##VIDEO ID:luyw2EBOLFM## [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] e e [Music] if you wish to speak to any item on the agenda or during the public comment portion of the meeting please fill out a speaker card each person addressing the board shall have three minutes to complete his or her comments on each agenda item for which he or she has filled out a card the chair has the discretion to determine or alter the time limits on any agenda item the board of County Commissioners requests that speakers appearing under the public comment section of the agenda limit their comments or presentations to matters relating to County Business that are within the board's Control Authority and jurisdiction well good evening and welcome to the first budget hearing on Tuesday September 10th 2024 and I'd like to call a meeting to order and I would like to start with an invocation by Donnie leg Donnie if you'd come up please okay let's pray father we're so humbled and thankful that uh we live in a society here in Bard County that still realizes that we need you and so we come before your throne because the things we cannot do we know you do we can only give you praise for you're a good God you're a holy God you're a just God and you're a sovereign God nothing ever catches you by surprise and that's why we can trust you and so father all things we lay in your hands father I'm so thankful that you're a God that tells us to bring all of our care before you because you care for us and oh how you demonstrate that and so father I come today lifting up our uh officiate officiates our leaders today that uh uh have been elected to the position they have and and father they represent us and I know father that that's a heavy burden a lot of times to realize the people you represent and how they're relying upon you and so father I pray for our leaders before me uh father often times our community sees them as nothing but government officials but father they are so much more they have the burden of that but they also have families they're human with human emotions they have families that are often sick ill and even diseased that they care and worry about and yet father they still have the burden of so many others on their shoulders and so may we not forget that father as we lift them up to you I pray for Kathy Lively father that the job that she does just coordin coordinating everything thank you for the wisdom you give her and and the stamina to keep on keeping on so father even the people behind me today I pray they'll realize that they're dealing today with human beings uh that care for them or they wouldn't have the position they have and so may we care back by praying for them and asking you to strengthen them uh in their minds as they make decisions and in their bodies as well and father we'll just thank you for the accomplishment of this meeting today job said that every breath is a gift from you and uh as I studied that father and Saul we each individuals take just under 26,000 breaths every single day father may we honor you with those breaths when we speak may we speak recognizing that you are to be honored and we'll give you the praise for the outcome of this meeting in Jesus name I pray amen thank you very much Donnie we are definitely blessed with Kathy Lively we appreciate you mentioning that today Kathy okay uh could we stand for the pledge of of Allegiance by commissioner Tom Goodson alance to flag of the United States of America the stands Nation indivisible with andice okay we're going to go to agenda item D1 and uh Frank yeah if take it please thank you commissioner uh item D1 allows for the reading of the tenative aggregate operating millage rate to be to fund the portion of the fiscal year 20124 2025 budget that is supported by property taxes at this time I'd asked the budget Office to read into the record the tentative aggregate millage rate for fiscal year 20242 Jill chair and board of County Commissioners the aggregate tenative millage rate for fiscal year 2024 2025 budget is 44390 the tenative aggregate millage rate represents no change when compared to the aggregate rolled back rate of 44390 the tenative aggregate millage rate represents a 4.3% reduction when compared to the current fiscal year 2023 2024 aggregate millage rate of 4.63 eight3 okay there'll be no vote required for this item but Jill could you tell me when the next budget hearing is going to be the uh yes the final budget hearing will be two weeks from tonight so that's on uh September 24th at 5:30 so exception of some of these items tonight can be changed on that meeting uh yes the yes okay thank you very much agenda item D2 Frank please D2 allows for the public to comment on the revised tenative County budget for fiscal year 20242 before we begin public comment I'd asked the budget Office to read into the record Rec the revised tenative budget information the fiscal year 2024 2025 tenative budget is 2 B250 m925 1875 this budget represents an increase of 100,000 I'm sorry 100, 81754 or 4.69% more than the fiscal year 2023 2024 current budget of 2 billion 15,183 27 okay thank you very much we have some car cards here tonight um thank you Jack megleo hello hi Jack hi uh thank you thank you all for having me up here I don't want to take too much of your time uh some of the things I just want to address from the fire rescue side is that you know we have a budget problem which doesn't allow us to provide