, we thank you for this opportunity and privilege to come boldly before your throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in our time of need. We thank you, Lord God, for all of today's efficiency of grace, mercy and strength. We thank you, God, for these people that have drawn here for this meeting, for the purpose of the betterment of Seminole County here in Florida. We ask your blessings tonight upon the proceedings of this meeting, the commissioners and all that will play a part in this meeting tonight as we set forward, Lord God, the financial responsibilities for this county in this upcoming year. We understand, Lord God, that money answers all things according to the scriptures. So we pray for your wisdom and sound discretion that it be used for the betterment of this county. We ask your blessings upon this meeting, the people of this county. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Thank you so much. Before we move on to the consent agenda, I'll ask our county attorney, which, by the way, on three, we're all going to say happy birthday, Kate. Ready? One, two, three, happy birthday, Kate. To read the public participation rules.
Thank you, everybody. Florida law provides the numbers of the public shall be given a reasonable opportunity to be heard on propositions before the board of county commissioners, except when the board is acting on emergency or ministerial matters or conducting a meeting exempt from the requirements of the sunshine law. Individuals shall be permitted three minutes each for public comment or six minutes when the individual is an official representative of a formal association or group. The chairman may modify the maximum time for public comment at her sole discretion when appropriate. Chairman.
Thank you so much. All right. And I see that we have no public comment forms with regard to the consent agenda. County manager, I'll turn it to you.
Thank you. Madam Chair and Commissioner, there's no changes to the consent agenda. So we recommend approval.
Commissioners, anything to pull?
Nothing to pull. Madam Chair, I'm prepared to make a motion.
Please do.
Move to approve items one, two, and three on the consent agenda. Second.
We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Hearing none, it passes unanimously. We'll move on to the public hearing portion of the agenda. Looking for proof of publication.
So moved.
Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Hearing none, it passes unanimously. Ex parte disclosure?
Madam Chair, I have one or two items I'll be submitting for the public record.
Thank you. I have none. I have none.
I have none.
I've submitted all electronically.
Thank you so much. We'll move on to the public hearing. I don't need this. Tetra Townhome Rezone. And this will be presented by Caitlin or not.
I think Ms. Borkert will have the request.
Borkert, Deputy County Attorney for the record. This is the Tetra Townhomes Rezone. The applicant, after the project was noticed for a public hearing, has requested a continuance on this item. I believe they are asking for a continuance to a date certain. Let me check with Mr. Rhodes.
Mr. Rhodes, we're checking with you.
Madam Chairman, for the record, Mike Rhodes, Director of Development Services. The applicants requested the item be continued until the October 13th hearing.
Fabulous. Thank you. All right. So with all of that, for the record, do we need to vote on that?
Yes, we do.
Yes, we do. All right. And I'll look for a motion.
Madam Chair, I'd like to make a motion to continue this to the October 13th meeting for the afternoon. Second.
We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Chairman. Aye. Yes.
Can we take public comment on the continuance only, please?
We can take public comment on the continuance only. Do we have any public comments? No, ma'am. Thank you. Public comment taken. Thank you. We're going to close public comment now. All right. We had a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Hearing none, it passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. All right. That takes us to the legislative portion of our agenda. And this is the second budget public hearing on fiscal year 2026-27, final millage rates and budget. And I'll turn it over to the county manager.