for a proper amount of ambulances especially in South Bard County uh where balk of citizens lived uh whether it's incorporated or not uh we need additional rescues I don't have a number I would not know that number but we definitely need more ambulances for the call volume that's been increasing um it the current budget doesn't allow for those additional units um if the taxes were set appropriately the the services could be met with where they need to be at that's all I have to say thank you very much I appreciate your comments okay Michael Bramson come on up Michael good evening and thank you chairperson in the board my name is Mike Bramson I'm the president of The Bard County firefighters live in alont Springs this 2425 budget that is before you uh does create an insufficient amount of funds to correctly fund a pro uh and provide Public Safety Services in the public safety sector in which I work uh specifically in the field of fire and rescue the Dual certified firefighter paramedic is the standard of service that is a person who's achieved the State of Florida certification for firefighting and the State of Florida certification in the field of paramedicine this model allows one person who sits at a relative constant state of Readiness to conduct care with a wide scope of skills in April 2014 Bard County had 255 of these firefighter paramedics out of 453 Personnel in April of 2024 a decade later of this year Bard County only had 162 firefighter paramedics with a field of 483 the current budgetary practices will continue to reduce the skills and Professional Services provided to Bard County and its cities the service is only provided by vard B Bard County no City provides a service for an emergent care to transport a human being to the hospital these reductions and budgets affect every single person in Bard County not just unincorporated these communities have the right to know that the continued discounts roll backs exclusions and other budgetary restrictions Contin to uh reduce the services across Bard County thank you very much and I have that thank you Ryan uh is it baric okay hey Ryan good to see you again good evening Ryan baric a resident of Port St John I stand before you tonight as a taxpaying resident of District 1 and I reject your proposed 2425 budget as it does not adequately support Public Safety Public Safety and infrastructure are the very core of government function it's my opinion that this local government has not prioritized its Revenue sources and spending effectively or efficiently no one could have predicted the inflation that we were subject to during covid but refusal or inability to adapt to that inflation has put Public Safety into a bad position the fire assessment increase from 3 years ago came up in incredibly short in some cases capital outlay projects have been deferred enhanced infrastructure to meet the needs of the growing Community has been tabled an employee attrition hovers around seven field Personnel per month you're losing seven firefighters per month this year's projection of field certified employee turnover and fire rescue is between 82 and 85 with the fourth quarter still ahead of us we have already surpassed last year's attrition in fire rescue with the loss of 62 field Personnel the attrition is costly and inefficient as it leads to an increase to an excess of $2 million annually spent on training Replacements we have celebrated a sponsorship program which will cost an excess of a quar million dollar annually to help fill our vacancies while applications from certified personnel has slowed to a trickle to my knowledge know the department under the board is slinging scholarships like the NCAA the theory of sponsorship opportunities for low-income residents is a beautiful idea however the future Staffing of a government agency probably should not rely so heavily on this concept the happy medium between new hire and experienced mentors that traditionally takes place in the fire service is being disrupted as bcfr seasoned Personnel are leaving for greener pastures at a rate of seven per month only to be replaced by Youth and inexperienced to serve the residents I believe you have been I believe you have been deceived that fire rescue attrition is on par with the turnover observed with the other departments under the board however the cost for replacing firefighters or deputies in Li of retaining them is like no other the brain drain and loss of experience in public safety from attrition cannot be Quantified but I assure you its effects are profound experienced firefighters and deputies are absolutely invaluable to our community and its policy M and its policy makers I hope oh excuse me and as policy makers I hope it becomes the highest of your future priorities the residents of Bard are not getting the ROI they deserve on their tax dollars please stop the bleeding on this evening before the anniversary of the worst terrorist attacks in our country's history I will use the remainder of my time so we can all reflect with a moment of silence to recognize the brave men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice on 911 thank thank you so very much SRE Sullivan good evening sander Sullivan South Patrick Shores we have a public safety crisis please reject this budget because you have not addressed the crisis Fire EMS are leaving because there is about a $30,000 gap between what other comparable counties are offering at year 10 and while a 33% fire assessment was done in 2021 to bring staff more in line with comparables uh this has not been happening because you're using a disproportionate amount of this to address the cost of growth and additional equipment you need to offset that by increasing both fire and impact fees so this graph 2022 $620,000 fiscal 25 to 28 $30 million um this shows graph on your budget showing the increase in cost of both fire trucks and ambulances you have done nothing to advert the crisis we have lost over 60 Fire EMS personnel and expected that 40 more will leave by the end of the year this will create a critical level of service failure because you do not have the people to man The stations but you can fix the budget now restore the EMS assessment non-ad valorum tax countywide that existed prior to 1998 uh this can be done now via interlocal agreements with cities like storm water prior to 1998 there was a non adorm tax EMS assessment on the property tax for unincorporated uh this needs to be restored Bard countywide now and doesn't require a referendum the 1998 referendum proves that residents of provard county Support countywide EMS transport services but later a lawsuit required EMS tax must be non ad Borum so this was the referendum and I checked with our um clerk our um supervisor of elections and it was countywide and wording from here the EMS specialist assessment shall be imposed on all improved real property and the benefit unit if such real property is uh blah blah blah blah blah um in 2004 there was a lawsuit that said you can't have it under Ador taxes right now you still have the EMS under adorm taxes under general fund and it is not sufficient to cover the cost of EMS um and that is obvious by calculations um so it's a pretty simple service please reject this budget and uh correct the funding issue for our firefighters in addition please look at impact fees and appropriately address that as well otherwise the future does not look good for Public Safety what is Public Safety worth to you thank you uh okay we have no more on that particular agenda item I do have a question for the county manager though uh what is our fire fee now for new homes well on the average it's in the area I believe about $250 uh for for an average home okay I find that extremely low I think most of the surrounding counties are 500 or a thousand but anyway that's something we can talk about at some other time anybody else have any questions before I move on to uh next there's no required vote on this at this particular point in time Mr chair yes um and this I think probably was a little bit before your time up here but we had a city council member from West Melbourne and we provide fire services to West Melbourne and he got up here and he spoke that if the fire fees increased anymore that they would look at going in a different direction I know they had um done a little bit of uh they'd hired a service to figure out what that cost would be I just want to put that out there that again that person may not be in West Melbourne anymore but that was certainly something that West Melbourne was looking at breaking breaking away if we raise the Fe if we raise the fees anymore so that certainly was was something that uhk we need to be mindful of appreciate it think we can have further discussions at the final meeting and see where we're going to go with this Mr chair May sir may I make a clarification earlier you asked whether you could make a change at the final adoption budget hearing I just wanted to clarify that the final millage rate at the adoption hearing cannot exceed what you approved today as the tentative millage rate and you have to add that the fire assessment is a separate item that's not even part that's not part of the discussion today I'm just talking about the millages because earlier you asked whether that could be Revisited okay the Milling the millage rate cannot be Revisited it it could be changed downward but not upward from what is tentatively approved but the fire budget could be changed at the second not the fire assessment cannot be raised no the fire what the fire assessment I'm not talking about the fire assessment I'm talking about the fire budget the general fund portion could be okay that's that's all I needed to know there's a way to go up if we wanted to after the final vote on September 10th is am I hearing this correctly yes with the understanding that the general fund only pays 45% the rest of the fire budget 55% whether it's capital or Staffing is paid by the fire assessment which you cannot adjust at this time okay one last question how do I adjust how do you you can't do it at this time but how are we going to if we wanted to adjust the fire assessment how how what process is that or would you like to talk to me about that later sure all right long as get an understanding what can be done there because I think it's incredibly low but that's neither here there let's move forward if we can um uh agenda D item d uh Frank please three D3 item D3 is the recommend it's recommended that the board discuss and intely adopt the fiscal year 2024 25 milit rates any changes to the millage rates under this item would be uh recomputed and announced under item D4 okay Jill you have no comments on this one no no okay thank you so much uh okay we need to require a vote on this to tentatively adopt the fiscal uh 2024 M millage rates is there a motion or