Thank you. Thank you, Chairman and Commissioners. And good evening to members of the public. We are here for the second and final public hearing on the fiscal year 2026-27 budget required by Florida statute. Tonight, the board will consider the final adoption of the budget of the millage rates for our countywide millage, our fire MSTU, and our roads MSTU. This budget is a result of six budget work sessions with the board this year. Throughout this process, our focus has remained the same, maintain essential county services, invest in our infrastructure, and continue to identify opportunities to operate more efficiently. Some of our budget highlights is the proposed budget maintains that our countywide fire and roads millage rates at their current level. It also includes a net reduction of five full-time positions, primarily vacant positions in our public works department that will result in savings to our roads fund. Now, this is in our second year of our Seminole Moments, and as the board knows, this is our efficiency initiative. It continues to challenge employees to identify new ways to reduce costs, improve operations, and deliver services more efficiently. These efforts have helped the county manage budget pressures associated with inflation, and the rising cost of materials, equipment, and services. Our current Seminole Moments portfolio is projected to generate approximately $60 million in savings over the next five years, with initiatives across 12 county departments. These initiatives include our transition to our scout on-demand public transit system. It's projected to save approximately $15 million over the next five years, also with emergency response, our signal preemption, our recycling service efficiencies, and building and lighting improvements. We are also pursuing additional opportunities through technology and process automation, including a consolidated customer call center designed to improve how residents access county services. All of these efforts help us manage rising costs while protecting the services our residents and businesses rely on. Most importantly, this budget fully funds our current levels of service, including public safety, transportation, and infrastructure, parks and recreation, and other county services. The budget before you tonight is balanced and continues the conservative financial approach that has helped keep Seminole County financially sound. Our first three budget work sessions focus on developing the fiscal year 2026-2027 budget, and as the board knows, our last three focused on something further ahead, the potential impacts of Amendment 3 on future county budgets and services. Amendment 3 will not directly impact this budget tonight, but we begin planning now, so depending on the outcome of the November vote, we will be prepared to begin a more in-depth policy discussions with the board starting in January of 2027. Finally, I'd like to thank Mr. Jex, our director of management and budget, and his entire budget team, as well as all of our directors and their teams for their tremendous amount of work that has gone into developing this budget and guiding us through our last six budget work sessions and two public hearings. And with that, Chairman, I'd like to turn it over to Mr. Jex to walk through the final millage rates and budget.
Mr. Jex, before you begin, I'd like to remind the public that this, the Board of County Commissioners does not have control over the tax levies or budgets of the school board, the water management district, the property appraiser, the tax collector, or any of our seven cities. Any questions regarding your property valuations need to be directed to the Seminole County Property Appraiser's Office, and they will answer them as quickly as humanly possible. With that, I would like to turn it over to Mr. Jex. And before that, I will say a big thank you to the constitutional officers, as well, for the budgeting process this year. It was very smooth. Mr. Jex.
Thank you, Chairman. I'm Timothy Jex with the Office of Management and Budget. We're here for our final public hearing to adopt the fiscal year 2027 millage rates and budget. The final budget is balanced with revenues and expenditures totaling $1.27 billion. This budget includes $13.4 million in reduction adjustments that were approved at the first public hearing. There are no additional budget adjustments from the tentative budget. I will now present the final millage rates. The first column shows the current FY26 adopted rates. The second column shows the rollback rate, which would generate the same amount of ad valorem tax revenues as the current year, excluding new construction. The next column shows the fiscal year 27 final millage rates. And the last column shows the percentage of the final millage over the rollback rate. The FY27 final rates are the same as the FY26 current rates for all districts. The increase over the rollback rate will be used to meet state-mandated obligations, maintain public safety services, and offset cost increases for transportation. The general countywide millage of 5.3751 mills is 4.18% above the rollback rate of 5.1595 mills. The fire rescue MSTU millage of 2.7649 mills is 4.06% above the rollback rate of 2.6569 mills. The unincorporated road MSTU millage of 0.1107 mills is 4.24% above the rollback rate of 0.1062 mills. The final aggregate millage rate for all BCC taxing districts is 7.3620 mills, which is 4.01% over the current aggregate rollback rate of 7.0781 mills. That concludes my presentation.
Thank you. We'll go to public comment now. Joe Humphreys, Nancy Harmon, and George Celery.
Good evening, Chairwoman and Commissioners. I understand this is a very complicated process, and I appreciate the effort that staff and all of you have put into this trying to get this right. Unfortunately, we don't work in a vacuum, and as we all know, there's a really 800-pound gorilla coming at us. I've had a lot of conversations with people about what's happening, and unfortunately, as you know, most people in the county, most people in the state, most people in the country don't pay that much attention to the details. They look at the headlines, and all I hear from people that I'm talking to is increase, increase, increase, increase, increase, increase, and anything that's an increase is automatically bad, and that's what I'm hearing from people across this county. And that's troubling. I'm reminded of a commercial from the 1970s that Jay can probably relate to, this old Fram oil filter commercial about, pay me now or pay me later, but you're going to pay me. And unfortunately, when I pay you later, it's usually more, and I think that's where we're headed. So we've pushed this state since 1968 for home rule. Everyone at this commission has done what they could to push back against Tallahassee, trying to take that home rule away from us, and that's unfortunate, because that's why we are where we are. As Commissioner Constantine knows, a lot of the stuff that you guys get forced to having to fund and deal with, you didn't decide. It's decided in Tallahassee, and that's the unfortunate part of it. We've constantly pushed for home rule in this state, going back to when the Democrats actually controlled the legislature. But here we are with a Republican legislature about to do what I consider to be the most preeminent taking of home rule that you could possibly do. And you all are the ones who are going to have to scramble to try to figure out how to fix that problem. So I continue to push people, I'm sorry, I'm in the tree, we all want to pay less taxes, but there's a better way to do it, and this is not it. So again, I wish all of you the best of luck in this. I continue to push against this, and I would urge everybody to try to continue to educate, because that's part of the problem. Again, I hear from people, well, where's the money going? What are we doing? Why do we keep adding this up? And we don't see that, unfortunately, because like I said, most people don't see what you guys are doing on a daily basis. So again, home rule is important to all of us. I know it is to you, and let's hope that we continue to maintain that. But we've got to stop sending people to Tallahassee that are going exactly against us. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Humphreys. Mr. Salary? Oh, Nancy Harmon.
Nancy Harmon, 752 Pioneer Way, Geneva, Florida. You know, to kind of follow up with what Joe just said, is, you know, last year we had gas tax go up, utility tax go up, water tax go up, because we had to pay for things, right? And we also had the millage go up. It concerns me, are we managing our budget or are we just following money? Because now, as you see these, you know what happened. I don't need to show you. Right now, we're talking about, okay, thank you. Right now, we're talking about about $20 million increase here, right? And I know you keep saying, I've got to pay this, I've got to pay that. My question to you is, are we following the money that's coming from the tax collector's appraisal with our millage, with that rate, to then give us $38 million in the coffer? $9 million of that's going to go to the sheriff's department. Some of that's going to go to pay everybody's retirement and bills that have to be paid. My question is, isn't there something in that amount of money that you can not do and give us some money back so we don't have Amendment 3 approved? Because I can assure you, the only reason why people want to get Amendment 3 approved is because of this, because they're just tired of being taxed. And I know, I've been here before, and I was here last week. I know you guys are fiscally conservative in a lot of ways, okay? But I can tell you what, when I feel like it, I stop at Foxtail and I get a coffee for $5. Does the county have things in their budget that they say, you know what, I really like the feel of having that, like a conference or a book or something? And as much as I love parks, I'm even saying, do we really have to go in and do what we're doing there because it's general fund? I'm focusing on general fund because that's what is going to happen here. And all I'm asking, truly asking, is to give us a little bit something back to make us feel good about what we're getting stuck with. Because my checking account and my savings account is not getting $11 million, which is what yours is going to end up with in the revenue reserve. Just asking, Mr. Salary. Oh, I missed one other thing. And it's just, this is a public service announcement. It really, for people in Geneva and everywhere, I know you guys have talked about publicly notifying us of things happening. If you look at your webpage, way up at the top is public notice. On times like this, when we're talking budget and things that are important, isn't there some way where we could put it down here where people, when they pulled the page open, they see it? So that perhaps they could just get a better view of where they could find a public notice if they needed to. And, you know, somebody said to me, well, they could call Tim. Let's wrap it up. Yeah, they could call Tim. I said, I know Tim because I've had conversation with him, but most people don't.
Thank you, Nancy. Thank you, Nancy. All right. Mr. Salary, we need all of your materials.
George Salary, 5231 Shoreline Circle. I'd like 10 minutes because I'm representing 300,000 people. I just wanted to see your expression. It's a hard one. And give you a little humor tonight.
I'll give you a little New Jersey now.