discussion any questions or do I hear a motion motion to approve a motion to approve by commissioner toaya seconded by commissioner felner any discussion hearing no discussion all in favor signify by saying I all oppose nay the motion carries okay item D4 Frank thank you um for item D D4 based on the approved changes in millage rates that were approved on agenda item D3 I'll will now ask the budget Office to read into the record the revised aggregate Millet rates the aggregate roll back rate for the fiscal year 2024 2025 budget is 44390 and the aggregate tentative millage rate for fiscal year 2425 is 44390 so the tenative aggregate millage rate is equal to the aggregate roll back rate okay uh no vote require ired on this item any cards seeing no cards let's go to agenda item D5 Frank please thank you uh item D5 in accordance with The Bard county code of ordinances um requesting adoption of the fiscal year 2024 2025 budgets for the following agencies Solid Waste storm water utility department fire Services non adalum assessment Melbourne Tilman water Control District okay okay there's a required vote on this there's no cards on it do we have to take these individually or can we do them all at once you can do them at once all at once okay uh is there a motion to approve the solid waste management the storm water utility department the fire service not not avalor assessment to Melbourne Tillman water control district is there a motion to approve motion to approve there's a motion by commissioner toaya to approve seconded by commissioner feltner any dis discussion and Goodson was the second sir I'm sorry that's okay um all in favor signify by saying I I all oppose nay the motion carries all right uh agenda item D6 Utility Services Frank please uh under this item we're requesting that the governing body of the Barefoot Bay Water and Sewer District approve a resolution adopting the budget for fiscal year 2024 2025 all right uh is there a motion to approve or is there any discussion in regards to this issue motion to approve Mr chair commissioner toaya moves to approve commissioner Goodson you second that yes I second commissioner Goodson will second it any discussion hearing none all in favor signify by saying I I all oppose nay the motion carries agenda item D7 Frank please under D7 based excuse me under D7 based on the action taken during this public hearing I'm now going to ask the budget Office to read into the record the revised tenative budget for fiscal year 2024 2025 the revised tenative budget for fiscal year 2024 2025 is 2 B250 mil 925,000 presents an increase of 4.69% or 100, 81754 from the current budget of 2 B150 m1832 and commissioner some requesting tenative approval of a resolution adopting the fiscal year 2024 2025 Bard County budget okay I believe we have some cards here um Katie Delaney good evening everybody um so this budget um I would have really loved for a little bit more public participation in our budget Workshop in February um a lot of people were really upset that they weren't able to comment on each individual item um there was only only one portion at the end where people could comment and since a workshop is supposed to be you know a place where we talk out um different objections or suggestions it would have been nice to have more time for the public to to have more input um also it would have been nice to because that wasn't afforded to us in February it would have been nice to have like a workshop or or something where citizens could have had like a Q&A session about you know how does this whole thing even work you know more more people want to be engaged in government now and a lot of people don't know don't know how and and why and all of those things so it would have been nice to have something um for the public to get more engaged with and then uh moreover it's I'm asking for you all to this this budget because the budget was put together prior to finding out what the needs were for Public Safety and um as you heard tonight you know there is a serious need which you all know um you know our I I love the conversation that was had up here today but I wish that it would have happened in February when when these things could have been changed when it wasn't so late um we have the 1998 referendum for fire rescue and that right there just shows that the people in Bard value our firefighters they value our fire rescue staff and um so going forward I hope that that is a top priority that that this board um focuses on and uh yeah I I uh also I'd like to comment on impact fees this week when I was here for the Planning and Zoning meeting I was sitting next to a man and and uh he leans over and tells me that he's a developer and he said Bard county has the lowest impact fees from anybody around and he this is from a developer's mouth he said we need to update our our impact fees so I mean that's that's a pretty big statement coming from a guy who has to pay them so if we could take that into account um moving forward thank you thank you Mr Laney okay sander Sullivan Sandra Sullivan so I I would like to um also agree with what Katie said about uh the comments at the at the workshop they were not afforded on each presentation we were only allowed 3 minutes at the end and in fact vote a vote was taken on under one of them contrary to state law the which requires public comment before a vote is taken um I would like to also add that the subject uh by myself