Anyway, let me put this up. First of all, I've been doing budgets, you all know, from way back. I am adamantly opposed to two things. Amendment 3, I can come here. It took me 15 minutes to drive down here to see you. It's a lot longer drive to go to Tallahassee to complain. So I want to have local control because I, and again, part of the issue you guys got to realize, and I have the same issue when I work for Sheriff Fesslinger, we've got to address this stuff, county manager. We can't write like bureaucrats on this. We've got to write a five-page, easy-to-read message from you to the residents of Seminole County. If you look at Nextdoor, it's all over the place, and that's what you've got to direct your messaging to to get to those kind of folks about local control. What I'm bringing to your attention is, and this is from your stats, rollback rate, which I also adamantly disagree with. Always have, always will. It just starts you off, and you just basically have a little bit of money from new construction and reassess properties and stuff. But anyway, so that brings in $3 million, 3.4. According to, this was from the budget work sessions. The figures may have changed a little but not much probably. The current rate brings in $15 million, okay, and it's kind of like, okay, we'll just take that. All I'm asking is that you guys look at building towards that. Start it, roll back like Volucia, and then build. Say I've got to add $8 million for the sheriff. I've got to add $4 million for this. Build up and show everybody. That's all. I know you guys can do that. You can show those figures easily. Right now, we're at 4.18% or 4.19, according to what Tim Jeck said. Right now, they're projecting cost of living and Social Security next year at 3.5%, between 3.4 and 3.6, and they're all saying 3.5. What I'm saying is, can you look at this budget a little bit and possibly bring it down to show a faith to folks like, hey, we do listen at the local level. You don't have to go to Tallahassee where they won't listen to you. You can come here, and we'll listen a little bit, because I do think you would. This is the next slide. This is where I'm saying you can do it easily. Obviously, you've increased, I don't know if you can zoom in, but you've increased, and I get it, you've increased reserves. You're going from $69 million. This is in your second public hearing presentation. From $69 to $80, $11 million. I know there's ads and subtracts and all that, but that's a new record high compared to hurricanes, everything, FEMA issues, everything we've had. What I'm saying is, is why don't you do a $5 million reduction or something just to bring it down to show people that you do listen and you do feel the affordability issues that we do. That's all.
Thank you very much.
And I appreciate your time.
I appreciate you being here. Next speaker. Leslie Grubel will be the final speaker. Ms. Grubel. Hand over your stuff, George. Thank you.
Yes, I am also opposed to amendment three like that gentleman. Oh, Leslie Grubel, 1841, Misty Morne Place, Longwood, Florida. Thank you. And particularly because there is a map that's out there that shows the counties throughout the entire state. And the percentages in each general county as to how much just value of homes are, there are 29 counties in this state who will be in financial jeopardy because of the fact that they are rural. They have high homestead rates and a lot of those homesteads are valued at less than $250,000. This is very difficult for us. This is tragic for them. And again, this is about the state overreaching and not looking at the bigger picture involved at the state level in the counties. The other thing in terms of looking at some of the budgetary issues, we were looking the other day at the cost of Seminole County and the fire trucks and the cost of the towers, the rescues, the woods truck, fuel. The CPI increase from 2019 to 2026 was 29%, but the increase in our fire trucks is 74%. The increase in the towers is 138%. So looking at what is inflation is doing to the budget and how this has to be measured into what people see as unnecessary increases. And also mentioning that and looking at the various reports of all the departments and the things that they are going to have to look at cutting, it's scary. And looking at what Sheriff Lima said at the last meeting, a 20% reduction for him would be $40 million every year. And his comment is that there's a myth out there that public safety is protected by Amendment 3. And that is not the case. He would have to reduce staff, even speaking of 300 people, freeze hiring, delay replacement of vehicles and equipment. He would have to cut training for professional development. It would become one of those situations where we are working on policing, not prevention, he said. We would not be able to support those agencies that help to prevent human and drug trafficking, preventing drug drivers. The way is that we protect seniors, that they take care of them. And the other issue was with the fire department, besides the fact that the increased rates of their cost of their equipment and their supplies, their concern is that it would be minus $33.8 million. And that's a 23% reduction. So we have to look at not only what the increases are, but what impact it's having on each individual department. And that's very clear in your agenda packages. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Ms. Drager, do we have any further public comments? No, ma'am. All right. Hearing no other further public comments, I will close public comments section of the meeting.
Madam Chair, move to adopt the fiscal year 26-27 countywide millage as presented at 5.3751.
Second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor?
Aye.
Opposed? Hearing none, passes unanimously.
Madam Chair, move to approve the fiscal year 2026-2027 fire MSTU millage rate as presented here tonight.
Second. I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor?
Aye.
Opposed? Hearing none, passes unanimously.
Madam Chair, move to approve the fiscal year 26-27 roads MSTU millage rate as presented.
Second. First and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Hearing none, it passes unanimously.
Madam Chair, I make a motion and move to adopt the fiscal year 26-27 final budget as presented.
Second.
Motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor?
Aye.
Opposed? Hearing none, passes unanimously. That brings our meeting to a conclusion. I will adjourn the public hearing. Thank you. Thank you. I do appreciate all of the public comments. Thank you. I do appreciate all of the public comments. Thank you.
Thank you.