was brought up about impact fees they for fire and EMS in particular they have not been updated in 32 years while the graphs I've presented uh show that just the cumulative cost uh this is in your budget this is cumulative cost increases of of ambulances and fire trucks um transportation this is this is infrastructure this is again what it's costing you for growth and what I see is the the 2021 33% increase on fire assessment so much of that is going to address growth and not to the promise that was made to the citizens of of Bard County and in the agenda item that that would go and address to retain our firefighters and our Personnel so we're taken from Peter to pay Paul honestly speaking we've kicked the can down the road on impact fees for so long and because of the constraints now by the state so it'd be good to you know to Lobby to the state to fix that we've kicked that can down the road so long that even fixing impact fees will not fix or avert the crisis that Bard is is facing we're looking at pretty significant tax increases coming in the future with you know we haven't updated in transportation in in 23 years with over a $800 million deficit on capacity needs so what did you all say at the budget Workshop you said Mr Tay and and pritet said oh the the next Commissioners can worry about it um and I would like to say one other reason that I would ask you to reject this budget is I would like to see Ed Sunset it was intended to be a special district only for 5 years to tax it's on the backs of our small businesses funding big business and now in the latest agendas for that meeting they want to use the tax revenue on the backs of our small businesses to fund putting sewage lines from space Florida and the cape to Sykes Creek really I think the state can pick pink up and ask can the federal government to pay for the infrastructure for state and federal uh jurisdictional areas and not taxing small businesses that that tax was put into place when Bard County was in an economic uh recession and we're now booming it was supposed to be a five-year tax taxes are not supposed to be forever for things like that we would like to see some fiscal accountability and I and and to approve anyway so we need to address Public Safety and for that reason alone please reject this budget okay uh we have no more cards and we are on uh the final item to we have a motion to approve or is there a discussion at this point we're up to board reports okay we're on board reports we need we need a vote onative adoption of the right I saying or tenative approval of the um resolution adopting D7 apologize we have a motion I'll make a motion it's a motion by commissioner felner to approved D7 second seconded by commissioner tobia is there discussion hearing noce discussion signify by saying I I I any opposition signify by saying no motion carries all right we are on board reports and uh County Manager I do not have a report County attorney no report Mr chair commissioner Goodson no sir no report commissioner toaya thank you Mr chair uh just got a quick employee recognition here so uh I'd like to take a second and um recognize Johanna George uh special projects coordinator one Public Works engineering 1.5 years of service Johanna has over 10 years experience in municipal government and over 25 years in customer service as a special projects coordinator Johanna is the first smiling face the public sees when coming uh into engineering and R permitting in the past year and a half she's welcomed the opportunity to help any task she has been assigned shortly after starting Johanna was given the responsibility of tracking all ad use agreements for public works department at the time she was assigned to the task uh less than 60% of the r use agreements had provided the required yearly Insurance documentation Johanna worked diligently with the HOAs and insurance carriers to meet 100% compliance on all current agreements this is just one example uh of her hard work and dedication Johanna is always uh smil on her face and one of the most Pleasant people to be around she is an asset to the county and a prime example of what an employee should be fun fact Johan's uh loving uh husband two beautiful adult daughters and now dedicates her time to two very special dog babies she enjoys traveling and shopping and relaxing with family friends and her co-workers Johanna uh thank you for all you do and we appreciate uh your interaction with the public thank you so much that's the report Mr chair thank you thank you very much commissioner Taya commissioner felner any report no report I have no report uh is there a motion to adjourn motion to there's a motion to adjourn by commissioner felner seconded by commissioner tobia all in favor signify by saying I I all oppose nay the meeting is adjourned the opinions expressed by any member of the public during any period of public comment do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the board of County commissioners of Bard County Florida Space Coast government television or the program sponsor and are solely those of the presenter the board of County commissioners of bravard County Florida Space Coast government television and the program sponsor hereby expressly disclaim any in all responsibility or liability for any defamatory or slanderous statements expressed by any member of the public during any such period [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]